Normal on NCL to Never See Cabin Steward(ess)?

[Vyhanek]

NCL has it's share of invisible cabin stewards.

 

I think it's because when they are around they get asked more requests. That obviously means more work. It's not like they are going to necessarily get a bigger tip, especially with auto gratuity.

 

I imagine also, when you are cleaning the room of another guest, and the guests next door come in and hunt you down for some reason, it interrupts you from the job at hand, cleaning the neighbor cabin.

 

When they re working, they are cleaning cabins. When they re done working they might want to hang out in the crew areas, relax, whatever. They might not want to stand around and just wait for someone to ask them for a second ice bucket or a second table for the balcony or different pillows.

 

Like the poster above that couldn't find her cabin steward and she was looking for her because there was mold on the shower curtain. Do you see how this cabin steward avoids the extra work of hunting down a new shower curtain? That potentially could be a hassle and a lot of work.

 

They make themselves scarce and it's less work. NCL has it's share of them.

[riddle]

We could never seem to enter or leave our room with a fond hello from our cabin stewards and I have been on 18 cruises. They have always been as helpful as humanly possible.

[Shayhooper]

Just off the Epic today and we saw our steward Melanie several times a day. She took excellent care of us and we tipped accordingly.

 

We were 12th floor starboard aft and saw a ton of stewards always milling about.

[mking8288]

Cabin steward(ess) are humans, just like us, and if they must something in our cabin - which they seldom do, if ever, I don't have a problem letting them know or leave them a note - just a matter of how it's communicated (not on the last Sea Day @ the lobby/reception demanding to see the head of housekeeping or demanding compensation, etc.) Late night or emergencies like plumbing, etc. - I call down to the desk & ask them to dispatch someone to come address it since they too, have time-off and need to rest in between.

On turnaround day in port, they worked extra hard & are up very early, into the night and dealing with special requests, so unless it's urgent - I leave them alone and if I met them in the hallway, it's always a friendly hello. They used to work in pairs as a team, not anymore or at least not the way they used to 10 years ago - and, we pay for & cruise for less money these ays, adjusted for COLA and higher costs.

Typically, if we wanted our cooler box emptied and/or ice bucket filled, etc. - it's done when we returned after evening turn-down or by the afternoon if requested in the morning, etc. without fuzz.

Face it, we don't get fresh towels folded & replaced daily at home nor our garbage taken out 2x daily - and, some of our CC's are nickeling & diming about the modest increase in DSC or gratitudes (whatever one prefer to call it) More often than not, almost all the time - they go out of their way to make things good & right for the guests - if they missed something, just let them know & they will get it right; and, if not resolved - go to the supervisor first before hunting down the department heads to make a big "scene" - it's a 2 way street as how others look at us - without that DYKWIA mindset.

Given our status, they already do a lot more for/in our cabin than the majority, and, if I see their service carts down the hallway - I know they are busy at work, on someone else's cabin and will get to us at some point. Leave them alone without interruptions - one night we decided to dine in & called room service, double-locked our door with the DND indicator flipped on, he left a note outside on our "slot" to ring if we need services, etc. Consequently - no cleaning done & no chocolate with turn-down or towel animal, as expected; and, by the next morning, the usual mess for cleaning up anyway & by the time we came back from big breakfast, all good as he saw us heading out with his "good morning" greeting.

Edited February 15, 2015 by mking8288

[Rancher Dave]

My steward on Getaway was great. Introduced self on afternoon of day one and never was in my way the rest of the cruise...saw him in hall many times and always had a friendly greeting from him and other stewards around the ship.

[LrgPizza]

I think it depends on when and how often you are around your cabin. We are rarely there, or going in and out, so we rarely see ours no matter the cruise. If we have a need, we can certainly always track him down or leave a note.

[Annmeat]

On

 

Half way through the trip her boss (I assume an asst. hotel director) stopped by to ask whether we had met her, how she was doing, etc. I thought this was a basic quality control visit as clearly this woman was a top notch employee.

 

 

We had the chief of housekeeping ( unsure of title) come in and question us about our steward while he was in our suite! It was a bit odd- poor guy got very nervous . We gave him a great review as he was top notch-

Just thought it strange that on on Getaway we were questioned in front of the employee-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[warriorking]

My room steward usually would introduce herself the first day of my cruise and I would then pay close attention to her work schedule as far as to what general times she would be around my cabin area when cleaning up rooms ..

I made it a habit to be out of my cabin at those times and thus making her job a little easier whenever possible..

:D She did make a comment about my room and told me I could be a bit more messy If I chose...

Seems I would make a neat stack of my wet shower towels, no water on the shower room floor and all dirty clothes are picked up and bagged for future cleaning, no unflushed toilet,, loose trash, as well as I made up my own bed somewhat for a neater apperance in the morning...sorry hard habit to break...

I just felt better knowing they never dreaded heading to my room for cleanup duty...

Edited February 15, 2015 by warriorking

[L-in-CLT]

ummmm....unflushed toilet???

[asubaru]

On a 7-day Epic last month and we saw our cabin stewardess a grand total of twice and one of those was when she came in while we were still in the cabin.

 

On Carnival, our stewards would introduce themselves as soon as they saw you the first time and then we would always run into them around the cabin somewhere almost every day.

 

On the Epic, our stewardess never introduced herself, never asked if we needed anything and didn't appear to do a good job of cleaning, e.g. hair from the last guests still in our tub three days later, garbage that missed the can still on the floor after cleaning, etc. It just didn't seem like the service for the cabin was as good as on past cruises. Is this the norm for NCL?

 

Of all my cruises, only once did a room steward not introduce themselves the first day. Only once did I have dirty areas of a room upon embarkation. Only once did I have poor cabin service. Only once did I have a cruise where I complained to supervisors.

 

Only once did I have a butler and room steward; ironically, this was the cruise of issues and complaints.

[John1752]

We were on the Epic a few weeks back. The first couple of days our steward was very nice and pleasant. Then half way into the week he became really rude . We didn't complain and the room was Ok every day and we were hardly ever was in the room and kept it tidy. Cruising many time on NCL before and after the automatic service charge the service in the cabins and overall(maybe except for some bars) are not what they used to be. They currently know they are going to get a portion of the tips so no need to go the extra mile in our opinion.

[bbryan5]

5 NCL cruises under my belt.. have never experienced this.

[Valen9]

I think I had one cruise where the cabin steward didn't introduce himself on Embarkation day. He caught me the next day.

 

Your experience was quite unusual and if it ever happens again, give Housekeeping a call and let them know what's going on. If you attend a Meet & Greet, you may get a card with all the officers' names and numbers -- you can also call the head of Housekeeping.

 

My typical experience is that if my cabin steward EVER sees me, the person says hello. Well, "Good morning/afternoon/evening". Actually they will ALL do that but my steward has a high probability of calling me by name as well. :-)

[MiamiSpartan]

Ten NCL cruises here and have never experienced this. Only experienced this on our only HAL cruise....

[warriorking]

ummmm....unflushed toilet???

 

:rolleyes: You'd be surprised how many people will leave floaters for the stewards to see..

I also maintained a good aim while standing as well....:cool: if you know what I mean...

[johnlatte]

We were on the DCL Fantasy in January and we had the invisible stateroom person. Never saw him until the second day. I really didn't mind though he kept the room in good shape, got our dailies etc. It did seem strange though that usually we see them in the halls during the early evening or during the day. Never saw any attendants hardly ever.

 

Years back on the POA we had an awful SA. She was rude and constantly complained about everything (we were in a suite). I got the Hotel Director on the phone and had her bounced from our cabin. Everytime we passed her in the hallway she give me the stinkeye. But, the person they replaced her with was phenomenal, and camped outside our door and came in and straightened the cabin EVERY time we left. It was creepy after a while.

[ramdoggiesmom]

We just got back from the Epic yesterday. First cruise (out of 7) that we had no idea who our room steward was. He or she never came by and introduced himself. We thought it was odd but our stateroom was always straightened up etc so it was ok.

[GoofyCrew]

From everything that I had read prior to our cruise, I expected to have our steward introduce himself, but we never met ours. By process of elimination I think we figured out which guy was ours (the stewards would line the halls with their carts each morning and evening and the same guy was usually in the same area outside of our cabin). Our room was always cleaned, there were towel animals for the kids and the beds were always prepped while we were out to dinner. He even hung up the birthday decorations that I had brought along (he taped them up, along with the cards that I had just tucked into the bookcase thing). So did he do a good job? Yes. Did he go above and beyond? Sort of. Had he introduced himself he probably would have gotten a bigger (hand-delivered) tip. Instead he got a small tip left on the desk. We did not feel that it was OUR place to have to introduce ourselves.

[clmom]

Just off the Pearl and had a great cabin steward. My DH met him the first day, I think by chance (he did not come and knock on the door to introduce himself). He was one of the best we have had. He was never intrusive, took care of whatever we needed immediately and was polite if we happened to see him in the hallway (as was every other housekeeping staff member we encountered). We were very satisfied, and actually, our recent NCL experience as a whole has changed our minds and put NCL back on our "radar" for future cruises!

[sparks1093]

From everything that I had read prior to our cruise, I expected to have our steward introduce himself, but we never met ours. By process of elimination I think we figured out which guy was ours (the stewards would line the halls with their carts each morning and evening and the same guy was usually in the same area outside of our cabin). Our room was always cleaned, there were towel animals for the kids and the beds were always prepped while we were out to dinner. He even hung up the birthday decorations that I had brought along (he taped them up, along with the cards that I had just tucked into the bookcase thing). So did he do a good job? Yes. Did he go above and beyond? Sort of. Had he introduced himself he probably would have gotten a bigger (hand-delivered) tip. Instead he got a small tip left on the desk. We did not feel that it was OUR place to have to introduce ourselves.

 

I fail to see why an introduction would result in a bigger tip, especially since he went above and beyond by hanging the decorations that you brought.

[gooch47]

We are cabin potatoes. We spend a lot of time in our cabin and on our balcony.

 

Don't get me wrong, but compared to Princess, it seems like the room stewards are assigned too many cabins and it seems to take a lot longer getting our cabin serviced in the morning and we just usually tell them to skip it a lot of times in the evening. But when we see them in the hallways they are unfailingly polite and friendly and do remember your name.

[rudeboie]

I fail to see why an introduction would result in a bigger tip, especially since he went above and beyond by hanging the decorations that you brought.

 

Totally agree.

 

For us, it doesn't matter if we meet our SA or not. Them formally introducing themselves is unimportant to us. We know they are usually very busy so we normally only ask for the room to be serviced once a day, sometimes even not if we don't actually need any cleaning.

[Bryna123]

I have to give a shout out to our steward for 9251 on the Sky recently. His name is Wily. He was from a small town in Africa which I had never heard of. His english was perfect. We would see him many times everyday in that long corridor. He always had a few words and offered advice for disembarking in ports, however the stewards do not get off time in ports of call. His towel animals were super cute and huge! Cabin was always immaculate. He did not even take the tip we left on the bed as he thought we might have dropped it by accident. I made sure he got it.

He had not been home in almost 10 months and was looking forward to two months off, then would be assigned another ship. Hard work for sure.

[weltek]

Only once in eight NCL cruises have we had a lackluster steward. All other sailings the steward has made a point of introducing himself and being friendly. I don't know the possible "behind the scenes" circumstances where we had the lackluster service, but it wasn't bothersome enough that we reported it to anyone. It was just odd that our cabin rarely got turndown service (and yes, we were gone most evenings from 6-11) and we almost never saw the steward.

 

Unfortunate if it's someone first NCL experience, because it's unusual.

[medicalma'am]

"Trash that missed the basket" may have been assumed not to be trash at all.

If you were not satisfied I too wonder if you made an effort to contact the Hotel Director while on board, or at least talk to the steward yourself.