Poor Cabin Steward Service & Tipping

[LuvBNatC]

Not making up the room one day, no turn down two evenings, ice (requested) only delivered at evening turndown, dirty wine glasses never removed or replaced, a dirty plate never removed etc., etc., etc....The excuse was she was tired and still had a month to go on her contract. FWIW, we did not reduce gratuities but we did not give additional.

 

I've never experienced service this lax, but if I had, I think I would have brought the matter to her superior as an HR issue.

 

Whenever a steward forgets something, and they do, I either speak to them if I see them or leave a reminder sticky note in the cabin. Let's them know I noticed and care. That usually does the trick.

 

I cut the stewards great slack because they work incredibly hard 24/7. I'd never remove an auto-grat under any circumstances because SOMEBODY who served me onboard deserves it. But I usually tip extra in cash, and I would skip that if shortcomings weren't corrected after I'd brought them to the steward's attention.

[NemoCrownie]

I've never experienced service this lax, but if I had, I think I would have brought the matter to her superior as an HR issue.

 

Whenever a steward forgets something, and they do, I either speak to them if I see them or leave a reminder sticky note in the cabin. Let's them know I noticed and care. That usually does the trick.

 

I cut the stewards great slack because they work incredibly hard 24/7. I'd never remove an auto-grat under any circumstances because SOMEBODY who served me onboard deserves it. But I usually tip extra in cash, and I would skip that if shortcomings weren't corrected after I'd brought them to the steward's attention.

The excuses were after mentioning the issues to her. There were a couple of conversations, in fact. It didn't ruin the cruise and since I don't ever want to get someone in trouble I chose not to elevate the issues. She did receive her gratuities, just nothing extra which we always do.

 

I feel sorry for the cabin attendants since they have increased the number of cabins they are responsible for and eliminated their assistants. It is not totally their fault, I couldn't do it day in and day out for months at a time.

[LuvBNatC]

The excuses were after mentioning the issues to her. There were a couple of conversations, in fact. It didn't ruin the cruise and since I don't ever want to get someone in trouble I chose not to elevate the issues. She did receive her gratuities, just nothing extra which we always do.

 

I feel sorry for the cabin attendants since they have increased the number of cabins they are responsible for and eliminated their assistants. It is not totally their fault, I couldn't do it day in and day out for months at a time.

 

We agree on every point except that I don't think it does her any favors to let her mope around for another month, annoying more passengers, without management being made aware of it. I'd approach it as concern for her well-being rather than a complaint.

 

But then, I used to be a manager, and if I had an employee giving sloppy service and making excuses for it to customers rather than correcting it, I'd want to know.

[Cuizer2]

It does, we do prepaid gratuities since we do MTD and on our cruise last NYE our cabin steward was horrible. We spoke to housekeeping twice and they helped get what we needed at thew time but didn't address the issue with the steward. I went to Guest Services and explained the situation and they gave me a form to remove the prepaid amount and then pay what I felt was deserved.

 

Interesting.

[judymag]

My dad has done a few cruises but freedom last September was my first for my job I use hotels a lot so know good service when we arrived our beds were still together I know it's odd sharing with my dad but he's had a lot of health issues and needs assistance at night so if I'm in the cabin with him it's easier. We met our cabin Stewart who told us that he'd separate our beds while we were at dinner not to worry so off we trot to dinner only to arrive back find our luggage and single bed sheets with them no separated beds I did notice a bit of a commotion at one of the cabins with 2 Stewart's at the room and a supervisor so just decided after a long flight to separate the beds myself and unpack woke the following morning with a note from our Stewart saying sorry and that if I wanted he'd get his supervisor so I could talk to him I met him in the corridor with his supervisor and he told him that he hadn't done the beds and explained that he had been looking for a bag of another passenger who was ill both told me I could have my tips reduced if needed didn't bother as he went above and beyond after that and we tipped him extra

[goodycruising]

From our experience a younger lady also seemed very lacklustre and uninterested when we were in a Grand Suite, didn't bring ice when requested, other small issues and just no smile. On the other end of the spectrum an older male could not do enough for us, and was even there opening our door a couple of times, and the room was spot on.

 

That seems to be a bit of a thing we have found, not that it is general for all of the staff, but some of the males are looking after families at home, and they are much keener to give good service. Lots of lovely ladies working there too, but I think that some young ladies may sometimes not realise how much work is involved, not just a chance to see the world and party!

 

Now that we have cruised a bit more I would talk to the next in line supervisor, but back then we had such a good trip otherwise that we just let it slide, but it was noticeable enough that we felt like it was not really good enough. We all have good and bad days at work, but if I miss something for a customer I at least try to look like I care!

[Diplomacy]

What I didn't expect was for the assistant waiter to tell the waiter what he got, and the waiter actually run after us when we were walking out and say we made an error because the assistant got more than him. I was shocked

 

Yeah, gotta love their pooled gratuity system. Even when you tip in cash, everyone finds out how much almost immediately...

On the plus side, if he hadn't done that, the your waiter would have remained ignorant of your dissatisfaction.

 

Guest Services has a form you can fill out to direct gratuities as you see fit.

 

Really? I am going to ask for this form every time I cruise from now on. Might raise my grats onboard too... if I can direct my tips.

Why isn't this in my room standard, right next to those fancy tipping envelopes?

 

On my last cruise, the only people getting any tips would have been the bar staff and my steward... and my steward would have gotten most of it, seeing as how the bar-staff get 18% (15% then, probably) right off the bat.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Diplomacy

[Alohaaloha]

We were given two WOW cards at pier check in two weeks ago in Barcelona to give to whoever we thought fave exceptional service. WOW envelopes were left in the cabin by our room steward.

 

 

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[poncho1973]

My dad has done a few cruises but freedom last September was my first for my job I use hotels a lot so know good service when we arrived our beds were still together I know it's odd sharing with my dad but he's had a lot of health issues and needs assistance at night so if I'm in the cabin with him it's easier. We met our cabin Stewart who told us that he'd separate our beds while we were at dinner not to worry so off we trot to dinner only to arrive back find our luggage and single bed sheets with them no separated beds I did notice a bit of a commotion at one of the cabins with 2 Stewart's at the room and a supervisor so just decided after a long flight to separate the beds myself and unpack woke the following morning with a note from our Stewart saying sorry and that if I wanted he'd get his supervisor so I could talk to him I met him in the corridor with his supervisor and he told him that he hadn't done the beds and explained that he had been looking for a bag of another passenger who was ill both told me I could have my tips reduced if needed didn't bother as he went above and beyond after that and we tipped him extra

 

R.I.P. Stewart! Overworked and underpaid.

[kalliekae]

We've only sailed on Royal twice, but both cabin stewards were mediocre. We were expecting the same outstanding service that we received on HAL, but no. We are easy to please and don't make any special requests except a request for ice and we never received ice when we asked. Never had a steward ask about our day and on one cruise, we only saw him twice. Obviously, we did not leave any extra tip. Contrast those experiences with our 7 HAL cruises where we always tipped an extra $75 to $100 for our cabin attendant because the ones we had were truly outstanding. It will be interesting to see how our steward measures up on our Allure cruise this month.

Edited November 17, 2015 by kalliekae

[biomedbob]

stewart=steward :)

[Who Cares?]

So, we always prepay gratuities and we've only had poor cabin steward service on one cruise but wanted to get other cruisers thoughts on tipping in situations where the service is poor.

 

Do you reduce your prepaid gratuity? I will say that I would first give the steward the opportunity to correct the problem by reaching out to a manager.

 

Thanks for your input.

 

I have yet to ever have poor service on board and therefore have never reduced my auto-tip but I would certainly give Guest Services the chance to correct the issue before resorting to lowering the auto-tip or prepaid tip. If Guest Services cannot correct the issue then you might wish to lower the tips by the appropriate amount based on where the lack of service is occurring (in your case, the portion allocated towards your cabin steward).

[Big_G]

I think we just experienced out best attendant ever. Cherry Ann, Deck 17 on Oasis, was the most cheerful and helpful attendant we've had in a long long time. She must have studied the Compass inside and out because she new everything that was going on. WOW card and extra tip were well deserved.

[RocketMan275]

I think we just experienced out best attendant ever. Cherry Ann, Deck 17 on Oasis, was the most cheerful and helpful attendant we've had in a long long time. She must have studied the Compass inside and out because she new everything that was going on. WOW card and extra tip were well deserved.

 

I could not possibly agree with that more. Cherry Ann was our attendant last week. Two examples:

- Wife asked if there was a makeup mirror. Cherry loaned her one of hers.

- When she found out our dinner room service had not been delivered at the time promised, she went to the MDR to get it herself.

 

I tried to get a WOW card at Guest Services and was told they no longer did that, to mention her in the post cruise survey. We certainly did and she got a special tip as well. So did her hardworking assistant.

[parrotfeathers]

I always cruise with a friend and request beds apart at online check in. Rarely are they apart. On my Nov 7 Indy cruise I met the steward who was very pleasant. She asked if there was anything we needed and I asked her to separate the beds. She said she would. After we returned from the late show she had made the sofa into a bed. The next morning we saw her at the door and she asked how everything was. I asked her again to separate the beds but sis said the couch was fine. The steward said she would separate the beds. They were separated by the second night. One steward told me years ago it was not as easy with 2 beds.

 

 

 

My dad has done a few cruises but freedom last September was my first for my job I use hotels a lot so know good service when we arrived our beds were still together I know it's odd sharing with my dad but he's had a lot of health issues and needs assistance at night so if I'm in the cabin with him it's easier. We met our cabin Stewart who told us that he'd separate our beds while we were at dinner not to worry so off we trot to dinner only to arrive back find our luggage and single bed sheets with them no separated beds I did notice a bit of a commotion at one of the cabins with 2 Stewart's at the room and a supervisor so just decided after a long flight to separate the beds myself and unpack woke the following morning with a note from our Stewart saying sorry and that if I wanted he'd get his supervisor so I could talk to him I met him in the corridor with his supervisor and he told him that he hadn't done the beds and explained that he had been looking for a bag of another passenger who was ill both told me I could have my tips reduced if needed didn't bother as he went above and beyond after that and we tipped him extra

[Big_G]

[quote name='RocketMan275']

- Wife asked if there was a makeup mirror. Cherry loaned her one of hers.

[/quote]

Funny you mentioned that. We met a great couple, John and Sandy, in the SL. They have done several L1's and John made a point to tell the Hotel Director that the Crown Lofts need makeup mirrors. He apparently has pointed this out several times with less than stellar results.