Cruise Director Intercom Announcements

[pamici]

I'm recently back from my first cruise and loved it, but I have questions. Our cruise director was really, really present on our sailing. Overhead announcements 3 x a day at minimum. Loud and long, morning, noon, and night. But I've read others say they never heard any cruise director announcements and couldn't even tell you their cruise director's name. I know that every ship, crew, and experience is different, but I'm curious - what has your experience been with cruise directors on the intercoms?

[PhillyFan33579]

Three times a day is at the very low end of what I have experienced during 25 cruises on Carnival 

[jmcathome]

As a general rule I have seldom had a cruise director come on in the room unless it is an emergency situation that everyone must hear. Example  Muster drill and first day annoucements. Last cruise on the Glory CD Cookie was constantly making announcements but never in the rooms themselves which it the way it usually done. 

[bakersdozen12]

2 hours ago, jmcathome said:

As a general rule I have seldom had a cruise director come on in the room unless it is an emergency situation that everyone must hear. Example  Muster drill and first day annoucements. Last cruise on the Glory CD Cookie was constantly making announcements but never in the rooms themselves which it the way it usually done. 

 

No one said anything about the announcements being broadcasted in the rooms themselves. But regardless, you can hear the announcements from the hallway in your room. Personally, I sleep with ear plugs in so that they don’t wake me up on mornings that I want to sleep in. 

[jmcathome]

good for you

[BoDidly]

I have about had my ears blown off when the announcements come over the Elevator speaker.  

 

Good Morning hope you having a wonder time on your cruise. Don't forget to bring your wallet to bingo  so you can donate !

Also if your still wanting those beautiful art paintings that are worth fifteen to twenty dollars. You can still bid on them at our auction with a minimum bid of two thousand dollars  😁 

 

Edited March 9, 2019 by BoDidly

[OCruisers]

3 minutes ago, fyree39 said:

The announcements aren't in the room, but they sure are LOUD in the passageway.  Our last cruise the announcements went from about 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Way too many.

 

Way ... way ... way too many  ...   at least every 30 minutes often about every activity.  

Seems Carnival does not think their passengers can read Fun Times!  

 

[Saint Greg]

I felt like Matt Mitchem was good last cruise. I don’t recall any morning announcements. I did have early excursions 2 of the 3 port days so it is possible he made them and I missed it. But I do know that other CDs have announced their morning show start on sea days and Matt didn’t. He did on the last sea day morning announce the debarkation briefing  but he probably has to announce that one.

 

 

Edited March 9, 2019 by Saint Greg

[shof515]

if you are in the room and want to hear the announcements that broadcasted in the hallway, you can tune to the tv to the bridge cam (or maybe it is the aft cam)

[Stacie.]

5 hours ago, jmcathome said:

As a general rule I have seldom had a cruise director come on in the room unless it is an emergency situation that everyone must hear. Example  Muster drill and first day annoucements. Last cruise on the Glory CD Cookie was constantly making announcements but never in the rooms themselves which it the way it usually done. 

We had the same experience on the Glory with Cookie. Cha cha for now! 😉 

[GradUT]

The only time I didn’t mind hearing a CD’s announcements on Carnival was when we cruised in the Pride and Dr. E was the CD.  The announcements were funny and quite entertaining!

[TNMIMI6]

15 hours ago, jmcathome said:

As a general rule I have seldom had a cruise director come on in the room unless it is an emergency situation that everyone must hear. Example  Muster drill and first day annoucements. Last cruise on the Glory CD Cookie was constantly making announcements but never in the rooms themselves which it the way it usually done. 

The recent Journeys cruise? We were on that one.

[TNMIMI6]

9 hours ago, Stacie. said:

We had the same experience on the Glory with Cookie. Cha cha for now! 😉 

The Journeys cruise? We were on that one. Cookie was hilarious! Loved him.

[Stacie.]

Just now, TNMIMI6 said:

The Journeys cruise? We were on that one. Cookie was hilarious! Loved him.

No, I wish! We did a 7 day eastern Caribbean cruise at the beginning of February. He was an absolute riot!

[TNMIMI6]

1 minute ago, Stacie. said:

No, I wish! We did a 7 day eastern Caribbean cruise at the beginning of February. He was an absolute riot!

You must have been on the cruise that embarked prior to ours. Ours was Feb. 16-28. We are also natives of Alabama like Cookie. and struck up a friendship with him our first day on board. He is being reassigned to Ft. Lauderdale since the Glory is repoing to New Orleans.

 

 

 

[teknoge3k]

10 hours ago, Stacie. said:

We had the same experience on the Glory with Cookie. Cha cha for now! 😉 

 

I've always enjoyed Cookies and Dr. Es. The rest of them can just be flat out annoying. I agree Stacie though, Cookies seem to stick with you. ciao ciao for now! 

[jimbo5544]

Matt is by far the most popular CD for Carnival.

[BoDidly]

2 hours ago, teknoge3k said:

 

I've always enjoyed Cookies and Dr. Es. The rest of them can just be flat out annoying. I agree Stacie though, Cookies seem to stick with you. ciao ciao for now! 

Wait till you hear Jenn's 😫

[Steve551]

Some of the CD's really love the sound of their of voices and drone on for excessively long periods of time. They lose my attention after about 30-seconds.

[K_e_short]

Yes I agree. Lots of announcements that I could barely hear because we were either in our room, at the pool, or in the casino.

My son did love that our cruise director always started with "Hello.." and then burst into song.

After her song we tuned out.

[travelplus]

21 hours ago, pamici said:

I'm recently back from my first cruise and loved it, but I have questions. Our cruise director was really, really present on our sailing. Overhead announcements 3 x a day at minimum. Loud and long, morning, noon, and night. But I've read others say they never heard any cruise director announcements and couldn't even tell you their cruise director's name. I know that every ship, crew, and experience is different, but I'm curious - what has your experience been with cruise directors on the intercoms?

 

One of my hobbies is finding out how the intercom systems work. There is an override extension on the PBX systems that override any Do Not Disturb feature activated for emergencies. So if you enter 5911 it will put all intercoms into Emergency Mode. Perhaps the Cruise Director spoke on the Emergency channel as opposed to the regular non-urgent channel.

 

Cruise Ships have a large PBX Admin  Board and anyone with the extension can pick up the phone or in the case of the bridge press a Hot Button one for Emergencies or one for regular communications.

Do you notice the chimes that are playing before the announcement? This is the pre-announcement signal where it starts overriding any music etc. So when the button is pressed a red light switches to green after the chimes play to begin speaking. 

 

If I had the code even I could possibly access the intercom from my room as its just an extension in the PBX system that tells the system to switch to intercom mode just like at supermarkets or companies.

 

At my home I could easily wire up an intercom system and connect it to a PBX system and assign the intercom codes one for urgent pages and one for non urgent pages. Its a program in the software that tells it to play the announcement overriding any Do Not Disturb Function. The switch in your room is just a Do Not Disturb Button like on a phone that can be overriden using a special extension.

 

In the case of a microphone the microphone is like the telephone system that is hooked into the PBX system and has two keys one for Emergencies a second one for non Emergencies.   

 

When the May Day Horn Signal is activated it tells the PBX system to go into Emergency Mode and sound the horns much like a Fire Alarm System. This is one aspect of the PBX system  via the Alarm side of it.

 

Hope this helps.

Edited March 9, 2019 by travelplus

[TNMIMI6]

5 hours ago, jmcathome said:

Did you get a letter from Carnival yesterday saying that our cruise had been cancelled and they wanted us to call and get another cruise. Really was funny that they cancelled that Journeys cruise. Letter was dated Oct of 1917, I am trying to get my 50 dollars of onboard credit on my next cruise.  What are my cahnces .LOL

Haven"t checked my email Since we got home but I bet it's there!

[RWolver672]

Must be the Husband/parent in me.  I tuned out all of the announcements.  

[pamici]

1 hour ago, RWolver672 said:

Must be the Husband/parent in me.  I tuned out all of the announcements.  

 

Oh, to have that skill!

[pamici]

16 hours ago, travelplus said:

 

One of my hobbies is finding out how the intercom systems work.

 

Interesting! I did notice that there were chimes prior to announcements (feeling of dread ensued ...), but didn't noticed the pattern.