Are American Crew Members as Good as Foreign-born Ones?

[jimdee3636]

My wife and I have been on nearly thirty ocean cruises. No matter which line we sail on, the crew members who interact the most with the passengers---room stewards, dining room servers, bartenders, etc.---are from outside the U.S., primarily the Philippines, Indonesia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, most of whom are dedicated and extremely hard-working people. My understanding is that American Cruise Lines hires only U.S. citizens. If that's true, are they as good as the foreign-born crew members on other lines? It's a very tough job, and I wonder how many Americans these days are up for working 10 or 11 hours a day, 7 days a week, for months at a time. Or do U.S. labor laws require that they can't work such demanding schedules? I want to be sure the service will be good before I book a cruise on ACL.

[seadaze10]

On our one and only ACL cruise:

Were they nice young people?   Yes!

Were they motivated and hardworking?   Yes!

Were they well trained for their positions?  No

I blame that on the cruise line, not the crew members.

Edited May 22, 2020 by seadaze10

[dfb]

Based on my experience, you're not asking the right question. Yes, the staff and crew are all Americans. The difference is that most of those foreign-born cruise workers you are trying to compare with are professionals and ACL runs a 28-week internship program for lack of a better term. That means all the workers onboard are pretty inexperienced in their jobs. Service has been all over the range in our experience, but rarely good. Both ACL ships we cruised on experienced a worker walkout while we were aboard.

See question 4.

Edited May 23, 2020 by dfb

[chengkp75]

On 5/20/2020 at 12:53 PM, jimdee3636 said:

It's a very tough job, and I wonder how many Americans these days are up for working 10 or 11 hours a day, 7 days a week, for months at a time. Or do U.S. labor laws require that they can't work such demanding schedules?

Just like any mariner working any ship anywhere in the world, US crew (not only cruise ships, but all ships) work 7 days a week, for months at a time.  Ships don't stop for weekends and holidays.  Crew are covered by STCW for working hours, and are regulated as to how many work and rest hours they can work in a day and in a week.  Typically, crew work 12 hour days, every day.  As you say, most US workers don't want that kind of schedule, especially for the relatively low wages that US flag cruise ships will pay (about McDonald's wage for most positions).

[Ray in NH]

On 5/20/2020 at 12:53 PM, jimdee3636 said:

My wife and I have been on nearly thirty ocean cruises. No matter which line we sail on, the crew members who interact the most with the passengers---room stewards, dining room servers, bartenders, etc.---are from outside the U.S., primarily the Philippines, Indonesia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, most of whom are dedicated and extremely hard-working people. My understanding is that American Cruise Lines hires only U.S. citizens. If that's true, are they as good as the foreign-born crew members on other lines? It's a very tough job, and I wonder how many Americans these days are up for working 10 or 11 hours a day, 7 days a week, for months at a time. Or do U.S. labor laws require that they can't work such demanding schedules? I want to be sure the service will be good before I book a cruise on ACL.

We have been on well over 125 cruises (ocean and river) reaching all continents, on many different cruise lines, seven of which have been on ACL

I do not think I could classify any one line as absolutely superior to all others.  We have experienced some "mishaps" on a number of different cruise lines, as well as many more "outstanding" situations -- one of the reasons we keep returning.

As others have stated, on ACL just about all the wait-staff and cabin are  "relative newbies", as their tenure is purposely kept short by Senior Management, of the cruise line.  The staff service has sometimes been less than stellar, but has always been acceptable (at least I cannot recall any situations where I felt it necessary to bring any "shortcomings" to the attention of senior staff).

Mostly, our ocean cruises have been in upper level suites, where our expectations are usually higher.  Having said that we are looking forward to a number of future ACL cruises.  I cannot truly say that about all the ocean cruise lines we have sailed aboard.

 

NRayH

[jimdee3636]

1 hour ago, Ray in NH said:

We have been on well over 125 cruises (ocean and river) reaching all continents, on many different cruise lines, seven of which have been on ACL

I do not think I could classify any one line as absolutely superior to all others.  We have experienced some "mishaps" on a number of different cruise lines, as well as many more "outstanding" situations -- one of the reasons we keep returning.

As others have stated, on ACL just about all the wait-staff and cabin are  "relative newbies", as their tenure is purposely kept short by Senior Management, of the cruise line.  The staff service has sometimes been less than stellar, but has always been acceptable (at least I cannot recall any situations where I felt it necessary to bring any "shortcomings" to the attention of senior staff).

Mostly, our ocean cruises have been in upper level suites, where our expectations are usually higher.  Having said that we are looking forward to a number of future ACL cruises.  I cannot truly say that about all the ocean cruise lines we have sailed aboard.

 

NRayH

Ray;

Thanks to you and to the others for your insights. I know now more than I did before.

Jim

[Ray in NH]

On 6/14/2020 at 1:19 PM, jimdee3636 said:

Ray;

Thanks to you and to the others for your insights. I know now more than I did before.

Jim

Hi Jim,

 

Happy to be of some assistance.  

I think we have all been in that "What should I do now?" situation.  What I try to do is to explain what I was trying to accomplish and what the result was.  It is not always a pretty picture, but sometimes better than "doing nothing", and wondering what the outcome would have been.

My lovely wife refers to it as "Learning from your mistakes" 🤔  Over ther years, I have "learned" a lot.  Now, the task is remembering what it is that I "supposedly" learned.

 

NRayH