Chair hogs on Epic

[Daniel A]

4 hours ago, Nataly1982 said:

I would never touch other people’s stuff, especially given they paid deposit for towels.
But those people looking to use a chair and can't because of the hogs paid to use those chairs.  One is either using the chair or they aren't.  Why should some selfish people be able to use a deck chair on Lido and a chair in the buffet or dining room at the same time?

 

We only ever sailed Norwegian. Is there the same problem on other cruise lines? 
Absolutely, it happens on other lines as well as at resorts, hotels and community pools at housing complexes.  Some lines have a problem with chair hogs raiding the library and taking the ship's library books to put out on loungers.  This way if the book gets removed they don't care, they already grabbed a few other books as well.

 

I think a viable solution for eliminating chair hogs is for the cruise line to have a deck manager's station.  If you're using a lounger and need to go to the bathroom or want to leave the lido deck for some reason, you would need to stop at the manager's station and ask him/her to put a time stamped marker on your lounger and the clock starts running.  If you're not back in a reasonable pre-set amount of time, you lose the 'reserved' status of the chair.  At least it would be fair.

[Daniel A]

15 minutes ago, Sthrngary said:

The crew can never win when they enforce the rule of one hour. 

Cruise Well.

I think the crew would be surprised to discover there would be a lot of support from the bulk of the passengers to see something finally being done.

[SpainAlien]

1 hour ago, SomewhereGirl said:

Interesting.  How is that enforced?  How do all the people socially distance in the little swimming pool?  Disembarking must be interesting.  Genuinely curious.

In the dining rooms, bars, theatre and casino there are places marked that they are not to be used. You are not allowed to sit at the bar at all.  There are spots on the floor for queues with spacing and the lifts can only accommodate 4 people (one in each corner). Hot tubs are restricted to 6 people, the pool in Spice H20 was restricted to 5 people.

Masks are required inside at all times unless you are in your cabin or sitting actively eating/drinking. Masks are required outside if you cannot socially distance.

People generally abided by the rules without being told

 

[Sthrngary]

12 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

I think the crew would be surprised to discover there would be a lot of support from the bulk of the passengers to see something finally being done.

That is not the point.  The point is one angry guest can actually lose a crew members job.  Unfortunately, this is a culture that has to change on cruise lines.  The customer is not always right, they are always the customer.  They are afraid. 

[Sthrngary]

1 minute ago, SpainAlien said:

In the dining rooms, bars, theatre and casino there are places marked that they are not to be used. You are not allowed to sit at the bar at all.  There are spots on the floor for queues with spacing and the lifts can only accommodate 4 people (one in each corner). Hot tubs are restricted to 6 people, the pool in Spice H20 was restricted to 5 people.

Masks are required inside at all times unless you are in your cabin or sitting actively eating/drinking. Masks are required outside if you cannot socially distance.

People generally abided by the rules without being told

 

True, until they don't.  That is the question being debated.  Hot to handle those that don't follow the rules they agreed to when they went on the cruise.  Human nature to push the envelope. 

[classy_cruiser]

I’m so confused about the towels. On what ship do you have to pay a deposit on the towel? On the Jade last month we never paid a deposit. Maybe 2 times out of 10 they asked for a room number when we got the towels, although I couldn’t tell why. There didn’t seem to be tracking of any kind and most times they handed them right over. Sometimes we returned them to the towel station and sometimes the steward collected them from our room. 

[ProblemCruiser]

There are two questions I've always had:

 

1.  Why does anyone want to be on a crowded and noisy pool deck with the smell of Bromine wafting through the air?  The only advantage there is the sun and it's not all that healthy to be out in it for extended periods of time.

 

2.  Unrelated, but why do people eat at the buffet when there are good sit-down restaurants on board at no cost?

 

 

[ProblemCruiser]

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Edited October 3, 2021 by ProblemCruiser
Accidental double post. These edit rules are ridiculous.

[Daniel A]

53 minutes ago, Sthrngary said:

That is not the point.  The point is one angry guest can actually lose a crew members job.  Unfortunately, this is a culture that has to change on cruise lines.  The customer is not always right, they are always the customer.  They are afraid. 

You are most likely correct about this.  I really had the management in mind when I wrote that.  The Deck Staff don't set and enforce policy, management does.

[Daniel A]

57 minutes ago, Sthrngary said:

True, until they don't.  That is the question being debated.  Hot to handle those that don't follow the rules they agreed to when they went on the cruise.  Human nature to push the envelope. 

And that's the reason why societies have people who actually enforce those rules.  Having a level of rule enforcement keeps people following the rules.  It is similar to when a locality doesn't enforce no fire zone parking rules - It gets difficult to walk around the cars that park right in front of the doors of the store.  In a locality where the parking rules are actually being enforced that problem generally tends to be absent.

[Nataly1982]

1 hour ago, classy_cruiser said:

I’m so confused about the towels. On what ship do you have to pay a deposit on the towel? On the Jade last month we never paid a deposit. Maybe 2 times out of 10 they asked for a room number when we got the towels, although I couldn’t tell why. There didn’t seem to be tracking of any kind and most times they handed them right over. Sometimes we returned them to the towel station and sometimes the steward collected them from our room. 

On Epic. When you collect towels you have to hand over your key card and you get a receipt for deposit, $30 per towel. At the end of the day you return the towels and a paper receipt. You can see all the deposit IN and OUTS on your onboard account. I guess if you fail to return the towels you are charged for the deposit. Didn’t try 🙂

I thought it was a messy job for the guys in towel station, going through hundreds of paper receipts every day.

 

On the other hand there were vey few towels lying around at the end of the day. 

 

 

 

[eileeshb]

3 hours ago, Nataly1982 said:

On Epic. When you collect towels you have to hand over your key card and you get a receipt for deposit, $30 per towel. At the end of the day you return the towels and a paper receipt. You can see all the deposit IN and OUTS on your onboard account. I guess if you fail to return the towels you are charged for the deposit. Didn’t try 🙂

I thought it was a messy job for the guys in towel station, going through hundreds of paper receipts every day.

 

On the other hand there were vey few towels lying around at the end of the day. 

 

 

 

Ohh.. if I were someone hanging out in the vicinity of a lounger “held” by nothing more than one of those towels for any more than an hour the towel would disappear and then the hog would wind up with a charge for losing the towel they left unattended which ought to be an appropriate punishment for hogging. 

[ChiefMateJRK]

10 hours ago, Nataly1982 said:

I would never touch other people’s stuff, especially given they paid deposit for towels.

If it's just a towel, isn't that technically the property of NCL?

[Nataly1982]

3 hours ago, eileeshb said:

Ohh.. if I were someone hanging out in the vicinity of a lounger “held” by nothing more than one of those towels for any more than an hour the towel would disappear and then the hog would wind up with a charge for losing the towel they left unattended which ought to be an appropriate punishment for hogging. 

Great to hear! Although I think it’s a lot of talking how everyone would remove this and remove that but not much action in real life.

[classy_cruiser]

7 hours ago, Nataly1982 said:

On Epic. When you collect towels you have to hand over your key card and you get a receipt for deposit, $30 per towel. At the end of the day you return the towels and a paper receipt. You can see all the deposit IN and OUTS on your onboard account. I guess if you fail to return the towels you are charged for the deposit. Didn’t try 🙂

I thought it was a messy job for the guys in towel station, going through hundreds of paper receipts every day.

 

On the other hand there were vey few towels lying around at the end of the day. 

 

 

 

Wow do most ships do this or only Epic? The towels on the Jade were not nice enough for anyone to steal

[Nataly1982]

9 hours ago, Sthrngary said:

Yes, this in every single cruise that I have been on. Where I just move the towels and sit down, my wife won't let me do it.  She says, "someone will come back and it will create a scene."  My response is, "Good". 

This is the reason I started to book the "Haven".  Not the only reason but one of the reasons.  This behavior is like over filling your plate in a buffet when they finally put out the shrimp or steak.  The crew can never win when they enforce the rule of one hour. 

Cruise Well.

Are you saying there are no chair hogs in Haven? I would imagine there are some locations in the courtyard and on the sun deck more favourable to others and some people snap them at the break of dawn. 

[ChiefMateJRK]

23 minutes ago, Nataly1982 said:

Great to hear! Although I think it’s a lot of talking how everyone would remove this and remove that but not much action in real life.

🤣 You may be correct.  When I'm on a cruise, I'm just looking to have fun, not start crap with rude people.  I suspect I'm in the majority, and that is why chair hogs are even able to exist.  Do they really enjoy those chairs that they've locked down for eight hours when they finally park their fat b$tts in them for an hour or two?  I only need to spend an hour or two with them, but they have to be with themselves 24/7.  😎

[eileeshb]

48 minutes ago, Nataly1982 said:

Great to hear! Although I think it’s a lot of talking how everyone would remove this and remove that but not much action in real life.

The problem for me to act on that threat is that I’m unlikely to be in the vicinity of a lounger claimed by a hog for long enough.  I lost an aunt to skin cancer so laid-out sun-worshipping isn’t really something I do, not that I did much of it before her illness either.

[Yesimapirate]

9 hours ago, Sthrngary said:

That is not the point.  The point is one angry guest can actually lose a crew members job.  Unfortunately, this is a culture that has to change on cruise lines.  The customer is not always right, they are always the customer.  They are afraid. 

100% spot on. 

 

I may know someone who works at the most magical place on Earth.   Very similar situation.  While employees are treated well, there's always the under lying reality that you can be replaced in a minute.   Many people are scared to confront guests who are breaking the rules, even if they approach politely,  because the guest will complain to management and share a perspective on the situation that might not exactly be what happened.   It's simply easier sometimes to turn a blind eye.

 

At the end of the day,  can you blame the lowly guest facing crew member who's from a less fortunate country,  working crazy hours with little of what we consider freedom of movement, not really empowered to do anything yet tasked with responsibility from management that they can't really carry out.  I don't think it's fair to put the crew member into that type of situation.   I implore everyone to not take your frustration out on them.

 

Btw- Walt was famous for saying "A guest isn't always right but they're always a guest".  And that's the foundation of everything the company does.

Edited October 3, 2021 by Yesimapirate

[Sthrngary]

49 minutes ago, Nataly1982 said:

Are you saying there are no chair hogs in Haven? I would imagine there are some locations in the courtyard and on the sun deck more favourable to others and some people snap them at the break of dawn. 

All I can comment on is my personal experience. These situations never happened. Now that response is honest. The issue is the Haven is not always a subject that many want to talk about.  I mean no disrespect with my answer.  

[PATRLR]

On 10/2/2021 at 4:05 AM, SpainAlien said:

 so he put a sticker on the sunbeds presumably giving them another hour, 

Are you not going to tell us what happened and hour later?  That's the best part.  Please don't tell us you didn't hang around to find out.

[ClevelandCruisin]

No chair hogs in Alaska! 

[SpainAlien]

12 hours ago, PATRLR said:

Are you not going to tell us what happened and hour later?  That's the best part.  Please don't tell us you didn't hang around to find out.

Most of the people who had towels out returned 2-3 minutes before the security man arrived (about 1.5 hours later) with the exception of one group of three spanish ladies that turned up half an hour later and shouted at the guests who were sitting on the freshly vacated chairs.  Of course the new guests just stated that there was nothing on the chairs when they got there and some spanish guests sitting nearby advised them to see security about retreiving their abandoned belongings.  We had deliberately stayed in our seats all this time to see what happened.

[SomewhereGirl]

6 hours ago, ClevelandCruisin said:

No chair hogs in Alaska! 

 

Except in the Observation Lounge.  At least that was my experience.

[Daniel A]

At breakfast in the buffet during my Alaska cruise on Gem, every table was either occupied by one person playing solitaire or reading a book or the chairs were tipped over.  Not one table in the buffet was available until we just sat down at a table where people had sweaters draped over the chairs.  We ate our breakfast at a leisurely pace and never saw the owners of the sweaters which were now all draped over a chair at another table with the chairs tipped over.  This happened every morning.

 

Most of the bench window seats were occupied by people sleeping with the pillow and blanket from their (presumably inside) cabin.  We will never sail Alaska or a cold climate cruise again.