Are Low Staffing Levels Part of Celebrity’s Plan to Cut Costs and Increase Profitably?

[canderson]

3 minutes ago, hcat said:

X  should  establish a staff to passenger ratio for dining,  room attendants and just about everything needed to a better than low budget cruise.  Build in a  projection for quarantined staff. 

 

 Cruise Res  should be  limited to the  numbers they can  realistically accomodate ..seems like they are " overbooking"  more than  what they can handle. They need not recover lost profits in such a darn hurry.

 

Not fair to cruisers or overworked staff.

 

To OP..try to enjoy!

 

There's an assumption somewhere in there that most pax have just recently booked, not many months ago, and that the ongoing difficulty in getting staff was predictable back then.  Am surprised we are hearing that the logistics part of staffing is still so difficult.

[marieps]

9 hours ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

You're welcome to think whatever your heart desires.  One should think about why a Retreat manager who's never been on a ship was offered a contract.

Well, they hired Kelly Hoppen.  She designed our rooms not knowing anything about what a cruiser needs or wants in an accommodation.  

 

As an aside, we too were on Connie's first sail in November and Summit's repo to Bayonne.  A certain restaurant staffer was on both, who confided one of the staffing issues involves new hires getting their visas, arriving in Miami and suddenly vanishing once in the US.  They never show to the job.

[hcat]

26 minutes ago, canderson said:

There's an assumption somewhere in there that most pax have just recently booked, not many months ago, and that the ongoing difficulty in getting staff was predictable back then.  Am surprised we are hearing that the logistics part of staffing is still so difficult.

I accept your point but I still think they are rushing back too quickly. Esp when port restrictions  have not been fully lifted,, an indicator that Covid has not gone away.

Airlines have done the same thing by packing us in..

[NutsAboutGolf]

1 minute ago, marieps said:

Well, they hired Kelly Hoppen.  She designed our rooms not knowing anything about what a cruiser needs or wants in an accommodation.  

 

As an aside, we too were on Connie's first sail in November and Summit's repo to Bayonne.  A certain restaurant staffer was on both, who confided one of the staffing issues involves new hires getting their visas, arriving in Miami and suddenly vanishing once in the US.  They never show to the job.

 

This is a fair point (that several have made)

[NutsAboutGolf]

3 minutes ago, hcat said:

I accept your point but I still think they are rushing back too quickly. Esp when port restrictions  have not been fully lifted,, an indicator that Covid has not gone away.

Airlines have done the same thing by packing us in..

 

To be fair, not every airline blocked middle seats.  Some vacation destinations, AI resorts and even some states only shutdown for a few months.

[marieps]

6 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

This is a fair point (that several have made)

To be fair, we found service on Connie to be in line with expectations (700 pax) and on Summit (353 pax as stated earlier) to be beyond expectations.  Reflection in December was over the top (1070 pax I think).   I stated in an earlier thread I had never had a pool butler witness my arrival to the main pool and instantly set me up with chairs and towels, and greet me with an unfurled towel as I exited the pool.  Is this a Reflection thing?    

[hcat]

27 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

To be fair, not every airline blocked middle seats.  Some vacation destinations, AI resorts and even some states only shutdown for a few months.

Wow.. did not know that.  We traveled a few times on SW Air back on forth to Fla.

They Blocked out seats and rows,.,,it was great!  Could not last for obvious reasons.  When that ended we were crammed in like sardines,, and prayed we did not get sick.  Fkying Frontier tom..expecting a full plane.

[Algebralovr]

1 hour ago, canderson said:

There's an assumption somewhere in there that most pax have just recently booked, not many months ago, and that the ongoing difficulty in getting staff was predictable back then.  Am surprised we are hearing that the logistics part of staffing is still so difficult.

I think it is a mixture.  In 2019, we had booked Thanksgiving week for 2021.  The four of us who went go had a great time on a newly opened ship with 850 guests. It was the 3rd sailing since opening.   But, in Sept, when we realized that neither of our kids would be available for the Christmas/NYE holidays, and we were going to celebrate our 30th, we decided to spend it on a ship.  So we booked Summit to se a friend in the crew, followed by Reflection again for NYE.  Got good fares for the holiday period, and had a great time.  The NYE cruise on RF had over 1700 guests.  However, as the cruise advanced, the crew were disappearing like crazy due to exposure.  

We are getting ready to head for Millennium.  We booked in February, while on board Silhouette.  In early April, I asked my kids to join us.  We booked 2 more rooms after final payment.  
 

So, I think it is a mix.   Many sailings have been booked for a while, and many others are last minute.  The cruise lines accepted our bookings, believing they could staff the ships.  

 

51 minutes ago, marieps said:

Well, they hired Kelly Hoppen.  She designed our rooms not knowing anything about what a cruiser needs or wants in an accommodation.  

 

As an aside, we too were on Connie's first sail in November and Summit's repo to Bayonne.  A certain restaurant staffer was on both, who confided one of the staffing issues involves new hires getting their visas, arriving in Miami and suddenly vanishing once in the US.  They never show to the job.

So true about Hoppen and the horrible furniture!

Meanwhile, I’m not surprised about the disappearing staff.  That would also explain something I saw in February.  A bus with what looked like seafarers pulling into the hotel I was at, with a couple of what looked like guards accompanying them… the guards handing out room keys and giving a lot of instructions.  My guess it is to avoid the crew disappearing into theUS, since they are liable for fines when it happens.  
 

Also, it sometimes happens that crew are given restricted I-95’s.  Depending on where they are from, they may only be allowed to join the ship outside of the US, and then never allowed liberty on land even when they do get to get off the ships.  I recall a few crew who commented about it years ago.  It had to do with them being on their first contract, not owning property back home, and such.  They just were not allowed to leave the ship for any reason in a US port.  

[Cruising89143]

16 minutes ago, hcat said:

Wow.. did not know that.  We traveled a few times on SW Air back on forth to Fla.

They Blocked out seats and rows,.,,it was great!  Could not last for obvious reasons.  When that ended we were crammed in like sardines,, and prayed we did not get sick.  Fkying Frontier tom..expecting a full plane.

Delta also blocked out the middle seats for a long time. 

[Algebralovr]

43 minutes ago, marieps said:

To be fair, we found service on Connie to be in line with expectations (700 pax) and on Summit (353 pax as stated earlier) to be beyond expectations.  Reflection in December was over the top (1070 pax I think).   I stated in an earlier thread I had never had a pool butler witness my arrival to the main pool and instantly set me up with chairs and towels, and greet me with an unfurled towel as I exited the pool.  Is this a Reflection thing?    

I believe it is a reflection thing, or at least with that particular captain.  The captain was VERY visible on that ship, always around.  He made a comment at the Captains Club reception I went to about the “Boys in Blue” and the amazing job they did at the pool.  I think that was the NYE cruise.  
 

We were amazing with their work as well, between the way they put out towels and made pillows from towels, and met people as they left the pool to provide a towel.  Out of over 20 cruises, many of them on RF, that was the only time we experienced that particular service.  
 

We wrote comment cards about a couple of the pool attendants and they thanked us for them the next day, and they remembered our names when we were back 4 weeks later.  THAT said a lot to us!  

[NutsAboutGolf]

18 minutes ago, hcat said:

Wow.. did not know that.  We traveled a few times on SW Air back on forth to Fla.

They Blocked out seats and rows,.,,it was great!  Could not last for obvious reasons.  When that ended we were crammed in like sardines,, and prayed we did not get sick.  Fkying Frontier tom..expecting a full plane.

 

1 minute ago, cruisingator2 said:

Delta also blocked out the middle seats for a long time. 

 

Delta, Hawaiian, SW, jetblue and Alaska blocked them until the end of 2020-beginning of 2021

United & American only blocked them for 2-3 months

The budget lines, Spirit, Sun Country, etc never blocked them

[Bo1953]

8 hours ago, hcat said:

I accept your point but I still think they are rushing back too quickly. Esp when port restrictions  have not been fully lifted,, an indicator that Covid has not gone away.

Airlines have done the same thing by packing us in..

I think part of the challenge is that 'us' choose to be packed in by making the reservations and going understanding this could be an issue.

 

Those of us who are being packed in and getting lower than expected service in other areas of travel may continue to book and travel in 'hopes' that things will get better and soon.

 

Therein lies a conundrum for travel companies, what do we do if bookings go down while we try to ramp up workers and patrons do not return or what do we do if bookings continue to go up and we cannot get the requisite number of workers (trained or not, right away) to support the needs of our clients.

 

Catch22

 

bon voyage

[CruisingWalter]

Staffing is an issue across the board. Cunard and P&O have cancelled cruises due to staffing issues. When we sailed Carnival Mardi Gras in March it was obvious F&B was understaffed. As noted in this article, some former hotel and F&B staff chose to remain in land-based jobs vs. returning to cruise ships due to the uncertainty of job security should another shutdown occur. It'll probably be at least a year until staffing issues are fully resolved across all the fleets.

https://www.cruisehive.com/with-cruise-lines-making-a-recovery-staffing-issues-are-becoming-a-problem/71928

[Bo1953]

9 hours ago, marieps said:

Well, they hired Kelly Hoppen.  She designed our rooms not knowing anything about what a cruiser needs or wants in an accommodation.  

 

As an aside, we too were on Connie's first sail in November and Summit's repo to Bayonne.  A certain restaurant staffer was on both, who confided one of the staffing issues involves new hires getting their visas, arriving in Miami and suddenly vanishing once in the US.  They never show to the job.

While, I Am sure this is true to a great degree, I do wonder what the numbers of disappearances are vs show ups vs hospitalizations and etc.???

 

These compared to 'pre-pandemc' numbers for similar AWOL's? Did the "certain restaurant staffer..." comment on this aspect of the situation as well?

 

AWOL's are NOT limited to bad times, as most of us do know, right???

 

Overall, maybe, just maybe more U.S. Citizens need to apply to these jobs or will be a no-show due to other salient factors just like farmers have not had good luck getting U.S. Citizens to help with the harvest in recent years... too much of a good thing for various reasons now rearing its' ugly head, possibly, after decades? LOL

 

bon voyage

[JeanieC,Aston]

9 hours ago, hcat said:

I accept your point but I still think they are rushing back too quickly. Esp when port restrictions  have not been fully lifted,, an indicator that Covid has not gone away.

Airlines have done the same thing by packing us in..

Hi h at.

Easyjet Airlines in Europe are getting over the lack of staff by taking out the back couple of rows of seats on its fleet.

[WestLakeGirl]

9 hours ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

 

Delta, Hawaiian, SW, jetblue and Alaska blocked them until the end of 2020-beginning of 2021

United & American only blocked them for 2-3 months

The budget lines, Spirit, Sun Country, etc never blocked them

The big difference between the airline situation and the discussion has begun by the op is that they were not blocking seats in order to save money on staff. The OP is discussing a strategy he imagined where cruise ships are deliberately trying to make customers unhappy by the cost-cutting measure of staff cutbacks, which is just not plausible

[TomTN]

We sailed on Regent Voyager march 23 to April 5 in the Med. The ship sailed at 70% capacity, and many workers were unable to get to Civitavecchia  It seemed that those that did make it were terribly under trained. Everything was poor about the cruise including the 2.5 - 3 hour wait for dinner the first night.

 Problems every where on cruise ships.

[Mark_K]

20 hours ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

There's a huge pool of experienced crew members awaiting contracts but cruise lines are passing on them in favor of paying less for brand new crew members.  Many examples of this include in this thread where Jim stated they hire a brand new Retreat manager who's never been on a ship.  Why not offer a contract to an existing X manager or reward their existing top staff with a promotion?  The answer is because it's cheaper to hire new.

That’s not what I heard on our recent cruise.  The talk from Celebrity staff was more about having a hard time getting crew members back on board.

[NutsAboutGolf]

1 hour ago, WestLakeGirl said:

The big difference between the airline situation and the discussion has begun by the op is that they were not blocking seats in order to save money on staff. The OP is discussing a strategy he imagined where cruise ships are deliberately trying to make customers unhappy by the cost-cutting measure of staff cutbacks, which is just not plausible

100% agree.  I was quoting another to bring to light that the airlines who blocked middle seats did so voluntarily and not every airline ever did so.

[Algebralovr]

3 hours ago, Bo1953 said:

 

Overall, maybe, just maybe more U.S. Citizens need to apply to these jobs or will be a no-show due to other salient factors just like farmers have not had good luck getting U.S. Citizens to help with the harvest in recent years... too much of a good thing for various reasons now rearing its' ugly head, possibly, after decades? LOL

 

bon voyage

This is exactly the issue.  Heck, if the establishments in the US can’t get people in the door to work, why are we surprised the cruise lines have a similar issue?  I know how hard they work!

[NutsAboutGolf]

1 hour ago, Mark_K said:

That’s not what I heard on our recent cruise.  The talk from Celebrity staff was more about having a hard time getting crew members back on board.

It would seem cruise lines never had a problem with staffing before even during the height of Omicron.  Many are reporting at the MDR there are long waits to get a table, dinner service is slow and food being received is cold.

 

I can say from first hand experience on my 4/24 sailing that if you call room service after 6pm, you could be waiting for someone to answer for 15mins.  This could be part of the problem, they had to reallocate MDR staff from the physical MDR to assist with room service delivery

[canderson]

3 hours ago, Bo1953 said:

Overall, maybe, just maybe more U.S. Citizens need to apply to these jobs ...

Assume that was a tongue in cheek response.

 

The lines often work through agencies abroad for staffing.  Assuming you could get U.S. citizens to deal with the work and pay (even more unlikely now than it was pre-COVID), agencies would need to be formed here to provide the personnel.

 

 

Edited May 16, 2022 by canderson
Typoz

[DirtyDawg]

3 hours ago, Bo1953 said:

Overall, maybe, just maybe more U.S. Citizens need to apply to these jobs or will be a no-show due to other salient factors just like farmers have not had good luck getting U.S. Citizens to help with the harvest in recent years... too much of a good thing for various reasons now rearing its' ugly head, possibly, after decades? LOL

 

bon voyage

No too many U.S. citizens would be willing to work in cruise line conditions for cruise line pay. Our cruise fares would have to jump a great deal to just pay the crew a competitive U.S. wage. And as for working conditions, let's just say the cruise lines are not at the top "Best companies to  work for" lists.

 

[chromered7]

Do you think that crew are taken  for the Edge class ships at the expense of other ship’s? We are due to cruise on Reflection in July and after two cancelled cruises the issues on these post’s are concerning. I think the line at guest relations may be a long one as passenger expectations are not met.

[canderson]

4 minutes ago, chromered7 said:

Do you think that crew are taken  for the Edge class ships at the expense of other ship’s? 

Having to staff up Beyond at this time will have inevitably made a difficult problem worse, yes.