Breeze half hour wait at bars?

[overeasy]

A yootoober I follow sailed Breeze over the Thanksgiving holiday.  He had Cheers. He said there was a 30 minute wait at all the bars. I am wondering:  As more and more pax have Cheers, doesn't that give Carnival incentive to keep the bar service slow? They already have my $ so the fewer drinks served the better?

[dallasdan]

The bartenders would not want to keep service slow, because many people with cheers still tip an additional $1 or $2 per drink.  

[1kaper]

8 minutes ago, overeasy said:

A yootoober I follow sailed Breeze over the Thanksgiving holiday.  He had Cheers. He said there was a 30 minute wait at all the bars. I am wondering:  As more and more pax have Cheers, doesn't that give Carnival incentive to keep the bar service slow? They already have my $ so the fewer drinks served the better?

 

I sailed in March and there was nothing that indicated I had Cheers on my card.  They didn't know til they swiped.  This cruise they put stickers on the first day but when my husband got his replaced they didn't put one on. So again, not always easy to know who has Cheers and who doesn't. 
While a lot of people buy Cheers there are far more who don't.  It would be foolish IMO to intentionally slow down bar service.  Plus as the person above noted, they still get tipped sometimes with Cheers. 

I sailed Thanksgiving but not on the Breeze.  There were some waits at certain times but never 30 minutes even at a busy Alchemy Bar. 

[rockwall_cruiser]

We were on the Breeze the week before Thanksgiving,  We had cheers and there was never a 30 minute wait at any of the bars.   This includes Alchemy which we visited several times.

[mz-s]

The bartenders certainly don't want service to be slow. They have a lot of work to do and don't have time to pile guest complaints on top of their workload.

 

But Carnival has been cutting staffing to the bone so expect more of this around the ship.

[1kaper]

8 minutes ago, mz-s said:

The bartenders certainly don't want service to be slow. They have a lot of work to do and don't have time to pile guest complaints on top of their workload.

 

But Carnival has been cutting staffing to the bone so expect more of this around the ship.

 

That is a good point.  We spent a lot of time chatting with the bartenders at the Alchemy Bar.  At one point I said something about sending an email about how great they were and one of them got very happy.  She said how much they appreciate that because often all they get is complaints.  
For those who aren't familiar with the Alchemy Bar most of the drinks are quite involved which means slower to make.  It can also be very popular.  I also saw a lot of people get mad because they couldn't get the drink they wanted there but they only have a very specific selection.  They don't have beer or slushy drink mixes.  
They definitely don't want complaints.  And people are more than happy to hand them out. 

Also - I found that staffing was much better this time as opposed to March.  Service in the dining room was much faster too. 

[ProgRockCruiser]

1 hour ago, overeasy said:

A yootoober I follow sailed Breeze over the Thanksgiving holiday.  He had Cheers. He said there was a 30 minute wait at all the bars. I am wondering:  As more and more pax have Cheers, doesn't that give Carnival incentive to keep the bar service slow? They already have my $ so the fewer drinks served the better?

I have a few questions about these "reported observations":

 

Did the "yootoober" (I like that) have the habit of always going to the bar that is likely to be busy at that particular time?  Like Alchemy pre- and post-dinner, and Lobby Bar right before or after the shows, or the Red Frog Bar on Lido right after lunch?  Sometimes ya gotta pick yer battles.  If 400 out of 1300-ish people (i.e. less than a third of max capacity) pour out of the show and try to grab a drink at the nearest bar, there is gonna be some sort of wait.

 

Is the yootoobe vid just a recap, or do they have some "live footage" included?  Would like to see what the crowds look like.

 

Is this yootoober notorious for somewhat "inaccurate" reporting?  Or are they known for being pretty spot-on?

 

Maybe I should poke around on said site for amusement...

[overeasy]

Thanks for the feedback, folks. Sounds like the reported 30 minute waits were isolated to that cruise and/or maybe bad luck or timing.

[MistyRo76]

1 hour ago, overeasy said:

A yootoober I follow sailed Breeze over the Thanksgiving holiday.  He had Cheers. He said there was a 30 minute wait at all the bars. I am wondering:  As more and more pax have Cheers, doesn't that give Carnival incentive to keep the bar service slow? They already have my $ so the fewer drinks served the better?

I'm hesitant to believe any report that uses terms like "all" or "never", etc. There are plenty of bars on the ships that are more out of the way and don't get as much traffic in general meaning less wait times. For example, on the Lido deck the Red Frog and Blue Iguana bars were usually very busy during the day. So often I would make a slightly further walk up to the Serenity bar and get my drinks there. I never had more than 1-2 people in line before me there. If Alchemy was very busy, we would pop down to the casino bar which usually wasn't as crowded. 

 

Now one example I can cite from my October cruise on the Valor of longer wait times at a bar was during the Halloween deck party. The Lido deck was the most crowded I saw it all week. And only the Red Frog was open. Not sure why they didn't also have Blue Iguana open that night. Because of that Red Frog was packed...but even then it probaly only took me 7-8 minutes to get my drink. 

[ProgRockCruiser]

23 minutes ago, ProgRockCruiser said:

Maybe I should poke around on said site for amusement...

I poked around and didn't see any obvious videos that covered this topic.  Any hints?

[overeasy]

18 minutes ago, ProgRockCruiser said:

I poked around and didn't see any obvious videos that covered this topic.  Any hints?

Sorry, meant to reply earlier: Island Time latest live feed, at 30:04. These folks are generally positive and upbeat, the comment about  the bar wait just caught my attention.

[groundloop]

1 hour ago, overeasy said:

A yootoober I follow sailed Breeze over the Thanksgiving holiday.  He had Cheers. He said there was a 30 minute wait at all the bars. I am wondering:  As more and more pax have Cheers, doesn't that give Carnival incentive to keep the bar service slow? They already have my $ so the fewer drinks served the better?

 

I have to think part of this is because of ships being extra full for the holiday week.  We were on Freedom for Thanksgiving and it was CROWDED.  Our cruise director announced there were 3700 passengers (on a ship with a stated double occupancy capacity of 2980).  

 

 

[ProgRockCruiser]

1 hour ago, overeasy said:

Sorry, meant to reply earlier: Island Time latest live feed, at 30:04. These folks are generally positive and upbeat, the comment about  the bar wait just caught my attention.

OK, just had a quick listen - yeah, he says it more "in passing" than making a big deal out of it, I suppose.  But it was also very hand-wavy: he rhymed off Red Frog Bar, Blue Iguana, Red Frog Pub, and Alchemy.  I've been on some very full ships and never had that as a consistent problem, and certainly not all at the same time.

 

Maybe it was indeed just a case of being over-crowded due to the Thanksgiving holiday.

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Joebucks]

4 hours ago, overeasy said:

Thanks for the feedback, folks. Sounds like the reported 30 minute waits were isolated to that cruise and/or maybe bad luck or timing.

 

It was none of those things. Having worked with the public, the "I've waited for 30 minutes" barely ever breaks 10.

[Eli_6]

It was probably because it was a holiday sailing and a ton of people.  I had that experience on a Christmas cruise once. 

[CILCIANRQTS]

I’m leery of “I heard” postings.

If you actually observed it or experienced it, then thanks for sharing.

But sharing someone else’s supposed experience takes us all down the rabbit hole.

Not that such postings will ever stop. Just take 3rd party statements with a grain of salt.

[ProgRockCruiser]

2 hours ago, CILCIANRQTS said:

I’m leery of “I heard” postings.

If you actually observed it or experienced it, then thanks for sharing.

But sharing someone else’s supposed experience takes us all down the rabbit hole.

Not that such postings will ever stop. Just take 3rd party statements with a grain of salt.

Well, this isn't a case of "I heard" at this point - a review video posted online has the person who (claims to have) experienced the wait times actually state it.  You can go watch it yourself.

 

The better point is this one:

14 hours ago, Joebucks said:

 

It was none of those things. Having worked with the public, the "I've waited for 30 minutes" barely ever breaks 10.

I do wonder whether they timed their wait in line, or just spit-balled it?  Because a few minutes without a drink in hand can indeed seem like an eternity, when it really was only a few minutes...

[serene56]

18 hours ago, groundloop said:

 

I have to think part of this is because of ships being extra full for the holiday week.  We were on Freedom for Thanksgiving and it was CROWDED.  Our cruise director announced there were 3700 passengers (on a ship with a stated double occupancy capacity of 2980).  

 

 

how is that even possible-- if the capacity occupancy is 2980         capacity if the ship for passengers is 2980  

[ProgRockCruiser]

35 minutes ago, serene56 said:

how is that even possible-- if the capacity occupancy is 2980         capacity if the ship for passengers is 2980  

"Double occupancy capacity" is how many people would be on board if every cabin had two pax in it.

 

Since many staterooms/cabins have capacity for three or four pax, you can easily get over 1.5 the double occupancy capacity - it is then limited by the lifeboats (needs to be a seat for everyone on board).

[serene56]

1 hour ago, ProgRockCruiser said:

"Double occupancy capacity" is how many people would be on board if every cabin had two pax in it.

 

Since many staterooms/cabins have capacity for three or four pax, you can easily get over 1.5 the double occupancy capacity - it is then limited by the lifeboats (needs to be a seat for everyone on board).

 i thought when reading the ships capacity-- that is how many its supposed to hold for life boats etc   but after further searching   the The Freedom can accommodate 4,375 passengers in 1,817 cabins.

 

 

[ericrz]

I was on the Mardi Gras last week.....6384 passengers, the most ever carried by a Carnival ship!

 

Despite that crowd, we never waited 30 minutes for a drink.  That would be absurd.  Now, 10-15 minutes?  Sometimes, especially at busy bars -- Red Frog on sea days, or the Brass Magnolia when they had live music, etc.  I do think Carnival has cut staffing levels too far, the bartenders and other staff are almost constantly slammed.

 

However, once you get to know the ship a little bit, you tend to learn where to go to avoid the crowds when necessary.