So Are things Looking up?

[BlerkOne]

1 minute ago, D C said:

 

 

Another case in point, back in November, I wanted a surf & turf on lobster night.  Just toss a lobster tail on there with the steak.   Nope.  They insisted that they had to bring 2 full meals.  I've heard others mention the same experience.  

The food is pre-plated. Whether you see it or not, there would be waste.

 

These days, the environment is a concern. It should have always been, but that's another topic.

[TeeRick]

35 minutes ago, kirtihk said:

I'm not blaming any cruise line (it's just aftermath of "farcicality" pushed on their shoulders): just a logical observation - if what you wrote is true, the cutback would be implemented (again, by any cruise line) many years ago (unless they never assessed food waste until couple months ago which is impossible to comprehend).

Very good point.  The "waste" has been there for as long as any of us has been cruising.  Years!  Why now?

[BlerkOne]

18 minutes ago, kirtihk said:

and before January 1, 2023 was not there cost management?

Royal didn't use to be over $20 billion in debt and doesn't have lots of cash on hand.

[RichYak]

How does cutting back on quality food reduce waste? Never mind, I'll answer my own question. This is not about waste.

[Lastdance]

I think it ight be time for a discussion on shoes...pink, blue or both?🙃

[terrydtx]

9 minutes ago, TeeRick said:

Very good point.  The "waste" has been there for as long as any of us has been cruising.  Years!  Why now?

Bigger profits to cover huge debts from Covid lockdowns?

[markeb]

37 minutes ago, kirtihk said:

I'm not blaming any cruise line (it's just aftermath of "farcicality" pushed on their shoulders): just a logical observation - if what you wrote is true, the cutback would be implemented (again, by any cruise line) many years ago (unless they never assessed food waste until couple months ago which is impossible to comprehend).

 

33 minutes ago, kirtihk said:

Again, people do it all the time for years and years.  Why preventing it just now?  Strange timing.  Didn't any business concern about waste until just now? 

 

18 minutes ago, kirtihk said:

and before January 1, 2023 was not there cost management?

 

Of course they assessed food waste in the past. But the economic impact (yeah, it's also a cost control measure) wasn't as great. Have you priced a dozen eggs lately? There's an article here on Cruise Critic on increasing gratuities to increase overall compensation because of staffing shortages across the cruise lines. 

 

If half of all food is being wasted, that's a raw material cost, a labor cost for preparation, a labor cost for service and/or delivery (for room service), a labor cost for clean up, and the associated costs for disposal. All while trying to meet their ESG goals to maintain institutional investors. It's waste in the back of the house. It's not just waste that we as passengers see. I certainly hope half is an overestimate.

 

Food costs are increasing, labor costs are increasing, and all the cruise lines are in horrible debt. I think they're making interesting choices that may or may not play out. 

[markeb]

23 minutes ago, TeeRick said:

Very good point.  The "waste" has been there for as long as any of us has been cruising.  Years!  Why now?

 

You really can't separate food waste from food costs. And food costs have gone up dramatically. As has labor. They probably should have done something to control this years ago...

Edited February 7, 2023 by markeb

[davekathy]

9 minutes ago, Lastdance said:

I think it ight be time for a discussion on shoes...pink, blue or both?🙃

 

I gotta go with the blue. 🙃 What brand are they? 

[TeeRick]

1 minute ago, terrydtx said:

Bigger profits to cover huge debts from Covid lockdowns?

Not sure about bigger profits.  But cost management for certain.  Yes this is driving everything in the entire cruise industry, the 1.5 year shutdown that unfairly focused on them over other travel and leisure industries.  They still paid many employees, took care of ships and took on massive debt to survive. Then 40 year high inflation.  And difficulty in attracting and training new crew.  We are lucky to be cruising in a semi-normal way IMO.  But many of us forget these facts in our need to complain about everything.  Sorry for the soap box.  I was presently surprised a couple of weeks ago on how normal pre-Covid-like our Equinox cruise was.  In my non-cruise life on land, I deal with many, many changes since 2019 that I don't like but just have to live with.

[terrydtx]

5 minutes ago, TeeRick said:

Not sure about bigger profits.  But cost management for certain.  Yes this is driving everything in the entire cruise industry, the 1.5 year shutdown that unfairly focused on them over other travel and leisure industries.  They still paid many employees, took care of ships and took on massive debt to survive. Then 40 year high inflation.  And difficulty in attracting and training new crew.  We are lucky to be cruising in a semi-normal way IMO.  But many of us forget these facts in our need to complain about everything.  Sorry for the soap box.  I was presently surprised a couple of weeks ago on how normal pre-Covid-like our Equinox cruise was.  In my non-cruise life on land, I deal with many, many changes since 2019 that I don't like but just have to live with.

But cost management leads to more profits which are essential to keeping the whole industry from going bankrupt. We, the cruising public, are lucky that more cruise lines didn't go under with the lockdowns, the ones that did, were marginal pre Covid anyway. We will be on the Equinox in June and looking forward to it being more pre-covid like. We have 26 total cruise days and 12 land days on the books for the rest of this year.

[kirtihk]

41 minutes ago, D C said:

Exactly.  The "reduce waste" talking point is total BS.  As if all of the unserved food is thrown out, instead of going to the crew.  And if, as everyone seems to say, "hardly anyone eats at the buffet at dinner", then waste of served food should be minimal.   

Waste in the MDR has to be many times greater.  "Oh look, everyone at the table has a side of asparagus that they won't eat".   

 

Another case in point, back in November, I wanted a surf & turf on lobster night.  Just toss a lobster tail on there with the steak.   Nope.  They insisted that they had to bring 2 full meals.  I've heard others mention the same experience.  

Not only to the crew.  We noticed even on luxury cruise lines how food from lunches and dinners (including both buffets and restaurants) ends up (in different forms of further preparation) next day in buffet lunches and dinners.  For example, today there is a meat cut, tomorrow a Shepperd pie made of it.  We've been seeing this functionality everywhere (Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Azamara, Ponant, Regent, Paul Gauguine). 

 

I'm sure it's because of a conveyer routine being implemented in the kitchen.

[kirtihk]

36 minutes ago, markeb said:

There's an article here on Cruise Critic on increasing gratuities to increase overall compensation because of staffing shortages across the cruise lines. 

Hmmm,...  Seems the opposite of a logical outcome - wouldn't staffing shortage mean a supposed decreased gratuities (less personnel - less compensation to deal with)?

[markeb]

21 minutes ago, kirtihk said:

Hmmm,...  Seems the opposite of a logical outcome - wouldn't staffing shortage mean a supposed decreased gratuities (less personnel - less compensation to deal with)?

 

They can't hire enough staff. Labor supply is down. Labor demand is up. Cost of labor has to go up. Economics 101...

[kirtihk]

2 minutes ago, markeb said:

 

They can't hire enough staff. Labor supply is down. Labor demand is up. Cost of labor has to go up. Economics 101...

It doesn't matter. 2 people with $10 p/hour (working 12 hours p/day) vs 1 person with $20 p/hours (also working 12 hours p/day) with 20% tip in each case would produce the same $48 total tip.  Arithmetic's since forever ...

 

PS. The above example is extreme.  In reality 1 person performing double-work during the same amount of working hours (even if it is possible to begin with) would get most likely in the best-case scenario around $15 p/hour instead of $10, not double ($20); so, as I wrote in my original statement, there must be gratuity decrease per passenger.

[BlerkOne]

Math can be hard. Costs, including labor, are up. A new hire is not as efficient as someone with experience. Capacities and spending are still not to pre-pandemic levels. Profits are not where they need to be. Iter-8.

 

Good luck finding a cruise line that hasn't tightened their belt and tried to reduce costs including reducing waste. and yes, waste costs money in more ways than one.

[Obobru]

18 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

It isn't the budget that is cut, but the costs that increase.

You mean like the cruise fares that increase to cover the costs that increase. 

[Obobru]

40 minutes ago, markeb said:

 

They can't hire enough staff. Labor supply is down. Labor demand is up. Cost of labor has to go up. Economics 101...

More BS from the cruise lines, the labour comes from Asia we have Filpino and Indonesian friends who worked on the cruise lines, no shortage of qualified people their is a lack of hiring by the cruise lines to save money. 

 

Which sounds best to customers...

 

We are cutting staff and food to save money as we got into too much debt and didn't have a plan if anything went wrong. 

 

We are cutting some food services to cut food waste and we have a labour shortage so we are having to cut some services. 

Edited February 7, 2023 by Obobru

[Married90]

1 hour ago, kirtihk said:

Hmmm,...  Seems the opposite of a logical outcome - wouldn't staffing shortage mean a supposed decreased gratuities (less personnel - less compensation to deal with)?

Certainly improved profits to the cruise lines bottom line with less labor cost...  This is all more of the "twisted logic"   Make the customer pay more for getting less. For ones I would love to see a company be honest instead of putting some "marketing twist" on it.  

[kirtihk]

13 minutes ago, Obobru said:

More BS from the cruise lines, the labor comes from Asia we have Filpino and Indonesian friends who worked on the cruise lines, no shortage of qualified people their is a lack of hiring by the cruise lines to save money. 

right ... and increasing gratuities at the same time.  That was my point.  Norwegian just increased theirs: $20 per/day for up to balcony (from $16 that was also implemented recently from $14.50 previous), and $26 above balcony (family of 4 in 14-day cruise would pay almost $1,500 just in tips).  That's roughly 40-60% increase in <1 year!!!

 

From the other point, these days air is almost $2,000 per person economy to fly to Europe for a cruise, but that's a different story...

Edited February 7, 2023 by kirtihk

[kirtihk]

6 minutes ago, Married90 said:

Certainly improved profits to the cruise lines bottom line with less labor cost...  This is all more of the "twisted logic"   Make the customer pay more for getting less. For ones I would love to see a company be honest instead of putting some "marketing twist" on it.  

Thank you!  Exactly my point!

[terrydtx]

3 minutes ago, kirtihk said:

right ... and increasing gratuities at the same time.  That was my point.  Norwegian just increased theirs: $20 per/day for up to balcony (from $16 that was also implemented recently from $14.50 previous), and $26 above balcony.  That's roughly 40-60% increase in <1 year!!!

I wonder if those increases are actually 100% going to the crew or to the bottom line?

Edited February 7, 2023 by terrydtx

[kirtihk]

6 minutes ago, terrydtx said:

I wonder if those increases are actually 100% going to the crew or to the bottom line?

Precisely! - they don't call it "gratuities" anymore; it is the "service charge" now.  My agent told me that 1. now one cannot adjust it on the ship for any reason regardless of whether prepaid or being paid on-going on the ship, and 2. it goes to the entire crew pool; so, who knows what they actually do with it in terms of distribution among personnel.

Edited February 7, 2023 by kirtihk

[terrydtx]

9 minutes ago, kirtihk said:

Precisely! - they don't call it "gratuities" anymore; it is the "service charge" now.  My agent told me that 1. now one cannot adjust it on the ship for any reason regardless of whether prepaid or being paid on-going on the ship, and 2. it goes to the entire crew pool; so, who knows what they actually do with it in terms of distribution among personnel.

On our one and done cruise on NCL in 2017 in order to remove the service charge you had to request in writing with specific reasons and names as to why they should be removed. The last day of that cruise I was in line for guest services to question an item on my bill and the man in front of me was arguing with them about his service charges. He told them where he lived there was no tipping and he refused to pay on the ship. He was told by a supervisor that his excuse was not valid and he had to submit his request with specifics in writing. I have no idea how that came out.

Edited February 7, 2023 by terrydtx

[terrydtx]

23 minutes ago, kirtihk said:

right ... and increasing gratuities at the same time.  That was my point.  Norwegian just increased theirs: $20 per/day for up to balcony (from $16 that was also implemented recently from $14.50 previous), and $26 above balcony (family of 4 in 14-day cruise would pay almost $1,500 just in tips).  That's roughly 40-60% increase in <1 year!!!

 

From the other point, these days air is almost $2,000 per person economy to fly to Europe for a cruise, but that's a different story...

Wow I believe that makes NCL the highest in the mainstream cruise industry. More than I pay in a Celebrity Retreat Sky Suite.