Huge downturn in CC reviewer scores (this one's for the nerds)

[hankandteri]

4 minutes ago, hcat said:

..how will this help improve X?

If you read the entire thread, you'll see that several people were speculating that all major cruise lines would have lower recent ratings. It was a fair point, and I wanted to know if that was true or not, so I checked the data for a few others (Carnival, HAL, Virgin) and shared the numbers here. Carnival was also way down, HAL was virtually flat, Virgin was significantly up.

[prmssk]

2 minutes ago, hankandteri said:

Yes!!!!! You totally get it. This was simply a quick and dirty exercise to see if anything popped out, and it did. I'll leave it to others to determine the reasons and meaning (if any). If anyone really cared, they could track these results over time and also check against potential variables like seasonality of reviews (is the average review higher in some seasons across all years?) and all kinds of other things. I didn't do any of that; but if I were in the executive suites in Miami, I would assign a bright intern to the task of getting all this data for X and their major competitors and start building out a spreadsheet with some serious crosstabs built in.

That would be an interesting job.  It would be really interesting to see what larger trends emerged and maybe even point to which changes may have had bigger impact than others.

[hankandteri]

31 minutes ago, prmssk said:

All the cruise lines have been making changes on a different schedule.  It has been interesting to switch between the cruise critic boards to see which board has the most negative threads at that moment (something that is constantly changing).  If you want to truly use data to find some trends both within a cruise line and as a comparison to other cruise lines, I think you need to be looking at a much larger sample over a greater time period.  5-6 weeks of time isn't very much time in the grand scheme of cruising.

 

Totally agree. It would be very interesting to see how any cruise line's score averages at any given point moved when layered against the timing of operational changes (such as improvements or declines in food or entertainment).

[killaypirate]

The important fact is that this is a downward trend. It doesn’t matter if other cruise lines are also going down. X is probably maintaining its position relative to most other lines but at a far lower absolute standard.

[Georgia_Peaches]

14 minutes ago, hankandteri said:

I didn't do any of that; but if I were in the executive suites in Miami, I would assign a bright intern to the task of getting all this data for X and their major competitors and start building out a spreadsheet with some serious crosstabs built in.

I'm retired and would love a job like that....but they'd have to pay me a TON of money...lol!

[prmssk]

Just now, killaypirate said:

The important fact is that this is a downward trend. It doesn’t matter if other cruise lines are also going down. X is probably maintaining its position relative to most other lines but at a far lower absolute standard.

Or it could just be a bad 5-6 weeks or maybe some really disgruntled passengers.

 

(That is not to dismiss the negative changes Celebrity clearly has been making.  I'm just not sure if 60 reviews on a site that only represents a minority of passengers cruising on Celebrity is enough to truly show a downward trend for cruise line as a whole.)

 

As a data person, to me I need to see much larger trends to draw a conclusion on numbers alone.  As a cruiser, I'm more interested in the specifics of the reviews (and how they match with what I want out of cruising) than the exact number a reviewer assigns to their review.

[~Jewels]

16 minutes ago, killaypirate said:

The important fact is that this is a downward trend. It doesn’t matter if other cruise lines are also going down. X is probably maintaining its position relative to most other lines but at a far lower absolute standard.

Well said. We choose between land-based vacations, Caribbean AI's, and cruising. What has been happening on the cruising side is what has had our vacation dollars being spent on the other two options the past few years. Not sure it will ever go back to what it was in terms of value and quality of service, but the Caribbean AI's are still cost-competitive without standards deteriorating.  

 

I find it hard to believe that what we read on CC and other social media would differ from X's survey data unless it is spin-doctored....much like how cookiegate was spun by X.

[cyntil8ing]

22 minutes ago, prmssk said:

Or it could just be a bad 5-6 weeks or maybe some really disgruntled passengers.

It could also be external factors. Lots of hurricanes lately causing itinerary changes. It's outside the cruise lines' control, but could effect ratings.

[Guest ldtr]

34 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

If I'm understanding correctly, the OP compared scores of the last 60 reviewers to the average historical rating for Celebrity and found a drop in overall rating scores for Celebrity.   The next set of data, should someone be inclined, could look at the most recent 60 reviewers of MSC, RCL, NCL, etc and compare the same thing...has the over all rating score given on _____ cruise line dropped, gone up, remained the same since _____ time frame.  Once the data from several lines are collected then one could begin to draw conclusions as to whether it's just Celebrity who has dropped of if it appears to be an industry wide trend.  Maybe I misunderstood you point (or OP's) but looking at changes in data over a period of time for a given cruise line is not apples to oranges.

Should be based upon same time slice, not necessarily a number of reviews because they could cover different time periods.

 

There is a correlation between time from restart and reviews.

 

Since covid travelers seem to be much less patient and more critical than pre covid. This is not only for cruise lines but travel providers in general. Part of it is carry over of one issue in a trip impacting ones perception of other portions.

 

As such comparisons of similar time slices would be key. I expect  the scores for most providers in 2023 to be lower than in 2019 for example.

[Mike981]

Like others, I like to check out other cruise lines forum pages to see how things are going for them.

A few weeks ago I started to monitor the Carnival forum. It was fun since our family has cruised with them several times and to hear about some of our past cruise ships. What I noticed between the Celebrity forum and Carnival, was there was much more negativity on the Celebrity forum. I did it for a couple of weeks and it stayed rather consistent.

 

Who knows why, maybe Carnival isn't doing as many negative changes? But any-who, I thought it was interesting.

[Guest ldtr]

Just now, ~Jewels said:

Well said. We choose between land-based vacations, Caribbean AI's, and cruising. What has been happening on the cruising side is what has had our vacation dollars being spent on the other two options the past few years. Not sure it will ever go back to what it was in terms of value and quality of service, but the Caribbean AI's are still cost-competitive without standards deteriorating.  

 

I find it hard to believe that what we read on CC and other social media would differ from X's survey data unless it is spin-doctored....much like how cookiegate was spun by X.

Funny this is that data shows land based resorts have increased more compared to 2019 that cruises. Prior to Covid mass market cruises (including Celebrity) in general were about a 15% discount compared to equivalent land based. That discount reached 45% in early 2023. Cruise lines are expected to increase prices to narrow that gap to the more historic levels.

 

Reviews of hotels   including AI properties are also down compared to pre covid. One of the reasons a number of them have changed brands or been sold recently such as Hyatts purchase of several AI brands such a Zilara and Ziva.

[Guest ldtr]

Just now, Mike981 said:

Like others, I like to check out other cruise lines forum pages to see how things are going for them.

A few weeks ago I started to monitor the Carnival forum. It was fun since our family has cruised with them several times and to hear about some of our past cruise ships. What I noticed between the Celebrity forum and Carnival, was there was much more negativity on the Celebrity forum. I did it for a couple of weeks and it stayed rather consistent.

 

Who knows why, maybe Carnival isn't doing as many negative changes? But any-who, I thought it was interesting.

Might be the timing. CCL owned brands including Carnival, Princess and HAL have had their owned periods of complaints. Though they are somewhat quiet at the moment. Go back a couple of months. for example on Princess you will find changes to OBC, formerly free venues now being charged for, changes in the pricing and inclusions in the packages, negatively impacting those that do not buy packages. Other lines have their own triggering issues.

[Mike981]

You are probably correct @ldtr. For some reason I was expecting the outcome to be the opposite.

[gold1953]

2 hours ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

 

Does it though? How many people go out of their way to provide a glowing review? But if they have an axe to grind...they'll take any attention they can get. 

exactly!!

 

[jelayne]

I find the info on Celebrity interesting but not surprising.  How Carnival, HAL, MSC or NCL fared is not at all important to me as my current booking are with Celebrity.  I have no interest to moving to the above cruise lines.

[jean87510]

I had 2 reviews deleted by cruise critic when I criticized the 2021 restrictions on Royal.  So remember this forum also monitors and deletes reviews as well.  

 

Edited to add and I'm sure this post will be gone soon but had to make a point.

Edited October 10, 2023 by jean87510

[Cap_D]

FWIW, I've observed more blistering reviews by established YouTubers in recent weeks.  Zach, Ben and David, Jared and Justin, Gary Bembridge, Don, and others.  Their type and level of criticism varies, as do the cruise line products they are reviewing, but it's present, public, and accessible.  

 

My guess is the shipboard push by crew to complete the post cruise survey is just as strong as ever.   

[Arizona Wildcat]

2 hours ago, ldtr said:

an apples to oranges comparison. You need to compare the recent Celebrity scores, to the scores for the other cruise lines for the same period. Comparing recent for one to historical for others is not good practice.

 

I expect that you will find all lines have dropped in the same period.

Absolutely agree.  Short staffed and lower food quality are thing we observed with Celebrity,  Princess and HAL. 

Simply put things have changed from "the good old days".

As Jeremiah said, also remember cruise reviews are often reviewed.  Two of mine were rejected as well.  I assume over critical comments.

Edited October 10, 2023 by Arizona Wildcat

[Rustyman]

Well done Hankandteri for putting numbers to what we found on our August cruise. Always loved Celebrity until then and we were shocked at the downturn in quality caused by management decisions and not staff. 
Like others above we aren’t overly concerned about scores for other lines other than as comparators to the downward spiral of Celebrity. Celebrity HQ must read these boards and surely can’t keep blocking their ears whilst shouting lalalala’s to all of their concerned cruisers.

let’s hope common sense prevails and we see the review scores make a sudden bolt upwards.

[StephSch]

3 hours ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

Two things...

 

Comparables to the competition would be poignant. I don't have time to do it but I would imagine all of them have taken a dip recently. 

 

In direct contrast, Celebrity says their owns NPS is higher than it has even been. 

 

So, I think one of the reasons the NPS are higher is because staff is asking for high scores and we are afraid of lowering our score because we dont want it to hurt the wonderful staff. It isnt their fault that corporate is making decisions that are terrible. It really is terrible that Celebrity links the pay for staff to NPS. 

[wineoclock]

Well done. At some point Celebrity will need to start listening. 

[Georgia_Peaches]

1 hour ago, ldtr said:

As such comparisons of similar time slices would be key. I expect  the scores for most providers in 2023 to be lower than in 2019 for example.

Excellent point!  I completely agree!

[wineoclock]

35 minutes ago, Cap_D said:

FWIW, I've observed more blistering reviews by established YouTubers in recent weeks.  Zach, Ben and David, Jared and Justin, Gary Bembridge, Don, and others.  Their type and level of criticism varies, as do the cruise line products they are reviewing, but it's present, public, and accessible.  

 

My guess is the shipboard push by crew to complete the post cruise survey is just as strong as ever.   

Can you post a link to Gary Bembridge review if possible please as I can’t find anything. 

[DaKahuna]

5 minutes ago, wineoclock said:

Can you post a link to Gary Bembridge review if possible please as I can’t find anything. 

 

I assume you are talking about his YouTube video's.

 

https://www.youtube.com/@tipsfortravellers/videos

 

 

[Jeremiah1212]

24 minutes ago, StephSch said:

 

So, I think one of the reasons the NPS are higher is because staff is asking for high scores and we are afraid of lowering our score because we dont want it to hurt the wonderful staff. It isnt their fault that corporate is making decisions that are terrible. It really is terrible that Celebrity links the pay for staff to NPS. 

 

The NPS score would be different than the post-cruise survey. I haven't taken one in a while so I'm not sure if there is one attached but the NPS results would come from a single question rating 0-10 rather than a series of questions. A lower score is detractor, middle score is passive and high score is a promoter then it's simply the promoter percentage minus the detractor percentage. It would look like this one.