Cabin door left open

[Gomac]

We are currently on Queen Anne and everything has been great so far! However the group we are travelling with went back to their cabin this evening after dinner around 11pm to find their door had been left open. They are 3 women alone in the cabin and they were quite anxious (to the point of being scared of opening the bathroom door in case someone was still in their cabin) so called the purser who dismissed it as housekeeping. I’m sorry but leaving the cabin door open for what must have been several hours is unacceptable and a basic security risk. Had the pursers desk have taken us seriously I think that would have been reassuring and the end of it but the fact they think this is not a big deal and dismissed it is unacceptable.
 

Can anyone please recommend the right course of action to escalate this whilst onboard please.

[Lanky Lad]

You were correctly advised that it is a housekeeping issue, so the person to complain to would be the head of housekeeping. I would expect it will have been fed back for the steward/stewardess to get an ear bashing. 

[roscoe39]

doesn't the Queen Ann have self closing doors??? 

[3rdGenCunarder]

2 hours ago, roscoe39 said:

doesn't the Queen Ann have self closing doors??? 

 

Yes, but housekeeping will wedge a door open while they're working.

[BklynBoy8]

I agree with those above that the department supervisor (housekeeping or Hotel Manager) should be approached. Your concern about the way cabins are being handled while being turnover either in the morning or during turndown service in the evening be explained to you. It not uncommon for veteran Cunarders to view this during their sailings.

 

We commonly see this during the cabins being served by the cabin steward on our sailings with several cabins door open. As mentioned above, with a wedge. Also you will know cabin stewards at working with the Service Wagon in the hallway btw the cabins.

 

If you have concern if someone is inside, do not enter but call the name of our Steward if they are there. If not there, they maybe next door. I believe they do keep an eye on their cabins.

 

If you have further concerns, do call the Ship's Operator to have Security response to the cabin.

[Clewgarnet]

2 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

Yes, but housekeeping will wedge a door open while they're working.

My door doesn't have quite enough strength to the closing mechanism to get it past the rather stiff latch. I wonder if OP's friends' is the same?

[Poole Boy]

6 hours ago, Gomac said:

We are currently on Queen Anne and everything has been great so far! However the group we are travelling with went back to their cabin this evening after dinner around 11pm to find their door had been left open. They are 3 women alone in the cabin and they were quite anxious (to the point of being scared of opening the bathroom door in case someone was still in their cabin) so called the purser who dismissed it as housekeeping. I’m sorry but leaving the cabin door open for what must have been several hours is unacceptable and a basic security risk. Had the pursers desk have taken us seriously I think that would have been reassuring and the end of it but the fact they think this is not a big deal and dismissed it is unacceptable.
 

Can anyone please recommend the right course of action to escalate this whilst onboard please.

How open was it, fully wedged open or just not closed properly. if you are still concerned speak to the customer services manager. Does it look like a deliberant act or is it just the door did not close properly. While not wishing to underplay your concernes, the implications for your steward for what could have been an accident could be quite serious.

[Craigrlewis]

2 hours ago, Clewgarnet said:

My door doesn't have quite enough strength to the closing mechanism to get it past the rather stiff latch. I wonder if OP's friends' is the same?

Just got off QA last week and ours was the same.  We had to do an exaggerated pull on the handle and check it was closed each time.

[exlondoner]

2 hours ago, Poole Boy said:

How open was it, fully wedged open or just not closed properly. if you are still concerned speak to the customer services manager. Does it look like a deliberant act or is it just the door did not close properly. While not wishing to underplay your concernes, the implications for your steward for what could have been an accident could be quite serious.

This is all true, but I think you underplay the level of fear women have to face daily simply through being female.

[Victoria2]

1 hour ago, Craigrlewis said:

Just got off QA last week and ours was the same.  We had to do an exaggerated pull on the handle and check it was closed each time.

Interesting QA observation.

I too always checked the door was fully shut after luckily seeing it hadn't snapped shut on one occasion.

[Victoria2]

3 hours ago, Clewgarnet said:

My door doesn't have quite enough strength to the closing mechanism to get it past the rather stiff latch. I wonder if OP's friends' is the same?

We had a similar issue so I checked every time to make sure it snapped shut.

 

Didn't think anything about it but three of us had the same issue so maybe time to report it.

[Gomac]

The door wasn’t wedged wide open. For some reason the lock had been turned and this prevented it closing. The blank housekeeping keycard was also in the slot. Realistically this means the door was left open for 3 hours. 

[Pushpit]

2 minutes ago, Gomac said:

The door wasn’t wedged wide open. For some reason the lock had been turned and this prevented it closing. The blank housekeeping keycard was also in the slot. Realistically this means the door was left open for 3 hours. 

This has the hallmark of someone rushing through housekeeping and not keeping track of what they were doing. Housekeeping often use the  double lock to prevent the door from closing, as well as using the wedge, since they may only have one wedge to hand and / or the wedge isn't always effective. Simple human error, which a bit of coaching, guidance and experience will fix.

 

From the sounds of it the door was closed to the frame area but could be easily pushed open. I can see the worry this would cause but I'm sure nothing untoward happened. The riffraff is usually priced out of Cunard's ships.

 

I did once have a stateroom where the previous guest had left the sink running after departure and a substantial amount of water filled the bathroom floor and even got over the bathroom door frame on to the "hall" carpet just outside. Now I should have asked for another stateroom but at the time I hadn't appreciated the sheer amount of water involved, I thought it would only take a couple of hours. They ran a humidifier in my room for 2 days (stopping at night), which resulted in the door staying wedged open all day for 2 days. I did once find a befuddled older guest in my room (early onset, I suspect, his wife was almost besides herself when I reunited them) but otherwise nothing bad happened.

[Gwendy]

Please escalate to housekeeping.  This is concerning.  I would not want to find someone wandering around my cabin, befuddled or not.  As a woman, this is scary when you come back late at night, there are some strange people out there, even on Cunard.

[BigMac1953]

Why is it so scary just because it's a woman. Does nothing ever happen to men? This is all very sexist.

 

From what I've read, it was a simple mistake. An accident.

 

Nothing was touched or stolen.

 

Perhaps we should take a vote to see how many people want the room steward sacked and put off at the next port?

[Gwendy]

No one wants room steward sacked, just reminded to be more aware.

This unfortunately is not a sexist issue, it is a fact of life. Check statistics for assaults on both sexes.  Women come in much higher than men.

[*Miss G*]

I wouldn’t escalate it (on the first incident) to the head of housekeeping but I would, kindly, seek out and mention it to the room steward when they are back on duty. Escalation would be when it happens again. 

[Gwendy]

Just now, *Miss G* said:

I wouldn’t escalate it (on the first incident) to the head of housekeeping but I would, kindly, seek out and mention it to the room steward when they are back on duty. Escalation would be when it happens again. 

That’s a sensible response.

[exlondoner]

17 minutes ago, BigMac1953 said:

Why is it so scary just because it's a woman. Does nothing ever happen to men? This is all very sexist.

 

 

Look at the figures. What proportion of rapes/sexual assaults are against men? A few, but not many. 

[BigMac1953]

2 minutes ago, exlondoner said:

Look at the figures. What proportion of rapes/sexual assaults are against men? A few, but not many. 

 

...but not none either.

 

It's not just assaults, it's thefts as well.

[Pushpit]

The risk is there but yes, men are on average more likely than women to be the victims of "personal crime" and by quite some margin. 70% of murder victims are male. Source. But the risk of having an accident, falling over something, falling down stairs is greater still and doesn't discriminate by gender, though men again tend to have more bad things happen to them.  Risk is a funny thing, it's a natural and vital human protection method but humans are often poor judges of risk. People worry about the risk of flying and yet don't worry about driving to airports. The latter kills massively more people than the former. 

 

Still, it's not great that housekeeping made a mistake here, it's a bad outcome however you look at it, and yes I would support a word with the relevant steward, s/he is likely to take more care in the future, which is all one would want.

[Winifred 22]

I just did a door check today and my door didn’t close automatically. I needed it pull

the handle to close it. I probably do it as 2nd nature as my front door at home has to be closed by the handle. I concur with the other folk I would not escalate and have a word with steward personally. He/ she was probably very upset when they realized they had lost their card. And I  am thinking seeing a steward card in the door may have deterred an opportunist wrong doer from entering as they may have thought the cabin was being serviced. 

[david,Mississauga]

Especially because this issue was at 11:00 p.m., I think the purser's office should have sent a security officer to check the cabin to re-assure the passengers no-one was inside. Dismissing it as "housekeeping" wasn't good enough.

[tacticalbanjo]

It's hard to get concrete numbers since there are only a few, very serious, crimes that cruise ships are required to report to authorities. And it's only the US that insists on it. The most reported serious crime on cruise ships is unfortunately sexual assault. Not all of the allegations are against passengers.

 

Reports made to the DOT can be found here: https://www.transportation.gov/mission/safety/cruise-line-incident-reports

 

It's important to recognise how few crimes happen per 1000 passengers but cruising, like anything else is not a risk free activity. Women in particular are advised to be wary of their personal security and dollars to donuts, if you did get attacked some smart alec would be questioning you as to why you entered a room that had been open for an unknown amount of time.

[molecrochip]

Housekeeping have key fobs which the door system tracks so it can be fairly quick to check that the room was last accessed by housekeeping, and indeed the usual or assigned housekeeping steward.

 

If you had shared your security concern, I believe that they would have sent someone to check the room.