Ms

[fritter]

Miracle December6 On returning from a Carnival excursion entered my room and saw a strange man on my balcony. I called the desk to have someone confront him as I wasn't going to open my door which luckily was locked. The woman who answered told me if someone was on the balcony that I had to have authorized it. Impossible-we were on one of their excursions. Someone did come to the room and closed the balcony divider which had special hardware to lock unlock and to hold it open. So it appears that someone from Carnival opened it. I emailed Bob D. as I feel Carnival put me in an unsafe situation. What good is the peephole on the front door(which I always use) when they let someone in the back. Should I expect a reply and how long should it take?

[pusspie]

Miracle December6 On returning from a Carnival excursion entered my room and saw a strange man on my balcony. I called the desk to have someone confront him as I wasn't going to open my door which luckily was locked. The woman who answered told me if someone was on the balcony that I had to have authorized it. Impossible-we were on one of their excursions. Someone did come to the room and closed the balcony divider which had special hardware to lock unlock and to hold it open. So it appears that someone from Carnival opened it. I emailed Bob D. as I feel Carnival put me in an unsafe situation. What good is the peephole on the front door(which I always use) when they let someone in the back. Should I expect a reply and how long should it take?

 

 

Who's Bob D.? And what became of the mysterious balcony man? Did you contact any cruise authorities (police/security) other than the "woman" you mentioned? Surely you took more action than what's indicated in your post.

[cruisinbuddy]

Bob D. is the head boss of Carnival. Yet I don't think that he'd even see the email from the OP, he has staff and I'm sure they don't give a S___.

Personally I would have went out ther and confronted the SOB.

[MrPete]

Slowly put the drink down. Find the off button to your PC, push it, and go to sleep.

[LHP]

Ok, you left a lot of details out.

 

Was the man in a maintenance jumpsuit or dressed like he was a tourist at Cozumel???

 

Maintenance men routine walk through all the balconies in the scheduled cleaning routine. They do have a "pass" key, but it is to lock and unlock your balcony dividers as they clean down that side of the ship. They never enter your room and if your drapes had been closed, you would have never known they were there. (unless you heard them cleaning or doing routine inspections)

 

Think about it....maintenance can't ignore the entire sides of a ship just because you might be in the cabin. And they certainly are not going to call every cabin and "get permission" to be on your balcony. It is usually while they are in port that this maintenance or inspections take place.

 

Always keep your balcony door locked. (even when you are in the room)

[pusspie]

Slowly put the drink down. Find the off button to your PC, push it, and go to sleep.

 

:D Yup....that could help! lol!

Fritter........what's up with this? Can you share more info?

LHP......Ok, so I shouldn't be suprised if, upon returning to our room or opening the drapes, we find a maintenance man on our balcony while in port? Are the balconies easily accessible from one to another? And if that person isn't wearing maintenance personnel attire, just who would we contact with our concerns? I'm afraid being brushed off by some woman (as op indicated) just wouldn't set well with either dh or myself, and we'd be much more aggressive in our handling of this type of situation. But in order to keep from going to the pokey ourselves, there must be security options for ship passengers. I think I'll contact Carnival myself and just see what they have to offer in the way of policy and advice. Nothing like going straight to the proverbial "top"......if that's possible.:rolleyes:

[yst347]

I would take his picture then go to security and demand he be identified and explain why he was on the balcony.

[Guienevere_Arianette]

We returned from Conquest a few weeks ago, and the first thing my fiance did was go check the locks on the balcony dividers; he deemed them worthless :rolleyes: I'm sure he was exaggerating, but he did show me and explained that the "lock' was a simple cube shaped hole; wouldn't be difficult at all to jimmy. Now, not that I think this happened to the OP; I just wanted to share his observation (he is also of the paranoid type, I should add; we kept balcony door locked at all times, and even when we were in the room he had the balcony door locked and the extra lock on the cabin door in place.:p

[WERA]

The "locks" between dividers are not locks but tamper proof bolts essentially. They are not for security, it would be easy enough to climb aorund them anyway. The lock is on the door from the balcony to your room...

 

And I've had a maintenance dude on my balcony on Miracle, it startled me at first but it wasn't something I felt was scary or in any way inappropriate.

[WERA]

Dangit, double post on a single click and no refresh :p

[cck0000]

There was a card on our coffee table stating that our balcony was due for its regularly scheduled cleaning while we were in port that day(i forget which day that was).

Perhaps you missed that notification.

[momofzeke]

I haven't had a balcony cabin, so I really can't comment. I was just curious, though ~ what does the title to your thread mean, OP? Ms? :confused:

[truecruiser]

I would take his picture then go to security and demand he be identified and explain why he was on the balcony.

 

Now that's a good idea! I have never even worried about whether our balcony was locked or unlocked. as long as the door was closed, i didn't give it a second thought ... until the thread a month or so ago where a poster found a maintenance man in her cabin on her return. Now i think i'll be lockin';)

[hstrybuf]

When maintenance enters through your cabin door, they knock first then, I believe the steward must use a pass key to open the door if the cabin is empty. When in port, they use a special tool to open the balcony partitions. That makes it easier for them to clean an entire side of the ship rather than going from balcony to balcony.

 

If you enter your cabin and find a stranger on the balcony either confront them or call and ask for security immediately.

 

Our steward on the Miracle never left the cabin without making sure the balcony door was locked and neither did we.

[truecruiser]

When maintenance enters through your cabin door, they knock first then, I believe the steward must use a pass key to open the door if the cabin is empty. When in port, they use a special tool to open the balcony partitions. That makes it easier for them to clean an entire side of the ship rather than going from balcony to balcony.

 

If you enter your cabin and find a stranger on the balcony either confront them or call and ask for security immediately.

 

Our steward never left the cabin without making sure the balcony door was locked and neither did we.

 

if you search for the thread, i'm almost positive that the OP stated that the maintenance worker entered through the balcony door.

[hstrybuf]

Yes, there's a duplicate thread and this is what she said: "Upon returning to my room I saw a strange man on my balcony and the divider open to the next balcony. Called the desk and asked them to get him off. My stateroom door was locked,luckily, and I wasn't going to confront him."

 

So it appears he was on her balcony and that the divider to the adjacent balcony was open. My guess is, he was maintenance or her neighbor taking a little stroll because the divider was left open. Whatever the case, just remember to lock that balcony door before leaving the cabin. You can't count on a great steward checking all the doors.

[fritter]

The man on the balcony was from the stateroom next to mine. The divider between our two balconies had been opened and the divider door hooked to the rail with special hardware Carnival uses for that purpose. A man dressed in a brown uniform? came to the room and told the man he couldn't be on the balcony then closed and locked the divider door. He had special tools to do this. He and the woman on the phone were the only ones I talked to about this. The woman obviously didn't know what she was talking about and the man didn't speak English as his first language so I didn't get any real information. This definitely was not a worker on the balcony. Had a note the day before that workers would be outside and they were. No problem. This was a trip with my daughter. We probably didn't get the people involved that needed to be. We have traveled alot but this shook us up and we weren't thinking of anything but the quick fix at the time. Sorry, I double posted.

[WERA]

So they made a mistake and left the divider open, then corrected it immediately, sounds good to me.

[WERA]

So they made a mistake and left the divider open, then corrected it immediately, sounds good to me.

[hstrybuf]

fritter, your neighbor was obviously out of bounds. He should have known better.

[truecruiser]

No. This was the post i was talking about b/4. (not sure how to copy thread link).

 

 

Lock your balcony doors!

Just got off Glory Nov. 4, and we never thought about locking our balcony door since who would want to climb to it? Well ... on one of the port days there was a notice in our room and the capers that they were going to clean the balconies and to close the drapes, but nothing about locking the doors. My husband and myself did not go ashore since I was not feeling too well so after breakfast came back up to our room. We weren't in the room more than 10 min. when suddenly the balcony door opened through the drapes and this maintenance man stepped in and when he saw us, said excuse me and quickly went back out! We were so stunned and taken by surprise and couldn't figure out what he was doing coming inside the cabin! We reported it to the desk but they just shrugged it off. Makes you think, if we weren't in there would he have gone thru our belongings, drawers or what?? Usually I feel confident about our room steward and leave things laying around like jewelry, my purse and money, or should I say I try to put these things in the closet or drawers, but sometimes you are in a hurry and just get careless as the cruise progresses. And once the steward cleans the cabin in the am you know he won't be back until you leave for dinner, right? After this incident you can be sure we will always lock our balcony doors when we leave the room! In 22 cruises never has this happened before!

[hstrybuf]

Thanks truecruiser! I remember reading that thread last month. It wasn't the OP though. Still, a good lesson for everyone to learn.

[pusspie]

I don't understand all this being "brushed off" or "shrugged off" thing regarding intruders into your room. ^^ I guess you either choose to take it or not. When you pay for a service as expensive as a cruise can obviously be, intruders into your private room isn't part of the bargain. A guest should be given complete satisfaction and peace of mind regarding their safety, and I'm sure there are those whose jobs are to deal with it....maybe they sometimes need a little more encouragement.

This has all been very interesting information. Having prior knowledge or "heads up" on possible situations can certainly take some of the suprise factor down a notch.

 

btw........Are the balconies on the Ecstasy private or open to the neighbors?? We'll have a cat 12 suite with balcony and I'll be soooo disappointed if we have to "share the sunset" with everyone on that side of the ship!;) 'Course with friends on one side of us and Mom on the other, it won't be like having strangers out there. But still.........:)

[kujobie]

No. This was the post i was talking about b/4. (not sure how to copy thread link).

 

 

Lock your balcony doors!

Just got off Glory Nov. 4, and we never thought about locking our balcony door since who would want to climb to it? Well ... on one of the port days there was a notice in our room and the capers that they were going to clean the balconies and to close the drapes, but nothing about locking the doors. My husband and myself did not go ashore since I was not feeling too well so after breakfast came back up to our room. We weren't in the room more than 10 min. when suddenly the balcony door opened through the drapes and this maintenance man stepped in and when he saw us, said excuse me and quickly went back out! We were so stunned and taken by surprise and couldn't figure out what he was doing coming inside the cabin! We reported it to the desk but they just shrugged it off. Makes you think, if we weren't in there would he have gone thru our belongings, drawers or what?? Usually I feel confident about our room steward and leave things laying around like jewelry, my purse and money, or should I say I try to put these things in the closet or drawers, but sometimes you are in a hurry and just get careless as the cruise progresses. And once the steward cleans the cabin in the am you know he won't be back until you leave for dinner, right? After this incident you can be sure we will always lock our balcony doors when we leave the room! In 22 cruises never has this happened before!

 

I didn't see this post originally, but I would think that the maintenance crew would have to go through someone's cabin in order to get to and from the balcony area and the interior of the ship. As for the current thread, a maintenace person probably got a request to open the dividers, and opened the wrong one, and your neighbor may have been a cruise newbie and thought that on day three his balcony magically doubled in size. The problem was solved and nobody's panties got stolen so I don't see what the big deal is. But you'll get 15% off a future cruise and we'll all pay a little more to make up the difference.

[WERA]

There is a huge difference to me between the guy walking in the room via the balcony and the OP in this thread with someone on the balcony.

 

Of course my wife grew up in Chicago, I'm lucky my bedroom door in at home isn't always locked...