To Windstar Management (know You Are Looking!)

[schmidlapp]

This will be our 3rd Windstar cruise all on the Windsurf. Will be on the

Monaco Grand Prix cruise in May. P L E A S E G E T I T R I G H T!

Our first Windstar (Windsurf) cruise was fantastic, (about 6 yrs ago)

Second one (Windsurf 2yrs ago) not so good. Ship had AC problems which

contributed to not so good dining experience and fans in the dining rooms more given out to try to cool cabins. Now that I am seeing such mixed reviews on this ship I'm wondering if this was the right choice. Sounds like new ownership may be cutting corners with staffing which was always one the strongest parts of the experience (even on our not so good last trip). One of the main reasons we booked the Surf again is the itinerary, wanted to see the Monaco GP and this seemed the best way to do it. I hope by the time

it hits the Med, they have things sorted out. My wife and I are not that

hard to please, just want what is advertised....

We made our final payment and will keep our fingers crossed.....

[Jsipes]

Please give us a report when you return...hope it works out well.

[lovecruisingtoo]

I would like to add my concerns about the new management of the Windstar ships. We have been on Windstar cruises 5 times. Each time was on the smaller ships (Windstar, Windspirit and, rest in peace, Windsong). We have now booked on the Windsurf for the first time. As you know, there have been some very negative reviews of the Surf in recent weeks. I don't know if it is a case of someone looking for issues or if there are real issues. The key is that Management needs to pay attention to the reports and see if the reports are real or imagined. Possibly a survey at the end of the cruises would be a step in finding out the thoughts of the repeat passengers. Remember, most of the people on the Windstar ships have been repeat guests.

 

All I can say is that I hope that by this summer the new Windstar management has gotten the staffing and food back to its exceptional levels that we are accustomed to. Please do not let us lose this unique experience.

[elaineeng]

Just returned from the Feb 3 Barbados to Barbados Windsurf Cruise. I will post a full report soon but want to say that we (an many on board) were very disappointed.

 

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[jandar0721]

"Possibly a survey at the end of the cruises would be a step in finding out the thoughts of the repeat passengers. "

 

There are already surveys distributed at the end of each cruise. The key would be for Management to read and act on comments! Our recent experience on the Windstar was very good -- excellent staff, perfectly acceptable food (for us). We are Windstar repeaters too.

 

However customer service was very poor. For example, they changed our room without notification or explanation (we booked a particular cabin and when tickets arrived cabin had been changed), email regarding scuba program was NEVER answered (no acknowlegement, no answer, nothing!) and we had difficulty getting prices quoted for pre-and post-cruise hotels and air fares.

 

We will be giving Winstar a rest for the time being and try another small-ship cruise line for our next cruise.

 

Just my two cents. . .

[jandar0721]

sorry. .

[cruister71]

"Possibly a survey at the end of the cruises would be a step in finding out the thoughts of the repeat passengers. "

 

For some one who claims to have been on 5 Windstar cruises I find it funny that you ask for a Survey to be handed out at the end of the cruise. They have been doing that every cruise since Holland America bought the company.

 

Perhaps if everyone stopped complaining on Cruise Critic and actually started filling in those comments forms they would hear your comments...both good and bad. It seems lately that everyone cant wait to get home and spend an hour writing about their whole cruise from beginning to end, but how many people spent 5 minutes filling in the Passenger comment booklet during their vacation when it actually goes to someone onboard who will read it.

 

As much as this forum is a great way for cruisers to talk about their cruises and ask questions to each other I really cant see a cruise line checking every post to see if its guests are happy.

[yogagal47]

We have been on Windstar 5 times and trust me-we have filled out those surveys every time! Our most recent cruise was the Windsurf for New Years. I gave them plenty of feedback, both positive and negative and also went in to speak to the hotel manager on the very first day of the cruise as we were upset to learn that they would not handout snorkel gear on that first day(even though we boarded at 3 pm or so and did not depart till later that evening). He was able to work with the watersports guys so that my husband, son and a friend could be issued their gear that night in order to be able to take an early tender for a privately arranged dive trip. When i went to get my snorkel gear at the appointed time the next morning I waited in line for over 30 minutes as only one of the watersports guys was doing the job. I think that we will try Star Clippers next year and we have a SeaDream Cruise booked for this June. I prefer to wait and see if the new management can work out some of these problems before booking with Windstar again(unless it is an alumni sailing with a bargain price!).

[elaineeng]

Ok. I will try to be objective and specific. To start with, I don't believe that Windsurf will look at the surveys as objective. Not sure they want to see any objective comments, the management ran away and were not available when problems surfaced. If I were the management I would read the customers comments on Cruise Critic every day. Anyway, here is our experience.

 

 

We made our own arrangements and arrived at the dock at 1PM. We were quickly allowed on board and shown to our cabin. No line to board which was the last time we had a no line situation.

 

:pCabins: They were very nice and very comfortable. Contrary to other reviews, the a/c worked fine and was cold enough that we did not keep it on the lowest temperature. The bed was very comfortable and the bath was nice. Plenty of storage.

 

 

 

RE: First day, Off to a bad start!

 

We boarded on Superbowl Sunday. Lots of fans were aboard, many from the northeast and many of us phoned Windstar headquarters in Florida before we booked our cruise to make sure that we would be able to view the Superbowl. We were assured that if it was made available by the satellite service , and it always has been , then they would participate in the program and show it on board. Previous passengers had been on Windstar cruises on Superbowl Sunday in the past and they always bought the "licence" to show it. This time it was available providing that they again bought the licence but they did not and everyone was surprised and many fans quite upset. Many were afraid to leave the ship for assorted reasons and were resentful, especially after learning about what a great and exciting game it was. Many of us took our chances and found places to watch on our own. We arrived back just in time for all aboard.

 

If they didn't want to pay for the licence or couldn't for any reason they could have made a pretty good profit selling it as an excursion. There are many hotels nearby with rooms available for rent. They all bought the privilege to show the game. They could have easily sold out excursions at a nice profit and kept everyone happy.

 

:oRoom Service:

 

Very punctual, although they had a bit of difficulty speaking and understanding English other than certain words such as coffee, tea, etc. If you asked for juice they picked the flavor. If you ask for V8 they don't seem to understand so they just answer OK. Then you get either orange or grapefruit.

 

:mad:Customer Service:

 

If I had to put it in one word it would be inexperienced. The hotel manager seemed overwhelmed and the front desk ladies were either incompetent or unauthorized probably a little of both and always seemed unsupervised, always polite. They were totally ineffective and if a customer asked for the manager the manager never seemed to be available. Everyone seemed to be recent hires, in general most said they had three weeks experience. To get anything fixed was a big hassle and very annoying. Even correcting errors on my bill took several days before anyone even looked at it and only after a threat from me to retrieve my credit card imprint and call the credit card company.

 

 

The general knee jerk reaction to any question/problem was "Sorry but"..... Even simple things. They just wanted you to go away and not bother them. One example: Their literature and web sites advise that there is one 120V (American type) outlet in each cabin. The first time I plugged in my hair dryer it blew the fuse. I called the front desk and was told that we could only use a 400W dryer. 400W dryers haven't been produced in 40 years! They said we should use their 220DC dryer, however, it made my hair look like I stuck my finger in a socket. I need to use a styler dryer.

 

I have a dual voltage dryer and I went to the front desk to borrow a converter plug, it is a $1 item. They had no "extras to spare". I asked to borrow it for just one hour and they refused. At this point my hair was sticking out all over and it was our first day and we were at sea. The gift shop catered to the European market and did not have American amenities for sale, although they had European converters. Strange because most customers were American.

 

I told them that if I am stuck in my room for the next day or so I would have plenty of time to write a trip report. They immediately lent me the plug converter. An hour later I returned it and they said they didn't need it and that I could keep it for the duration of the trip.

 

Another example: A few days before the end of the trip the batteries ran dead in our door key system. I had never had this happen in either a hotel or cruise before and it was totally preventable. The electronic locks flash different colors when they run low which I learned on this trip. Many rooms ran dead during this cruise and the staff responsible for the cabins never reported the low batteries (amber blinking leds). Once they went dead it was very difficult to get someone to replace the batteries leaving us with a choice of being locked in or out.

After hours stuck in our cabin and hours locked out and repeated requests to have this repair they told us not to worry, we could track down someone with a manual key each time we needed to get into our cabin. At that point I went to the bridge to complain (the hotel manager was not available) and the battery was changed promptly.

 

We had one kind of hassle or another daily which took away from what might have been a more pleasant trip. Instead we are left with a negative impression. Lots of passengers were complaining.

 

 

Food

 

The food was adequate; sometimes they had very nice selection sometimes very basic food. The chef is a super nice guy, the only person on board who understood customer service. He bent over to please and had the best staff on the ship. He was always around making sure that his staff handeled themselves in a professional and pleasant way. He truly takes pride and cares about the passengers and keeping them happy.

 

:(

Extras

We felt like we were nickel and dimed to death. I would much rather pay more and not have to deal with it. All drinks carried a premium except tap water and Lipton powder iced tea mix with sugar...sorry no sugar free. Bottled water was $3 each for a small bottle.

 

Wine by the glass was $7.50 and they only had Gallo by the glass. Fortunately, we were allowed to buy a bottle of something decent at dinner (at a very large premium...maybe $50 for a $10 bottle). We were also allowed to bring in on board to our cabins. If you tried to bring on any liquor other than wine they confiscated it and would not give it back until the cruise was over. They xray your bags every time you get on board.

 

 

:(

Other crew members were on the rude side. One morning we were waiting for the launch to return so we could go ashore. We were next on line and being held back by a chain. A large number of crew members came up behind us, pushed their way through, unattached the chain and grabbed our launch. We had to block them off and compete to get on the launch or we would have to wait for the next one.

 

 

At the very least they should wait their turn, get on line like the passengers. There were a few crew members in charge who did not stop them.

 

:)The fitness center was very nice and adequate for the size of the ship.

 

 

 

Overall I would not book on Windstar again. They have a lot of work to do to get back to where they were a few years ago. We had lunch with a passenger who took 9 Windstar cruises and said this was her last one. That this is a very different experience than in the past. We heard that from several repeat passengers.

 

 

e

[lovecruisingtoo]

"Possibly a survey at the end of the cruises would be a step in finding out the thoughts of the repeat passengers. "

 

There are already surveys distributed at the end of each cruise. The key would be for Management to read and act on comments! Our recent experience on the Windstar was very good -- excellent staff, perfectly acceptable food (for us). We are Windstar repeaters too.

 

You are correct, they do give out surveys. My wife always fills them out so I forgot that they were distributed.

 

By the way, you could use an attitude adjustment.

 

Many companies look at various boards to see what comments are being made. For example, Marriott has a person that looks at all comments (and actually helps people) on the Flyertalk.com web site. The Flyertalk site is 100 times more active than the Windstar CC site. For Windstar to check both this board and the MAL board would take maybe 15 minutes a day. Not a huge investment.

[Glaciers]

If there was a board like this one that evaluated every public aspect of my employer, and more specifically the job I was doing, I'd be in there everyday checking it out. Windstar most certainly has someone tasked with doing this daily, in addition to many of the employees who are regulars here.

 

The weird part is, they don't seem to be doing anything about it. At least it appears to be isolated to the Wind Surf and has not effected the 2 smaller ships.

 

The negative comments are such a contrast to what we experienced on the Wind Spirit in December.

[lovecruisingtoo]

Just because the reports have been limited to the Surf does not mean that the Spirit and Star will not fall to the same problems.

 

One thing that has not been mentioned is that David Giersdorf resigned from Ambassadors Cruise Group / MAL in December. Giersdorf was the one person in management that had a background in the Windstar ships. Right now Windstar has Joseph J. Ueberroth as "Interim" President - he is also Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ambassadors International. He can not put his full attention on Windstar.

 

Since Giersdorf announced his resignation in Oct., effective in December, it is obvious that they are not in a rush to fill the position. I think we are seeing the results of that inattention.

 

My wife and I have a WindSurf cruise scheduled in July and are seriously considering cancelling the cruise and moving over to Oceania.

[lovecruisingtoo]

The other day I sent a note to Windstar and received the following response:

 

Dear Mr. Lovecruisingtoo,

 

Thank you for your email. I do understand your reservations about your future cruise with us as it is true that we have undergone a transition in ownership within the past year. However, I do want to let you know that we have made it a priority to retain our brand, image, service and overall product as we had operated prior to the sale of the company. I believe we have been able to do this, and we have had many of our past passengers write to tell us that their fears were put at ease after sailing with us again so that they could see for themselves that Windstar is as they remembered it.

 

We are aware of some of the negative comments being posted on Cruise Critic, and I can assure you that we take this feedback seriously. Despite these comments, I do hope that you will feel that your experience is even better than your last cruise with us. We are making every effort to ensure you feel this way.

 

Please do not hesitate to let me know if you have any specific concerns or questions. I am happy to help!

 

Warm regards,

 

Jenny Mowrer

 

Marketing Coordinator

 

Windstar Cruises

[Surfgirl]

This almost seems like two entirely different cruise lines. It's upsetting to hear the bad reviews of Windsurf, as I was thinking of booking her from Barbados this spring.

 

I had the complete opposite experience on Windspirit this past December. I found the food was excellent, the service fabulous, the crew friendly and accommodating, and overall first class service.

 

I had a problem with the Ipod docking station in my room, and literally within minutes, they had someone at my door with a new docking station. When that didn't work, just moments later, an electrician arrived and fixed it.

 

How can they get it so right on Windspirit and so wrong on Windsurf? I think I might just stick to Windstar's two smaller ships for now until they get the problems on the Windsurf ironed out.

 

Thanks for your review!

[blackfoot]

Interesting reading!

My wife and I filled out in detail,two(2) surveys on the ship outlining the problems we were experiancing on the cruise.We gave them constructive suggestions and didn't use the survey as a complaint list.I tried to meet w/ the Hotel Director,didn't help!

 

While filling out the surveys my wife and came to the realization that it is what it is and that they don't read the surveys.I can say this because no one from Windstar has contacted us in the 4 weeks since our return from our cruise on Windsurf.We cruise 3-4 times a year but we will NOT cruise on Windstar until their performance matches their advertising!

[blackfoot]

Interesting reading!

My wife and I filled out in detail,two(2) surveys on the ship outlining the problems we were experiancing on the cruise.We gave them constructive suggestions and didn't use the survey as a complaint list.I tried to meet w/ the Hotel Director,didn't help!

 

While filling out the surveys my wife and came to the realization that it is what it is and that they don't read the surveys.I can say this because no one from Windstar has contacted us in the 4 weeks since our return from our cruise on Windsurf.We cruise 3-4 times a year but we will NOT cruise on Windstar until their performance matches their advertising!

[chicagogal]

I tend to agree with Blackfoot that no one at Windstar is reading and following up on the on board surveys. Like Blackfoot and his wife, my husband and I both filled out (2) surveys in detail. We didn't always agree, which is fine. In some places we were highly complimentary (cabin amenities, our cabin steward, some of the food, two specific people in the spa, etc.) In other categories, we gave constructive criticism. In one place - the sports platform - we were very detailed about what we saw as significant risk to the cruise line in the staffing and way it was being run. We both separately stated that they could contact us for further details as to the who, what, where and when, etc. that we witnessed or personally experienced with the sports platform staff. No one ever did. We were on board the Windsurf Dec 23-January 6th so they have had ample time to do so. We thought they would have been at least curious as to what we witnessed when we put it in terms of risk to them, wouldn't you? Guess not ...

 

Very sad downward spiral on Windsurf, it seems. We have sailed on her 5 times (plus 3 times on the little sister ships) and had very much hoped to do so again. All had been good to great experiences over 6 years. From what I am reading here, things got MUCH worse just after we got off Windsurf on January 6th. We'll see ... I think the new owners need to do something to earn our loyalty and support or risk losing all of their (formerly?) loyal repeat clientele. They know we talk on these boards. I am VERY influenced by what I am reading, even though it wasn't so bad for us just two months ago for us.

[MGC]

Unfortunately for us, if the management of Windstar is able to fill their ships with incentive groups, they really won't need to care what the loyal past cruisers have to say.

 

I only sailed twice with Windstar - once on Wind Star and once on Wind Spirit - and I really thought that I had found my future home for cruising forever. Sounds like I might need to go looking again.

[lovecruisingtoo]

My wife and I have decided to go ahead and go on our July cruise. However, we will not be booking another Windstar cruise until we see how the July cruise goes. In the meantime, we are booking an Oceania cruise for Summer 2009. Can always cancel the Oceania cruise if Windstar is what it used to be.

[mbaskin]

My wife and I will be aboard Wind Surf for the repositioning cruise from Barbados to Lisbon in April. This will be our tenth Windstar cruise and we would probably have taken more if we had found more appealing itineraries.

 

After reading the many critical messages on this board, we are very concerned about what we may encounter on this voyage. We have every hope that the experience will live up to our previous trips. If not, this may very well be our last voyage on the line. We would be quite sad were this to prove to be the case.

 

It has been, for us, a great product, and we were truly "hooked". We will see.

[chicagogal]

From mbaskin: "After reading the many critical messages on this board, we are very concerned about what we may encounter on this voyage. We have every hope that the experience will live up to our previous trips. If not, this may very well be our last voyage on the line. We would be quite sad were this to prove to be the case."

 

I truly hope you have a great Windstar experience and a fabulous trip! None of us who have concerns want to see it turn out any other way. We all have too much invested in Windstar to have to walk away now.

 

Good luck!!!

[englishtraveller]

Readers and contributors to this thread may wish to read my recent Windsurf review (posted yesterday).

[englishtraveller]

Readers and contributors to this thread may wish to read my recent Windsurf review (posted yesterday) under a different thread.

[englishtraveller]

Readers and contributors to this thread may wish to read my recent Windsurf review (posted yesterday) under a different thread.

[Beach Nut]

if you go back and re-read the posts, I think you'll find that you may have accused the wrong poster of needing an "attitude adjustment". The way it stands, it just doesn't make any sense.

 

I'm not trying to be snippy. I'd just like someone to point out such discrepancies to me when I make them, so hope this is okay.

 

Hint: similar start to posts by different posters.