Here are the "name & shames" and the "not so good"! My motto is that some things will always go wrong....but it's not what goes wrong that matters, but how you put it right. So lets get the bad and ugly out of the way!!!
person in question really let the dining team down with her behaviour. Our staff had been exemplary, and I felt there was no excuse for what she did. We were seated on the 2nd tier of the Dining Room, the Coppelia. Our table was at the edge of the balcony so we could see down to the bottom tier and the Captain's Table. Right below our bit of balcony was a service station. One night at dinner we heard this weird sound, almost like cooing. We turned around and this female officer, who we had never seen in the dining room before, was standing at the balcony rail, looking over and down to the service station below. She continued to make this stupid noise which was most annoying and it went on for quite a while. In an attempt to make the point that we could hear her and that we were getting annoyed I got up and looked over the balcony where she was standing and saw a male waiter below looking up and laughing with her. The Officer jumped back when she saw me noticing what she was doing and gave a little nervous laugh. She was obviously embarassed which is a sure sign you've been caught doing something you shouldn't!
place and started the stupid noise again calling this chap over the balcony. She was laughing and giggling to herself and then I noticed she had ice cubes in her hand. She looked around, (didnt notice me looking at her) and raised a hand over the balcony to drop the ice cube. I said to her "Should you be doing that?" and again came the embarrassed smile. In my opinion this was disgraceful behaviour from an Officer, not just from a safety point of view. I can imagine what would happen to a waiter if they were caught doing this - they would probably be sacked. Furthermore, if she had hit a guest with her ice cubes, I dont think she would be on the ship the next day!
off to give us an outstanding dining experience, some immature officer wanders in and acts like a five year old within sight and sound of guests and staff, right in the middle of dinner service. It was an insult to the staff and crew that manage to maintain a professional and courteous demeanour at all times. So female officer (you know who you are!)...get a grip, start acting with dignity or ditch the stripes! There are plenty of staff who don't have them but deserve them more than you!
had started so well. We were sailing down the river and were going to sail under the bridge. Captain Bang announced that there would be a 2 metre gap between the hightest point of the ship and the bridge. Guests and crew crowded the decks to watch the spectacle. We all breathed in as we went under and a huge applause went up when we cleared the bridge with no damage to man or ship!
dignitaries got on board and we watched the gangways put into place which was hysterical as the chap who was doing ours actually got lifted off the ground by the crane as he was holding onto a small piece of rope and trying to guide the gangway towards the ship.
and head for the shuttle buses. That's when it all went wrong! 3000 left there seats and made their way to disembark on deck 4. 3000 people left the ship and meandered along the pier to the exit terminal. 3000 people joined the queue to get out of the terminal.... then....3000 stopped. 3000 people waited.... and waited....and waited.. and waited. One of those 3000 people took this photo (right)....me! No-one knew what was going on. We assumed that it was Portugese customs or something to do with passport control. Little did we know that this was the queue for the shuttle bus! Ladies on the dock handed out blue baseball hats and welcomed us to Lisbon. We wonder now whether they knew we were going to be standing in the sun waiting. Had the band played too early? Were they supposed to be the entertainment for the queue!
only to find that the mass of bodies was still.......queuing! Now we Brits are good at queuing. We know the rules and stick to them and woe betide those that dont. Two ladies pushed infront of us and the lady in the wheelchair we were talking to. We made sure they knew how rude they had been! And dont you find it always the way that when someone jumps a queue infront of you, that your elbows take on a life of their own and manage to navigate swift justice to those that dare to break the rules?!! After an hour, everyone was getting a little fractious to say the least so some bright spark from the port staff decided to split the queue and form a second one which weaved around the coaches. This person was not the brightest button on the coat or even the shiniest pebble on the beach. Given a brain cell they would've probably been dangerous! We would probably have been the next to board a coach but now we were being herded around the coaches to "stand in the shade". Fine we thought, until the people behind us then went and re-formed the original queue and consequently, within seconds we had another 300 or so people infront of us. There wasnt a shuttle bus to be seen. One of the RCI girls who, in Marseille, had been as much use as a chocolate teacup, was wandering up and down the queues with a clip board and phone but doing little else. From what I saw she couldn't run a bath, let alone organise 3000 people off a ship! I felt like finding a clip board of my own and getting into the thick of it to sort it out!! I mean its not hard for crying out loud! So now well over an hour later and no nearer to catching even a glimpse of a shuttle bus let alone getting onboard one, people started the Mexican Moan. It murmurred up and down the queue, around the back of the coaches and over the top of the terminal to the other side! When a shuttle bus did eventually come into view we noticed that the queue we were in was not moving, even though we would have been destined for this bus in the first queue. The girl was allowing the people who had been behind us to board the bus, rather than streaming what should have been the first queue onto the bus. It was chaos and they really lost control of the situation. No one seemed to be in charge or take control. RCI could have saved the day if they had just TALKED to people, informed them of the problem and brought some extra staff down to organise what was fast becoming a mutinous mob! People were close to adorning themselves with head scarves and gold hoop earrings, putting knives between their teeth and employing Captain Jack Sparrow to lead them in a siege of the port.....and probably the ship if things had got worse! As we only had 4 hours in the port my thoughts started to turn to what it would be like getting back. It was now gone 2 o'clock and we only had 2-3 hours left ashore. We darent risk huge queues for shuttles on the way back so along with several other 1000 people we realised we had no choice but to return to the ship! It was a disappointment to say the least, but some simple communication could have made a difference. Being left in the dark as to what was happening is what got most people's backs up. We eventually found our way back into the terminal and onto the dockside. People were still getting off the ship....and were asking as why we were coming back. We said "I wouldnt bother if I was you....do yourself a favour, get back on the ship and find the nearest bar!". We went straight to Guest Relations and joined the queue for Shuttle Refunds. I said to the girl behind the desk "I suggest you either go for lunch or get some more staff up here as 3000 people are headed your way". She smiled politely and nodded. A clear indication that she hadnt got a clue what I was talking about. She refunded our shuttle tickets and we went and had a beer instead! Ah Lisbon! What memories we have.....well at least we got a free hat!
sitting on the same day as Lisbon, when Gordon Whatman took to the stage a man in the audience stood up and started demanding answers for the chaos that had gone on earlier. He had a small following at this time of cheerers and booers who were egging him on. Apparently he kept shouting at Gordon asking for an explanation and he criticised RCI for not acknowledging the situation by some sort of announcement. I have to agree that there was a distinct silence from the ship on this matter and an announcement would have been prudent, after all it affected every passenger, not just a small group. Tours had returned late and missed dinner, most people never left the port and others had not thought to ask for a shuttle refund and so were cross they had wasted their money. Apparently Gordon handled himself most proffessionally and stated that he had no control over this, didnt steer the ship and only handled the entertainment side of things. The man would not give up and the audience started booing him to sit down. Gordon threatened to call security and then the man left. His small following shut up, sat down and the show went on. The next day Gordon announced that ALL shuttle tickets would be refunded, which annoyed some people as there were some who had caught shuttles and they too had a refund which didnt seem fair but hey ho! It fell far short of the Theatre Mutiny on Queen Mary 2, but it was enough to be the centre of ship gossip for the evening and we were quite sorry we missed it. Apparently it was entertainment in itself! If I'd known this was going to happen we'd have gone along and worn our free hats!!!! The Stinky Cabin A ship is a ship and its plumbing is known only to the maintenance team that get down and dirty with it. We understand that smells are bound to happen, but as I said earlier, its not what happens but how you put it right that counts. We entered mum's cabin first (1560) and we were delighted with what we saw. The suite was clean and fresh and we were looking forward to entering our own cabin (1564) which we did soon after. What a difference! We opened the door and were hit with the worst sewage smell we had ever encountered. It was unbearable and we immediately opened the balcony door. I had brought some air freshner but it was clear from the start it wasn't going to make a difference. It was quite overpowering and I struggle to think that stewards and heads of department couldn't smell it. We spoke to our cabin steward and she said she would talk to her supervisor and spray more air freshner. This was duly done, but on our return from dinner the mix of sewage smells and foul air freshner made it even worse. It really was awful. I sat in the cabin for only ten minutes and it was too much to bare. I went down to Guest Relations, spoke to the very ameniable George and said something needed to be done. I didnt want to move cabins or anything, I just wanted maintenance to work their magic and get rid of it! Maintenance turned up (eventually, after a second call to Guest Relations was warranted) and dealt with the problem, and apart from an occasional whiffiness nearer the end of the second week, everything was fine. George also called twice to ensure the smell had gone...good job George. Hats off to you for the follow up! Now my complaint is not that the cabin was victim to the smell of sewage, but that this problem can be avoided. Why wait for a guest to make comment? Why not think when cleaning or inspecting the cabin "There is a sewage odour - I'll call maintenance now before the guests arrive. Hope that its gone before hand and if not acknowledge to them that there is a smell but that we have dealt with it and it should soon be gone". Wouldn't this be a better way of handling a problem that is always going to exist? Navigator Housekeeping take note - if you know you have cabins which are susceptible to sewage blocks and smells, rosta with maintenance for a once a week flush through or whatever you do BEFORE the guest has chance to notice it. Do yourself a favour, anticipate the complaints and avoid them! I spoke to George on the last but one day and told him the smell was reappearing and they may want to rosta a maintenance visit once we have vacated the cabin so that the next guests would not have the problem we had. He made a note of it and explained he had no idea what maintenance did but it involved a long hose and a lot of poking about! I said that it had had an impact on our first impression and that it could so easily have been avoided if someone had taken the initiative to sort it out earlier but thanked him for his help. Maybe, like immunity to the motion in the ocean, staff get immune to the smells too! Either way, make life easier for yourself RCI.....sort it out before guests arrive and save yourself the hassle! Moral of the story......RCI - anticpate......Guests - dont just moan about it, tell the crew and they'll get it sorted! Its a problem that can go away! Not a lot to moan about....or even tut about for that matter! These are not complaints, just observations. None of the above ruined our cruise or have caused us to demand a free cruise or full refund!! The most annoying things on our cruise were passengers!....But these are still events worthy of note.
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| THE RUSTY ANCHOR AWARDS |
| The Officer That Should Have Known Better! |
| Lisbon - we came, we went, we saw nothing! |
| Mutiny in the Metropolis! |
| The Stinky Cabin! |
| In Conclusion.. |
