On the Good Ship Swanky

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Excuse me, but how does customers having no alternative provide any incentive to provide good service?



edited to admit: NA put it better, and she beat me to it as well.

The crusie industry is very competative and relies heavily on word of mouth. They are driven by, well, conversations like this one where people go on a cruise and come back gushing about how fantastic their experience was. As you said, the smallest inconvenience or slightest poor service is magnified by the situation, so to maintain that high level of positive review, they must be stellar at all times.

[mousepod]

I have to say that I only have 2 experience on cruise ships: the Princess Line (the Alaska Inner Passage) and Disney.

The Alaska cruise was ok. The food was just adequate but plentiful. The on-board entertainment reminded me of the "small room" stuff in casinos. In short, there was nothing that I hated - but nothing that would ever make me want to cruise again.

The Disney cruise was fantastic. We'd take our morning walks on deck and we'd always see crew members touching up the paint. The food was terrific. The entertainment was, well, Disney. We saw a fun stage show that wouldn't be out of place in the parks and Toy Story 2 (this was 2000). In fact, the ports of call were the least interesting part of the cruise - in comparison to the Alaska cruise where we couldn't wait to get off the boat.

I have no idea how much money the crew made, but I can tell you that to me, they all felt like CMs. Our waiter was from England and had served on the QE2. The food service folks at the bars and snack areas were fun. The things that keep me "on property" on my WDW trips were the same things on the boat. I'm not exactly sure how they do it - but they do it right.

(I still want to do one of the Euro Disney cruises - I haven't found $9K yet, but if I do...)

[Disneyphile]

Originally Posted by mousepod

(I still want to do one of the Euro Disney cruises - I haven't found $9K yet, but if I do...)

You can do it for much less!!

Ours is $6,200 for both of us, including flights and transfers. And, it may even be cheaper once our agent checks on non-Disney priced flights when they open up in September. That's not bad - it's just over $1,500 per person per week, for an all-inclusive trip across the Atlantic. (But, then again, we're also in the cheapest stateroom.)

[Ghoulish Delight]

I've taken 2 cruises, one on Royal Caribbean and one on Carnival. I was a teen on the RC one, so my perspective was a bit skewed, but as I recall that one was relatively subdued, nothing particularly interesting going on (though they did a great job keeping us teens entertained).

The Carnival cruise was a blast, helped by the fact that we quickly made friends with the other couples at our dining table (one of whom happened to have snuck a couple bottles of rum on board). But we found a bunch of entertainment that we enjoyed (comedians, a magician, nifty piano bar) and there always seemed to be something happening. Often stupid (visa vis a "harriest guy contest"...and no I didn't participate), but always something interesting to laugh at. I thought they did a great job at keeping us entertained. We enjoyed the ports of call, but only because we chose the more off-the-beaten path excursions (Tequilla factory tour, open sea kayaking, as opposed to shopping and, umm, shopping), and once we were done with those, we couldn't wait to get back on the ship.

[innerSpaceman]

Well, I don't think the cruise industry relies any more or less heavily on word of mouth than do the hotel or restaurant industries - where service levels are uneven across the board.



And how GD could have skipped competing in the Hairyest Guy competition just confounds the senses.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Well, I don't think the cruise industry relies any more or less heavily on word of mouth than do the hotel or restaurant industries - where service levels are uneven across the board.

I do, for the very reasons you've pointed out. Without the highest level of service, too many people would stop at, "Well, it's got nothing that any other resort hotel doesn't offer, AND I'm trapped at sea." It's precisely the elevated level and quality of service that keeps them going, they simply can't afford to let their service levels be uneven because that's their product.

[Not Afraid]

I don't know much about cruising or do I see the broad appeal, but I find that price is usually the selling point for a cruise for the majority of casual cruisers. For the higher-end cruisers - QE2, QM2, etc - service quality is an issue, I'm sure. But, for the Carnival and Princess and their ilk, the draw seems to be price rather than service.

I think there's still a mind set that a cruise is a "luxury vacation" to many.

[innerSpaceman]

You making zero sense to me. How could any hotel or restaurant "afford" to provide less than stellar service? After all, that's their product, too. And they live and die by word of mouth no less than do cruise lines.

And yet service at restaurants and hotels differs from place to place. Yet the staffs work for tips, and the establishments have every incentive to provide good service to do good business.


You are not communicating to me ANY differences between cruise lines and other host industries vis-a-vis incentives to provide high quality service.

[Alex]

I have never selected a hotel based on word of mouth (I just go online and find whatever is the best combination of cheapest and amenities I require). I would never choose a cruise line without testimonials from people I trust.

When I hear someone spent a week in Europe I never ask "oh wow, what hotel did you stay at?" But that is one of the first question I would ask of someone telling me about their cruise.

iSm, you yourself provided the difference between a cruise line and a hotel as an incentive to provide stellar customer service (in post #44). Once on the boat a person can't leave. Generally, once on a boat a person can't be moved to another room or given another server, or given better entaintment offerings.

A hotel or restaurant has quite a bit of leeway in terms of the things that they can do to make an unhappy customer feel better about things. This is why if anything goes remotely wrong with a cruise that you'll find a lot of money thrown back at the cruisers to keep them happy.

If something goes wrong at a restaurant or hotel I'm only risking $50 or $200 if I want to consider giving them a second chance. If I go on a cruise I am probably risking a couple thousand dollars and am much less likely to give a second chance.

No, a cruise line probably isn't going to provide any better service than a top notch all-inclusive resort like Club Med, but then a cruise doesn't provide the same type of vacation as a trip to Club Med. A cruise provides the same type of vacation as 12-day 10-city bus tour of Europe, for example. I think of the Disney Magic as a bus tour of the Caribbean and the Magic is much nicer than any whistle-stop tour accommodations will be.

But considering that most people who go on a cruise love it (even on the less posh lines like Princess) the service can't be all that bad.

[Ghoulish Delight]

It's a preception thing. Peoplpe are far more likely to overlook shoddy service now and again at a hotel because it's easy to get away from. Eat at a restaurant in town instead of your hotel's, go get your drinks and a show at a local pub, etc. I know that when I'm on a typical vacation, my inclination is to not look at the hotel as much more than four walls and a bed because what I've really come for is the destination. On a cruise, bed, transportation, destination are all one and the same. There's nowhere to escape, so there's no way to gloss over poor service.