Millennium 10-09-2009 review (LONG) 2

[garardo]

Tipping again
I forgot to mention that the $1.25 per person per day is going to all of the non guest contact staff members that keeps things moving smoothly.

Promotions for the staff
From what I was told on the house keeping side of things most of the staff members can start out as cleaners. If they do a great job and have great guest contact potential they can be promoted to a guest contact position such as an asst. room steward. This can take from a number of months to 3-4 years. It all depends on attitude and work performance. One man from China who had rather limited English was promoted to be an officer’s steward in only one contract because of his willingness to work and an outstanding attitude.
For the food service people they may start out as a food set up person getting a buffet line ready to open and then replenishing it. Again depending on attitude they can be promoted to a position as a busser in the alternative restaurant and then to server. From there they can go to the Main dinning room as an assistant waiter and then to waiter. This again can take from months to years. It just depends on the person’s attitude. There are also performance incentives given. There is a “Star” and a “Shinning Star” that can be awarded. The “Shining Star” will get the staff member $200 in cash and a free airline ticket to go home when their contract is over. I do not know what comes with the “Star” level.

For the beverage staff they can all start out as cocktail servers or bar backs. They then can go to bartender then to wine Steward. The top position non management position seems to be the sommelier in the Olympic.

The Alternative Restaurant

We eat here I think 3-4 nights. The draw was it is quite and the service was more tuned to a restaurant then a wedding banquet. It was never crazy busy and we always had a window table to watch the sun set and had grat service by Tasha. The menu is set with 3-4 appetizers, a few soups and 3-4 entrees. There was normally an entrée special every evening. The service is preformed by newly promoted staff members that go out of their way to help you.

The Main Dinning Room

We were at table 541 early seating. We like to see the sun rise with a cup of coffee so the late seating is a tad to late for us. All things started out with a bang. The Asst. Waiter seemed to be more on the ball then the waiter. The waiter seemed a bit nervous. The food and beverages were served hot and quickly but my wife’s dish could have been hotter. I mentioned this to the waiter. I thought I ordered a glass of Sancerre but a bottle appeared. That was no issue for I knew that I could finish it the next evening. Being a wine geek I asked that the wine not be put into the ice bucket for it was too cold. I also asked that the bottle be put on the table 30min prior to service on our next visit so it could come to proper temp and this was done. The next evening I ordered a few special things. I wanted to have a plate of prosciutto as an additional appetizer and a small order of pasta before my main dish. The pasta was cold and was served at the same time as the main dish and the prosciutto was served with my other appetizer. It is rather difficult to eat 2 dishes at the same time. I said nothing for I was hungry and I did not want to disrupt the table. On the way out I chatted with our asst. Maître. He assured me that this would all be corrected. On the next visit all was well until I went to order a glass of Lynch Badges Sauvignon Blanc. I knew that it was available because I had enjoyed a glass in the Olympic the night prior. I was told it was not available in the Main Dinning Room. OK no problem I just had another glass of Prosecco at $6.00 instead of the $25 glass of Lynch Badges. I guess it was their loss.

I absoulty love snails so I ordered them off of the every day menu. The only problem was I was trying to eat them as fast as I could because I was the only one at the table still eating. Everyone else had been cleared. Not a good thing.

Although we only had a table of 6 it was a normal thing to have as few as 2 at the table. (Too many choices of places it eat) It is correct to clear the extra place settings. This is something that was not done until I mentioned it to the Asst. Maître.
When my outstanding Celebrity Flounder (this entrée was one of the best meals I have had at sea) arrived I had no silver to eat it with. When it came time for dessert there were only 5 menus for 6 people. I did not bring my glasses so I had to wait until one of my table mates had made their selection before making mine. Our Asst. Waiter was on the ball about the bill for the water but IMHO, he should have completely cleared the table so our table mates could have enjoyed a clean table before taking the 5 or so minutes to round up the bill. Not a good thing. Every thing else went great that evening. On all our next visits to the MDR our Asst. Maître was ever present at the table. He really was very good. When I talked to him the first time regarding the food and service, he asked if I would like to change service teams. I declined and said that no one would learn from the errors made if we just swept them under the rug with out the chance to correct them. On a few evenings my wife had run out of gas and did not make it to dinner. Our Asst. Maître would ask about her and offer to have something sent to the cabin.

The wine tastings

Our Wine steward in the MDR was Arnold. It appeared that he was in training to become a Head Cellar Master. He was very good. He was given the opportunity to conduct portions of the wine tastings. Good job Arnold.

The heavy hitter for all of the tasting was Cellar Master Zhivko. I have done my share of wine tastings but he had the knack of taking an extremely complex subject and explaining it in every day terms. I attended all of the tastings and I paid for them through Arnold because I wanted him to get the tip for them. The tastings that were the most interesting to me were the Walk around the world, the Food and wine pairing and the Riedle wine glass tasting. No we are not drinking the glass wear. In this tasting we tasted wines from proper Riedle glasses and improper Riedle glasses and everyday rolled rim glasses. I always knew that there was a big difference but I had never had the opportunity to do that comparison side by side. It was remarkable. For the Walk around the world tasting a number of stations were set up each with different wines from around the world. It was manned by the Wine steward staff. IMHO, the staff did a great job at giving a good description of each wine but was not able to go into any detail about the growing area or the grape type. Again I must applaud Zhivko on the food and wine pairing. He was able to describe the sensations that went with each pairing and took a lot of questions from the guests.


garardo


To come:
Aqua Spa Buffet/Café
My meeting with the cellar master
My meeting with the head of house keeping

[Muushka]

Thank you for these reports. I enjoy reading them.

I also appreciate the inside information about service that I was not aware of!