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The Stewards Need Some Help


dag144

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Just came off the Maasdam yesterday 4/16. The ship is in very nice condition. I do have one major bone to pick with HAL and hope that some of you will agree.

 

Our cabin, a mini-suite on Veranda deck, while neat, needed a good old fashion scrubbing. The kind that mother did each Spring and Fall at least. I would get a kick in my backside for saying this. She was always cleaning!

 

The stewards (two teams of two men each) four in total, are responsible for sixty cabins. They did a great job of keeping things neat and tidy, but with this work load, there is not much time for anything else.

 

HAL should maintain a schedule of deep cleaning with extra help available on a periodic basis. This is as important to shipboard health as hand washing. Maybe the Hotel Mgr. and staff with strips should be required to pitch in. :)

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Just came off the Maasdam yesterday 4/16. The ship is in very nice condition. I do have one major bone to pick with HAL and hope that some of you will agree.

 

Our cabin, a mini-suite on Veranda deck, while neat, needed a good old fashion scrubbing. The kind that mother did each Spring and Fall at least. I would get a kick in my backside for saying this. She was always cleaning!

 

The stewards (two teams of two men each) four in total, are responsible for sixty cabins. They did a great job of keeping things neat and tidy, but with this work load, there is not much time for anything else.

 

HAL should maintain a schedule of deep cleaning with extra help available on a periodic basis. This is as important to shipboard health as hand washing. Maybe the Hotel Mgr. and staff with strips should be required to pitch in. :)

Did you bring this up to the Front Desk or the Hotel Manager??

 

I hope that other than not being as spotless as mother would have liked, that you enjoyed your cruise anyway??

 

How were the food, the activities, the ports, the weather, etc???

 

I'm interested in hearing mre of your cruise experience, please:) I've not been on Maasdam, so would love to hear more about her:)

 

Joanie

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I agree -- the cabins stewards have far too many cabins to take care of.

Sadly -- HAL is not the only cruiseline to cut back on staff.

When I mentioned a few years about the cutbacks in staff -- I was told -- no there haven't been any cutbacks. Well staff disappeared somewhere. Our cabin steward used to do 9 cabins. The next steward did 9 cabins. That is 18 cabins. Now those 2 cabin stewards do 30 cabins. What happened to the cabin steward who did the other 9 cabins?

Then on our recent Maasdam cruises -- in the dining room -- the waiter takes your drink order -- not the wine steward any more. The wine stewards now handle only the selling of bottles of wine -- not even glasses of wine. By doing this they were able to cut out 4 wine stewards in the dining room. This is to be fleet wide very soon.

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I did not complain to the front desk about the need for the cabin to have a deep cleaning. Why? I do not think that the problem is the stewards. The problem is 1) either HAL's policies or 2) an unacceptably lazy/lax Hotel Staff. I believe that a complaint to the powers that be on the ship would have resulted in black marks for the hard working stewards.

 

I wrote a review of the past trip which should be posted in the next day or two.

 

If any of you have the same thoughts or others on this subject, post them. I am sure that HAL reads this blog.:D

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I did not complain to the front desk about the need for the cabin to have a deep cleaning. Why? I do not think that the problem is the stewards. The problem is 1) either HAL's policies or 2) an unacceptably lazy/lax Hotel Staff. I believe that a complaint to the powers that be on the ship would have resulted in black marks for the hard working stewards.

 

I wrote a review of the past trip which should be posted in the next day or two.

 

If any of you have the same thoughts or others on this subject, post them. I am sure that HAL reads this blog.:D

 

Why do you think the Front Desk will think it is only about the stewards? Better to complain there and/or with a letter/email to HAL than to just mention it here.

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Chief Housekeeper would have been the perfect person with whom to discuss this.

He is meticulous and if you were uneasy your cabin was not as clean as you have every right to expect, there is nothing that can be done to make it better for you now. The request for improvement would have been so much more helpful for your possible satisfaction if made while aboard.

 

We thought so highly of the work the Chief Housekeeper is doing on this 18+ year old ship that we actually mentioned him specifically in our end of cruise surveys. All too often the Housekeepers do not get the credit they earn.

 

To complain after leaving the ship cannot do anything to improve the quality of your cruise.

 

IMO

 

 

 

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The front desk will pass the blame to the stewards. Write the company.

However, in this cut throat market, unless you want to pay 100% more fare than you are now, dont count on it.

You get what you pay for is the rule; on Holland you are paying a very cheap price over all.

If you paid for a FORD, dont expect a Mercedes....

Lines that have higher ratios of staff and the service you desire are going to start at $380 pp per day for a regular suite and average$ 490!

 

Holland america, is presently selling cabins between 80 to 120 per person. They are more intent on filling cabins than perfection.

I totaly understand your feelings.

We now eat in the Lido because the dining rooms are totaly different because there we get quick service fervise from stewards and staff alike..

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I have to add - it helps out the crew if people try to keep things as tidy as possible as well - we've walked by some open cabins and saw such a HUGE MESS inside we felt so sorry for the stewards. We try to help out and keep items from being strewn all over the place so they have the basic cleaning to do and they can go on to the next cabin... just a pet peeve of mine seeing how incredibly messy people can leave their cabin and such mess those poor stewards have to clean up...<stepping down off my soapbox now...>

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When we started cruising, the room steward smiled and said "Good morning and called DW and I by name". Our last 3 cruises I didn't know who he/she was.

We used to get to know our servers in the diningroom and they learned our preferences. After a couple of days a glass for red wine was always set even though we didn't always have wine with dinner. Last 3, find a table and hope a waiter finds us. I ordered a glass of wine early once and got it just before desert.

The above and more examples of cutbacks are not just from HAL, but 4 different lines. Cruising used to be an adventure to remember, no longer.

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All of that being said........

 

I agree there are too few stewards being asked to do too much work

 

IMO

 

Once again, we had two great stewards, I mean really, really wonderful cabin stewards. Not one time did I have to request a single thing. They took the best care of us and our cabin and I am very appreciative for the wonderful condition in which they kept our cabin.

 

We could not have asked for more.

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The front desk will pass the blame to the stewards. Write the company.

However, in this cut throat market, unless you want to pay 100% more fare than you are now, dont count on it.

You get what you pay for is the rule; on Holland you are paying a very cheap price over all.

If you paid for a FORD, dont expect a Mercedes....

Lines that have higher ratios of staff and the service you desire are going to start at $380 pp per day for a regular suite and average$ 490!

 

Holland america, is presently selling cabins between 80 to 120 per person. They are more intent on filling cabins than perfection.

I totaly understand your feelings.

We now eat in the Lido because the dining rooms are totaly different because there we get quick service fervise from stewards and staff alike..

 

 

Not everyone in every cabin on HAL ships is paying a very cheap price overall, as you phrase it.

 

Price an "S" Suite on Maasdam for Canada/New England in July or August and see if you still think that is a 'very cheap price'.

The same number of stewards are serving the same number of tables no matter what cabin one is staying in. So, are those folks paying 'too little' to expect adequate number of stewards working the dining room?

 

Sweeping generalizations are rarely accurate.

 

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I hope you'll write a letter about this stressing that it was not the cabin stewarts problem as you have in your posting. We at going on Maasdam at the end of June for a 7 day New England/Canada cruise and we did pay a premium price per person for a verandah suite so I expect the cabin to be clean. I also agree that they should do a through cleaning between passengers to ensure the germs are killed! Hope you had a great time inspite of the cleaning problem. I am looking forward to reading your review!

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I hope you'll write a letter about this stressing that it was not the cabin stewarts problem as you have in your posting. We at going on Maasdam at the end of June for a 7 day New England/Canada cruise and we did pay a premium price per person for a verandah suite so I expect the cabin to be clean. I also agree that they should do a through cleaning between passengers to ensure the germs are killed! Hope you had a great time inspite of the cleaning problem. I am looking forward to reading your review!

 

 

Of course, I did not see OP's cabin and would not comment about the state of its cleanliness but having left Maasdam yesterday, I feel very confident stating here Maasdam is a very clean, well cared for ship. I sincerely doubt you will have any cleanliness concerns and if you do, they will be addressed immediately. IMO

 

If you find the need to speak up then by all means do so. To suffer in silence and then come here to seek relief, is a little too late after you have left the ship. What can they do for you then?

IMO

 

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I hope you'll write a letter about this stressing that it was not the cabin stewarts problem as you have in your posting. We at going on Maasdam at the end of June for a 7 day New England/Canada cruise and we did pay a premium price per person for a verandah suite so I expect the cabin to be clean. I also agree that they should do a through cleaning between passengers to ensure the germs are killed! Hope you had a great time inspite of the cleaning problem. I am looking forward to reading your review!

 

Sadly now with HAL's new "Stateroom Direct Service" -- cabins are suppose to be ready by 11:30 when passengers board the ship.

Some people don't leave the ship until after 9 -- sometimes as late as 9:30 (or even later) and remember that passengers can stay in their cabins until they are ready to leave.

This gives the cabin stewards very little time to get the cabins ready between passengers.

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I have to add - it helps out the crew if people try to keep things as tidy as possible as well - we've walked by some open cabins and saw such a HUGE MESS inside we felt so sorry for the stewards. We try to help out and keep items from being strewn all over the place so they have the basic cleaning to do and they can go on to the next cabin... just a pet peeve of mine seeing how incredibly messy people can leave their cabin and such mess those poor stewards have to clean up...<stepping down off my soapbox now...>

 

I paid for my cruise and will do as I please! :D

 

(OK, that is not really my attitude)

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I can't see HAL doing anything about the understaffing. That's how they keep prices down and the complaints aren't serious enough to substantially cut passenger count. One of the big difference between "luxury" lines and "Mass-market" cruise lines is passenger to staff ratio. A line such as Regent is only about two to one passenger to crew ratio. This means you never have to look around for more than a few seconds before someone is there to take care of you. The dining room has waiters, back waiters, wine stewards and captains similar to a fine restaurant. Mass-market lines are more like eating in a Ruby Tuesday. On a luxury line, every time you leave your cabin, someone seems to magically appear to adjust things. In a mass-market line, the goal is to make your room up sometime before noon and do turndown service before you go to bed. On our recent HAL cruise, the steward seemed to have an entire hallway of cabins to tend to. He was friendly and called us by name, though some people may find a crew member calling them by first name offputting (we didn't, but some might). You get what you pay for. We just booked another 7 day HAL cruise for about one third of what we would have paid on a luxury line.

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We did a B2B on the Westerdam a couple of weeks ago, We had a terriffic team, We did put an sign in the cabin door to not disturb us in Fort Lauderdale, in other words, we gave them the day "off", they were so busy with the turn around, we could manage o.k. They really appreciated it.

 

Anneke

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I didn't know you could stay in your cabin so late -- it must be very hard to get the rooms ready on time! I just get a little worried when I see a bad post because I pick the vacation we do as a family and this is our first time on HAL. However, we were always happy on Princess so I am sure we will be happy on HAL. A vacation is a vacation and as was stated above if we encounter a problem we will just speak up. On Princess once we did find a few stickers on the wall from the previous cruisers and we just took them down and that was the end of that.

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I think crew to passenger ratio is a slippery slope.

I sense a great deal more "stress" in the crew than I used too, I can't help but wonder if HAL has indeed cut too much crew and is expecting too much from the crew at this current ratio. I see it in the dining staff as well as housekeeping. They are cheerful on the outside, but there is stress to keep up and it is apparent with many of the crew.

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We had a cabin on the Navigation deck..a small suite toward the stern. Guess the OP didn't have Bhudi as his or her steward. Our cabin was spotless all the time. Bhudi even washed the doors to the verandah every day. He folded the cords to our electronics, and lined up our glasses in a neat little row. The fruit bowl was constantly restocked.We hardly ever saw him, as he learned our schedule.

 

I'm planning a full review, but I had to jump in here on this one. The dining room experience was beyond excellent. Our wine was served within 5 minutes every night. Dinner took about 45 minutes..just long enough to visit the casino or freshen up before the late show.Service was as elegant as any fancy NYC restaurant that I've been to.

 

This ship was constantly being cleaned..even at 2 or 3 in the morning. I really have a hard time believing that I was on the same ship as the OP.

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I read here all the time about Hal being such a deal. Every year we go for 10 days in a superior veranda and end up spending a minimum of $7500 on the trip , including travel costs

For that , I could rent a condo in a Florida resort for 2 months !

I really don't think it's so cheap unless maybe you get one of those little rooms where one person has to wait in the hall while the other gets dressed .

 

Recently I read a negative review here of my last 2 cabin stewards on Zuiderdam and I commented that they did an excellent job for me and I was surprised the reviewer complained about them . I realize something now ; my cabin was on deck 6 , the reviewer was on deck 7 . What the heck were my stewards doing on deck 7 ? ( and 6 ! ) .

Of course they are stretched too thin and Hal of course wont admit it . There's a lot of cabins on 6 and 7 .

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Just coming off the 4/6/12 Maasdam as well - our 11th cruise on HAL, second time on Maasdam (first time was 12/09), and one of our best cruises ever. I couldn't believe how immaculate our room was - last year's refurbish did an amazing job on the ship. Our room steward - Yu - was awesome, and kept the room and, especially the bath room, amazingly clean. Not an easy task considering there were four of us in the room, and we did many water and sand based activities, meaning we could not help but tracking in some sand.

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I agree that there simply aren't enough stewards & waiters to do the work any longer.

On our last cruise aboard HAL, we had all kinds of salt on the verandahs, railings, furniture & glass. My friend in the next suite over was a bit miffed that it wasn't perfectly clean for a little cocktail party I was hosting, but I told her not to say or do anything...

...so when Captain and HM arrived that evening, the Captain looked at the railings, swiped his finger along, nudged the HM and they quietly agreed that it wasn't up to snuff.

It was all clean the next day.

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I agree that there simply aren't enough stewards & waiters to do the work any longer.

 

On our last cruise aboard HAL, we had all kinds of salt on the verandahs, railings, furniture & glass. My friend in the next suite over was a bit miffed that it wasn't perfectly clean for a little cocktail party I was hosting, but I told her not to say or do anything...

...so when Captain and HM arrived that evening, the Captain looked at the railings, swiped his finger along, nudged the HM and they quietly agreed that it wasn't up to snuff.

 

It was all clean the next day.

I've never found any balconies I've had on HAL to be clean. I think the worst one was a suite. The one balcony I had on Princess was spotless. I know the stewards are equally spread thin on Princess.

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