topcat11

Guys, the size of the sample meets the industry standard for pollsters so it is not the 127 that really matters, it is the fact that 85% of those polled don't like it. In my mind, that is too clear a trend to be dismissed without further investigation.

And it is common knowledge in any industry that for every actual customer complaint a company receives, there are many, many more unsatisfied customers who don't bother to complain for whatever reason.

I guess it depends on your definition of a lot of complaints. In the poll, 127 respondents out of 150 opposed the practice. If I ran a company and saw figures like that, I would not be slow to respond in a meaningful way, even if it were only to do my own customer opinion research.

But I don't want to get back into the whole thing - I have taken my shot and it has not made any difference.

There are other windmills at which to tilt.

I think you're an optimist - I would be surprised if they are looking at it in any serious way at all

In June/July we had a lively discussion in this forum on Celebrity's practice of broadcasting music to their ships' outside decks during their passages through the wilderness sanctuary of Tracy Arm Alaska.

I posted a week-long poll in which the overwhelming majority of respondents opposed this practice. (http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2069499)

After some back and forth with various Celebrity functionaries, here is the gist of their response: "While our company will not be making any immediate modifications with regard to this matter, we will continue to closely monitor and assess the input we receive on this topic. This will greatly assist us with our company’s future music determinations."

I am disappointed in this response from a company that claims to be passionate about improving the customer experience. If you too object to muzak being played on the outside decks during the passage, I hope you will

let Celebrity know directly.

I have sent the final results to Michael Bayley and eagerly await a substantive response from him.

We appreciate your bringing this to our attention. Today I read a post from a July Alaska - Solstice cruise that they were playing music on deck during the Tracy Arm portion. So it appears it is still happening.

 

We called Celebrity Corporate Guest Relations yesterday and advised them of the poll and had them view it when we were on the phone. How long can it take for corporate to get instructions to the ship? We are sailing August 8 on the Solstice.

 

Guest Relations suggested sending an email with links to the poll and comments to Michael Bayley. I will leave this for Topcat11 since you spearheaded this. Hope they do the right thing very soon.

Thanks again

I have always intended to inform the CEO of this, but I have committed to wait until the 7 days or up and will honour that commitment. He will be getting my email at 9:34 tomorrow morning :)

I agree… the other poster is out of line on this one. For what its worth you come across as a believable, reasonable person.

Thank you.

You are correct, I'm voicing my opinion, just as those that have never experienced the music in Tracy Arm are voicing theirs as well. We all have different opinions, as well as likes and dislikes.

 

We will have to agree to disagree on the entire issue. At least, Mr. Bayley is now advised of the issue (via my email) and by his office forwarding it to the entertainment department the issue will either be resolve or left as it is.

I am content to disagree with you.

But I am decidedly not content that you took it upon yourself to try to circumvent a process I initiated to a) gather a broader sample of opinions to see if a majority of fellow cruisers agreed with me and b) if there was sufficient dissatisfaction with the corporate policy, then present the company with some actual trend data to help them determine if their policy should be changed.

A gentleman would have let the process go forward without appointing himself an intermediary before the data were in.

Well, if you think about it, the whales can't hear the music over the noise from the engines.

On what authority do you make that claim? And whales are not the only wildlife in the area. OMG

Where did I say I was a proponent of using the corporate policy cop-out, I just said that it was an easy out for employees. And one employee learns from another, that it ends a conversation with a customer very quickly.

 

I love reading reviews. Actually, I'll print them off and read them when I go out for lunch. The reviews are great reading and you can really learn a lot from them.

 

I looked at the poll, but being that those on cruise critic are such a small percentage of all of the customers that cruise with Celebrity, I would not consider it to be a true reflection of all customers. Not to mention, with their being thousands of Celebrity Cruise Critic members, it is even a small percent of those on Cruise Critic.

 

We don't now if those that like music is a small percentage of all Celebrity customers, all we know is that 116 customers don't want any music.

First, let me point out that you are offering nothing but opinion to rebut these data you question.

Second, I guess we need to defend the entire polling industry again as I did in post #60.

It is your right to dismiss the entire polling industry, but someone must believe the industry works, despite the times when individual polls are wrong (and we can all cite examples). The fact is that polling continues to proliferate. And these firms come to their conclusions based on much much smaller sample sizes than this poll is providing.

I don't know what the situation is in the U.S., but in Canada the typical sample size for a national poll is about 1,000 people. That's out of a population of just over 35 million. That means that the industry works from a standard sample size of about 0.0000285%.

Let's assume one ship, one season, so approximately 53,450 passengers who might have an informed opinion on this issue. At this writing (11 a.m. EDT) we have had 134 people respond to the poll. That gives a sample size of 0.0025, two orders of magnitude (i.e. 100 times) larger than the industry standard. Even if we multiplied that number of passengers by 10 as an estimate of all the ships that make the passage, the sample size is 0.00025, still more than an order of magnitude larger than the acceptable parameters.

I have no doubt that most people don't care one way or the other. But my argument is that, if that is the case, then they would not care if the music were turned off, so the issue really reverts to those who do care one way or the other. And unless and until someone can show me data to the contrary, those voting to turn off the music outnumber those who want the music by more than 14 to 1.

I'm sure the humpback whales are looking for silence as well.

 

From the National Park Service, U.S. Department of Interior

　

Glacier Bay Scientific Studies

When you see a cruise ship floating majestically through the waters of Glacier Bay, it seems almost silent. But if you were a marine mammal underwater, you would hear a very different scene. Long before you could see the ship, you would hear the steady rumble of diesel-electric generators and the low-frequency drumming of its massive propellers pushing the ship forward. This cacophony would become louder until it dominated your acoustic sense, reducing your ability to hear other important sounds such as the school of fish you were hunting, or the killer whales that might be hunting you. You might not be able to tell exactly where the ship was located, to avoid getting struck by it. Calling to communicate with others would be useless with this level of noise. Eventually the dense cloud of ship noise would begin to ebb as the ship moved away, finally receding into the distance about an hour after you first started hearing it.

So why do you support adding to the noise pollution with canned music?

Thanks, I admire you. I as well would not have come on here and stirred up a hornets nest, even if I didn't like the music (unless it was the Norwegian composer that was suggested, then I would just jump off the ship). I feel that everyone is different, with different likes and dislikes, and even if I didn't like something, there were probably many that did. The only reason I sent topcat11's post to Michael Bayley (which if you notice, they were sending my email to the proper department to have the issued looked at, because they actually care about what their customers are saying) is because after seven pages of people anticipating that there will be music on their cruise and not one person saying they complained to corporate, I thought I would send it in. BTW, I didn't complain about the music, just forwarded the post. And now I get chastized because I didn't mention Norway or Venice as being an issue, when the topic of the thread was the music in Tracy Arm...go figure.

It is not your place to send my post to anyone at Celebrity. If you are such an expert, you know Celebrity monitors these threads. Had you actually read the thread, you would also know that, in fact, a rep had taken note of the thread already AND you would have noted that I, as the OP, intend to put the matter before the CEO once the poll has ended.

As you can see, when I sent the issue to Mr. Bayley, they said they would forward it to the proper department, so it can be looked into. I didn't get the same response that you did, that it was corporate policy.

 

No, you didn't bring up Norway or Venice, it was other posters and I was chastized for not mentioning those locations in my email to Mr. Bayley.

I can tell you exactly who in Corporate Customer relations told me it is corporate policy but I choose not to expose him to some of the pettiness of this board.

Other posters came on and said they did not have music, not to mention many reviews have been written and not one person has said that there was annoying music. The easiest way for a employee to stop a conversation with a customers is to say it was a corporate policy, whether it is or isn't.

So you are suggesting two different employees on two different occasions lied to me? I hope I never have to deal with any organization you are a part of if you are that cavalier about how to treat customer concerns.

As well, I raised the issue to see if others shared it, whether my experience was unique, whether others had complained to Celebrity or not, since I truly did not know if I was alone or even in the minority. You must spend a lot of time reading reviews if you can say unequivocally that no one has ever complained. And further, just because you have seen no other comments on Cruise Critic does not mean no one else has complained directly to Celebrity staff. If you read the full thread, you will see that in fact others have.

Most important, look at the results of the poll, which at this writing are running 14.5 to 1 in favour of turning off the music during the short Tracy Arm passage. That is not at all an ambiguous finding.

We get it, you like music. But at this moment the only actual data (as opposed to anecdotal opinion) we have show that you are among a small minority.

Thanks, I admire you. I as well would not have come on here and stirred up a hornets nest, even if I didn't like the music (unless it was the Norwegian composer that was suggested, then I would just jump off the ship). I feel that everyone is different, with different likes and dislikes, and even if I didn't like something, there were probably many that did. The only reason I sent topcat11's post to Michael Bayley (which if you notice, they were sending my email to the proper department to have the issued looked at, because they actually care about what their customers are saying) is because after seven pages of people anticipating that there will be music on their cruise and not one person saying they complained to corporate, I thought I would send it in. BTW, I didn't complain about the music, just forwarded the post. And now I get chastized because I didn't mention Norway or Venice as being an issue, when the topic of the thread was the music in Tracy Arm...go figure.

For the record, as the OP, I did raise the issue with corporate BEFORE starting this thread. That is where I was told it is corporate policy to play the music. That is why I sought out input from cruise critic members as people who have an interest in cruising in general and might have an informed opinion on or knowledge of this particular issue.

I also very clearly limited my question to Tracy Arm since I have not cruised in Norway or Venice and I choose not to comment on things I know nothing about.

There are seven pages of an issue that happened on one ship and reported by only one poster. The simple thing would have been to send an email to Mr. Bayley and wait for a response. That is exactly what I did on July 14th, copying topcat11's first post and here is a part of the response I got: I have forwarded a copy of your email to the manager of our shipboard entertainment program. Be assured, that your and other guests’ feedback will be of great assistance in making future decisions.

 

Just as an FYI, I did not voice my opinion that I have no problem with the music, just copied the email and said it was an issue on one ship by one poster and told the results of the poll at the time of my email.

For the record as the OP, if you had read my post carefully, you would have seen that i was told by Celebrity corporate customer relations that it is the corporate policy for the music to be played there. I don;t know how any reasonable person could interpret that to mean one ship on one cruise. Corporate policy would apply to all ships.

My experience was on a single ship - Solstice, on the June 6-13 cruise.

I raised the issue on this board because, in following up with customer relations on board and after the cruise with corporate customer relations in Miami, I was told it was "corporate policy". I think anyone would interpret that to mean it is the practice on all Celebrity cruises that go through Tracy Arm.

I fully intend to email the CEO the results of our straw poll on here once it has run its full 7-day course.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2069499

At this point, 98 respondents want the music turned off, 8 like the music and want it turned off and 10 don't care either way - i.e. of those who care, this poll is running more than 12 to 1 in favour of turning off the music.

My evidence is simply what reality is.

 

Reality is the music is playing.

 

If so many people had such strong opinions in the matter, there would be a line of 1600 of the 2000 passengers (80% of the passengers, to go along with this poll's results of 80% having a strong opinion, extrapolating out the poll results presented here) on the ship at guest relations saying something about it. However it seems that there are likely fewer than 100 passengers who say anything at guest relations, even if they will just be told "it's policy". If 80% of the passengers said they wanted the music changed, there would be change.

 

I imagine if there were a line that big on any ship, someone would have made not of it somewhere int hess forums.

I will repeat myself, not that I expect it to do any good.

Your point seems to be that most people don't care. If that is true, which it well may be, then they won't care if the music is turned off.

That means Celebrity need only concern itself with those who have expressed a preference and using that filter, the results so far are 10-1 against your opinion.

I would think that you, as a Celebrity shareholder, would not want the company to risk annoying that many passengers when an easy, no-cost alternative is staring you in the face.

Just a couple of additional points.

I have made no secret of my agenda. I don't like the music in Tracy Arm and I want to use the only tool at my disposal to see what proportion of fellow passengers are of like mind.

As I said on another thread, I won't be going back to Alaska on any cruise line as there are too many other places in the world I want to see and learn about. So my interest in this issue is somewhat academic, although on one level it is a test of how responsive Celebrity is to customer preferences.

Let's also be clear about what is on my agenda in terms of what I would like to see Celebrity do - i.e. turn off the music to the external decks during the 4-hour passage of Tracy Arm, the only purpose of such a passage being to enable passengers to enjoy the natural spectacle. That is the ask, turn off the music for 4 hours out of the 156-hour duration of the entire cruise. I am surprised that the suggestion of such a small concession would cause such ongoing debate.

Finally, cle-guy, I don't understand your last statement at all: "I guess it appears that Celebrity prefers to listen to the vocal minority in this case then."

Since it seems to be Celebrity policy to play the music, what vocal minority is Celebrity listening to?

In this poll, that is very true.

 

As with any poll, it's all about the audience being invited to take it, the desire of people to participate, the agenda of those who do participate and the way a poll is worded.

 

I guess it appears that Celebrity prefers to listen to the vocal minority in this case then.

The audience for this poll is admittedly self selected but they all have experience in, or at least an interest in, cruising. Some have even been on an Alaskan cruise, unlike you.

I continue to invite you to offer any substantive evidence that most passengers would support your view.

cle-man cites a quote from the CEO on a news show. First, strictly speaking, such a quote is not corporate policy.

Second the CEO was talking about his goals as a CEO: maximize revenues and minimize costs to grow revenues. That's not policy, that's a goal. In fact, it is the raison d'etre for most private sector organizations. Motherhood.

"Policy" defines how the organization achieves that goal.

If a company has a policy that irritates enough customers so that they begin to seek out competitors, that jeopardizes achieving the goal.

You would have to buy a whole lot of drinks on a whole lot of cruises to offset the lost revenue that would result if even a couple of commenters on this thread decided to take their Alaska cruise business elsewhere.

I am a loyal customer of Celebrity - and a capitalist - so I support their goal. I simply think they have their policy wrong on this one.

Frankly, I have no vested interest in this either way. I won't be taking another Alaska cruise on any line because there are far too many other places in the world I have yet to visit and learn about. I just think it would be a shame if Celebrity continued to play the music in Tracy Arm when - looking only at those who have expressed a preference on the poll - those who want the music turned off outnumber those who don't 10 to 1 (as of Sunday morning)

The argument is there are other activities going on IN ADDITION TO viewing nature.

 

I'll be honest, never been on an Alaskan cruise, so don't know, but wonder is the daily activities sheet blank from sun up to sun down when cruising the glacier areas? Do they put a net over the pool and hot tubs? Do they close all the bars and mast grill and aqua spa cafe where people often enjoy listening to the music while enjoying lunch or a beverage or a lounger by the pool?

You should have put a period after "know" - that says it all.

And by the way, the sample size at 9 a.m. ET stands at 59, with 49 opposed to music, 4 supporting and 6 indifferent.

So since cle-guy's calculations, 21 more people have registered opposition to the music, 1 more person has supported the music and 3 more have expressed their neutrality.

I am not an expert in statistics or polling, but these do not seem like ambivalent results to me.

From a total "sample" of 34 voters, from a batch of cruise experts and aficionados regarding a ship that sails with 2138 passengers.

 

Yes it's certainly a finding, but not really enough to make any conclusions with only 1.59% of the potentially affected people in a single sailing replying....

 

There will be a few vocal about it and most on the ship clearly aren't saying a thing about it or it would't be happening. The majority of those fall into the "I Don't care either way" category. So the real math then is:

 

2138 total - 28 I hate it's - 3 I like it's = 2107 I don't cares

 

1.30% I hate it's

0.14% I like it's

98.55% I don't care's

 

I sure hope Celebrity doesn't make decisions based on the 1% as our congress usually seems to do

 

:D

I don't know why I continue to bash my head against this particular brick wall but you just make so many wrong assumptions that I cannot resist.

1) No one is claiming this little Cruise Critic poll is scientific but to date it is the only evidence we have one way or the other on the weight of informed public opinion on the issue at hand.

I would be interested in seeing any relevant evidence you have to support your point of view. And as I said earlier, your museum experience is not relevant. A building is not a natural wonder. Nor is your harping on the putative cause-effect relationship between music and purchasing. A cruise is not about buy-buy-buy every second of every day. I thought I bought a more natural experience in Tracy Arm (yes I know, how natural could it be on such a huge ship, but we have been over that). I was disappointed that I did not get what I thought I had paid for.

2) Also, this poll actually has more validity than you may think

It is your right to dismiss the entire polling industry, although yours would be a minority view, in my opinion held mostly by people whose beliefs are not supported by the polls. Someone must believe the industry works, despite the times when individual polls are wrong (examples of which I am sure you are ready to cite). The fact is polling continues to proliferate. And these firms come to their conclusions based on much much smaller sample sizes.

I don't know what the situation is in the U.S., but in Canada the typical sample size for a national poll is about 1,000 people. That's out of a population of just over 35 million. That means that the industry works from a standard sample size of about 0.0000285%.

So even if we multiplied the total number of cruisers who sail aboard Solstice in a given year by the number of trips a year - let's estimate one a week for 25 weeks - for a total of 53,450, the sample size of this poll at this time would be 0.0006361, still more than an order of magnitude larger than the industry standard. Multiply that number of passengers by 10 as an estimate of all the ships that make the passage and you are at 0.0000636, still more than twice as large as the acceptable parameters. And of course, the poll has not yet run its 7-day course.

3) Most important, your own analysis of the numbers so far would support turning off the music. By your reckoning, almost 99% don't care one way or the other. So they would NOT be upset if the music were turned off. Of those who do care, 9 out of 10 oppose the music. If I were running Celebrity, I would want to please those 9 by shutting off the music.

And as others have pointed out, if you crave that music even in Tracey Arm, you have the alternative of popping in your earbuds and listening to your iPod or whatever. Those who dislike the broadcast music have no such option.