Spa products hard upsell on Princess ships

Has it gotten any better or worse? My wife won't go back for any services since her last experience was so bad. how have your sessions gone?:cool:

It is still as obnoxious as ever, <sigh>. Signed up for spa services myself a couple months ago just because I haven’t had one in years; still the same pressure to sell, still overpriced $75-$100 for 6 oz. of ‘miracle’ cream. AND there is now an automatic gratuity of 15%. Big mistake.

So agree with all of the above.

I have lots of spa experience but not on Princess.

They all try to upsell products BUT I have never had a problem with that since I start out by telling the masseuse/practitioner up front that I am NOT buying anything. You are the customer and you just need to be firm and go from there.

No one has ever bothered me after I make it clear I am not in the market to buy anything!

All cruise lines have a hard up sell. I always let them know at the beginning of my service that I do not plan to buy any products. I let them know that if I decide to buy I will do it on the last day at sea or online as I want To save my funds for the ports we are visiting. I always ave a great experience in the spa and enjoy my facial or massage. Never have an issue with them trying at the end.

My co-worker's daughter is a massage therapist and she had looked into the possibility of working on a cruise ship. If she understood it correctly, her salary would be very little, but where she would make her most money would be on selling products, or upselling to pricier treatments. She decided not to take the job.

It is clear that the workers in the spa are paid based on what they sell. Anytime you meet someone doing a hard sell, you can assume that they are on commission with very little base pay. I have been led to believe the spa is a contract operation.

I enjoy the spa and usually book at least 2 sessions. I write "please do not try and sell me products at end of treatments" on the intake form they ask you to fill out before the first treatment. If my request is honored then I tip above the automatic 15%. If they ignore my request and still try and sell me something, then I do not tip anything more than the 15% and I also cancel my 2nd session immediately at the front desk. They asked me once why I canceled and I told them that it causes me stress when they try and sell me stuff and that negates the reason I was there.

DW likes going to the Spa for massages, hair appointments, etc. She has always told me the hard sell is there but you know that going in. She has purchased some things and not purchased other things. She has never mentioned that the Steiner girls were over the top pushy.....:):):)

Bob

Like anything on board a cruise liner selling is part of the training and pay is based on what you can sell. But most "crew" have learned that NO means NO and don't bother you again.

On the Coral in Sept/Oct, very hard sell pressure to purchase products. I agree with above posters who said it ruins the experience. In addition to extremely high prices for the massage or other service itself, we won't be going back to the spa on our next booked cruises.

I enjoy a pedicure from time to time, and DW gets them regularly so we tried it out on the Star Princess. I can't really say it was fiery or icy as billed. On topic, I had huge callouses on my heels from doing a lot of walking in the wrong shoes. If I let my tendency to exaggerate run free, I would say that it was hard to chat with the technician, as she was behind a facemask as sparks flew out while she used a Effy-diamond-encrusted grinding wheel to get rid of the callouses. But we did talk about my heels specifically, so when she offered to sell me something for the callouses I didn't feel like it came from out of the blue with high pressure. It was just a gentle offer of something to address a problem we had talked about.

It is clear that the workers in the spa are paid based on what they sell. Anytime you meet someone doing a hard sell, you can assume that they are on commission with very little base pay. I have been led to believe the spa is a contract operation.

Agree. Not having a share on the gratuities drives them to do aggressive selling.

I have been led to believe the spa is a contract operation.

I think you will find that all "shops" on cruise liners are by contract and they have to pay a % to the cruise line to be there.

Definite hard sell. Much more uncomfortable than spas on land. Finish what was a relaxing couples massage. Then the two spa therapists come in like a time share tag team. Once they realized I wasn’t buying. Some how they separate us and cornered DH into buying $80 worth of products!

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Agree. Not having a share on the gratuities drives them to do aggressive selling.

15% automatic grat on services- not sure how much the actual providers of the services get:evilsmile:

On our Royal sailing in mid-November, I was suffering from a pinched nerve in my neck. Being very uncomfortable, I approached one of the technicians who was giving "sample" massages up on Lido deck. It felt great, and figured why not go for a full massage? The same technician offered me a hot stone massage at the price of a regular massage and I was hooked. I had never taken advantage of any of the spa offerings before this, so was unaware of the hard, hard sell.

Well...the massage was wonderful. My neck and shoulders felt so much better and I was so relaxed. It felt great to not be in pain! The technician left the room so I could put on my robe and when she returned the hard sell began and the bliss of the massage went poof!! For the low price of $1000+, I could get a large supply of the creams, oils, etc she used as well as a toxin purge which was at the root of my problem. What?! That's too expensive. OK, you can get a small size set for only $495. Ridiculous!

I was so disheartened with the experience. I wish Princess would pay their clinicians and technicians a decent salary and lay off the hard sell. I doubt I will return to the spa. Or if I do, I will do what other's suggest and let them know I will not be purchasing anything.

15% automatic grat on services- not sure how much the actual providers of the services get:evilsmile:

On my post, I meant the daily auto gratuities charged per guest.

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I wish Princess would pay their clinicians and technicians a decent salary and lay off the hard sell.

I bet they are NOT paid, or even employed, by Princess.

The hard sell on spa products has driven me to stop doing spa services on cruises. It takes all the joy out of being pampered. These women are clearly desperate and determined to sell all they can. If they intend to continue with this method, they should have more reasonably priced products. The products are very expensive. You can buy them elsewhere so there isn’t even a need to get it there. Once I did ionithermie (very weird) and the spa technician tried to sell me $900 of products, most of which were bizarre and seemingly unnecessary. If they tried to sell me something for $25, perhaps I would buy it on a whim. But those prices are prohibitively high, adding insult to injury.

I always enjoy the massages on Princess, but inevitably the pleasure ends and the selling begins. They do employ a fairly inflexible sales pitch. What I have found that works to disarm the sales pitch is to say that I was just on a cruise last month where I purchased the products being sold and just don’t need them at this time, works every time.

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What I have found that works to disarm the sales pitch is to say that I was just on a cruise last month where I purchased the products being sold and just don’t need them at this time, works every time.

Brilliant must remember that for the future.

I always enjoy the massages on Princess, but inevitably the pleasure ends and the selling begins. They do employ a fairly inflexible sales pitch. What I have found that works to disarm the sales pitch is to say that I was just on a cruise last month where I purchased the products being sold and just don’t need them at this time, works every time.

 

 

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Why did I not think of this? Brilliant. And credible. Thanks.

I love to start my cruise with a massage and normally grab a first day offer, especially if I’ve had to work right up until holiday and/or spend loads of time travelling. I know I’m paying way more than I would on land, but it’s part of my holiday.

I’ve found telling them the I get regular treatments on land (which is true) and that I use the high end products they offer (not so true) usually ends the conversation.

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Almost all cruise line spa staff are Steiner employees (a few cruise lines such as Oceania and Celebrity use Canyon Ranch employees). The pressure on the Steiner’s employees to sell products to their customers is intense resulting in the hard sell you have experienced.

I always tell the spa technician at the start of the appointment that I am only interested in their services and will not be purchasing products that day. Should the staff persist despite the notice, their gratuity is reduced. A spa appointment should be a relaxing experience -and there is nothing relaxing about leaving with a lot of overpriced, non-returnable items that you purchased just to be allowed to escape the spa.

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