Currently on Silhouette - Italy and Adriatic - significant decline in service

[Jamisonke]

I'm sitting in my stateroom on the Silhouette writing this as our cruise is quickly coming to an end. We sailed on the Silhouette approximately one year ago and were impressed by the quality and service. The X product was fantastic. Unfortunately, there has been a severe decline in service and, in particular, food quality on the ship. It has left us scratching our heads and wondering why. The crew wanders about on the ship completely disengaged. There is an attitude of "we just don't care" on the ship. Staff is untrained and inexperienced. I have personally witnessed several instances of food contamination (for example, a crew member using utensils on cooked (grilled) meats that had just been used on raw meats). We've spoken with the Maître D, Restaurant Manager and twice with the Executive Chef, and yet these things are continuing. There are so many guests on the ship who are unhappy and nothing seems to be done to correct the issues. It is disappointing to see such a reversal in such a short period of time.

 

Following our last cruise on the ship (our first on X), we thought we had found our new favorite cruise line. After observing what has been going on aboard the Silhouette, we're not sure we want to sail X again. We're just so disappointed because we had such phenomenal service on the ship last time.

 

I will give a full review when I return home in a few days. I thought that those of you with an upcoming cruise on Silhouette might want to prepare yourselves.

[Keith1010]

Sorry you are not pleased.

 

Keith

[Jack Horner]

Sorry you are not pleased.

 

Keith

 

You not concerned with this decline? :confused: [/url]

[sailors2]

Experience varies from one person to another. We returned from Silhouette

At the beginning of November. We found the staff to be very well trained and friendly. The food was outstanding and the ship well maintained. We consider Celebrity to be the best cruise line (we have sailed extensively and on a variety of lines)and plan to continue sailing on Celebrity.

[ellbon]

from what the OP is saying this is the way you can get a very sick ship. This fault starts with the H&B officer. anything food is a health broblem.

i was on the refection several months ag oand felt the food went down hill on the ship too. it was any and all mains that I ate. .

my cabin was spotless and drinks were ok. but i felt iwas in a sea of no one knew who i was.

[ptcellen]

I agree with Sailors 2 as we did the Adriatic and Italy on the Silhouette in Oct. and couldn't have been more pleased. Food was excellent and staff went out of their way for us. Have been Princess fans for many years, but our loyalty now is with Celebrity.

 

Ellen:)

[RickT]

I was on the Silhouette in August and found everything to be up to my expectations with Celebrity.

 

The food quality overall was good. The cleanliness of the ship/eating areas/pool were fantastic. The crew members (and especially the officers) were more engaging that I ever remembered.

 

It's been a number of months since I was on the ship so perhaps things have changed. Sorry you felt there was a decline in service and cleanliness.

[Jamisonke]

Still in port, so I'm able to comment. There are several of us on the ship who sailed exactly one year ago. All of those guests have noted the same decline in service. As for me, my concern is that the staff on this ship are going to get someone very, very sick with their general lack of concern over food safety. I have a food allergy, which is simple to address. It's a situation where an ingredient is simply omitted and the Executive Chef agreed that it is easy to address. I had to send all of the first 4 dinner entrees back over concerns with my allergy. Some of you may disagree, but it simply shouldn't have to be concerned over such a thing - I should alert the chef to my allergy and be able to move forward knowing that Celebrity cares and that they will serve me food that has not been contaminated with my allergen. This is what I expect of any cruise line and I do not believe it to be an unrealistic expectation. The issues with my food allergy combined with the food contamination issues I observed at the grilling station in the Oceanview Cafe (on more than one occasion across multiple days, I may add) make me concerned that Celebrity doesn't take food safety concerns seriously. For that, Celebrity doesn't deserve to be rewarded with my future cruise dollars.

[Theologator]

You not concerned with this decline? :confused: [/url]

 

While I read and appreciate each person's experience, one cannot project it across the population of even one cruise, much less the ship as a whole or the line. This doesn't imply the OP is off base, not at all, but that is one sample out of thousands just that week. One experience isn't universal.

 

Silhouette has an 89% "loved their cruise" rating on CruiseCritic. That's pretty high. Reflection has bumped up from 87% in its initial few months to 89% now as well.

 

I'm sorry for the OP's experience and thankful for the posting of it. It just has to be considered in context.

 

 

 

 

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[Knolmom]

Perhaps the ship has experienced a large crew turnover and relatively inexperienced crew has been added since the earlier fall sailings. They are preparing for their transatlantic on Dec1.

[cpj]

You not concerned with this decline? :confused: [/url]

 

Dear Jack

 

It seems as you cannot post any negative experence on celebrity. Almost automately you will have someone dispute what you have experence. I lot of cruise ship staff post here under assume names I how that as a fact. One captain told me he posted on cruise critic but would not tell me his handle.

[Theologator]

Dear Jack

 

It seems as you cannot post any negative experence on celebrity. Almost automately you will have someone dispute what you have experence. I lot of cruise ship staff post here under assume names I how that as a fact. One captain told me he posted on cruise critic but would not tell me his handle.

 

I'm not disputing his experience and didn't intend to imply such. If I ran into such circumstances I'd be disappointed too. It's just hard to know if that experience was unusual, typical, a bad week, or a trend. It still matters, regardless. The value of these boards comes from people sharing.

 

Btw I'm not employed by or associated with any cruise line or the travel industry at all. :-)

 

 

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Edited November 29, 2013 by Theologator

[20pluscruises]

Dear Jack

 

It seems as you cannot post any negative experence on celebrity. Almost automately you will have someone dispute what you have experence. I lot of cruise ship staff post here under assume names I how that as a fact. One captain told me he posted on cruise critic but would not tell me his handle.

 

Thank you! That explains a lot.

[makkblin]

We got off exactly 40 days ago. It seems that we traveled in two different universes.

The food was great, all of our breakfasts and dinners were in Blu and because of an

Extremely restrictive diet they did everything that I asked and more.

As far as training, the staff was as good or if not better than any staff on our prior

30 + cruises.

A leopard doesn't change it's spots overnight- a crew of 1200 doen't change overnight either.

Makkblin

[excitedofharpenden]

Disappointing to hear you feel there has been a drop in service. If there is one thing I have learned, individual cruises can vary. Some of mine have been excellent, some not so good, but I always have a fine time. I think part of it can be expectation driven too and that has been an issue for me. You point out just how good your first cruise on Silhouette was and perhaps that is part of it when comparing and the decline is brought into sharper focus. I would say don't get disheartened and try another, but the main thing I wanted to say as you are still on the ship is to raise your concerns up the line (to the Hotel Director if necessary). If your criticisms are constructive they will want to hear them.

 

Phil

[NLH Arizona]

Disappointed to hear this. Hopefully in your review you will go into detail on the service problems, other than the cross contamination issues (which I hope they address, as it is an issue that is very dangerous to people's health) and your allergy problem. I'll be waiting to read your review.

[gacruisergal]

Perhaps the crew is down because of lost family members due to the typhoon that devastated their homeland. I would certainly be frantic to know what is happening and wanting to find out. This could effect their usual cheerfulness and ability to handle a huge crowd of demanding passengers. Just a thought!

[Blazerboy]

Just off the ship a few weeks ago, and had a great time, and thought the food was improved over our many previous cruises, including Silhouette. With the OP's concerns about food allergens not being met, I can understand that they were particularly focused on this one aspect.

 

But service and attitude of the crew were outstanding, and I can't believe that the entire crew changed in two weeks.

 

I do think it's human nature to find fault with a lot more if one issue isn't resolved to your satisfaction. Sorry that your food issues interfered with the rest of the cruise.

 

As for this board being rife with Celebrity crew posting only good things, I can only say that I don't work for the cruise industry, and I personally know about three dozen of the most prolific pro-Celebrity posters, and they don't work for the cruise line either. While calling anyone who criticizes the line a "troll" is bad, it is equally insulting, unfair and disingenuous to imply that if we have a good experience on a ship that we are biased and in their employ. Paranoia can ruin your life!

 

Andrew

 

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[Dave85]

A lot of people are going to jump on here and defend the Silhouette because this is the X board, but I have to say, we were not impressed with the service on Silhouette on our late September - early October sailing.

 

Exceptions: the service in BLU was out of this world. Obviously since we were in BLU I can't comment on what was or was not going on in the MDR.

 

Other than that, it was my 29th cruise and first on Celebrity since the 90s and we had to call Guest Relations twice as much on that cruise for service related issues than we did on any previous cruise (a few examples, multiple issues with our account, multiple invitations not delivered, room service ordered but not delivered, etc.). Needless to say, that's not something I was expecting from Celebrity. I did not notice any food contamination issues, but that's not something I really know to look for.

 

Not trying to hijack the OPs thread, just wanted to point out that OP isn't the only one to sail in Silhouette recently who wasn't impressed with the service. Much to our surprise, with the exception of BLU, we received better and more attentive service on the Carnival Breeze New Years sailing we were on earlier this year.

[I-Cruiser]

We cruised the Silhouette in October and the food and service was superb. Everyone went out of their way to please. Actually, it was one of the best cruises we have done.

I thought the food and service was even better than when we cruised the Silhouette last year.

[murray2]

Sorry that you had such a disappointing experience BUT I must come to the defence of such a hard-working, friendly crew as we met on our Silhouette cruise only 2 weeks ago. Always a friendly greeting, always good service and amazingly good food in the MDR. We have over 40 cruises with many different lines and we must say that we considered this cruise exceptionally good.

[drarill]

We experienced excellent service on the Silhouette two summers ago. I also have food allergies (sea-food) and didn't experience any problems. On the Equinox I saw cross-contamination on the pasta station at the Ocean View Cafe the chef used a spoon to get some shrimps and immediately used it again to serve mushrooms. I got really upset, and asked to talk to the manager. We had an interesting talk about life threatening food allergies and food safety. Don't know the type of allergies the OP has, but I'm looking forward to his report. The Silhouette is a beautiful ship and back when we cruised on her, the staff was wonderful.

[Viktoria]

Haven't been on the Silouette but our last cruise on celebrity was wonderful. I have to agree with the poster about the problems in the Philippines. Many of the cruise crew came from there and I am sure they are worried about the disaster. Just my comments.

[Dave85]

Sorry that you had such a disappointing experience BUT I must come to the defence of such a hard-working, friendly crew as we met on our Silhouette cruise only 2 weeks ago. Always a friendly greeting, always good service and amazingly good food in the MDR. We have over 40 cruises with many different lines and we must say that we considered this cruise exceptionally good.

 

I was just reading an excellent live review on the Royal boards and I think someone summed up the issue very well: it just goes to show you how difficult customer service is because even if you have a great cruise overall, if you encounter a single crew member here or there with a bad attitude or have a couple of random unfortunate issues, those things tend to stand out because everything else on the ship is so great and expectations are so high.

 

So, I think most (like you) will have an incredible experience... but the few who have issues arise will unfortunately remember them.

[20pluscruises]

I was just reading an excellent live review on the Royal boards and I think someone summed up the issue very well: it just goes to show you how difficult customer service is because even if you have a great cruise overall, if you encounter a single crew member here or there with a bad attitude or have a couple of random unfortunate issues, those things tend to stand out because everything else on the ship is so great and expectations are so high.

 

So, I think most (like you) will have an incredible experience... but the few who have issues arise will unfortunately remember them.

 

I think it depends more on how the issues are handled...or not handled.