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

[dkjretired]

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.

 

No one on this board has disputed what the OP said, they just explained their experiences on the same ship. That is the purpose of this board and is done on all boards on Cruise Critic.

 

I have been on this board for almost 20 years and have heard your comments about cruise ship staff posting on this board anonymously. There has never been any facts to confirm what you said.

[NLH Arizona]

I think, also, that people's experiences differ because of their expectations. I'm pretty easy going and not a lot bothers me when I'm on a cruise, but what doesn't bother me, could be a disaster to someone else. I've seen people on ships and written on here that get upset over the smallest things, things that I might just blow off, but that is me. And I'm sure there are things that upset me, that others might feel are not a big deal.

 

I also don't think people are discounting the OP's issues, it is just that they want to voice how they were treated on the same ship. We can garner information from the bad and the good, we just have to realize that our experience might be different, based on our expectations.

[Dave85]

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

 

Agreed. (From my own recent experience) when you need to make three or four calls to Guest Relations to accomplish what should be fixed in one call, well, that experience will stick out a little more.

Edited November 29, 2013 by Dave85

[Host Jazzbeau]

This whole "Jack" mini-thread is based on a misreading of Jack's comment. He was responding to Keith, who had simply expressed sympathy for OP. Apparently that wasn't good enough for Jack. At that point no one had disputed OP's report in any way.

 

Here is a screenshot of Jack's post (he quoted Keith's entire post):

[Gran2five]

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.

 

 

That was our thought as well. Sometimes at the end of contracts, etc. staff may not have the same positive attitude. This is totally unacceptable but none the less can happen. Agree though that food prep and cooking regulations must be upheld.

 

We're sorry that you are having the cruise experience that you deserve.

[andreloop]

Reading these comments brings me to ask: Does anyone know when Celebrity changes crews?

Will the current crew sail on the Silhouette 12/15?

[dkjretired]

Reading these comments brings me to ask: Does anyone know when Celebrity changes crews?

Will the current crew sail on the Silhouette 12/15?

 

There will probably be some of the crew on there in 15 that are on there now. They work on contracts, some may leave, go to other ships, just like any job.

[Lois R]

Reading these comments brings me to ask: Does anyone know when Celebrity changes crews?

Will the current crew sail on the Silhouette 12/15?

 

There is no way to give an exact answer to your question because

they do rotate. The crew....example would be wait staff, bar staff,

housekeeping.....they normally work 6 months straight and only get

2 or 3 months off. Not all come on board at the same time so not

all are leaving at the same time.

If there is a TA crossing involved? If many came on within 5 months

of that cruise? Then yes, there will probably be a larger changeover

after the ship arrives in the new port.

[riclop]

Same cruise with so many different opinions.

[Iluvcruising2]

We are on the same cruise. Had a lovely time. We are reaching Rome tomorrow. Sad to leave.... until the next cruise!

[dkjretired]

There is no way to give an exact answer to your question because

they do rotate. The crew....example would be wait staff, bar staff,

housekeeping.....they normally work 6 months straight and only get

2 or 3 months off. Not all come on board at the same time so not

all are leaving at the same time.

If there is a TA crossing involved? If many came on within 5 months

of that cruise? Then yes, there will probably be a larger changeover

after the ship arrives in the new port.

 

Lois:

 

The TA is right before the 12/15 cruise which we are on...

[Presto2]

Hi, sad if this is the case. We were on the Silhouette in August for the 3rd year running since she was launched. The whole experience was, by far, the best for us.... so much so that I cried all over the crew as I left. (Soppy me)

 

Perhaps there is a new crew, and perhaps, has been mentioned, they have their mind elsewhere at the moment.

[insidecabin]

Just off the ship.

 

Crew are rotated almost every port, there is currently a higher than normal change as I was told that they don't do many(if any?) changes over the holiday period and with the late TA they were trying to get the holiday crew in place before leaving Europe.

 

Might also cheaper flight costs as many of the crew(especially F&B) are European.

 

It has been a while since we have done an X and overall satisfaction was high.

 

I was not looking closely for any Xcontam issues as I have no alergies but this would be a concern for those that need to watch out.

 

For me the 2 biggest issues would be

 

1: that they failed to adapt to the weather

 

The timing of the Buffet and the bars were aimed at it still being Summer and warm where as it was windy and cold most days.

Outside bars that were empty/unusable, often only the coffee shop(which does have drinks) and the buffet bar open indoors.

 

The buffet starting to shutdown at 2:30 so if you only did short time ashore the selection of food options diminished rapidly from 2:30 till the afternnon tea was set up. if busy they would try to keep things open a bit longer.

 

2: select main dining in reality stopped at around 9:00pm not 9:30pm as in the Celebrity today.

 

If you turned up late then you were rushed as we were told the galley shut to mains at 9:30.

 

One thing that was great was they had a Aqua class dinning package, all 4 specials with 2 lunch at Bisto and 2 B,fast at the Porch for $89 ( the regular 4dinner is $125), although the lawn club and porch were a challenge due to the weather.

 

Not sure if this was a one off to drum up speciality business or to be rolled out more often.

 

Extra bookings at speciality also had 30%+ discounts if you asked and were flexable on day/time.

 

 

We also found the crew we interacted with in the dining and bar locations to be very friendly and engaging.

Edited December 2, 2013 by insidecabin

[artvlay]

I know we have experienced a drop in quality on Celebrity.

[k9x8]

We're sorry that you are having the cruise experience that you deserve.

 

That kind of snarky comment is precisely the reason so many of us lurk and rarely post.

[travelberlin]

 

We're sorry that you are having the cruise experience that you deserve.

 

I guess this was a mistake :confused:

[K.T.B.]

Back in 2006, someone had posted about how terrible their cruise had been. The awful service, the terrible food, the bad weather, so on and so forth. A few postings down the line I realized they were discussing the Alaskan cruise I had been on. The cruise they were describing didn't come close to the cruise I experienced with the exception of bad weather 1½ of the 7 days of the cruise. We had rainy weather for the 1 sea day and half a day of rain in Skagway.

 

Anyway, I just thought his person was nuts, but then I realized that everyone has their own perceptions of what a cruise should be like. The rain in Skagway didn't bother me or my wife, despite being on a walking tour that morning. We just brought an umbrella and enjoyed ourselves. We never had any problems with the service or food or anything on board, but we also were not looking for any problems either.

 

Be that as it may, the OP may have had a horrible experience, but that does not mean everyone did. Their expectations were such that they felt that they were not met. But I look at this way: In most cases, your worst day at sea is still better than your best day at work.

[20pluscruises]

Wow!

Edited December 2, 2013 by 20pluscruises

[20pluscruises]

That kind of snarky comment is precisely the reason so many of us lurk and rarely post.

 

It has gotten really bad, eh?

[kevinyork]

Surely crews dont change en masse? Crews change all the time with some staff leaving and new staff arriving. Am I wrong in believing this?

[DDBINK1]

Maybe the Lawn Club Grill that is a pay extra venue grossed you out the way they handle the meat? I understood that to be a do it yourself type of cookout.

What was good about the cruise?

 

I wonder if the staff get extra money to post on these sites??

[Rocky4ever]

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.

 

We enjoyed this cruise a lot. We were impressed by the food quality and service especially compared to NCL. Even the buffet was great!

 

Hopefully you won't be too disappointed when you will be on the Jade again.

Edited December 4, 2013 by Rocky4ever

[rnrcruzin]

You can please all of the people some of the time.

You can please some of the people all of the time.

But you can't please all of the people all of the time.

[Can'tstopcruising]

I haven't read every post, but I don't think it is fair to jump on the OP for his opinions.

 

Just for the record, we were on the Oct. 8th cruise. In our experience, the staff, in general, were not a happy lot. We had a few incidents of rudeness, which I don't need on a vacation. This surprised us because on stage the captain had a great sense of humour and we expected a gracious staff.

 

The food was mercurial! They seemed to offer all the best choices on the same night! The last night, I couldn't find a good choice and ended up with onion soup and a salad. (For me, this was great!) They were both delicious and I wouldn't have ordered onion soup if I had had a meal.

 

This was a very port-intensive cruise and the focus was definitely on the ports, so whatever happened on the ship (or didn't happen!) was minimized.

[cruise kitty]

Hi, we're just back from the same cruise, stayed a week in Paris post cruise, & really dealing with jet lag from the 9 hour time difference, & the long flight home!

 

Not discounting the OP's experience, but we had such a wonderful time. We were in AQ & ate in Blu every night except for our overnight in Venice. We even enjoyed several breakfasts in Blu, we didn't really enjoy our breakfast there on the Equinox, so this was a pleasant surprise.

 

Maybe the OP had a bad MDR experience?

 

The service in the bars, restaurants, to me, was wonderful & I was very happy with 99% of the cruise...

 

Ship was immaculate, I did notice a tiny bit less maintenance of the public restrooms compared to usual, a couple of them ran out of the cloth hand towels & they were never replaced (first world problems, right :D )

 

Had some great massages & enjoyed the spa very much!

 

It was cold, & rainy, but the ports were amazing, we did have to miss Ravenna due to really bad weather, but that's the chance you take when you travel this time of year, to us it's worth it for the complete lack of crowds & the Christmas decorations!

 

I'm going to try & post a review with some photos when I recover, Maybe I'll get started next weekend.

 

Again, not discounting the OP's report, we just had a very different experience.