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Summit = Poorest Poolside Monitoring and Security I've ever Seen


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The best management of chair hogging I have ever seen was on Oceania. While I'm not otherwise a fan of them, they would have one or two of the deck stewards always circulating. If they saw likely saved chairs, they would simply drop off a card with the current time saying that their belongings would be removed in 30 minutes. If you were in the pool or going for a walk, you would return, find the card and toss it (or use it as a bookmark!).

 

And after 30 minutes? Let me tell you that these boys meant business! Same circulating attendants would remove all the belongings and place them on a table at the front of the pool. For the first day or two, it truly was true performance art seeing people go postal when they returned to find someone else in their chairs and their belongings moved.

 

But ... after that first day or two when it became clear that there truly were NO EXCEPTIONS, order ruled and everyone behaved themselves.

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There were no pool attendants? I have never been on a cruise where there wasn't at least one crew member assigned to each pool. My husband and I have given up on the outdoor pool on sea days, too hot, too loud, too crowed. We head to the Solarium around 1 p.m. to see if there are 2 loungers available. If not, we go to enjoy a leisurely lunch in OVC. When we return to the Solarium around 2, there are usually loungers available. If we couldn't find loungers, we would ask the pool attendant to help us. If pool attendant refused (never has happened so this is conjecture), I'd go to passenger services to let them know there is a problem. No point of complaining after the cruise is over.

 

As to your comment about east coast mentality, most of us east coasters are pretty nice people. Don't judge us by the few rude ones who make so much noise.

Edited by Marelaine
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I think the comment about ' east coast mentality ' is quite rude.

I was waiting for this. ;p Having been born and raised in NYC. or minutes away, I am not insulted at all. The rest of the East Coast can defend itself, I know what I escaped from

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That's funny. But the problem is that the slobs use items they don't care about to reserve the loungers. Library books, old magazines, drugstore flip on chair the flop on the other. But I'd help you if you want to rearrange the chairs. To really confuse the chair hogs, you have to move the lounger to another area, so when they come back, they walk to an empty spot. Watch as they check the other side of the pool, come back, scratch their heads as they look at the nearby loungers, trying to remember exactly where they left that old magazine.

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They should enforce time limits...because it does work. But, since they don't, here's what I do... If there are NO chairs available anywhere, I will ask folks around "saved" chairs if anyone is sitting there. If they say no, then I will sit down. If someone says, "Oh, I'm saving that seat", I say, "Oh, ok...when they return, I'll move!"

 

Some folks will say, "Thanks, that's fine", and others will get huffy and move! Either way, I'm sitting!

 

Now, I don't think you need to relinquish your seat because you want to take a dip or go to the bathroom....reasonable and expected absences from your lounger are part of being at the pool!

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You don't! The cruise lines need to enforce their own policy. Yea right! :evilsmile: I always sit on the deck above the pool deck. No issues ever getting a lounger, a drink or two plus it's closer to the poolside grill/mast grill.

 

This is the area we have usually headed to as well. On Solstice, Equinox and Eclipse no issues at all but on Reflection sea days literally every chair here was taken, pretty well every blade of grass on the lawn too....

 

We did enjoy having a swim and then drip drying on the ‘mushroom’ seats at the sunset bar before enjoying lunch at the Porch.

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I was waiting for this. ;p Having been born and raised in NYC. or minutes away, I am not insulted at all. The rest of the East Coast can defend itself, I know what I escaped from

 

HEY! Shutuppa your face! :evilsmile::cool:

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The problem is Celebrity doesn't enforce their own rules. On the Equinox this past June, a man would reserve 5 chairs early in the front row for his wife and adult children. That's almost the ENTIRE row. The earliest the rest would arrive was 11 but most times it was noon :mad:. I DID bring this to the attention of the pool attendant who was monitoring, and the answer I received was "but he's there". "There's someone there." Yes, but not the 4 others he had reserved chairs for. I tried to tell them that 4 chairs had been unused for 4-5 hours now :rolleyes: Staff did not seem to care one bit! And, the adult children had their own cabin. Perfectly capable of getting their own chairs.

 

We had our chairs and used them so we were fine. It was so sad to watch those poor people walk around time after time looking for seats, and there were 4 right there being unused. Awful.

Edited by Want2Cruise 701
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Just wanted to give fair warning to any soon to be Summit cruisers from Bayonne about the very poor poolside attendance by security/staff. Chair hogs were above and beyond on our 7/29 sailing leaving chairs empty for hours upon hours with no staff in the vicinity to contact and question policy. The clientele didn't help, east coast mentality reigned supreme where grandma would get in a near physical altercation with anyone who requested to actually use a chair that someone in her family of 10 might have reserved at 7AM which was still not being used at 12:20PM. It was sad that there was literally no staff to intervene. These ships need to add locker areas giving passengers absolutely no reason or ability to reserving lounge chairs.

 

 

Also, a kid who was horsing around fell and hurt himself and the family had a difficult time having medical assist. Bar staff were slow to follow up and was telling the family to take him to medical, when they requested a wheelchair the doctor showed up before the wheelchair did to take the kid down for further evaluation. Thankfully I doubt it was serious but I seriously question the response time if there had been a real emergency.

 

When items have been left for an extended period-- take them to the bar/pool attendants. Thats their job..and report it to GS

As for the kid-- he is his parents' problem.

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They should meet the Equinox pool attendants... they took off many towels off of chairs. The security people also did a great job

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

The pool attendants on my last Reflection cruise were telling people if they wanted to save a lounger to put a personal item on it, because if they put a towel, they will take the towel away and they will lose their lounger.
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I think the comment about ' east coast mentality ' is quite rude.

 

 

 

I totally agree, I don’t know what it (east coast mentality) is but felt it was tacky and uncalled for. We’re from Texas, I can just imagine what the poster would say about Texans!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

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Chair hogs plague cruise ships and all inclusive resorts . Face it it's a fact .

 

Truly part of the self-serving, me-only human nature. That gene has been hard to eliminate from the population since the beginning of homo sapiens on our planet.

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This is the area we have usually headed to as well. On Solstice, Equinox and Eclipse no issues at all but on Reflection sea days literally every chair here was taken, pretty well every blade of grass on the lawn too....

 

Did I not say this last year after we sailed on Reflection? I have never seen so much overcrowding on any ship like we experienced on her. Which is another point that is worrying after the Revolution: all these extra cabins being installed on the current M & S class ships means more bodies in less public space :(.

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What did you do about the situations you observed?

 

In the case of the fighting granny I was too far away at that point to interject, I was not about to leave my chair on a different deck nor am I paid by the cruise line to take any responsibility in the altercation.

 

Regarding the medical issue. I was at the bar when the family came back over and asked if the medical facility had been notified and heard them say that no one called. If there had been any ship staff/security beside the bartenders around perhaps there wouldn't have been such a delay but none were visable.

 

 

Are there a million possibilities sure but I'm just reporting on what I observed (not actively participated in)....nice try to play devils advocate and somehow put the responsibility on me but your argument and insinuation is weak and I'm not sure what you personally have to gain by defending Celebrity. Receiving criticism is how we all improve in life.

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I was waiting for this. ;p Having been born and raised in NYC. or minutes away, I am not insulted at all. The rest of the East Coast can defend itself, I know what I escaped from

 

Thanks and I'll let people think what they want because as an east coast'r I really don't GAF what anyone thinks. Still I can recognize rude, unfriendly behaviors particular to the certain areas of the east though I find it humorous numerous other east coast raised people agree while a Canadian, a Carolinian and a Texan disagree. For the Canadian and Carolinian I was talking about the New York/New Jersey, vicinity so you can calm down I didn't mean you.

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There is literally no answer. When I cant sleep, I try to think of ways to solve this unsolvable problem. I'm not confrontational and I can't see myself ever challenging one of these people - and I think they know it. On our recent Summit cruise I rarely saw a crew member in the pool area and one afternoon I counted 5 children (2 with parents - 3 without) in the salt water pool in the adults only Solarium. One mother looked at me like she defied me to stay a word. Personally, I've given up. Now my husband and I go down to the pools, take a quick dip and return to our own balcony. Some things are just not worth it.

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