Majesty of the Seas gets one of the lowest CDC inspection scores in the industry

[quicklabs]

I had read that the Carnival Fantasy got one of the lowest scores ever...a 77!  I am sailing on the Majesty in November, so I looked it up. It received an overall CDC score of 82 when it was inspected for food and sanitation in early July of this year.  Anything under 85 is very substandard.  The other RCI ships were fine.   The Brillance even got a perfect 100.  Now, I am skeeved out about the Majesty.  The report is available on line and it was pretty sickening.  Basic sanitation and food storage practices look to have been teribly neglected. .  I hope to heaven that it is addressed promptly and completely before our cruise.  Egads!

[Clarea]

20 minutes ago, quicklabs said:

I had read that the Carnival Fantasy got one of the lowest scores ever...a 77!  I am sailing on the Majesty in November, so I looked it up. It received an overall CDC score of 82 when it was inspected for food and sanitation in early July of this year.  Anything under 85 is very substandard.  The other RCI ships were fine.   The Brillance even got a perfect 100.  Now, I am skeeved out about the Majesty.  The report is available on line and it was pretty sickening.  Basic sanitation and food storage practices look to have been teribly neglected. .  I hope to heaven that it is addressed promptly and completely before our cruise.  Egads!

 

They need their best HD back!

[quicklabs]

3 minutes ago, Host Clarea said:

 

They need their best HD!

What is HD, please?

[Clarea]

1 minute ago, quicklabs said:

What is HD, please?

 

Hotel Director.

[dswallow]

Corrective Report for the 7/3/2019 Majesty of the Seas inspection is attached.

 

You can review the scores and reports of any inspection for all cruise lines/ships at https://wwwn.cdc.gov/InspectionQueryTool/InspectionSearch.aspx.

 

 

CAReport_19300822.pdf

Edited August 12, 2019 by dswallow

[Clarea]

4 minutes ago, dswallow said:

Corrective Report for the 7/3/2019 Majesty of the Seas inspection is attached.

 

You can review the scores and reports of any inspection for all cruise lines/ships at https://wwwn.cdc.gov/InspectionQueryTool/InspectionSearch.aspx.

 

 

CAReport_19300822.pdf 409.05 kB · 1 download

 

Interesting, thanks for the link.

[quicklabs]

Thanks.  I didn't know how to attach links.  Pretty disturbing stuff.

Edited August 12, 2019 by quicklabs

[Mikew0805]

That score is sad. I have sailed on her 6 times in the last 2.5 years. Best food in the MDR than any other ship I have sailed with Royal.

 

You can always cancel if you do not trust that they will correct.

[puppycanducruise]

That's bad.

I hope they act quickly to correct their problems.

[dswallow]

I'm really not of the opinion that report had really disturbing things. A lot of the discard date problems cited were basically 1 day off. I would call those technical violations not practical ones, mostly. Some of the areas identified as accumulating more than a days grease/dirt, etc., weren't exactly right in your face areas, but areas say between appliances/counter modules, and it's not like those areas were getting real food prepared right on the dirty parts. They apparently had some household-level coffee makers in employee areas that they discarded, etc. Records for a few things had typos (claimed) or were missed; not sure just a record of something is what I'd be concerned with.

 

Also if you look at all the scores from Majesty of the Seas, it appears something of an aberration; they normally do pretty well.

 

 

 

If you want a comparison, read the report for a ship scoring 100. The difference seems at least to some extent to be that they almost always immediately corrected the problem when found in the report from a ship scoring 100.

 

 

Edited August 12, 2019 by dswallow

[quicklabs]

Just saw the corrective report.  Encouraging news.  Thank you

[Wanderista]

It sounds like the staff needed additional training. If anything, I'm glad that they were inspected and I hope that they will be stricter going forward. It sounds like they had a problem with fruit flies, some storage problems in their breakroom and some issues with food labeling and storage. They also needed some maintenance and cleaning. 

 

Hopefully they have tightened up after that.

[garnetpalmetto]

26 minutes ago, dswallow said:

I'm really not of the opinion that report had really disturbing things. A lot of the discard date problems cited were basically 1 day off. I would call those technical violations not practical ones, mostly. Some of the areas identified as accumulating more than a days grease/dirt, etc., weren't exactly right in your face areas, but areas say between appliances/counter modules, and it's not like those areas were getting real food prepared right on the dirty parts. They apparently had some household-level coffee makers in employee areas that they discarded, etc. Records for a few things had typos (claimed) or were missed; not sure just a record of something is what I'd be concerned with.

 

Also if you look at all the scores from Majesty of the Seas, it appears something of an aberration; they normally do pretty well.

 

 

 

If you want a comparison, read the report for a ship scoring 100. The difference seems at least to some extent to be that they almost always immediately corrected the problem when found in the report from a ship scoring 100.

 

 

 

Considering 1/3rd of the citations seemed to be associated with the Engine Change Area Break Room, I'd agree with you. It did, however, confirm my suspicions, having known a few (of the computing and environmental persuasion, mind you), that engineers are slobs 😉

[quicklabs]

I think it says that training and skilled oversight has been lacking.   Other ships are subject to the same standards and were on track with these items.  I hope that the cruise line will scrupulously monitor this to make sure that problems are resolved over the long term.  I also hope that the ship's work culture is such that when someone, anyone, notices something amiss, they know that their feedback will be received gratefully as something helpful and that action will be taken.  This will encourage the entire team to be a part of an enduring resolution. 

[Don'tNeedAName]

23 minutes ago, dswallow said:

I'm really not of the opinion that report had really disturbing things.

 

Agreed.  And although I'm no expert, my understanding is that the Vessel Sanitation Program is significantly stricter than typical local restaurant codes you'd find back home.  I believe @chengkp75 has said as much elsewhere on these boards, and hopefully he will correct me if I've misstated.  Thus, a score just slightly below the 85 cutoff wouldn't necessarily ring alarm bells to me.

 

 

Based on what I read, I personally wouldn't have concerns, especially after looking at the Corrective Action Report submitted in response to the inspection.  Of course, this assumes you have faith in MJ's crew to uphold what's in the Corrective Action Report... I feel like I would, based on all of the ship's recent high scores.

 

That said, as noted just above, plenty of other ships passed with flying colors... no reason not to book them if the inspection has you concerned!  Hopefully the next inspection improves.

 

[bobmacliberty]

3 hours ago, garnetpalmetto said:

It did, however, confirm my suspicions, having known a few (of the computing and environmental persuasion, mind you), that engineers are slobs 😉

 

Hey...I resemble that remark.  We just have more important things swimming through our brains than basic cleanliness and human interaction concerns.  The good news is that we can be trained.  Ask DW.

[RCCL Fan]

I'm really concerned that the staff was retrained to cook bacon crispy.

 

WTH!

 

I don't like my bacon crispy, I need to have a word with this inspector!  😉

[fredflint]

I would be concerned if was a history of low scores over several inspections that would mean that the company either did not care about fixing stuff or the staff just did not do what they were supposed to do.  After a bad inspection is probably the best time to go since they are going to be on their toes.  

 

There are also cruise line mystery shoppers and I would assume the time to send someone in to check  things out would be when something changed or a bad inspection.

[Merion_Mom]

1 hour ago, RCCL Fan said:

I'm really concerned that the staff was retrained to cook bacon crispy.

 

WTH!

 

I don't like my bacon crispy, I need to have a word with this inspector!  😉

 

What kind of monster doesn't like crispy bacon?!?!?!?   😨 😨 😨

[RCCL Fan]

Well....

 

 

<-------------------

[chengkp75]

Read the corrective action report, as this is where you really see the extent of the situation, in that this is where all of the violations from one topic of the inspection (food safety, or pest control, or ventilation, listed as "ref no.") get lumped together, and the final "score" of points is deducted.  You'll note that many of the early listed violations carried a "zero" point penalty, meaning the inspectors didn't feel it was very significant, but a violation just the same.

 

Unfortunately, this report shows very badly on Majesty's engineering department, in that the largest category of violations are technical repairs and maintenance that have not been done.

 

Food safety received a large hit of 5 points, mainly due to the repeated nature of the violations, not necessarily that the violations were severe.  As noted, most were record keeping errors, and I saw only two items of actual food safety issues:  the salmon being stored over other sandwiches, and the ice cream being out of temperature range.

 

22 of the first listed violations were in the Engine Department's Break Room, not an area that passengers get anywhere near, but as an area where food (albeit only coffee) is served, it must maintain standards.  This is an area that likely got forgotten about by onboard management during weekly inspections, since it is so out of the way from most other areas involved in food safety on the ship.

 

I don't see much of anything that would really "skeeve" me out in this report, and I think the failing score was just due to the repetition of the same issues over and over, and the engineering department needs to retrain, and step up their game to keep from having these issues again.

[garnetpalmetto]

15 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

Hey...I resemble that remark.  We just have more important things swimming through our brains than basic cleanliness and human interaction concerns.  The good news is that we can be trained.  Ask DW.

 

Trust me bob, I mean it in nothing but good humor. DW's best friend is an environmental engineer and her car occasionally/usually resembles a garbage dumpster on wheels. When we were helping her move out of her old house and in with her boyfriend I was tempted to call a construction dumpster company to stick a dumpster under her window...