Hope this is not what the onboard service will be like

[crickette]

This problem has been recognized for years, perhaps decades.  Guests, travel agents and travel consortia have all spoken out.  The article I posted shows senior executives (in OC) were aware, recognized the need to improve, committed to those improvements, yet we still continue to critique the shoreside operations.  Unfortunately those statements can best be described as lip service.  

 

On the other hand, a good TA (such as ours) develops, values and nutures contacts within the organization, and doesn't tolerate incompetence such as the OP described.

[Keith1010]

This is a new company and is in a catch up mode.

 

My suggestion is see what things are like a year from now.

 

There are quite a few new people; not all new in all of the land based departments but many new ones.

 

One observation. Over the years Crystal had to make cuts. First they tried to do this in ways that would be transparent to the guest. However, eventually they had to make more cuts.

 

On a ship if you need 500 crew you can't go with 300. But on land you can make cuts knowing that not everything will get done or it will get done but not as quickly.  

 

The same is true for other cruise lines. When Seabourn land based departments were combined under HAL certain things went away or certainly were not done as they were.

 

Here's an example.  People criticized marketing. Look at what marketing (which includes social media) is doing today versus a couple of months ago.

 

On Board Guest Services IMHO is doing a terrific job.

 

And while this reservation agent was a disaster that doesn't mean they all are. I have heard very good things about a number of them from several TA's and I had two very good experiences with them as well.

 

Will the experience be as good as it is at sea. No.  Not a chance. But let's see how things are when the folks get up to speed and when they are not in the catch up mode.

 

Keith