NCL America question?

[S.S.Oceanlover]

I have been reading all the negative reviews about the POA and how they are understaffed and about 50 crew members quit weekly.

 

If they can't get this ship staffed what's going to happen when they have to staff 3 of them in 2005-06?

 

Bill

[shoreguy]

A great question and one that NCL must be asking themselves. :eek:

 

Hopefully by then they will have a core group of seasoned American employees plus 25 % international crew members that can become the base for the new crews instead of 75% newbies.

[S.S.Oceanlover]

Shoreguy,

My wishful thinking too, but they seem to be going backwards instead of forward.

I'm hoping this venture turns out for the best but I'm rather skeptical at this point.

 

Bill

[shoreguy]

Shoreguy,

My wishful thinking too, but they seem to be going backwards instead of forward.

I'm hoping this venture turns out for the best but I'm rather skeptical at this point.

 

Bill

 

All we can do is hope. Remeber the show The Resturant where they rushed to open. Same problems. The ship has only been in Hawaii a month. I would consider the new Maui/Maui cruises combine with 5 - 7 days on the island. Only time will tell if this experiment works.

 

Anyone go to Disney World when it first openned - what a joke :( Half the rides and attractions were not completed and those that were had those things we here so much about lines :eek:

[cnmiranda]

OT: Speaking of "The restaurant" Rocco lost the battle:( Rocco cannot ever step foot in Rocco's again and Chodro is now free to sell the restaurant.

 

Hubby and I ate there in June and wanted to return in Sept, but it looks like a no-go. We wanted to see Mama, reminds me of my beloved grandma:)

 

Regarding the future of the other 2 ships- Lookout Beelllooowwww:eek: I'm actually afraid for NCL - I don't know if the employees can take 2 more rocky starts like this one:)

[gardencat]

originally posted by shoreguy

 

they will have a core group of seasoned American employees plus 25 % international crew members that can become the base for the new crews instead of 75% newbies.

Don't the 25% have to have green cards? How difficult is it to get a green card? Being Canadian I have no idea so maybe someone can fill in that information.

 

As for the rest of it:

 

NCL(A) will have to staff 3 ships. At this point it seems NCLA will have to work first to get PO Aloha staff up to number. Then they will have to be prepared to replace even usual attrition from this ship, as well as the other two ships.

 

Don't forget there is not a big pool of trained American cruise workers to draw from, so most of these they will have to recruit from other fields and train from scratch.

Where will they do this? On their international ships? I wasn't there, but weren't there some problems and friction reported trying to train the POA crew with the international Sky crew? If they are training on other international ships is this going to adversely affect the service on these ships in the NCL fleet?

 

Finally, all these new crew members will have to get their merchant mariner cards, not impossible, but apparently a time consumming requirement.

How long have they allowed themselves to do all this?

I'm just asking, based on what we seem to be seeing on POA does this seem like a reasonable thing to undertake?

[zimmerjulie]

I was thinking about this issue just this morning. It seems that a job like this, although a lot of work, could be a great opportunity for a lot of people. It is so hard to get ahead in many service jobs, because most of your pay goes toward rent, utilities, garbage, etc. etc. etc. Seems like this would be a good opportunity to save up a nest egg and move toward a better life. I have met a lot of people who work very long, hard hours waiting tables and doing housekeeping just to keep a roof over their heads. For those that don't have children, this would be a great opportunity.

 

I know that both Hawaii and NCLA desire a large presence of Hawaiians working on the ships, but with the number of crew we are talking about for these ships, it looks like they're going to have to be recruiting heavily all across the country to get the quality and numbers to acceptable levels.

 

Maybe folks in general will be tolerant of the "start up" woes on POAloha, but I think that the traveling public and the travel agent community will be much less tolerant if lessons learned on the POAloha, especially regarding staffing issues, are not put to use in bringing the other ships up to speed very quickly.

 

I think that once they get things solid on the Aloha, they should go to great lengths to preserve the image of a good Hawaii cruise and not stretch the trashing of their reputation over multiple years and multiple ships.

 

I love NCL and have enjoyed some of the greatest moments of my life aboard the STAR, the SUN, the SEA, and the NORWAY. The competent, friendly, caring crews of these vessels have had a huge impact on my enjoyment of these cruises. My words come out of a desire to preserve something that has great value to me. I am sure that the powers-that-be at NCLA have the same desire to preserve that value. I sincerely hope they are doing the extensive groundwork to make it so and I wish them good luck, which is also helpful in such a venture. :D I look forward to another great NCL (NCLA) cruise on the Pride of America in a few years!!!

[Jeconk]

I was talking at length the last morning with a waiter in the Hukilau and I asked him what was going to happen when the America came on line. (We hadn't heard about the 3rd ship yet.) He said that the crew had been told that everyone who was on the Aloha on June 1, 2004 would be transfered to the America sometime in 2005 and go to Germany to bring her over. (They also had not released her launch date when we talked). He also said that almost all of the POAloha staff that had joined since June 1 was also going to ask to transfer.

 

This appears to be a potential problem. If the Aloha's staff leaves for the America, you will have to train a whole new crew for the Aloha plus the America will need a larger staff and hence another learning curve for TWO ships. If NCL is having trouble bringing one ship up to crew capacity of 900, then what happens when they need 1900 next year for both ships!

 

Perhaps the sinking of the Pride of America back in January was a blessing in disquise to NCL. If she had launch as scheduled, NCL would now be looking at having to have 1900 crewmembers by October of this year for the two ships and they can't even get 900 now!