"Pride of Aloha" Lessons for QM2?

[Crouton]

NCL has cancelled a cruise of their new ship, "Pride of Aloha" because "the (new, American) crew is exhausted." The article (below) is fascinating.

IMHO, Cunard should do exactly the same thing for QM2 -- nationalities of crew members notwithstanding.

Not that I need to ask, but I'd really love to hear what others think. [img]http://messages.cruisecritic.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Crouton

[url="http://www.cruisecritic.com/news/news.cfm?ID=1131"]Go To Original[/url]

NCL Cancels Pride of Aloha Voyage; "Crew Exhausted"


In what's a relatively unprecedented reason for canceling a cruise, Norwegian Cruise Line has announced that Pride of Aloha will forgo a two-day weekend voyage that was slated to begin Saturday -- because its crew members are, according to company spokeswoman Susan Robison, "exhausted."

Pride of America just launched in June. What's different about the crew on this ship results from the fact that the vessel flies an American flag, which gives NCL a lot of benefits over the big-ship competition -- it can offer cruising's only seven-night roundtrip itineraries from Honolulu, avoiding calls at foreign ports. However, the cruise must also toe-the-line on strict U.S. regulations, one of which is that the majority of crewmembers must come from the United States -- and the U.S., unlike many other countries, has not had a long tradition of cruise crew service. As such, NCL has faced challenges in training a whole new generation of onboard crew in preparation for the ship's preliminary cruises and its inaugural sailing, which departs from Honolulu on July 4.

"This is a complete switch from an international crew and management to a U.S. crew and management almost literally overnight," Robison said. "Our U.S. crew has done a great job but they are simply exhausted, and the situation is in danger of developing into burn-out if we do not allow everyone to wind down for a couple of days."

NCL has also canceled a one-night party cruise in Hawaii on July 2. NCL has not, however, kiboshed the upcoming trans-Pacific repositioning, a 12-night voyage that is slated to arrive in Honolulu on July 2.

Since Pride of Aloha, until now known as NCL's Norwegian Sky, emerged from its transformative dry dock on June 7, the ship has sailed two revenue cruises. Pride of Aloha is the first modern passenger ship to carry the U.S. flag in almost 50 years.

June 18, 2004

[dougnewmanatsea]

I can't speculate on what's behind NCL's decision but I can say that I have never heard of anything like this before - and neither has anyone I know, including people who have been intimately involved with the industry for years.

I would not expect any other line to be cancelling cruises any time soon because the crew were tired.

Doug Newman
Cruise Critic Message Boards Host
e-mail: shiploverny AT yahoo DOT com

[Crouton]

Copy of a fax I sent to NCL Customer Relations -- (305) 436-4108

"Having just sailed Queen Mary 2 and seen some of the stresses that the crew of a new ship is under, I want to commend you on the break you recently created for the "Pride of America" crew.

"I wish more service-oriented corporations were as sensitive to the human needs of their employees: it was a courageous and hopeful decision that you made.

Thank you."

Crouton,
[color=red]Duke [color=purple]of[/color] [/color][color=blue]Edinburgh[/color]

[OrangeAndBlue]

I predicted that this would happen when I first heard about the launching of an All-American crewed ship last year. I hate to say it but most Americans neither want nor have the work ethic to stick out the kind of day that most of the crew on a cruise ship endure. What makes this even more pathetic is the fact that the ship has only been out for a couple of weeks. It was just launched in June. Two weeks and they need to "rest".

When I first joined the Navy in 1992, we were very short-staffed on my ship and worked Starboard/Port watches. What this meant was that we would have to stand watch every four hours for four hours. This was in addition to your normal workday. You never were able to sleep for more than 3 hours at any given time. We endured this for months on end and didn't get the opportunity to relax.

I am sorry if I sound unsympathetic to this new crew, but if they had been out for a couple of months, I might be a little more forgiving. A couple of weeks is just too short a time...

Paul

[OrangeAndBlue]

One more point. If they have to get a break twice a month, I just can't see this ship ever getting off the ground. It will need two complete complements of staff to run it full-time. One to work and one to relieve the crew that needs to relax...

[JDMOR]

As any one who has followed the NCL board can attest to, NCL Customer Service (service to passengers) is as about as BAD as it can get. At least NCL is apparently trying to keep the crew "happy". Now if they could only see their way to try to keep their passengers "happy".

[OrangeAndBlue]

JDMOR - I know what you mean. I have an MBNA NCL credit card and have started about thinking on switching it over to the RCCL. The biggest thing, though, is the redemption is twice what I would get with the switch. I was hoping to use it on the Hawaiin cruise, but I would hate to pay airfare for that to have it cancelled...

Paul

[gardencat]

For those of you who haven't been following the NCL board 'Pride of Aloha' threads, there is IMHO a lot more going on than NCL getting the sudden humanitarian urge to be kind to their crew.
The launch of this new Hawaii venture seems to have been plagued with problems from the start and ,again IMHO, has been terribly managed by NCL.

After the early POA west coast cruises there were several really negative comments and reviews and rumours were flying about staff quiting or being 'lazy', having bad attitude, swearing and groping one another in front of customers, etc.

At that point NCL announced that they were canceling a short cruise in order to give the crew 'a well deserved rest ' and avoid them suffering from burn out.

Also they were contacting some passengers booked on the June 20 POA cruise and bumping them (in the case of at least one person who had won his cruise) or offering to buy them out.

Someone posted on the NCL board that they had meet several crew members on shore in San Fransisco and had been told that many crew members wanted to quit but were from Hawaii and were waiting till they got back to the islands to 'jump ship'. (I can't speak to the validity of that report just passing on what was posted).

Now, according to recent posts from passengers who are presently on the June 20 repositioning cruise, NCL has given them yet another story to explain the shortage of crew on the ship. Something involving missing or incomplete documentation causing the Coast Guard to require a number of crew members to leave the ship.

At this point I have NO idea what is actually going on. From my own past experience I would say that NCL's idea of 'the truth' in any situation is simply what they feel like saying right now so I have absolutely no faith in any of their many and varied explainations of what is going on.

I do think that their posture of being kind employers who are just worried about their tired crew is quite beyond belief and so, I will not be rushing to send them any faxes to commend them on their "sensitivity to the human needs of their employees."

[Crouton]

Thanks for the reality check, gardencat. I have no doubt that everything you describe is accurate.

All the more reason that the people at NCL could use some encouragement and support when they do manage to do the right thing, or something close to it, for whatever reason. I would imagine they are probably inundated with complaints most of the time.

BTW, I don't have any direct experience with NCL, but I also don't confuse them with Disneyland.

Crouton

[bfoot34]

We were on the Pride of Aloha this past Christmas for a 7 day cruise. We were on the QM2 for a 7 day cruise in February. Believe me, there is know comparison between the two ships. The QM2 is outstanding in every way. The Pride of Aloha is simply very average if that. The POA crew tries hard, but, that is about it.

The quality of food service, crew service, and intertainment on the QM2 exceeds the POA by 10 fold.

[guernseyguy]

It will be interesting to see how the QM2 crew cope with a season of Trans Atlantics - I know from talking to QE2 crew they found them very tough:

[list]
[*]The !"£$%%ers don't get off for 6 straight days - so no peace
[*]AND you gain/lose 5 hours time difference every 6 days - body clocks shot to bits, unlike a stroll around the Carribean
[*]AND in the event of very bad weather 'alternative ports of call 'don't enter the equation.
[/list]I reckon the Trans Atlantic is pretty tough on both the hardware and the software - although with a captive audience, eating, drinking & gambling for 6 days, possibly quite profitable.

Peter

[copperpenny]

Peter I agree with the profitability of the 6 day crossings. We just returned from an 11 day cruise aboard QM2 and the staff was wonderful. I spoke to both our butler and the nail technician in the spa about the transatlantic crossings, and both had a forelorn sense of Dread...at least on the sailings with ports they all get to disembark 1 day a week for a few hours on land. It is hardly a day in port. They are allowed maybe 4 or 5 hours.
I have traveled both NCL line and Cunard and in my opinion there is No comparison.