Unwelcome visitor in room

[rollingstone]

During our recent cruise on the Sapphire we had a very disturbing experience. It was a sea day & my husband was on the balcony with the door open. I had just come out of the shower and was in my robe (thankfully) sitting at the mirror. There was a quick rap on the door and in walked a crew member! He asked if we had called the pursers desk. When we said "no" he asked if everything was OK. We said "yes" and he left. My husband went to the desk (very upset) to find out what was going on. They told him that our TV was too loud & our neighbor complained (55 & 60 yr. old party animals? ) We said that since it was not a health emergency nor a matter of ship security, it was not acceptable to walk into someones room! They thought nothing of it and said they would investigate. When we disembarked,(3 weeks later!) we put this on our comment card and someone called & said that it was resolved. We heard nothing more & are still p****d that someone could just walk in our room and it was OK.

Has anyone else ever had this happen. We have contacted Princess but they haven't responded

[Coral]

Yes - I had a room steward once who forgot to knock before entering and she entered 2x during a 2 week period. I was furious.

[-Lew-]

Locking the door should eliminate this potential problem.

 

Lew

[Coral]

Locking the door should eliminate this potential problem.

 

Lew

 

My door was locked. The room stewards can override this.

[greatdanemom]

Yuk, that's not something anyone wants to have happen. Feels too creepy.

 

I haven't sailed Princess yet but on the other lines I've been on they have some sort of a card or sign that you can put out to say something like "do not disturb." (Like the door knob hangers they have in hotels.) We always put these out when we're in the cabin just so no one walks in. I know the stewards are in and out throughout the day so it seemed like a good way to keep them OUT when we were in there. It's a pain in the neck to have to remember but it becomes second nature after a day or so. Just a suggestion to prevent future issues.

 

Sorry this happened to you. :(

[-Lew-]

My door was locked. The room stewards can override this.

Oh, okay... I was not aware they could do this.

 

I would think if an override were necessary they would take greater care when entering a cabin.

 

Lew

[Coral]

Oh, okay... I was not aware they could do this.

 

I would think if an override were necessary they would take greater care when entering a cabin.

 

Lew

 

One would think! I had so many problems with that room steward on a B2B trip. I had laundry lost, sometimes she would forget to clean the room, etc... A friend of mine was 2 doors down and had a wonderful room steward. This is the only time I have had problems with a room steward.

[can786]

On the positive side (if you want to call it that) CD Richard Joseph gives a talk about cruising and recounts the story of the takeover of the Achille Lauro. He was working on the ship when the terrorists took it over and I remember him telling the story of how the terrorists had to take action sooner than they had planned because a room steward entered their cabin without knocking. The terrorists were preparing their weapons when the unlucky crew member entered, so they had to act immediately. The ship was in port at that time with most of the passengers on shore so the hijackers didn't take nearly as many hostages as they had planned. It was a horrible incident resulting in the death of one American passenger, but it could have been much worse if all of the passengers had been onboard.

[Colo Cruiser]

I have had staff walk in my room unannounced in some of the better hotels too. :)

 

 

On the ship I always put out the privacy tag, that helps alot.

[kek123]

The steward over road the lock and the privacy tag was in the slot while I was in the shower. Another time while I was on the balcony reading. Just one of many problems on the CB. And to the OP's point, nobody in management thought this was an issue!

[dsawyer]

If one sends an detailed email to customerrelations@princesscruises.com one will eventually get a response. Ususally within a few weeks. The first response is just an automated form letter which says they have set up a case number and an investigation. They always will send a personal answer to your complaint. If you don't like their answer, you can respond that it is not a sufficient response.

 

However, I would guess the most you will ever get is an apology and maybe a goodwill gesture of OBC or something similar. I am sure they will say that it is not Princess normal policy.

 

They will never tell you if the employee was dismissed or what action they took against him/her.

 

This has also happened to me before because the steward usually doesn't give you enough time to answer the door before they start opening it.

 

I have a friend who swears they even had the "Do not disturb" sign on their door and was in the middle of a man and wife thing when the steward walked in. :eek:

[flag fan]

This sounds a little more suspicious to me than a steward walking in without knocking. Its strange to me that the reason he gave to you for walking in was different than the reason he gave to the front desk. (It's also strange that he would walk in to check on passengers who were too loud--he would be able to tell from outside the door if it was noisy and could knock to ask you to keep the noise down if he thought it was possibly noisy before he got there.)

 

I also wonder about the cruise line's reaction. Saying they took care of it could mean that they just told the crew member not to do it again or that they had had complaints about him in the past. Also, it does not sound like it was your steward (you called him a crew member). I wonder if this particular crew member was under suspicion for theft (it happens, although not frequently) and that was the real reason he was there--he thought the cabin was empty. The cruise line could have let him go and would not explain that to you (for privacy reasons and to avoid any admission that there was a problem crewman on the staff).

 

Of course, maybe I'm being paranoid, but that was my first thought when you described the situation and the cruise line's reaction.

[pungo3]

This is the first I've heard of anyone experiencing this. It's certainly a little scary. I've never had my room steward come in my room while it was occupied. I certainly didn't know they could override the locking system either. Wow, thanks for posting about this.

[4cats4me]

On our last cruise our steward explained to us that the room locks have

all been changed so that the room stewards can get in the rooms even

when you have dead-bolted the door.

 

Also, if the TV as too loud, why didn't the front desk just call you instead

of sending someone personally?

[victory2020]

Sounds suspicious, like he was up to something?

[Sandytoes]

Had the same experience.

 

I was taking a shower, DH was sitting on the Balcony with the door shut.

As I was walking out of the shower, lucky enough I had my robe on...Saw he was standing by the front door. :eek:..:o

Being we did not hear him knock, he let himself in.

He quickly covered his eyes, somewhat :rolleyes: saying sorry.

He noticed I was smiling, wanted to make him feel at ease.

Still covering his eyes, he smiled back and left the extra towel I previously requested.

Just thinking of this puts a smile to my face.

 

:D

[Lynda90]

On our last cruise our steward explained to us that the room locks have

all been changed so that the room stewards can get in the rooms even

when you have dead-bolted the door.

 

Also, if the TV as too loud, why didn't the front desk just call you instead

of sending someone personally?

If one person was in the shower, the other on balcony, tv on, perhaps they didn't hear the phone or a knock at the door. Not taking the side of staff, just trying to figure out what might have happened.

 

Good idea about always keeping "privacy" sign on door when in the cabin. I will do that from now on.

[dog]

On Princess ships there is a door tag in the plastic slot on the wall by the light switch or on the inside of the door.

 

Stick this privacy tag in the slot where your key card goes on the outside of your door and lock the door.

 

For the reason given, you would expect that the steward would not enter the room and the Purser or Housekeeping would call and leave a message on the phone.

 

We did have the steward enter without knocking when we did not have the Privacy tag in the key slot.

[NeurosurgeryNP]

This is the first I've heard of anyone experiencing this. It's certainly a little scary. I've never had my room steward come in my room while it was occupied. I certainly didn't know they could override the locking system either. Wow, thanks for posting about this.

Thay have to be able to over ride the locking system in case of emergency, i.e - a fire or other emergency, and they need to do a cabin by cabin search (especially in the case of you didn't report to a muster station if called) in order to account for all of the passengers.

 

While I have never had this happend while cruisning (the privacy door tag seems to help), I have had this happen while in a hotel several times.

[jms2362]

Did you have the dead bolt and the slide bar above it in place?

[NeurosurgeryNP]

Did you have the dead bolt and the slide bar above it in place?

No Slide bar on Princess, just a deadbolt. No Slide bar as Princess does not do muster on the outside deck with a roll call, they muster in a public lounge and or theater, and do a cabin by cabin search in order to account for passengers, and then only do a roll call if necessary.

[MaryPoppinz]

I've had it happen in a hotel (once) but never on a cruise. Freaked.me.out! I really think proceeding without ample warning should be reserved for true emergencies.

[Pam in CA]

I had this happen on my HAL Prinsendam cruise last summer. When I boarded, there were a few things wrong in my cabin, among them that my hair dryer was held together with a rubber band (would have fallen apart without it). I didn't see my steward and forgot to mention it to him when I did. One night, I was going by the Pursar's Desk and asked for a new hair dryer, that the one I had was a fire hazard. I told them that tomorrow would be fine. I went back to my cabin after 11PM and was on the john (and being single in the cabin, I didn't have the door closed) and all of a sudden, at about 11:15PM, my steward walked in. Without knocking. I literally screamed not knowing who it was and told him to get out. I didn't care if I woke my neighbors, I was terrified. He called back with who he was and that he had a hair dryer for me. Arrgghhh! It takes an awful lot for me to not rate a steward "Excellent" but he was awful. The dryer was among the least of the fixable problems. Rampant mildew in the bathroom was another.

[amapola]

On my last cruise on the Crown, our "Do not disturb" tag was stolen not once, but three times during the course of the week. The steward probably thought I was a secret collector of DND tags :p . We didn't have any incidents, but the door tag really offers no guarantees if anyone can walk off with it.

[GBeret]

During our recent cruise on the Sapphire we had a very disturbing experience. It was a sea day & my husband was on the balcony with the door open. I had just come out of the shower and was in my robe (thankfully) sitting at the mirror. There was a quick rap on the door and in walked a crew member! He asked if we had called the pursers desk. When we said "no" he asked if everything was OK. We said "yes" and he left. My husband went to the desk (very upset) to find out what was going on. They told him that our TV was too loud & our neighbor complained (55 & 60 yr. old party animals? ) We said that since it was not a health emergency nor a matter of ship security, it was not acceptable to walk into someones room! They thought nothing of it and said they would investigate. When we disembarked,(3 weeks later!) we put this on our comment card and someone called & said that it was resolved. We heard nothing more & are still p****d that someone could just walk in our room and it was OK.

Has anyone else ever had this happen. We have contacted Princess but they haven't responded

 

Of course, we were on the same cruise, with you. We had no experience like this at all. In fact, we ordered a room service breakfast on a morning we had with early land tours and forgot to remove our privacy tag from the slot in the door.

 

They (Room Service) left a note slipped under our door that they were unable to deliver the order because of our privacy tag. We removed the tag and called them and they delivered the meal within a few minutes.

 

Normally, if the privacy tag is in the door they will not knock or open the door. This incident sounds VERY strange! I hope you will follow up with the result from Princess should you get any thing from them.