Coming Home
The Last Day
The last day of the cruise was at sea. On this day, you’ve eaten and eaten and eaten, and spend the day not doing much. I played bridge and spades, ate some more, and recovered a bit from the sunburn that I picked up in Cabo! (so, no hot tub or sauna for my pink skin…).
I tried my luck at the Casino, and holding true with my cruise casino predictions, things are always the best on the first few days, and tighten up as the cruise goes on. There was a wacky dinner where the waitstaff did a song and dance between the courses, the best of which was the napkin ballet as they danced the napkins onto our laps.
The annoying part of the day was the disembarkation lecture. During this time, they talked about the customer review forms and how important they are. I’m sure the staff gets a bonus based upon the ratings that are given on these forms. The big problem I had was with the lies they told the passengers about the forms.
The forms had a scale from 1 to 9, with 9 being the best. So, there was a lot of emphasis on giving “9s”. The simple brainwashing things were the use of the number 9 in many things, such as the 9 prizes that were given out to randomly selected guests who filled out the form by a certain time.
But the thing that really chapped my hide were the lies and attempts to affect the ratings, such as:
“The rating scale goes to a 9 because we know we aren’t perfect. So, if you were simply pleased with the service, go ahead and mark a 9.”
What? If the scale goes to 9, then 9 is perfect! Just because you don’t have a 10 available doesn’t change that the scale has a top, and that top is 9.
In fact, when we got the forms, 9 was marked as “Excellent”, which in my book, is a far cry from “simply being pleased.”
There was no desire to have honest answers so that the line could improve; instead, the focus was on getting 9s. Statements like “If there was only one thing wrong, then don’t hold it against the whole department.”
I’m sure this is a case where the ship is trying to gain benefits as compared to what the Holland America line wants to learn. But why bother doing a survey if the goal isn’t to learn where you need to improve?
I’ve had similar pushes before, but the lies that were told in this case really bothered me.
BOO!
So, as is typical on cruises, we put our bags outside the room at night to be picked up, and are now waiting for them to announce our time to disembark, so we can head to the airport, get on the flight back to DC then on to Syracuse, where 10 degrees and much snow awaits! Hmm, maybe I’m not so excited about that last part.
To Conclude:
We won’t travel on HAL again unless it’s a good deal or we’re traveling with others. We enjoyed our Princess cruise experience more. Since the cruise lines reward frequent cruisers, we know it’s important to stay with one line, so we’ll be staying with Princess for future cruising,
I’ll post pictures soon, and will let you know here when I do.
The last day of the cruise was at sea. On this day, you’ve eaten and eaten and eaten, and spend the day not doing much. I played bridge and spades, ate some more, and recovered a bit from the sunburn that I picked up in Cabo! (so, no hot tub or sauna for my pink skin…).
I tried my luck at the Casino, and holding true with my cruise casino predictions, things are always the best on the first few days, and tighten up as the cruise goes on. There was a wacky dinner where the waitstaff did a song and dance between the courses, the best of which was the napkin ballet as they danced the napkins onto our laps.
The annoying part of the day was the disembarkation lecture. During this time, they talked about the customer review forms and how important they are. I’m sure the staff gets a bonus based upon the ratings that are given on these forms. The big problem I had was with the lies they told the passengers about the forms.
The forms had a scale from 1 to 9, with 9 being the best. So, there was a lot of emphasis on giving “9s”. The simple brainwashing things were the use of the number 9 in many things, such as the 9 prizes that were given out to randomly selected guests who filled out the form by a certain time.
But the thing that really chapped my hide were the lies and attempts to affect the ratings, such as:
“The rating scale goes to a 9 because we know we aren’t perfect. So, if you were simply pleased with the service, go ahead and mark a 9.”
What? If the scale goes to 9, then 9 is perfect! Just because you don’t have a 10 available doesn’t change that the scale has a top, and that top is 9.
In fact, when we got the forms, 9 was marked as “Excellent”, which in my book, is a far cry from “simply being pleased.”
There was no desire to have honest answers so that the line could improve; instead, the focus was on getting 9s. Statements like “If there was only one thing wrong, then don’t hold it against the whole department.”
I’m sure this is a case where the ship is trying to gain benefits as compared to what the Holland America line wants to learn. But why bother doing a survey if the goal isn’t to learn where you need to improve?
I’ve had similar pushes before, but the lies that were told in this case really bothered me.
BOO!
So, as is typical on cruises, we put our bags outside the room at night to be picked up, and are now waiting for them to announce our time to disembark, so we can head to the airport, get on the flight back to DC then on to Syracuse, where 10 degrees and much snow awaits! Hmm, maybe I’m not so excited about that last part.
To Conclude:
We won’t travel on HAL again unless it’s a good deal or we’re traveling with others. We enjoyed our Princess cruise experience more. Since the cruise lines reward frequent cruisers, we know it’s important to stay with one line, so we’ll be staying with Princess for future cruising,
I’ll post pictures soon, and will let you know here when I do.