Internet access from room

[pdarrah]

I just wanted to chime in on the business owner aspect. My family has a small business (65 years!) and basically, if we cannot be accessable for important questions, we can't take the trip. It is far better to spend a few minutes a day dealing with email on a DCL cruise than to not take a DCL cruise at all!

The phone doesn't work as well - if they call and we're not in our stateroom, they have to leave a message - so there isn't any real advantage over email (it's just a text message) and it COSTS way too much. I certainly don't want to pay for those phone calls! With email, our employee who is there can send the problems to us when they arise and we can stop in and check email a couple times per day and send her answers. On our first cruise last October, we never had any reliability problems with email.

Without this convenience, we couldn't take a family cruise.

pdarrah

 

[RAM]

I am in the exact same situation. At times like this you wish that you delegated more, but if you are a very hands-on owner then you must be accessible in some way at all times. I have a very trustworthy person handling things when I am away, and doubt that any problems will arise... but they can, and I must be in a position to handle things if they do. While I intend to spend virtually all of the vacation with my family, they understand that it is the business that gives us the ability to do things like this.

To avoid the temptation of replying to customer e-mails, set up a different e-mail address to be used only in the case of a problem. Then when you check for e-mails, it is a matter of seconds should nothing be wrong as there are no e-mails to respond to. Otherwise, when you see the e-mails piling up in your regular folder, the temptation to get 'just a few' e-mails handled to reduce the load when you return can be overwhelming.