Loved Our Cruise But......

[susan514]

Hey Guys,

Got off our second Magic cruise last week. We had a great time and plan to go again next October. The crew was great and we really enjoyed the social staff this trip at the Rockin'd bar.

Here comes my BUT:Our dining room service was fine, nothing great but we did fine. We have been on about 15 cruises including a previous Disney but when the waiter came over and spent 10 minutes going on and on about how to fill out the survey, etc., it really put us off. Now, most ships, the waiter might say something about the survey for 1 minute and that's fine. But this guy interrupted out dinner to harp on us to only give him an excellent or he would lose his station on the cruise Now, we did not feel his service was excellant and felt annoyed by this strong armed tactic employed.

Has anyone else experienced this? It did not happen on our last Disney cruise.

 

[AnnMorin]

On both of our prior disney cruises the staff were VERY upfront about needing an excellent rating on their survey or they could lose their job. I did find it a bit obnoxious too.


-added after re-reading this:
It did seem strange that they were concerned about losing their job over getting a "very good" I kinda felt pushed into saying excellent for one of them that was not an "excellent" but I did not want her to lose her job over it.

 

[cruisnfamily]

I'm confused about this. Time and time again, I read about how the servers went on and on about "excellent" marks on their surveys. Well, I did not remember this from our first cruise but thought I would reserve judgement until after our second cruise thinking this was something new.

Our second cruise, a 4 day was this past September. We had really excellent servers and the head waiter was a riot...he made sure to come over and chat or joke around every night. Well, they did not mention the surveys or the need for "excellent" marks even one time. They didn't need to mention it, they gave excellent service and got excellent marks from us without the need to even mention it. This is the way it should be. Had they felt the need to go on and on about the surveys, they would have lowered their rating in our eyes.

I'm sorry some of the servers feel the need to do this and possibly it is the ones who don't provide good service who feel the need to mention it. I don't know....

 

[mcnuss]

I have a gut-level reaction to these kinds of "give me a high rating" pleas, and it is not to give high ratings. If the servers do this on my cruise, I will ask them to stop. If they persist, I will speak to the manager about it.

We just went through this last year when buying a VW. The sales guy was actually excellent, but he gave us the big pitch too, and it turned me off so badly that when it came time to do the survey, I just didn't do it. I then got a call from the dealership manager to ask why I had declined the survey, and I told him the truth. I'd have given high marks but for the fact that I was subjected to a 10 minute lecture on its importance.

 

[MelissaE1]

Sue,

That would have annoyed me too. I hope we don't have to face this. I am interested to know if there are spaces to write comments on the cards, or are they just a "check the box" kind of deal? If I feel that kind of solicitation I will want to note it somewhere. I don't think Disney would condone an employee laying the responsibility for keeping their job on a guest or encouraging them to choose a certain rating whether they felt that way or not.

Glad to hear you had a great time -- I can't wait!

 

[inkkognito]

The only space for writing that I've noticed is a place where you can describe a problem and a tiny area to list the people who made your cruise magical. My list is always too long, so I generally write on a separate piece of paper or follow-up with a letter later. Disney really does read those cards and pays a lot of attention to guest opinions and comments.
My worry about the solicitation of "excellents" would be that there could be artifically high ratings by guests who buy in, or even artifically low ones by guests who are turned off by it and who give low ratings because of that. I've noticed the spiel about the ratings on our cruises...I'll have to notice whether it has increased when we sail for Thanksgiving.
Barb
Visit the Platinum Castaway Club at: www.castawayclub.com

 

[Hopkins]

If you provide "excellent" service, then I'll mark it as such. I'm a very easy person to please. A 10 minute orientation on how I should mark someone would turn me off. If the server just mentions the survey and makes a quick joke, that's fine, but that's all. Anything else is a complete turn-off. Just provide "excellent" service, I'm an easy grader. Really!!! I pretend that I'm in that persons shoes trying to please everyone, and that's really hard.

Tina
DCL---> "Excellent", well except that missing railing on the aft smoke stack on the Magic after that fire in March 2001. Why isn't that fixed?

 

[yensidfan99]

I'm inclined to agree with the previous posters. If you do excellent work than you don't need to worry about getting an excellent rating. In my office I evaluate my employees on every six months from their hire date. This means I am constantly given reviews. My employees quickly learn that it is better to strive at doing an excellent job throughout the year rather the last couple of weeks and then thinking I would rate them only on this performance.

I apply the same rules to the cm's when cruising. I would not alter my rating for them giving me the spiel but I would let someone know that this kind of behavior is not acceptable and that I don't appreciate it.

 

[AnnMorin]

Was that their jobs truly do depend on getting an excellent from each patron. In fact I am sure that one CM told me that if you do not get excellents your contract will not be renewed. He did really well and I would have given him an excellent anyow it was the assist. server that I was not overjoyed with, BUT as I said I would hate the guilt of someone losing their job for not getting an excellent. She was adequate but no where near excellent (head to be reminded several times for example about DS's milk that kind of thing) I wonder if in fact this is true that they lose their position if they don't get an excellent. It makes it hard to give constructive criticism (which WOULD create an environment of excellence) if someone will suffer for it. For the most part we have had great CM's but I will say that on both cruises the server, assistant server and one head server (cruise number one) ALL told me they NEEDED an excellent. I never heard anything from the room steward but gave him and her respectively an excellent as both times our room was tended to EXCELLENTLY.

 

[natt]

Webmaster: Is there any way that both of these threads on "pushy CM's" could be forwarded to DCL! It seems to me with all the repeat cruisers on here, that this would be something they should read!

 

[Cheese Please]

Will I never reacall our wait servers asking us to give them an excellent rating I do recall many of them telling us at the very beginning that they are striving to provide us with excellent service and if there is any thing at all that we feel is not excellent that we should bring it to there attention immediately. To me, this has always seemed appropriate, because I know that it can be very normal to not comment on things that are not up to ones expectations and then at the end mention it or rate someone based on it. Of course, then it is too late where if know earlier, there might have been a chance to recitify the situation.

I suspect some wait staff can articulate the desire to provide excellant service much better than others. Epecially given that English is a second language for so many of them.

 

[bigd332]

We were told that the more excellent marks they acculated they would earn extra days off. We were on the the 10/20 Wonder and had the survey pushed on us also. So I asked why it was so important to them. We had a very decent pair of servers and they came out and told us why. They never asked us for excellant marks they just reminded us to fill out the survey before we left.
Dan

 

[cruisnfamily]

Well said, Cheese Please!

I do recall our servers saying something along those lines at the beginning of our cruise......We want everything to be excellent tell us if we can make it better for you, etc. And, we did just that! Our first evening dinner was just too long for us...almost 2 full hours and with 4 kids at the table it was just too long. We told them after dinner that we would prefer to have things move along a little quicker and get out of dinner sooner, not rushing or anything, just not quite as drawn out as the first night was. From then on, the pace was just perfect and everything was to our satisfaction. I believe they did mention that we should fill out the survey the last night but the absolutely did not push the whole "excellent" thing down our throats, never even mentioned it.

 

[AnnMorin]

We did not have the "excellent speech" pushed down our throats!
What it was on the last night or second to last night I don't recall which. Our server- on BOTH trips (different server each time) asked us to PLEASE make sure we give him an excellent. He also asked the same for the assistant server. He went on to explain that without an excellent his contract would not be renewed. One very good would ruin it for him. He did ask if there was anything he could do to insure an excellent and I said it was no problem- he was great. But this did happen on both cruises at the end not the start. It was not a long drawn out thing just a heads up folks if you don't give me an excellent I am out of here.

 

[PhillyCB]

I just returned from the 10/27 Wonder cruise and the surveys were mentioned at the Disney Dreams Show, the disembarkation talk and again at the last night's dinner. However, our server only mentioned it once and JOKINGLY mentioned that he get an excellent. But he also added that if an excellent was not deserved that we should certainly mark how we truly felt.

BTW - our server was Richard and assistant was Tomislav. Both were beyond excellent.

Besides, when my boss is given my evaluation every year, I tell I deserve all excellents. It's done in a joking manner and that's only human nature. IMHO

 

[Chris&Nikki'sMom]

I am so happy to read about others who feel the same way as I about the "pushy" attitude of the servers. Our servers were not that great and to top if off, went on for about 10 minutes on the last night, during our main meal, letting all of us know (2 different parties) about how, if we did not give them "excellent" marks on everything involving the food and service end of the cruise, they would be "downgraded" on the next cruise as to how many tables they would serve which would, hence, cut into their tips. I was very put off, during the entire cruise, about the way they, basically, rushed us through our meal. I remember sailing on DCL in 1999 and remember having a salad, soup, appetizer, main and dessert...whatver we wanted. However, this time, on the 7 day (we were on the 3 day before), we were actually told by our servers that we could order one thing per menu list, i.e. appetizer, main and dessert, and that if we wanted anything else added, we could do that through them, after they had taken our main orders. I was very dissapointed, and really did not enjoy my meals as much as I enjoyed the non-rushed feel of the buffets and of Palo's. I think DCL needs to take a serious look at how much pressure there must be putting on the servers for them to give a lengthy dissertation as to how their remarks must be "excellent". Maybe DCL could concentrate more on improving and changing their menu, as I feel the servers are all well above par, giving leave to allwo them to serve the patrons without having to "push" a message. Sorry this was so long, but I was really bothered by this, and felt so vindicated when I read all of your posts. You DISR's are great. Thanks. BTW, so I don't get any flames, we tipped well above norm for our servers, even though they were not as great as others we have had, but they did work hard. We just felt we did not need them to interrupt our meal for as long as they did, to ask us all to do something we were not comfortable with doing.

 

[susan514]

We must have had the same servers because everything you said was what happened to us. Even the lecture that we received on the first night about being on time for meals and about only the 3 course meal. We four adults walked away shaking our heads and wondering what we did wrong to be scolded like we were.

 

[jlawall]

It really didn't matter what the servers said to us, we wrote what we thought on our survey. Meals were not "excellent" they were just "good" and that's what they got. Also, we never went on time, always a few minutes late. The only night we went on time, we were stuck in a long, uncomfortable line so went alittle late to avoid this. Cruises are supposed to be relaxing. Perhaps when the ship is full, the servers are more stressed out and this affected our service.

 

[eva]

Wow, I hope this doesn't happen to us on our cruise in May. I am the training manager of a computer training company and we have all of our students (customers) fill out a post class survey. Our instructors are expected to maintain a 9.2 average out of 10. If I found out that they were telling the students anything like what has been mentioned they would be immediately fired. We train our instructors on what to say when presenting the survey. They are suppose to tell them that we take the survey very seriously and appreciate any comments on what they enjoyed and what they feel should be changed. We strive for excellence, but not artificial excellence.

 

[kimtenn]

Wow, I am surprised about certain servers strongarming patrons into an "excellent" rating. That is totally inappropriate behavior toward the guests. We've cruised 2 times (2000 and 2002) but neither time did we get pushed into rating "excellent" on our servers. This past cruise we also heard a very short speech on the last night about please fill out our surveys, and we were simply told to rate them honestly, and if you felt they deserved an "excellent" to please be kind enough to rate them that way. It was very tastefully done (we had a truly "excellent" head server, Erasmo from Chile). I would have been upset too if I had been strongarmed by these tactics.

Being an HR supervisor myself, we don't hand out "excellent" ratings left and right unless they truly are excellent, so I'd bet since Disney is a pretty savvy employer, it has more to do with an extra day off than with getting fired or getting their tables reduced. If I was a Disney dining manager and found out this was going on, we would definitely have a serious meeting with the wait staff and let them know if this continues, they would face termination.