When Service is Perfect, There is Only One Way to Go

Tuesday, 29 March 2011, Boulder Colorado USA

"What Do You Do On This Boat?"*

In December 1992, I first experienced the "6 Star Plus" cruise product. On an "extended vacation", uh, that is between jobs, I booked a cruise on the oddly named 170 passenger cruise ship, Song of Flower. The cover of the brochure on my travel agent's chair had a banner saying, "10% Single Supplement", and the itinerary that caught my eye included round trip air and hotels to Bali and back from Australia. This seemed ideal since I was about to take a, uh, vacation to Australia to, uh, get away. So to speak. Whatever.

After some intelligence gathering by my agent, curiously named Sandy Shores, that yielded that Song of Flower was Seven Seas Cruises first and only cruise ship and that there had been rave reviews in the industry for its first year marketing to Americans, I gave it a try. (Yes, that company is now Regent Seven Seas Cruises that runs Mariner, Voyager, and Navigator, all direct descendants of Song of Flower, and Silverseas can be said to be a very close relative, but that's another story). Flower was arguably the first cruise ship to be a small luxurious vessel that with essentially a 1:1 crew to guest ratio with all inclusive pricing. That is, no tipping, no bar bills, included air and pre and post cruise hotels, and included shore excursions. Meals were cooked to order, served in "open seating" restaurants with extended open hours (that is, no "dinner is served" or assigned times or tables), and most of all a passenger list of older but very accomplished and interesting guests. In my mid-40s, I was 25 to 45 years younger than most of the guests, but I found the others most interesting and willing to engage in conversation. The gourmet food and European upscale style service provided an experience that could be likened to having died and gone to heaven, but with guided tours. The overall atmosphere led to a "summer camp" (in a good way) atmosphere where everyone knew each other quite well--there is lots of time to sit around and chat--and at least for 10 days or so one would have some pretty good and close friends to enjoy the cruise with. Within a day or two of boarding that first Song of Flower cruise, I was hooked on the experience. After a year or so, my new business was apparently stable so I booked another cruise on Song of Flower. Shortly after, I booked yet another short cruise to "get it out of my system", was asked to come back and lecture on the ship, and the rest is, so to speak, history. I haven't worked on these products in some years, but it is a big part of my life. As of last week, I have been a passenger for about 420 days on Silversea, and about 125 on Seven Seas Cruises before that and occasionally more recently; plus about 100 days "working" on Flower in the 1990s. That's about two years of my life spent on-board. And I live in Boulder, Colorado. I know, poor baby.

It is natural that details of the product have changed--dare I say evolved--over the years, and there have been some lapses in the on board operations in the past almost 20 years on these ships. The original guests who were in their 70s and 80s are now gone, at least from cruising, and have been replaced by 55 to 80 year olds primarily. (Note that nothing in this essay should be construed to apply to the mass market ships that appeal to another crowd and provide essentially--in every sense of that word--a completely different experience. The fact that their product is provided on ships is a coincidence only. That's another topic.)

*During those early cruises, I was often asked that by usually older women guests on Song of Flower. I usually answered, "I drink Black Label more than at home."


Write Only Memories have become Unmounted Drives

In 1992, the others on the ship had found Song of Flower pretty much the same way. They heard from their travel agent, read an article on Conde Nast Traveler or other upscale publication, or perhaps some word of mouth was beginning that this a very soft adventure--most of the itineraries included many ports that had never seen a cruise ship before--with very high level food and service. My point is that the customers were older but interested people as well as being interesting people to travel with.

I remember quite vividly coming back from my early cruises somewhat concerned that the wonderful people I met were having, and most importantly enjoying, fantastic experiences--tours of countries not visited by Americans such as both North and South Yemen, "out islands" of Indonesia where the local chief would have a speech for an hour or two to welcome us, for example--and evening conversations often included sharing of travel experiences. But other than sharing to others in the same cohort group, these folks were no longer in a position to use the wonderful travel experiences in their lives, professions, or even to share with grandchildren who were a bit too different in age and experience. It saddened me that while I used almost every travel experience in the most unusual ways and certainly at very least the experiences allowed me to later on produce enrichment lectures that would be successful, my fellow guests were essentially just amusing themselves. Of course, they paid for that and most certainly got what they paid for, but it still saddened me.

On the second segment of the last cruise, the 10 day Ft. Lauderdale to Ft. Lauderdale Caribbean itinerary, it occurred to me most strongly that the guests on this albeit extreme example were no "Write Only Memories," but were essentially "Unmounted Drives". They neither wanted to obtain nor to share any experiences. As mentioned in an early entry to the blog, they had chosen a cruise that required no flying--I overhead more than one of these folks brag that they drove less than 1/2 hour to get to the "boat"--nor provided any new experiences. Many mentioned that they "do a Caribbean cruise" a number of times a year. But they never really left their Country Clubs. As noted earlier, the conversations were trivial about their "home lives".  Couples dined alone or with one other already known couple each night, and there were rarely, actually I have no pictures of, any of them smiling. (The above photos provide candid views of fellow guests on this segment in action. In the deck picture, of course, Barbara is an exception, but she was in on the joke.)

So what has this to do with the ship?


How Can a Luxury Cruise Line Keep People Happy?

The answer is to provide a consistent "product" and hope for the guests to rise to the occasion. An analogy is that when prices were substantially reduced or special "casual dress only" cruises were attempted a few years ago, the result was lots of backwards baseball hats in the dinning room and a group that enjoyed the "no bar bill" policy to perhaps an extreme. The resolution of the most unusual confusion among some ship's personnel of my lactose free baked goods with the requests of those who were avoiding gluten appears to been a consequence of, not a confusion of "special orders" in the galley, but rather an attempt by a misguided headquarters (not usually on-board) manager to simplify some operations. This was most certainly and permanently corrected by the Hotel Director and Maitre d' when it was realized that the result was not providing the "Silversea Experience" to me as well as the others, in this small regard. That, the high priority of maintaining the extremely high level of consistent performance and not compromising details in any way, is the secret.

Every cruise segment has a different vibe. Even identical (or in the caseof Silversea, occasional very similar) itineraries in the Caribbean and Alaska will feel different to guests and crew. Of course, only the occasional "mindless" Caribbean Florida to Florida segment will appeal to the country club types, and one would expect that Rio to Namibia South Atlantic crossings, say, will draw a somewhat different group. But Silversea (or the other "S" lines) will most certainly founder if they try to adjust the product for anticipated cohort groups. This is because the act of attempting to match the product to the customers changes the product--kind of a moving target as well as a moving gun--as well as changing the customers for other cruises. Regent apparently is finding this out when they recently began to include most excursions in the cruise fare, to recreate the experience of of the guests of Song of Flower on Asian itineraries in the '90s. But Flower had a maximum of 180 guests in the later years, and two of the three Regent ships are running full with almost 700 guests. Instead of early bonding of the rich, retired folks of 20 years ago on half empty small tour buses in exotic locales, the Regent tours are mostly full buses of grumpy 2010 retired or near retired folks trying to get their "money's worth" by taking every tour and then complaining about the crowds or having to go to "another museum" and asking for the bus to take them immediately "back to the boat" when they get bored.

Everything has consequences, and this level of cruise line has seen lots of unintended consequences. Well experienced staff in the dining rooms were supplemented and then replaced with a more international crew. The result was the need for extensive zero based training. A period of a couple of years of somewhat poorer and confused service (e.g. fresh ground pepper offered on all dishes, including ice cream!) ensued due to the new members very much wanting to perform as trained but having none of their own experiences. My favorite was the line up of assistant waiters at the lunch buffet. As soon as you exited the service line, a busboy would grab your plate--even if it held only a roll, the ship was alongside the pier, and your chosen table was 2 feet away--and take your food across the room. These kids were told that they were "required to carry guests plates". My next favorite example was harder to figure out. That is, why was I being called by the bar waitresses and deck hands, "Sir Mike". Well, I figured it out. These upwardly mobile, intelligent, but mostly Asian crew members were told they needed to address guests as "Sir" or "Madame". But they were not told how. So they just used the words as they had seen in film, apparently mostly about Camalot. Another example is that salt and pepper appeared to be in layers in both multi- and single- holed shakers on every table. This appears to be corrected, at least on Silver Cloud, after it was observed that in some parts of the world where crew were from, the usage of the shaker varied. The very low level employees whose job was to refill the shakers just did what their mothers had taught them at THEIR homes. Now extensive role playing exercises and continued re-training have finally paid off. The new groups work in general much harder and are a lot more matched to modern European and American tastes, at least in my opinion.

Despite the lactose/gluten disaster, The Silver Cloud staff and crew performed at the highest level I've ever experienced on Silversea, Regent, or the old Song of Flower: not necessarily better, but certainly at the best possible. It could be argued, even, that given the full ship--280 guests with all guest suites occupied--this was way above any other cruise. Even with the very demanding and joyless grumps, at least on the last segment. The problem, as suggested by the days of my being served horse poop muffins, is that the Hotel Director, Maitre d', and even the Captain do not know of small problems until they grow into big ones--or a guest is brave (or experienced) enough to walk into the always open door office of the Hotel Director and point out a troublesome issue. The next day's lunch with the HD and HR Manager (primary management/crew liaison and crew trainer) more than fixed the problems by the next morning. As they said, the "Silversea Experience" must be maintained, and the owners and headquarters personnel must be aware of this and endorse it. That's how to get us to reach the next milestone of 500 days and get "A Free Two Week Cruise, Excluding Air".

Stay tuned for the next blog, starting in June.

MB

Silver Cloud from Seven Seas Mariner's Top Deck during visit for lunch, both ships docked in Antigua on 19 March 2011

Response to comment from Felipe, as follows:

Felipe,

The "Country Club Types" on the cruise were mostly on the 2nd segment, from Ft. Lauderdale to Ft. Lauderdale. Our first cruise segment from Barbados to Ft. Lauderdale had in general a more interesting group of guests. The high end cruise lines (Silversea, Seven Seas, Sea Dream, Seaborne, Crystal: why do they all start with the "S" sound, and for that matter why do mattress companies do as well?) have higher per diems than do the mass market ships. Often well off people are more conservative in their views. Unfortunately, for some reason (perhaps due to some commentators on some cable networks who whip them up to a frenzy) these folks seem to feel more motivated to express their political views to strangers. It used to be that guests on these cruise lines didn't discuss politics or religion or show pictures of their grand children or pets to people on first meeting. I've noticed that on the cruise itineraries that appeal to a more international mix of guests, I found I've bonded with other guests much more quickly. The FLL to FLL segment was unique for me in that the majority of the guests were Florida residents who had chosen an itinerary that combined no need to fly to or from the cruise, was almost certainly to be in good weather with their perception that the seas would be very calm, wouldn't tax them in terms of exotic qualities of the ports visited, and was likely to get more people just like themselves. What surprised me was that they seemed so joyless but remarkably demanding of the crew. They got vocal only when (other than expressing political views) they found their space being violated. (Note my comment in the blog about the table on deck.) They seemed to reserve deck chairs with bookmark-less library books although there was sufficient space for all, and most of all they never smiled and very infrequently even acknowledged an "hello" in the halls or on deck. Perhaps the "very, very, rich" can not experience happiness after acquiring their material wealth, but that's a bit too philosophical even for me. At any rate, there were some great dinner and cocktail companions on even this segment, although I must say they seemed to be those who ventured away from the gift shops to take walks in town or take excursions. Mostly, on all these cruises, it is those of us on Deck 4 (without the more costly verandas) who bond the quickest. And very few of us own green pants.

Feel free to let me know your e-mail address if you'd like to discuss this further off the public forum.

Best,

Mike



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Felipe <noreply-comment@blogger.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 5:16 PM
Subject: [Mindless Caribbean Cruise] New comment on The Mindless Part, Part 1.

Felipe has left a new comment on your post "The Mindless Part, Part 1":

These Country Club types were also very much in evidence on my recent Regent Seven Seas cruise around South America, fortunately although they didn't represent 3/4 of the guests. Unfortunately, however, they are very free in expressing their profoundly conservative views, likes and dislikes. This wasn't the case on the previous cruise in the Indian Ocean.



Posted by Felipe to Mindless Caribbean Cruise at March 24, 2011 4:16 PM

Fwd: F. Scott Fitzgerland vs. Ernest Hemingway

Begin forwarded message:

From: Marc Raizman
Date: March 24, 2011 4:51:58 PM EDT
To:  Michael
Subject: F. Scott Fitzgerland vs. Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway is responsible for a famous misquotation of Fitzgerald's. According to Hemingway, a conversation between him and Fitzgerald went:

Fitzgerald: The rich are different than you and me.

Hemingway: Yes, they have more money.

Best,  Marc Raizman

The Mindless Part, Part 1

Thursday, 24 March 2011, Fort Lauderdale Airport

Above, Captain Nino Pontillo with bambini on Silver Cloud. The good captain married Tour Desk manager Heidi some years ago. It was nice to see my old friend Heidi with her two really cute little girls and baby brother Giuseppe close on the way. It was fun to see the usually serious now very proud captain melting with his bambini.


Now for the "Mindless" part. It is an observation of frequent guests on Silver Sea Cruises' small ships that each cruise segment has a different "feel". The ships are quite small--Silver Cloud was full with 280 revenue guests on our 2nd segment from Ft. Lauderdale to Ft. Lauderdale--so a handful of people can set the style of the entire cruise. Unfortunately, about 3/4ths of the guests on this segment were very similar and locked the mood in from 1st to last day of this 10 day cruise segment.

This was not an unfriendly group. They were just NOT friendly. I guess older, country club types (actually most are country club residents), who choose a very low weather and travel risk cruise. They proudly announced that they drove from resort islands in Florida and didn't fly ("I don't want to pour my liquids into small bottles.") and just visited the diamond dealer or tee-ship shops in very similar ports to them. (If you don't venture beyond the diamond dealers and gift shops, then the ports are all very similar.) These folks certainly are taking little risks in their recreation. And did I mention that these folks were very well off. Lots of diamonds around pool! F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "The very, very rich are not like you or I". Never having thought much of this before, I realize now that what he meant was that they are very, very spoiled to the point of not being able to experience joy. These folks on this segment sat around in small groups talking serious country club talk such as, "I am having dinner tonight with Buddy and Pam," or "Our island had a weed problem but it was dealt with, somehow." No laughing, no joking, no mingling with the 1/4 of us who weren't very, very (or even slightly) rich, but worse of all by far was that eye contact with us didn't yield an "hello" but rather an aggressive stare. Barbara and I walked onto the deck behind the Panorama Lounge (8 Deck, Aft) on the first evening of this segment and were greeted with two country club couples including a distinguished looking gentleman behind a double vodka and tonic who without looking up said, "This is OUR SPACE on the boat." I smiled and said that it was a ship, but my comment didn't mean anything to him. We also learned from the Hotel Director that this crowd--that is, the country club crowd majority on this segment--gave the crew the hardest time all season and were complaining about just about everything. Very weird since the ship, the crew, the food, and service in general were fantastic and probably the best I had ever experienced. Nothing made these folks happy or appreciative.

Fortunately, these folks were as I said "not friendly" rather than grumpy or even unfriendly. They were a constant source of enjoyment for the rest of us and made us (the not very, very rich) a ship within a ship sub-group. Ya never know. A cruise is truly like a box of fois gras, or something like that.

Next, after I get home, Part 2 on the management of the ship and how perfection has only downward potential.

Sign in fountain

Sign says, PLEASE DO NOT WADE OR RINSE FEET IN THE FOUNTAIN.