A 3 Day Wait For a Cup of Tea!

On speaking to one of my customers this morning who has just returned home from a cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Serenade of the Seas, I was shocked to hear that she was left waiting 3 days for a teabag to be able to have a cup of English Tea.

Serenade of the Seas

On speaking with the staff on board (who didn’t seem to want to help) they told her that they didn’t have any English tea on board the entire ship. Hard to believe isn’t it?!

They had all different sorts of tea from herbal to green tea but no English tea!!

She has been with Royal Caribbean on many occasions and never ever had a problem with the service or facilities that their ships have to offer, but on this occasion there has been a big noticeable difference.

It would appear that all along they had the tea bags but the members of staff that she asked could not be bothered to go and get them.  It was only when she asked someone that she had met whilst cruising on the Serenade before that she found out that they were hidden in a cupboard.

I know if that was me, I wouldn’t have been too happy either – a cruise with British guests on board without any English tea, come on Royal Caribbean! Have you ever encountered this?

The second point that she flagged up was that after spending the morning ashore doing their own thing, they popped back to the ship for a bit of lunch and what was greeting them on a nice and hot summers afternoon?  Casseroles and mince! – not really what you expect or want for lunch when you have a 5 course meal in the evening.

But Royal Caribbean are not the only culprits here, as on speaking to a colleague who had guests who travelled with MSC recently, they went up to the buffet at 10pm on the first evening, to be told that there were no mugs as they were all in the dishwasher, that’s either one large dishwasher or not many cups!!

After waiting 25 minutes for a cup they were also told that there were no English tea bags!!

 Blimey – I think this may be something we have to put on the packing list – 1 box of a PG Tips.

But this is only a tiny bit of feedback, generally the quality of what you receive within your cruise package is dropping, no chocolates on pillows in the evening, no nice toiletries and now no English tea bags!

Is this something worth complaining about?  Or are us Brits just too barmy about our English tea?

What are your thoughts?