What is a reasonable amount of cabins to prepare in a day?

Our forever smiling, always polite, efficient and nothing is too much cabin stewards are a bid factor in why our cruising experience goes so well.

From the moment you first walk down the corridor to your cabin and bump into your steward you know you’re going to be looked after well.

You leave your cabin in a mess you fail to realise and yet come back to it as if it was brand new. We often take this for granted but almost always leave a tip at the end of the cruise.

But have you ever thought about or discussed how many cabins a steward needs to prepare every day?

Too be honest I think I may ring around a few cruise lines just to get an idea of how each compares but up to last week I had never thought about it until one of my clients shared with me a conversation she had on a recent P&O Azura cruise.

On this cruise the cabin stewards had there workload increased from 22 cabins to 24. Now to me 22 sounds alot, especially on turn around day so to now have another 2!!!!!

Yes this may give each steward the opportunity of earning more tips but then what is the service going to be like if the work load is too much? Perhaps this will jeopardise getting a tip altogether?

Either way I am sure this can not be very motivating.

Whilst thinking about this I looked up some other related stories and saw a case made against NCL last year by some senior cabin staff, they had to clean 35 cabins and make 70 beds in just 4 hours… Ouch.

I know it can be said that this is the cost of reducing prices and if i booked a 10 night cruise at £399 and my cabin was not upto scratch then maybe i just need to except that but there are loyal passengers out there that would have booked that same cruise for £799 brochure price and would expect to receive service in recognition for the money paid.

What’s the solution there? Maybe all those that have paid top money should be located near to each other with more stewards available per cabin, almost like how it is done on flights and what class you book reflects what service you receive.

I’m sure if it carries on like this our cabin stewards will not be smiling so much, will be too tired and busy to be polite and probably keep their heads down when it comes guest requests.

What do you think?