Getting what you pay for?

About 90% of my clients I book a cruise for I manage to get hold of on their return. The reason for this call is to see how their cruise/ holiday experience was and to listen to their feedback.

This call is a great insight for me and helps my knowledge of specific cruise ships, destinations and changes of cruise line procedures and how they operate.

Some of the most common feedback is around the dining, something almost all cruisers cruise for.

Negative comments are

• Waiters are too slow
• Vegetables served on the plate and not in silver trays in the middle of the table
• Food pre-cooked and then warmed up
• Sachets, such as drinking chocolate taken out of the 24hr cafes
• Lack of choice in the buffet restaurants
• Miserable bar staff

Positives comments are

• Good service with happy waiters
• Fantastic meals in the specialty restaurants

And that is about it.

So why are there such negative comments? In my opinion it is the reduced costs of the cruise.

If a cruise cost £999pp and then goes down to £499pp then something has to give. How can a cruise line offer all this food, service, entertainment, kids clubs, maintained pools and solarium’s, daily cabin service and much more more when they are not getting as much revenue? By cutting back.

So if you pay half the price of a cruise should you expect to receive all the benefits?

And what about those that have paid the full fare, why should they suffer the cut backs?

P&O and Cunard have tried different ways of separating the benefits available to those who have paid the full amount and those that haven’t but this doesn’t touch on the service provided, or not provided in some cases.

So how can clients who have paid twice as much as their cabin neighbour avoid unfair cut backs?

Perhaps their own restaurant with the traditional waiter service we used to expect. Extra benefits in the cabin such as drinking sachets they can take out with them.

A deal perhaps on the speciality dining restaurants, or maybe those that paid less having to pay more for the specialty dining experience.

These are just a few of my thoughts but what are yours?

? What do you think?