Learning from the Past

NCL America’s Pride of Aloha has completed its first cruises to rather mixed reviews. And it all sounds kind of familiar.

NCL moved into Hawaii in a big way in 2001 with Norwegian Star. If you read any of the message boards or our e-mail after its first few sailings, you would have thought the cruises to be disastrous. Yes, there were problems, but NCL reported to us that the comment cards completed by passengers were generally favorable. (So there were lots of people who enjoyed the cruise, but they weren’t the ones being vocal online.) Yet, NCL’s management recognized right away that there were problems and set about correcting them, and already by the third cruise, most of the negative comments were disappearing. Some situations took longer to address than others, but within a couple months, passengers were raving about Norwegian Star. It wasn’t long until Norwegian Star was consistently turning in scores (on passenger comment cards) that were NCL’s highest fleetwide.

The comments we are hearing from the unhappy passengers on Pride of Aloha’s first revenue cruise are strangely reminiscent of those heard from the first Norwegian Star sailings. At first glance, it sounds like the cruise from hell, but if you step back and reread, most of the writers of those which are completely negative seem to have some other issues with NCL and feel that this type of "review" will punish NCL.

Nonetheless, there does seem to be a legitimate item recurring in all the comments we read. It deals with inexperienced crew members not having the polish to provide the extra level of service cruisers have experienced on other ships. Many though, go on to say how the Price of Aloha crew was friendly and outgoing and tried to be as helpful as they could. At the same time, they relate instances where you think, "How could any crew member be so dumb as to do (or say) that?"

The answer, I think, lies in the gargantuan effort that has gone into creating NCL America. At present, there are no other oceangoing American cruise lines. As you may remember, the vast majority of the crew members, by US law, must be American citizens or be authorized under our immigration laws to work in the US. Because US citizens are not generally hired to work on foreign-flagged ships, there is no pool of experienced employees to draw upon for these 2,000 jobs NCL has created.

Yes, virtually all of these crew members have been trained on land and on other NCL ships before setting sail on Pride of Aloha, but doing a job for a few weeks during training is different from the first few days when you are doing the job for real with no safety net. Additionally, for those who want to compare with their other cruise experiences, it has to be remembered, that a waiter, for example on another ship is seldom hired off the street as a waiter. He (or she) usually starts their cruise line career as an assistant waiter spending months or years in that position and learning from watching others how to do the waiter’s job and other necessary skills such as how to graciously deal with passengers face-to-face, even when that passenger isn’t too likeable. Out of necessity, none of the people on Pride of Aloha in the positions of waiters, for example, have had the benefit of lengthy period of time learning as an assistant.

It also needs to be remembered, that NCL has said on many instances (but not really drawing attention to it) that there will be differences in the style of service between their US-flagged ships and their Bahamian-flagged ships. In my previous experience on US-flagged ships in Hawaii, I found that the service was good and similar to what I found in shoreside hotels, which is different from what I normally experience on cruise ships. It’s my impression that NCL is aiming for something in between, knowing that these American crew members’ frame of reference is what they’ve seen (or provided) in America all their lives, and eventually (several years in the future) brining that closer to the standard cruise experience.

That American-crewed operation has brought with it one change to the onboard experience that seems to be confusing most passengers. In lieu of the automatic gratuity that normally appears daily on their onboard account, they are finding a "resort fee." Is that the tip, or isn’t it? Since it’s not called a "gratuity" are they expected to tip more? If they don’t like the service, can it be deleted?

It seems that onboard, passengers have been getting varying answers to their questions, so we sought out people in positions at NCL who could give us some definitive answers. They told us that passengers should think of it as the gratuity, with one important difference. In their minds, passengers should equate that to the gratuity and consider the crew members taken care of, just like the automatic gratuity on the other ships. (Because of the US labor laws and so forth, it doesn’t go directly to the crew members as it does on the other ships, but as US workers, there are other ways they are compensated, and in the end, it all works out the same.) The crew members understand this, and how it works, and are OK with it, and consider themselves getting a standard gratuity. If you got outstanding service, you may tip additional, and it does go directly to the crew members, but it is not expected. If you don’t increase the $10 per day resort fee, it’s not at all like you are walking out without leaving a tip. The one important difference that we mentioned, is that because of the way things are structured, unlike the automatic gratuity on other ships, this "resort fee" is like a service charge at land-based resorts and cannot be decreased or removed at your discretion. Unfortunately, it’s one of those things about America (like the details of how our taxes are spent) that we just need to live with.

What about the drinks from the bar? There’s a place on the check for a gratuity. Am I expected to add a tip for those? According to the source at NCL the definitive answer is no. Those people are covered under the flat $10 per day "resort fee," and like all the other crew members, they are not expecting an additional tip, but if you feel their service was outstanding and you want to reward your favorite bartender or waiter, that’s the place to do it for him (or her), but it isn’t expected.

For all those people whom you’ve always heard say, "Why don’t cruise lines just pay their employees a living wage and increase the price of the cruise to cover it and do away with the system where they are depending on tips?" This essentially is that system, and they should enjoy it.

Almost universally, passengers seem to be agreeing on one thing. They say the physical transformation of Norwegian Sky into Pride of Aloha is stunning, and it is a beautiful ship. We have some photos of some of the public rooms on the CND website. There are more photos on the way, and we’ll upload those when they arrive.

If you have a trip planned on Pride of Aloha, and you’ve been hearing some of those negative comments, call on experience from the past. There were lots of negative comments initially about Norwegian Star, and it turned out to be a top-rated ship. At that time, we saw that they were identifying problems even before passengers were complaining about them, and had solutions in place with timetables to fix them. There’s no reason to believe they will do any less on Pride of Aloha. CND will be on the ship in a few weeks, and we’ll update you on the progress.

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