RCDM-123

Buddy of mine just got off Independence. Zip tied balcony chairs, in a position that makes them useless. He was told that somebody was very drunk, layed on the chair flat, and DIED by asphyxiation. No idea if that's true, but even if it is, there are many questions. 1) Why are the chairs zip tied to reclined, and not upright? 2) Why just balcony chairs? Couldn't the same thing happen with pool recliners? Or the beds? 3) Why doesn’t anybody in RC public relations positions know this is fleet-wide and is now company policy? 4) Are the zip ties all they are going to do, or will the chairs be replaced? When? If just zip tied, are they checking and replacing the ones people are cutting off? Please RC ... somebody MUST be monitoring this blog. Everybody is getting different stories. What's really going on and what are your plans?

Well, somebody is lying. The Ovation cruise I was on was from Vancouver to Honolulu. We really didn't have any high winds, but the crew was told in no uncertain terms to leave the zip ties alone. Maybe there had been high winds when they were doing Alaska before my cruise, but then why not let me request they be cut off? And it certainly doesn't explain why they couldn't be moved so the chair was upright. My room steward, guest services, and the loyalty ambassador all said this was fleet wide, and they're being reported on other ships, so either I was lied to then, or we're being lied to now.

I asked the room steward to move the zip-ties to the sitting position. He said they were told not to touch them under any circumstances. I asked Guest Services if I could have them moved to the sitting position. At first, he said "sure, let me make a phone call", which he did. I could hear the person on the other end of the line yelling at the GS person (felt sorry for him). He hung up and said "nobody is allowed to touch them - they have to stay exactly as they are" and ended the conversation right there. I, too, would be hesitant to cut them off. Maybe the steward will ignore it, but maybe not (ours seemed quite concerned about it), and somebody on the Ovation (at least) was insistent that they stay in place for whatever reason. I don't know if they are inspected periodically or not as well, but since they are there for some undefined "safety" reason, they very well might be. As I mentioned before, these are heavy-duty zip ties. They are much thicker and wider than the ones shown by SmokeyBandit. I should have (but didn't think about it during the cruise) asked the captain about it at the "meet the captain" event. Maybe somebody can do that and report back?

The room steward thought it was "fleet wide", but I haven't been able to find much discussion about it (other than some mention of seeing it on Celebrity ships). Maybe it was only the Ovation. The chairs had a sign saying "do not lay flat", so they were clearly concerned about going back all the way, but why lock them in the partially down (reclined) position?

They are pretty heavy-duty. I thought of doing that , but was hesitant since everybody I talked to (Steward, Guest Services, Loyalty Ambassador) thought it was a safety "requirement". Breaking a safety "rule" can result in consequences. My issue wasn't that the zip-tie was there, it was that the chair was locked in the reclined position, and was unusable as a chair, and nobody was allowed to move the zip-tie to the other position.

Curious if anybody else has noticed this. I was on Ovation in early October in a balcony cabin. The chairs on the balcony had been zip-tied to lock them in the reclined position (I have attached photos). You can see that the position the chair has been locked in is reclined. There is another stop on the back that would make the chair upright (like a chair), but it was not possible to adjust the chair because of the zip ties. We asked our room steward and he said this was done across the entire fleet. We asked Guest Services if we could get the zip ties moved so we could use the chairs as ... you know, a "chair", but were told that they were instructed not to touch those zip ties "under any circumstances". The chairs had a notice attached not to lean the back all the way flat, so I guess that's what they are trying to prevent (is it a safety thing?) but with the chairs locked in the reclined position we couldn't sit on our balcony and drink coffee, or read, or anything that required an actual chair. The reclined position was very uncomfortable, and we simply couldn't use them. For us, it made the balcony useless, and a waste of money. The steward said there were no actual chairs that could be supplied in their place. I sent an email to RCCL, but their response was simply that they have forwarded the comment (to who?). Has anybody else noticed this?