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opt for less stateroom cleaning for more points?


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I have not cruised celebrity yet, but I like the idea. I don't think it changes anything on the base points, just gets you one extra night of points, so for instance if you were in a veranda/infinite veranda room, you earn 3 points per night. If you opt into that program, you would get an extra 3 points at the end of the cruise. So say a 7 day cruise would be 21 points. If you opt in, it would be 24 points.

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Disney has been doing this for awhile, the theme park, not the cruise line (or maybe they are, but I haven't been on one since 2014). Traveling during COVID saw a lot of "We don't clean your room for a week because of COVID" and I did wonder if this was just going to be where they were trying to head since I'm sure it saved them a lot of money. 

I will never opt out of having my room cleaned every day, lol. Now when we book trips I actually call the hotel and verify that they do regular, daily room service. 🙂

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24 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

What makes it Go Green? It looks to be the same as we'd be used to minus the evening toilet cleaning.

 

But if you want to give me extra points for that, bring it on

 

 

I am guessing they are not changing towels and sheets as often.  Less laundry to do.

 

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36 minutes ago, GregD said:

I have not cruised celebrity yet, but I like the idea. I don't think it changes anything on the base points, just gets you one extra night of points, so for instance if you were in a veranda/infinite veranda room, you earn 3 points per night. If you opt into that program, you would get an extra 3 points at the end of the cruise. So say a 7 day cruise would be 21 points. If you opt in, it would be 24 points.

Thank you, I don’t know why I couldn’t figure that out! Lol

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I understand why they want to do this part of it is probably their desire to go green but I think the real reason they want to do this is because of staffing shortages. 

I'm a clean person I even will partially make the bed, not as good as house keeping but I will make the bed after I get out of it (my mother instilled that in my as a child), but I like having a clean stateroom/suite, I like having fresh towels every day, in my opinion it is part of the cruise experience.  I'm back to traveling a bit for work not as much as I used to before covid but I do travel for work.  What I've notices is hotels say they are not cleaning rooms every day because the customers don't want it but when I've talked to housekeeping they absolutely hate not cleaning the rooms everyday because when they do clean the rooms they have to spend almost 3 times the amount of time cleaning a room than they would when they were cleaning it everyday.  And of course management is breathing down their necks to get the rooms clean and back in inventory. Post pandemic there have been hotel rooms that I've walked into where I walked out and went back to the front desk to demand a new room because the room wasn't clean like it should have been. Again I don't blame housekeeping they are working their butts off, I blame the hotels and it has nothing to do with going green or less contact and everything to do with money.

In some regards the cruise experience has already been diminished and in my opinion that is part of the cruise experience and I don't want to see cruise lines follow this trend. 

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I would have no problem with cleaning once a day.  Make my bed, give me fresh towels, fill my ice bucket and then bye-bye until tomorrow.

The lack of daily service in hotels is a BIG pet peeve of mine.  I acknowledge that there are supply chain issues which could limit the availability of products but I am highly suspicious of the claimed unprecedented shortage of labor.  Of course I realize that during the plague and immediately afterwards, there were labor shortages but now ?  I believe it is truly more that the hotels are trying to KEEP their labor minimized to save money and use the "pandemic" as an excuse.  The same goes for many other industries.  Many industries did this to themselves with the ridiculous vax requirements (airlines...I'm looking at you !) which have been a spectacular failure and have done nothing but hurt their businesses/ [military] readiness.

But regarding cruising, I have no problem with only daily service.  I don't really want the room attendants popping in arbitrarily anyway.  I usually just keep the "sleeping it off" sign posted after my room has been serviced in the AM.

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I keep a clean cabin as well, I even empty the garbage if it would be an overflow type situation. Making the bed as well as I can't leave my bed like that (my mom instilled this as well) Once a day would be absolutely fine BUT give us more then 3 towels. I like to keep my towel animals all lined up like a little zoo, and as referenced by my Little Slice of Mariner Blog don't want to destroy them in order to dry my hair or myself after a shower. 

We visited family 2 weeks ago in the Pocono Mountains, at check in I confirmed with the front desk we are here for 4 nights, please service the room. They did and it was a lovely stay, so many times now (still at the hair salon) it's COVID protocols stated for much less service yet at an inflated price due to.....you guessed it, COVID protocols.

I have opted previously to only have our cabin attended to once a day & it was fine, I told them up front I need extra towels & all was well. I think our attendant appreciated the rest even if for a few minutes. Added C & A points would be a nice bonus. 

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Vegas Hotels have been doing this since even before the pandemic.  Now, it is everywhere.  Honestly, my opinion is jaded because my mother worked as a maid for years.

WHen our family, including my mother, travel, we think that we pay for certain amenities, so we have no problem with housekeeping services on a daily basis.  BUT---we do not need fresh new towels everyday.  We are slobs and we certainly aren't snobs.  I know that I hate making my bed, and its always nice to come back from all-day sightseeing to a fresh made bed.  

Now, the fact that Celebrity is acknowledging that we have the option for slightly fewer amenities, and in return giving us something back....that is just good business and well thought out.

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Yes, the sofa bed would be the reason I’d still like twice a day service.  When we are not traveling with a third/fourth person in the room, once a day would be more than enough.  I can and do perform basic cleanup myself.  I hang towels to dry for reuse and don’t use ice.  And we are NOT slobs.  Our stuff is put out of the way so housekeeping doesn’t have to work around it.  Might be silly but I would be embarrassed for our room steward to come into a messy room.  Mom would say “you weren’t raised in a barn!!!”

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8 minutes ago, Pooch said:

Yes, the sofa bed would be the reason I’d still like twice a day service.  When we are not traveling with a third/fourth person in the room, once a day would be more than enough.  I can and do perform basic cleanup myself.  I hang towels to dry for reuse and don’t use ice.

Yep.  That sofa bed is not that easy to navigate around or to make back into a sofa.  You are spot on!

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So let's take this a bit further and say for example on a 7 night cruise your stateroom or suite is only cleaned 2 or 3 times max during those 7 nights.  Should you still pay ( cruise line charge your for) gratuities for the additional 4 nights if you received no service at all from a stateroom attendant?  

Now think about how that might effect stateroom attendants overall pay.  

This is such a mirky issue because there will be people who will question why they are being charged 7 nights worth of gratuities if they are only getting service 2 or 3 times during a cruise and that would put a tremendous amount of financial pressure on stateroom attendants pay. 

After the am cleaning I put the sleeping it off sign out because I don't need the turndown service at night.  But if this becomes a trend industry wide cruise lines would either have to raise the hourly pay for stateroom attendants or they will have a really hard time filling those positions because people may start to balk at the idea of paying for services they aren't actually receiving which means stateroom attendants would see a drop in pay.

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12 minutes ago, JasonOasis said:

So let's take this a bit further and say for example on a 7 night cruise your stateroom or suite is only cleaned 2 or 3 times max during those 7 nights.  Should you still pay ( cruise line charge your for) gratuities for the additional 4 nights if you received no service at all from a stateroom attendant?  

Now think about how that might effect stateroom attendants overall pay.  

This is such a mirky issue because there will be people who will question why they are being charged 7 nights worth of gratuities if they are only getting service 2 or 3 times during a cruise and that would put a tremendous amount of financial pressure on stateroom attendants pay. 

After the am cleaning I put the sleeping it off sign out because I don't need the turndown service at night.  But if this becomes a trend industry wide cruise lines would either have to raise the hourly pay for stateroom attendants or they will have a really hard time filling those positions because people may start to balk at the idea of paying for services they aren't actually receiving which means stateroom attendants would see a drop in pay.

Valid points. 

When you begin sliding the possibilities around on the spectrum, between everyone opting in (which is unlikely) and no one opting in (which is equally unlikely), a middle ground will eventually be found.  If perhaps the results of trying this program out show that most people opt-in but limit service to once a day instead of two, or perhaps 3 nights of no service out of 7 (every other day), I think that you should be prorated for those gratuities that were not necessarily earned.  One point per day might not be worth it.  I am not sure.  

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47 minutes ago, JasonOasis said:

So let's take this a bit further and say for example on a 7 night cruise your stateroom or suite is only cleaned 2 or 3 times max during those 7 nights.  Should you still pay ( cruise line charge your for) gratuities for the additional 4 nights if you received no service at all from a stateroom attendant?  

Now think about how that might effect stateroom attendants overall pay.  

This is such a mirky issue because there will be people who will question why they are being charged 7 nights worth of gratuities if they are only getting service 2 or 3 times during a cruise and that would put a tremendous amount of financial pressure on stateroom attendants pay. 

After the am cleaning I put the sleeping it off sign out because I don't need the turndown service at night.  But if this becomes a trend industry wide cruise lines would either have to raise the hourly pay for stateroom attendants or they will have a really hard time filling those positions because people may start to balk at the idea of paying for services they aren't actually receiving which means stateroom attendants would see a drop in pay.

I'm sure people will question paying the same gratuities or an increase gratuities for less service. We have struggles with this at hotels over the last 2 yrs. Tip for daily service that actually occurred or tip for daily stay? No easy answer

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We recently had the "opportunity" to on cruise the "C" cruise line.  Our sailing had implemented only one room cleaning per day - do not know if this is a test or fleet-wide. Our stateroom attendant stated that they each have more rooms to clean. We missed enjoying more clean towels when we returned from a shore excursion and had the second shower of the day.  Incidentally, the suggested tipping has not been lowered. This is not a trend that we appreciated.

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1 hour ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

I had not considered the problem of a fold-out bed since we never have that problem.  Agree- if you had a day bed to worry about you would need setup and take down service or it would be a mess !

We had the sofa bed and a rollaway bed in our CL suite this past spring break cruise on Symphony and when both were out it took a majority of the lower level up. Our suite attendant took the roll away bed out of the room each morning and set it back up each evening, same with the sofa bed. It was much appreciated and he was rewarded. We also have a nice referral for him as well. Stephan was great

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I’ve already signed up for this on our December cruise.  We are tidy, and once a day cleaning is good for us.  We won’t tip differently, because even though they are not scrubbing the bathroom a second time, we don’t need a second scrubbing. 🙂 They will turn down bed, check ice bucket, empty garbage.  

I also like how you can earn points with Celebrity without taking a cruise.  It’s only 1 at a time, once per month, but it gives me a head start in getting those points with them. 

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On our last trip in may to Northern Europe we spoke with our Cabin steward and agreed to once in the morning service because we could see that she was fatigued as she was the only one servicing 11 Suite Cabins. She still gave us fantastic service and snuck in a couple of times and did turn down and left us cute towel animals. Suffice it to say, we would opt-in for the two or three times per cruise. We would also Tip the steward on the first night (During their usual greet) in hopes of excellent service for those days.  

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3 hours ago, Srp431 said:

I'm sure people will question paying the same gratuities or an increase gratuities for less service. We have struggles with this at hotels over the last 2 yrs. Tip for daily service that actually occurred or tip for daily stay? No easy answer

Yes, this was how we felt at Disney, even staying at The Contemporary we got zero room service for an entire week other than them coming in, emptying the trash and leaving new towels only if we called and requested them. No way I’m tipping for that. 

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51 minutes ago, Bowen said:

Yes, this was how we felt at Disney, even staying at The Contemporary we got zero room service for an entire week other than them coming in, emptying the trash and leaving new towels only if we called and requested them. No way I’m tipping for that. 

Similar experience at the Polynesian in April.  

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It's NOT my cabin, it's the stateroom attendants' cabin. I am just a temporary guest.

To whatever extent they want to clean, or not to clean; is not my decision.

I am simply happy to just be on the boat.

 

My stateroom attendant on Liberty in June was responsible for 14 cabins, most of which were junior suites.

Stateroom attendant on Indy in May: 12 balconies.

Navigator in February: another double digit junior suite duty week for him.

IMO, Royal is purposefully overworking the cabin attendants. Understanding this, I order double portions of lobster via room service on formal night plus whatever desserts the stateroom attendant wants--double those too. I bail and go to the MDR as soon as the food is delivered. 

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I am curious about age ranges and parents vs. non-parents of who would prefer this.  I only ask because my husband and I actually request no service in hotels and we stay in timeshares that don't have service.  Once we are settled into a room we don't want to have to worry about where our stuff is and deal with when maids will or will not be there. 

However, on a cruise I would at least want the bed put away (pull out sofa) and put back down at night.  Because it seems like that would be harder.  We do it in hotels all the time, but I imagine cruises may be different.  For the kids I would like some towel animals.  But I certainly do not need my bathroom scrubbed every day.  That seems overkill.

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On 7/23/2022 at 8:51 PM, Pattycruise said:

I have an upcoming Celebrity cruise.  I just received the following.  I was wondering if the cruise lines were heading in this direction,  I’m not sure if this has been around or is new.  I don’t like how vague it is about your current stateroom and getting a point.

interesting concept!

 

 

 

FYI, you can see right through that black highlighter to the numbers and name underneath.

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Passengers make decisions to accept lesser service all the time.  By going through a buffet line, we trade the service of wait staff for the option to select the food we want to eat, albeit with some additional health risks from using common serving utensils.  The "partial employee" concept has been around for many years and will continue in the future in a wide variety of industries.  Could it extend to cleaning accommodations?  Sure.

I see three issues at work:

(1) Willingness to accept lesser service for an increase in loyalty benefits.

(2) Impact of changes in service delivery on all aspects of the cruise system (passengers, staff, Royal managers, and Royal stockholders)

(3) Variation in passenger requirements.

I think (1) is a personal preference, and I would not be a subscriber.  I like the level of service I currently receive when I cruise. An extra cruise night here or there won't make a difference to me or my wife.  (Now when we had 179 points after a Med cruise, I would have answered differently.)

For (2), I can only control impact on my Stateroom Attendant.  I don't throw every towel I use on the floor, and I periodically clean the toilet -- something I picked up in Germany, of all places.  I tip the Attendant extra for outstanding service, but I try not to be overly demanding.  I will never have the clout to influence directly cruise industry practices or Royal's profit margins.

(3) reflects the reality that some passengers will need more service, whether due to age, infirmity, traveling companions, or culture.  Some will need more service, and some less.  I don't see that ever changing.  Again, as long as we contribute our fair share to the compensation of staff who cater to our needs (whether on land or sea), we don't need to apologize for the service we request.  I only see a problem when we ask Royal for a good deal (cheap fare), and then ask for unrealistically high value.   

Whatever you choose, have a great cruise.

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Since this would be an opt in/opt out thing, it would really be about preferences. I mostly travel solo, so I only need the services once a day, with an ice delivery in the evening. I would gladly go green for extra points because the service is wasted on me by doing 2x cleaning daily. However, families and large groups need the twice daily turndown because they might have messy individuals and extra beds. It wouldn't be a complete overhaul, so I don't see why gratuity would even be affected....at least when it concerns cruising ships.

The hotel situation is different. If I am paying $$$ a night and "resort" fees, I should get daily housekeeping. Instead, lots of hotel are only cleaning the rooms when guest check-out. I have had two bad experiences with Hilton/Hampton because of this. Floors were left a mess and things were missing because the housekeeper now has to try to clean a room in less time that may be five times as dirty. Daily maintenance is important, my house stays clean because I do daily housekeeping; if I let it pile up, I would be cleaning for days instead of an hour or two. This sucks for them as I normally leave a tip for the housekeeper, but if I am not getting any services and start at a deficit, why bother?

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23 hours ago, Pooch said:

Yes, the sofa bed would be the reason I’d still like twice a day service.  When we are not traveling with a third/fourth person in the room, once a day would be more than enough.  I can and do perform basic cleanup myself.  I hang towels to dry for reuse and don’t use ice.  And we are NOT slobs.  Our stuff is put out of the way so housekeeping doesn’t have to work around it.  Might be silly but I would be embarrassed for our room steward to come into a messy room.  Mom would say “you weren’t raised in a barn!!!”

We have a housekeeping service every other week and I do a light cleaning around the home the morning of because I don't want them thinking we are total slobs 🙂  Besides, they tend to clean around the clutter and not move it to clean underneath.  I would expect some cabin stewards to do the same level of cleaning.

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On 7/24/2022 at 7:02 AM, WAAAYTOOO said:

The lack of daily service in hotels is a BIG pet peeve of mine.  I acknowledge that there are supply chain issues which could limit the availability of products but I am highly suspicious of the claimed unprecedented shortage of labor.  Of course I realize that during the plague and immediately afterwards, there were labor shortages but now ?  I believe it is truly more that the hotels are trying to KEEP their labor minimized to save money and use the "pandemic" as an excuse.  The same goes for many other industries. 

One huge labor-related thing that has changed during the pandemic is that many people have realized that they no longer want certain jobs for little money.  If hotels want more people to sign up to clean, they need to pay them more (and raise rates or make less profit....guess which one they'll do?).  They don't want to pay cleaning staff more, so they'll blame a "labor shortage."

Labor shortages are fairly easy to solve.  Many companies just don't want to do the one thing that'll solve them.

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3 hours ago, Ampurp85 said:

The hotel situation is different. If I am paying $$$ a night and "resort" fees, I should get daily housekeeping. Instead, lots of hotel are only cleaning the rooms when guest check-out. I have had two bad experiences with Hilton/Hampton because of this. Floors were left a mess and things were missing because the housekeeper now has to try to clean a room in less time that may be five times as dirty. Daily maintenance is important, my house stays clean because I do daily housekeeping; if I let it pile up, I would be cleaning for days instead of an hour or two. This sucks for them as I normally leave a tip for the housekeeper, but if I am not getting any services and start at a deficit, why bother?

Along these lines I agree that it is a general maintenance issue if they are cleaning the rooms less often. Will this lead to cabins that are generally dirtier than normal. If the staff is short as it has been and the have double digit cabins to clean and each cabin takes longer to clean either it will take longer for the cabins to be ready or the overall cleanliness will suffer. 

As far as the tips go they will never reduce the amount because this does not only go to the cabin stewards but the wait staff as well. Let's say you don't ever step foot in the MDR on a sailing should you pay tips to the Maitre d; head waiter and waiter/s? The cruise line will tell you that these staff members also work in the buffets and the tips are spread out amongst them all. The short answer is that you can always remove the automatic tipping and either change the amount +/- or pay individuals in cash. 

While I do enjoy how casual cruising has become, I do miss the more formal and pampering that came with cruising...

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1 hour ago, mpdahmer said:

Along these lines I agree that it is a general maintenance issue if they are cleaning the rooms less often. Will this lead to cabins that are generally dirtier than normal. If the staff is short as it has been and the have double digit cabins to clean and each cabin takes longer to clean either it will take longer for the cabins to be ready or the overall cleanliness will suffer. 

As far as the tips go they will never reduce the amount because this does not only go to the cabin stewards but the wait staff as well. Let's say you don't ever step foot in the MDR on a sailing should you pay tips to the Maitre d; head waiter and waiter/s? The cruise line will tell you that these staff members also work in the buffets and the tips are spread out amongst them all. The short answer is that you can always remove the automatic tipping and either change the amount +/- or pay individuals in cash. 

While I do enjoy how casual cruising has become, I do miss the more formal and pampering that came with cruising...

The quote was referring to hotel staff. A cruise cabin is usually a much small space, and they would still be cleaning daily.

I think personally two to three times a day is overkill, but people spend time at excursions, then have to change for dinner so whatever. I don't think the opt to go greener should result in less tips. Most workers, besides the stewards I believe, work in multiple areas of the ship. The daily grats cover all the people you see and a ton you don't. Not having your room serviced multiple times a day doesn't mean the deck cleaner, bread baker, ship maintenance worker, etc. isn't deserving of their share of tips. 

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This is going to be one of those items that is a personal choice with no right or wrong answer accept it has to be right for you and your family.  We probably won't take advantage of this option.  We enjoy our vacations and cruises and generally stay in a Grand Suite.  I would prefer our rooms to be cleaned everyday instead of extra points.  A cruise is special for us and I'd like to keep it that way.

Bill

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I think a lot of people have misread the post.
You are not giving up daily cleaning, nor giving up the turn down service or emptying of garbage.


o Current Housekeeping service consists of twice full daily cleaning and sanitization services; morning and evening.

o The Go Green program provides a full daily cleaning and sanitation service. The night touch service will provide a turndown of down of the bed, adjustment to room ambience, removal of garbage, and organization of guest items --making the stateroom and the bathroom neat with a personalized touch. With Go Green, the guest will specify a preferred time for their housekeeping services.

I hope I am not wrong in thinking fresh towels daily as it looks like it is giving up the change of towels in the evening and any cleaning/sanitizing that takes place in the evening.  Though it does say specify a preferred time for housekeeping services-interesting!.

I think I will try this out for this Celebrity Cruise. It's a heavy excursion itinerary so we won't be in the cabin much.    I'm just hopeful they can increase the towels from a set of 2 to a set of 4.  

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