Genie Response time

[Midwest Cruiser]

Good Afternoon,

Anyone have a delayed response time with their Genie leading up to the Cruise?

I fully understand they are serving the guests that they have onboard as we speak, But we emailed her on Friday and are patiently waiting yet to hear a response. 

[JazzBassMan]

I wouldn't be too concerned about it. When I was on Harmony the first email response took about 5 days. The pace of back and forth communication picked up more in the 7 days leading up to the sailing. 

[WAAAYTOOO]

Some Genies are better at pre-boarding comm than others, although I’m sure that doesn’t make you feel any better right now.  Sometimes you happen to catch a turnover in Genies which can cause a temporary delay (I believe @twangster had this situation, recently). I completely understand your anxiety and trust that will hear from someone to allay your concerns.

When is your sailing, @Midwest Cruiser ?

[Midwest Cruiser]

33 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Some Genies are better at pre-boarding comm than others, although I’m sure that doesn’t make you feel any better right now.  Sometimes you happen to catch a turnover in Genies which can cause a temporary delay (I believe @twangster had this situation, recently). I completely understand your anxiety and trust that will hear from someone to allay your concerns.

When is your sailing, @Midwest Cruiser ?

Sailing with you guys in 13 days! I'm not really anxious, more so curious if there was a normal time frame. Think I'm on the fence right now about having a Genie, like another thread had(I'm a planner and live a pretty simple life, and don't know how it will be with someone waiting on you at every second) looking forward to the room and all.

Figured we would see them boarding day, just wanted to get on the same page for boarding time, we always want to be on board as early as physically possible.

[Bowen]

21 minutes ago, Midwest Cruiser said:

Sailing with you guys in 13 days! I'm not really anxious, more so curious if there was a normal time frame. Think I'm on the fence right now about having a Genie, like another thread had(I'm a planner and live a pretty simple life, and don't know how it will be with someone waiting on you at every second) looking forward to the room and all.

Figured we would see them boarding day, just wanted to get on the same page for boarding time, we always want to be on board as early as physically possible.

As the others have stated our Genie took a few days to reply but it was much quicker as the cruise got to be about a week out. As a matter of fact I think we got an email one week to the day and did a lot of back and forth from there. I’m also a huge planner so the Genie was just kind of a background thing. It was nice having him get us seats to the shows. You’ll have to come back and let us know what you think!

[WAAAYTOOO]

51 minutes ago, Midwest Cruiser said:

Sailing with you guys in 13 days! I'm not really anxious, more so curious if there was a normal time frame. Think I'm on the fence right now about having a Genie, like another thread had(I'm a planner and live a pretty simple life, and don't know how it will be with someone waiting on you at every second) looking forward to the room and all.

Figured we would see them boarding day, just wanted to get on the same page for boarding time, we always want to be on board as early as physically possible.

Please forgive that I had forgotten !   Actually, it is sneaking up faster than I thought !

I dunno….13 days out seems kinda close.  Frankly, I would have expected to hear something from someone by now.  I’d give it another day or 2 and then come down on ‘em kinda hard….in a nice way

[Midwest Cruiser]

1 hour ago, Bowen said:

As the others have stated our Genie took a few days to reply but it was much quicker as the cruise got to be about a week out. As a matter of fact I think we got an email one week to the day and did a lot of back and forth from there. I’m also a huge planner so the Genie was just kind of a background thing. It was nice having him get us seats to the shows. You’ll have to come back and let us know what you think!

Definitely will give a good review of our experience. May even try to live blog it on here. See how ambitious I get. 

[Lovetocruise2002]

@Midwest Cruiser I would not read too much into it. Like others have said, some Genies are better at pre-cruise communication than others. It's not always an indicator of how good they are once onboard. My favourite Genie so far was not great at all with pre-cruise communication. And I have others who have responded back very quickly (within hours) and they weren't around too much once onboard.

[Lovetocruise2002]

And to add to that, if you emailed her on Friday, well was Saturday a sea day for Oasis? Cause if so, she was likely busier than port days. Then Sunday was turnaround day which is always a zoo. I would never expect a response on turnaround day from a Genie. That leads us to today, which might be her first full day with her guests, so give it some time. Hope that helps.

[Kiwi]

We recently sailed star class on Oasis and didn't receive any communication in advance from our genie. Two days before the cruise, I sent an email to a genie address I had from a previous cruise and the conversation started from there. The explanation was that our contact information was not on file (!).

We're a low-maintenance family and star class is foremost about the room and associated amenities, including reserved seating, and after that the rest of the services a genie might provide. Without going into detail, the last item was quite disappointing this cruise. We largely ended up just planning/executing what we wanted by ourselves, since otherwise things seemed delayed or not completed correctly. We hadn't cruised in 3 years, and there's no doubt in our minds RC is still working to bring service levels up to past quality. And it also turns out our genie was scheduled to transfer to a new post mid-cruise (subsequently delayed to the end of the cruise), which explains more.

To be clear, we're fortunate to be able to go on a cruise, let alone do star class, and these disappointments certainly didn't stop us from having a great family vacation. I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time, and communication will pick up soon!

 

[SweetPea]

1 hour ago, Kiwi said:

 

We recently sailed star class on Oasis and didn't receive any communication in advance from our genie. Two days before the cruise, I sent an email to a genie address I had from a previous cruise and the conversation started from there. The explanation was that our contact information was not on file (!).

We're a low-maintenance family and star class is foremost about the room and associated amenities, including reserved seating, and after that the rest of the services a genie might provide. Without going into detail, the last item was quite disappointing this cruise. We largely ended up just planning/executing what we wanted by ourselves, since otherwise things seemed delayed or not completed correctly. We hadn't cruised in 3 years, and there's no doubt in our minds RC is still working to bring service levels up to past quality. And it also turns out our genie was scheduled to transfer to a new post mid-cruise (subsequently delayed to the end of the cruise), which explains more.

To be clear, we're fortunate to be able to go on a cruise, let alone do star class, and these disappointments certainly didn't stop us from having a great family vacation. I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time, and communication will pick up soon!

 

I'm sad to read this. With the prices of SC skyrocketing higher than any other category, this is one area that Royal cannot lose focus. 

[michaelp1446]

17 hours ago, Midwest Cruiser said:

Good Afternoon,

Anyone have a delayed response time with their Genie leading up to the Cruise?

I fully understand they are serving the guests that they have onboard as we speak, But we emailed her on Friday and are patiently waiting yet to hear a response. 

Our original Genie reached out from Oasis with initial questionnaire. I sent him a rough plan of dining and shows. He came back in couple of days with a cut and paste plan from someone else's cruise 2 month's prior. Did not have a warm fuzzy. At the terminal we were told our Genie had changed. We got Letticia. She had the previous Genie's notes. She was AMAZING! Best cruise experience we ever had ! (Even with the 1000 + kids who should have been in school...lol)