Originally Posted by
DeirdreTours
I just completed a 7 day HAL cruise. $11 per person per day is added for gratuities. I inquired at the desk and was told $4 went to the cabin attendant, $4 to the dining staff and the remaining $3 was divided by back of the house staff. One of my dinner companions said that her cabin boy claimed to care for 28 cabins-- which would put his daily tip earnings at $224 per day..... Now, I think this can't really be possible in that 1) I can't see how one attendant could manage 28 cabins a day and 2) 6k a month seems like way more than I have heard of cabin boys making.
From all reports, the cabins are not being well-attended on a lot of HAL lines. What is interesting is whether this was a choice of management to increase the number or cabins served or the choice or the cabin attendents to mzximize the amount of tips per room earned.
Whatever, there are now a lot of customer complaints about a fall-off of service levels in cabin maintenance and most think it is management that is the bad guy. Now, I am not so sure.
Certainly the consistent problems with this increased cabin load is adding up to tarnish HAL's otherwise excellent service reputation.
It has been nothing major, but a lot of little things that recently started happening: delayed cabin cleanups until afternoon, missing standard items like breakfast door hangers, no chocolates on the pillows, tardy responses for room request items, no towel animals, making up the bedroom before guests departed on disembarkation days because HAL still allows passengers to stay in their cabins until their group i called.
Nothing that is a deal killer, but just a difference from earlier HAL cruise expectations.