Washy Washy? How About Helpie Helpie???

            Anyone that works in the service industry has heard the term “gracious hospitality”. People use different verbiage to define it, but at the end of the day it means to provide service in a welcoming, caring and genuine manner. As a server, it’s the bar that I hold myself up to whenever I work. It’s not always easy given people’s variable temperaments (including my own), but I always strive to be gracious and hospitable. When my manager recently pulled me aside to say that it was clear how much I cared by watching me serve, I was on cloud nine. Because I DO care. I care a lot, and to know my manager recognized it made me feel like a kid in a candy store. Sadly, not everyone in the service industry actually cares about service. Enter Norwegian Cruise Lines.

            My mom and I just came back from a cruise to the Mediterranean on Norwegian’s ship, the Spirit. We’ve both cruised before and like the relaxing pace and flexibility, especially for a mother-daughter vacation. This was our first time on Norwegian, thus we had no preconceived notions other than to expect good service. From the get go, however, there seemed to be something missing from the energy of the staff. People were certainly polite, but their behavior lacked the little extra something that makes you think, “This person really cares about my needs.” For the most part, it wasn’t a problem because my mom and I didn’t have any issues where we needed that “little extra something”. So, we dismissed it… until the end of the cruise.

            We booked a shuttle bus to the airport through Norwegian. The whole process was like a Chinese fire drill. No one knew where to go, and for a while we weren’t even sure our bus was GOING to the airport. No one seemed to want to talk to us or verify our names to ensure we were in the right place. But finally we were off, and things seemed to be okay. And then we got to the airport and it all went wrong. My mom suddenly felt ill, and we discovered the shuttle bus only stopped at ONE terminal, and it wasn’t ours. Our terminal was a QUARTER OF A MILE away! Imagine my mom not feeling well, and each of us lugging a 40-50 pound piece of luggage with a carry on. Is that a recipe for disaster? Apparently it was, because in the chaos, my phone dropped out of my purse and was left on the shuttle bus. No big deal, I think. Just call Norwegian and have them tell the bus driver to turn the phone into the cruise ship when they returned to the port, right? WRONG.

            If I thought the bus trip to the airport was a Chinese fire drill, what happened next was a three-ring circus. I ran into a friend from the ship at the airport and was able to use her phone to make a shore-to-ship phone call. The person I spoke to in Guest Services on the Spirit seemed like he was practically in a coma. I told him I needed someone to call the bus driver and get my phone. After all, it was a Norwegian shuttle bus. How hard could it be to get in touch with the driver? Well, this man in Guest Services had trouble understanding what I was telling him and kept repeating the same questions while I’m thinking, “Hey buddy, can we hurry this along? It’s costing me $7.95 per minute to talk to you!” And he actually had the audacity to ask me to call back in thirty minutes. How am I supposed to do that? I LOST MY PHONE, REMEMBER??? I never got confirmation anyone would try to contact the driver, nor did he give me the name of the bus company or ask me for my email address as an alternate means of contact. The phone went dead before I could even volunteer the information.

            Thanks to the amazing “Find My iPhone” app, I saw my phone on the map, sitting right next to the name of a bus company (note the time in Rome was 9:48 a.m. instead of the displayed NY time of 3:48 a.m.):

I was able to borrow a phone from a Delta airlines rep and call the bus company, who confirmed they were, in fact, dropping people from the Norwegian Spirit at the airport. Now we’re getting somewhere, I think to myself! When I ask the woman on the phone to please have someone check the bus, she simply replied, “We’ll try.” Try??? Know who Yoda is, lady? “Do or do not. There is no try.” (She clearly needs to watch “Star Wars”.)

            I knew we were going to board the plane soon, so I tried to fire off as many emails to anyone I could think of who could possibly help me, not the least of which was my travel agent. By the time I landed, my travel agent had spent the better part of the day on the phone with Norwegian and gotten absolutely NOWHERE. Well, they DID open a case file on my missing phone, which my travel agent and I found amusing since the phone wasn’t technically missing. We had already told them exactly where the phone was! If Norwegian had simply called the bus driver when I asked them, none of this would even be happening. It was so maddening to me that the company was more worried about filling out a stupid report than actually HELPING me.

Since then, my mom and I have tried to call Norwegian's Lost & Found, but all we get is lost in their mumbo jumbo. It’s like speaking to one of those automated operators who gives you responses based on the prompts you enter. I don’t want to talk to a robot quoting from a script! And someone named Abby refused to give out any information, and was not very polite in doing so, I might add. She told us we have to wait 10 days to get a status on my phone. Isn’t the point of opening a case so that you can be updated as things go along? What kind of insanity is this? Do you have my phone or not? Part of gracious hospitality is putting the guests needs above your own. By telling me to wait 10 days, you are telling me YOUR needs are more important than mine. Maybe that’s why it’s called Guest Relations. It sounds more ambiguous than Customer Service, doesn’t it? Customer service makes it clear that the representative is there to SERVE THE CUSTOMER. Guest relations sounds like we might just get on the phone and have a nice chat over a cup of tea and nothing will ever get resolved. Bingo, cause that’s exactly what has happened up until this point.

Look, I know I’m not blameless. I am the one who left the phone on the bus after all. That I left the phone is on ME. But what happened afterwards, is on THEM, i.e. Norwegian. I did everything I could to confront the problem and help Norwegian solve it. I did ALL the work for them. All they had to do was call the bus company and tell them to get the phone off the bus. How long would it take to make a one-minute phone call to a bus company? I had just spent literally thousands of dollars on a cruise. Doesn’t Norwegian owe me some scrap of human decency in return?

And to make matters worse, Norwegian focuses on the wrong aspects of service. (I’m finally getting to my “Washy washy reference”. Bet you thought I forgot about it. I didn’t.) Good service doesn’t equate to having your staff poised throughout the ship with spray bottles of sanitizer in hand to keep passengers safe from germs. Especially because these folks turn the process into some kind of creepy ritual, akin to a bad production number from a failed musical. They bounce in place as they sing, “Washy, wash-yyyyy!” Seriously? How about simply asking me if I’d like some antiseptic for my hands? No need to sing and hold out the spritzer as if I’m about to enter some BACK ROOM MASSAGE PARLOR! Gross.

After perusing other people’s experiences with Norwegian on the Consumer Affairs website (https://www.consumeraffairs.com/travel/ncl_cruise.htm?page=3), I know I am not alone in thinking Norwegian just doesn’t give a hoot about its guests. That said, there are certain people who are superstars on the ship—Raoul, Bariene, Matin, Victor… you reach for the bar everyday, as I do, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for that. But these individuals are sadly too few and far between, and as a result, I’m certainly not expecting much from Norwegian at this point. That said, it still feels good to express myself and make my voice heard to whomever is willing to listen. And if nothing else, maybe it will call to action other consumers who are dissastisifed with THEIR service, whether with Norwegian or some other business. We need to stand up for ourselves and demand good service. It’s what we all deserve. It’s good business, as noted by James Cash Penney, the founder of J.C. Penney: “Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement.” Enough said.