Mar 7 - At Sea

DONNA KAY PHILLIPS : To my friends who read this log and are concerned about my relaxation meter, I have spent most of today at the pool, I have developed a ridiculous winter tan, and am continuing to reshape and strenthen my body with all of the stair climbing and port trekking. Outside of the rampant throat viruses, life has been very good to us here onboard the Carnival Splendor.

This brings me to a subject that has been amplifying on this cruise since our departure and is now so deafening that it can no longer be blamed on a few bad apples. Maybe it's the demographic, maybe it's being at sea for 36 days now but it is becoming uncomfortably clear that much perspective and patience and kindness is no longer of value to a good number of the "adults" onboard.

I have seen and experienced things on this ship and in port that are no different than that of school yard politics and it is occuring more often now, even though we run in a smaller circle avoiding the herding times of the daily schedule.

We have both been pushed out of line, yelled at in line, shoved up the gangway, elbowed out of contention for an elevator, talked about in various circumstances as if we did not exist, grabbed and chatised on a tour buses amongst other things I need not go into.

Each time I find myself self examining the girl factor, the two girls together factor, the strong girl or strong girls with tattoo factor. Then I inevitably see these same "adults" in some random place doing this to some other poor soul (usually the ship's staff) or each other. The lack of consciousness and resources is utterly astounding - they clearly do not understand how their actions have a rippling affect.

I can only attribute this type of abusive, ignorant behavior to pain. We are seeing more health issues and cell breakdown in folks on this trip in every age group. That is not to say that there is also an impressive amount of passengers that are in amazing shape and the gym is packed almost every hour of the day. But this growing number of crankpots genuinely seem to move through life with a sense of fear and loathing and it's quite a sad thing to be around in such concentrated doses. While we are doing our best to steer a wide path around this rather large group of misery, we are saddened to witness them treating the staff with this same type of disregard aboard the ship and in port when the crew is enjoying personal time.

As if their general behavior isn't bad enough, we have heard rumblings of large percentages of these people choosing to not tip their wait staff and encouraging others to do the same. When I overhear these conversations, I can barely stay containted, hence why I am using this log as an outlet.

I would understand this if the service was subpar, however these very people are also requesting the same servers each new leg, when they have full opportunity to change.

To get the full scope here you need to understand that this being a very special cruise, the Splendor's current crew is essentially Carnival's A-Team. They were picked in order to make this journey extremely special. Having been raised on cruising standards, these folks have far exceeded my own expectations, especially in the Dining Room.

The crew work long hours from day well into night and they must continue smiling even when people of this mindset knowingly decide not to pay them for their stellar service. In fact, we always pay cash in person in addition to the tips posted on our bill and in truth, this is more often the case than not with other passengers, but there is a unique downward trend on this longer trip that I had not seen until recently.

I first chalked this trend up to a lack of knowledge amongst first time cruisers, or the troubles with the economy. However, I have witnesses first hand, that many of these people are Platinum Card holders (people whom have cruised 10+ times on Carnival), so it would seem that they understand that tips are the way that the Servers and Stewards are paid for their service.

I simply cannot fathom how someone can happily take from another giving nothing in return. In my humble opinion, it's simply not moral to go to the Purser's Office to pull your tips and continue to show up at dinner each night and look your server in the face and expect them to be okay with not being paid. We all expect this from certain fringe portions of society but to have the numbers be so seemingly large on this trip certainly is dissappointing.

Another sad effect of this short sighted behavior is that our shared love of longer cruises may never be realized if the staff have to suffer as a result. After this incredible history making journey and the advances in internet accessibility on this ship, I actually envisioned the possibility of other longer trips perhaps sailing to Europe, around Europe and returing across the Atlantic to the U.S. all on the same ship to avoid the annoyance of air travel.

Many of our fellow passengers would book passage today if that type of cruise was put on sale. I see the potential for an entirely new type of cruising and for Carnival to lead the marketplace in this regard, but not if it costs the crew their salaries - so everyone loses on this deal.

As opposed to simply abadoning the idea of longer cruises, I strongly suggest that Carnival make tips compulsory on trips over 12 days or build them into the fare so they do not appear on the running bill. That way, the staff is guaranteed payment for the longer days at sea and if folks want to tip above and beyond they can.

While global economies repair themselves over the next few years, and with many successful businesses becoming mobile, new business owners, like us, are creating more flexible business models that allow us to take advantage of unique travel opportunities such as this one.

As we inch closer to home, I want to thank all of the folks at Carnival for what have done and continue to do for this industry and the people who have benefitted from it. I know you will continue to innovate and will evolve your systems to avoid this undermining of your most talented staff and crew.

I know you understand how they are the face of your company, ineracting with the public on behalf of the entire company as well as shareholders such as myself. They are as important as the "Around the Horn" plaque that now sits on the brige and in my opinion their excellence deserves to be compensated and honored. ~dkp