Name: Melanie________ Message: I have a question and a comment which comes from my cruise on the Dream. Me and my wife and three kids eat most meals at supper time on the lido deck bistro and were shocked to see engineers, maintenance, officers and other workers were allowed to eat there at the same time in the same area. I find this surprising that we the paying guests have to eat with the workers, not something we experienced on Disney cruises we have been on. The question then is if this is normal or was there a reason that this happened on our cruise 11/2/13 Other passengers we met commented on this as well which is why I think this needs to get changed and quickly. Carnival should provide separate areas for the workers to eat ! I will reply to Melanie shortly but in case anyone else had thought about this I wanted to let you know some things. So there are four dining rooms on most of our ships. One for the crew which is where the waiters, stateroom stewards, cooks, etc., eat. Then there is the staff mess where the entertainment staff, shop and spa staff, casino staff and others will eat. Then we have the petit officers dining room which is where the Italian bosons, sailors and non-striped officers will eat. And, finally, we have the officers and captain’s dining room where the senior officers and captain will enjoy their meals. There is a slightly different configuration on the Dream class but for the most part this is how it works. The crew mess is self-service and mostly the staff and officers messes are waiter service. It is important to remember that none of us, not your waiter or the dancer or the engineer have hours to linger over a meal because there is work to be done and most of us spend no more than 30 minutes over any meal, it’s always been that way. But what has changed is the menu. In days gone passed there used to be a separate menu for each of the dining rooms I mentioned above. There would be a menu for the crew based on where they were from with local Indonesian, Pilipino, Indian and other ethnic recipes. Then there would be a staff menu and in the old days most of the staff was either western European or from the US in the case of the entertainment staff and musicians and so that menu was meat and potatoes based. And finally we had the Italian petit officer s and senior officers all of whom were Italian and so the menu was based around the traditions of Italy and that meant cheeseburgers and hotdogs…….bugger……I mean pasta. However, over the last 10 years we have changed a lot with our crew and staff coming from so many different countries and so it was decided that for this reason and other operational reasons that we would combine the menus with all the officers, staff and crew eating the same menu. There are still some staple foods. Rice, for example, remains the most popular dish onboard with goodness knows how many tons of the stuff we serve each week. During the Carnival Splendor fire there was as you know no hot food and the crew couldn’t wait to go ashore and eat…… yep ……. rice and in fact there was a saying around the crew during those days that said, “No rice no power.” It’s a staple diet in so many countries and it’s a staple diet for the crew onboard as well. In 2012 the beards made a ruling that said any employee with public area access such as officers, engineers, guest services associates and dancers can eat at the alternative dining on Lido. Now obviously there are some rules to this which include a specific dining area at the back of the Lido. They must and do always give way to guests if there is a line and they all, regardless of rank clear their tables of dirty dishes etc. Now I eat on Lido a lot and have never seen this to be a problem as most staff who have the privilege of eating there prefer to eat in the staff dining areas because they can be themselves and enjoy things they cant on in a guest area such as food fights. I am kidding of course, they prefer to eat there because they can be simply more relaxed. Anyway, I thought I would share this comment with you and see what you think and if it was a concern you shared? cheers
Posted on: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 14:26:24 +0000
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