Do you think they really didn't want their guests' opinions?

[unicorn]

We recently took a cruise with a cruise line we haven't cruised with before, Regent Seven Seas, a line which caters to older passengers. In the past, we've mostly cruised with Celebrity Cruises (which also caters to an older crowd), and Royal Caribbean. On the other two lines, we're invited to fill out surveys online, via e-mail. I was surprised on RSS, however, when I found out that the only way to complete their survey was to scan a QR code, which was available at the Guests' Services desk or in the Library, and complete the survey on one's phone. This did not seem appealing to me. In fact, at the final evening entertainment, the cruise director announced that only 80 of the ship's 750 passengers had completed the survey, and asked others to participate. In asking, I verified that scanning the QR code and doing the survey on the phone was the only way to complete the survey--and it had to be done prior to disembarking. 

That seemed to me to be a way of discouraging passengers from filling the survey--and to get only brief responses. This seemed especially true given the cruise line's demographic: mostly baby boomers and older. I was one of the younger passengers, probably in the lower 10%, and my hubby definitely in the lower 5%. So was I just being an old fuddy-duddy myself, or did it seem the cruise line didn't want to hear what the passengers had to say? Although my experience was mostly positive, I did have a couple of potentially helpful suggestions. I suppose I could do it the old-fashioned way and write a letter? I don't have the energy to do a YouTube blog like a younger generation might.

[floridarob]

most Cruise lines have switched to emailing surveys.....  it's one of the industries that do seem to actively use survey's to track trends or problems or areas of potential revenue loss and port selection.

They're important to cruise workers promotions..... if they get mentioned by name good/bad, it'll affect their future.

I'd expect rather than a only QR code at reception (Purser's desk, I'm old fashioned too)...it would've been sent to the room on the last afternoon of the cruise 🤷‍♂️

[Mavica]

4 hours ago, unicorn said:

So was I just being an old fuddy-duddy myself, or did it seem the cruise line didn't want to hear what the passengers had to say? Although

I think the cruise line did / does want your feedback, but whomever decided to request it didn't know that particular cruise's demographics.

Here's something similar; not really, but a comparison:

I frequent my local McDonalds in Florida at breakfast maybe 3 times a week (Egg McMuffin, Sausage McMuffin or Hotcakes and a potato and drink).  The demographics of the eat-in clientele is probably 80% in the 65+ age group.  Starting this week all eat-in customers can only order from one of the two self service kiosks.  Counter orders are not being taken.  I know how to use the kiosk, but certain variations from what's listed aren't unavailable or are difficult to locate.  English muffin well-done (because their toasting device only warms the muffins); light ice in a soft drink; etc.  When I stopped in and was refused counter service several other customers were heard complaining about the kiosks.  So, I walked out and went across the street to Wendy's where the breakfast sandwich was as good and the "meal" cost 2 dollars less.  This, too, is an example of how the management of a business (this particular McDonalds) doesn't understand its clientele.

[Travelingguy]

26 minutes ago, Mavica said:

This, too, is an example of how the management of a business (this particular McDonalds) doesn't understand its clientele.

They may understand their clientele quite well. But they also may be up against the wall in terms of hiring people. It is becoming increasingly difficult to hire fast food workers. They may be trying to get away with not having the counter workers in order to continue to staff Enough people to serve food. I am sure they also understood that they were gonna lose customers with this. Fast food automation seems to irritate a lot of people of various demographics and they just leave.

[omega]

5 hours ago, unicorn said:

We recently took a cruise with a cruise line we haven't cruised with before, Regent Seven Seas, a line which caters to older passengers. In the past, we've mostly cruised with Celebrity Cruises (which also caters to an older crowd), and Royal Caribbean. On the other two lines, we're invited to fill out surveys online, via e-mail. I was surprised on RSS, however, when I found out that the only way to complete their survey was to scan a QR code, which was available at the Guests' Services desk or in the Library, and complete the survey on one's phone. This did not seem appealing to me. In fact, at the final evening entertainment, the cruise director announced that only 80 of the ship's 750 passengers had completed the survey, and asked others to participate. In asking, I verified that scanning the QR code and doing the survey on the phone was the only way to complete the survey--and it had to be done prior to disembarking. 

That seemed to me to be a way of discouraging passengers from filling the survey--and to get only brief responses. This seemed especially true given the cruise line's demographic: mostly baby boomers and older. I was one of the younger passengers, probably in the lower 10%, and my hubby definitely in the lower 5%. So was I just being an old fuddy-duddy myself, or did it seem the cruise line didn't want to hear what the passengers had to say? Although my experience was mostly positive, I did have a couple of potentially helpful suggestions. I suppose I could do it the old-fashioned way and write a letter? I don't have the energy to do a YouTube blog like a younger generation might.

It might be they employ 20-something Marketing/sales folk who think QR codes and phone surveys to be the natural way to get feedback. 

Ironic, since I imagine if could actually get good feedback, their customers would probably express a preference for pen and paper or emailed surveys. 

[PeterRS]

5 hours ago, unicorn said:

On the other two lines, we're invited to fill out surveys online, via e-mail. I was surprised on RSS, however, when I found out that the only way to complete their survey was to scan a QR code, which was available at the Guests' Services desk or in the Library, and complete the survey on one's phone. This did not seem appealing to me. In fact, at the final evening entertainment, the cruise director announced that only 80 of the ship's 750 passengers had completed the survey, and asked others to participate. In asking, I verified that scanning the QR code and doing the survey on the phone was the only way to complete the survey--and it had to be done prior to disembarking.

As one who still travels quite a lot (although not on cruises), I am frankly sick and tired of all the requests I receive to complete satisfaction (or otherwise) questionnaires. On my March trip to the UK, I stayed with a familly member most of the time. But I also had one night in London. With six flights, I had two questionnaires from British Airways, four from Cathay Pacific and one from the hotel. For last week-end's trip to Taipei, I have had two from China Airlines and two from the hotel agent - one for experience on arrival and one on overall experience at departure.

I do accept that the opinion of other travellers can be useful. The problem I find is that so many different travellers have so many different expectations. So how do you assess the accuracy of questionnaire results? I trash some but in others will highlight any bad service or areas which could be improved. On the other hand, if I have had particularly good service I will always include that in my comments along with staff names.

However, I also know that some travel sites deliberately manipulate their supposed travellers' comments. Years ago i used to value Tripadvisor's comments. Until i had the unfortunate experience of staying at the flagship Marina Bay Sands hotel in Singapore when attending a Conference. I disliked the experience from arrival to departure, but found that Tripadvisor had many one-line comments basically stating how wonderful the hotel is. I dd some research. I discovered that of something like 20 such comments, 16 were fake in that they had been inserted by staff at affiliate companies of the hotel. Getting in touch with Tripadvisor is not easy, but I wrote to their head office. Then, surprise, surprise, virtually all of those comments disappeared! Only after that did I read a Business Traveller magazine comment about how Tripadvisor manipulates its comments section.

[unicorn]

11 minutes ago, PeterRS said:

... Tripadvisor had many one-line comments basically stating how wonderful the hotel is...

I use Tripadvisor to my benefit, but I know to ignore all postings made by those with fewer than 10 prior posts, and pay most attention to those posts made by posters with at least a few dozen reviews. I will tend to avoid hotels, restaurants, etc., which clearly add a lot of fake positive reviews to dilute the negative ones. One problem with TripAdvisor is that they don't weight reviews by experienced posters more heavily. Unfortunately, one can't just go by numbers of stars. One has to go through a few pages in order to determine if that business has mostly genuine reviews, or if they load up with BS reviews. 

[PeterRS]

3 minutes ago, unicorn said:

One problem with TripAdvisor is that they don't weight reviews by experienced posters more heavily. Unfortunately, one can't just go by numbers of stars. One has to go through a few pages in order to determine if that business has mostly genuine reviews, or if they load up with BS reviews. 

So true. In the example I quoted, the huge Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, it is a fabulous looking building. The problem is that it was a vanity project of the SIngapore government, often referred to as Singapore Inc., and so could not be seen to be anything other than excellent. When the Convention organisers accommodated me there it was one of the three highest ranked Singapore 5-star hotels in the Tripadvisor ratings. Yet with 1,850 rooms, the queuing was horrendous - 20 minutes for checkin, 5 minutes every time you wanted a lift, nearly 20 minutes before a table for breakfast (and no other eateries close by), trying to swim in the rooftop infinity pool with 80 or more tourists who had merely paid to get up there to gawk at the pool looking directly at you, 20 minutes to get a drink, and then another 20 minutes for checkout - no automatic checkout, the whole experience was near ghastly!

I was quite pleased that after my correspondence with Tripadvisor, the hotel gradually moved down the 5-star rankings and within about a year was virtually the lowest!

[unicorn]

1 hour ago, PeterRS said:

So true. In the example I quoted, the huge Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, it is a fabulous looking building. The problem is that it was a vanity project of the SIngapore government, often referred to as Singapore Inc., and so could not be seen to be anything other than excellent. When the Convention organisers accommodated me there it was one of the three highest ranked Singapore 5-star hotels in the Tripadvisor ratings. Yet with 1,850 rooms, the queuing was horrendous - 20 minutes for checkin, 5 minutes every time you wanted a lift, nearly 20 minutes before a table for breakfast (and no other eateries close by), trying to swim in the rooftop infinity pool with 80 or more tourists who had merely paid to get up there to gawk at the pool looking directly at you, 20 minutes to get a drink, and then another 20 minutes for checkout - no automatic checkout, the whole experience was near ghastly!

I was quite pleased that after my correspondence with Tripadvisor, the hotel gradually moved down the 5-star rankings and within about a year was virtually the lowest!

Interesting. I looked at their reviews and, indeed, close to half of the reviews seem to be written by 1-time reviewers. That being said, there are quite a few 5-star reviews from established reviewers. But there can be little doubt but that the hotel writes its own reviews much of the time. 

[PeterRS]

20 minutes ago, unicorn said:

Interesting. I looked at their reviews and, indeed, close to half of the reviews seem to be written by 1-time reviewers. That being said, there are quite a few 5-star reviews from established reviewers. But there can be little doubt but that the hotel writes its own reviews much of the time. 

I think when any hotel listed on a site like Tripadvisor gets 1,495 5-star reviews from those who allegedly stayed there and 1,371 of these are in that 5-star category, there has to be, as some would say, something fishy about the figures! When I was working for one company and they put executives up in 4- or 5-star hotels in Singapore, I can definitely state that no hotel I ever stayed in was as bad as the Marina Bay Sands.

I forgot to mention that in my large non-smoking room, there were six cigarette burns on parts of the furniture. No doubt this was partly a result of the hotel appealing to so many Chinese tourists whose sole reason for staying was the casino in the basement. But my stays were quite some years ago and perhaps things have improved.

[a-447]

I was planning to spend a week at the Marina Bay Sands a couple of years ago.

I quickly changed my mind when I found out you had to reserve a time slot to use the pool! The only times available for me were early in the morning when I'm usually still in bed.

So I'm glad to hear it's not all that it's cracked up to be. It seems I dodged a bullet.

Peter, I'm surprised to hear Cathay Pacific asked you for a review. I've travelled on them for years - the latest being last month - and have never been asked. Maybe it's something new.

The tour guide who took us around The Forbidden City in Beijing asked for a review, which I happily provided. Competition among the guides seems to be fierce.

But by and large, I don't bother writing reviews.

[Mavica]

4 hours ago, Travelingguy said:

They may understand their clientele quite well. But they also may be up against the wall in terms of hiring people. It is becoming increasingly difficult to hire fast food workers. They may be trying to get away with not having the counter workers in order to continue to staff Enough people to serve food. I am sure they also understood that they were gonna lose customers with this. Fast food automation seems to irritate a lot of people of various demographics and they just leave.

Yes.  McDonalds has been changing its interior store designs.  Gone are the self-service beverage service.  Counter help are also running orders to pick-up orders outside. Drive thru and Uber eats pick-ups are the priority. The company has done its prioritization.  So have I.

[Mavica]

4 hours ago, unicorn said:

I use Tripadvisor to my benefit, but I know to ignore all postings made by those with fewer than 10 prior posts, and pay most attention to those posts made by posters with at least a few dozen reviews. I will tend to avoid hotels, restaurants, etc., which clearly add a lot of fake positive reviews to dilute the negative ones. One problem with TripAdvisor is that they don't weight reviews by experienced posters more heavily. Unfortunately, one can't just go by numbers of stars. One has to go through a few pages in order to determine if that business has mostly genuine reviews, or if they load up with BS reviews. 

I'm an active contributor to Trip Advisor, with 120+ restaurant and hotel reviews. I often book lodging with booking.com and post reviews. Inexperienced travelers likely have difficulty distinguishing bogus reviews from the real, honest one; I don't.

[PeterRS]

5 hours ago, a-447 said:

I'm glad to hear it's not all that it's cracked up to be. It seems I dodged a bullet.

I'm surprised to hear Cathay Pacific asked you for a review. I've travelled on them for years - the latest being last month - and have never been asked. Maybe it's something new.

You would not have enjoyed the Marina Bay Sands, I am sure. Plenty of other very fine hotels in Singapore.

I think you are right in that i also do not recall CX asking for flight reviews before (and I had several flights with them last year). As a member of the Marco Polo Club since the early 1980s, I have a feeling I have received a few questionnaires, but I am reasonably certain these referred to the Club and its benefits and definitely not about service on CX flights. Even the BA flight questionnaires surprised me as again I do not recall receiving them in the past.

[Olddaddy]

16 hours ago, Mavica said:

I think the cruise line did / does want your feedback, but whomever decided to request it didn't know that particular cruise's demographics.

Here's something similar; not really, but a comparison:

I frequent my local McDonalds in Florida at breakfast maybe 3 times a week (Egg McMuffin, Sausage McMuffin or Hotcakes and a potato and drink).  The demographics of the eat-in clientele is probably 80% in the 65+ age group.  Starting this week all eat-in customers can only order from one of the two self service kiosks.  Counter orders are not being taken.  I know how to use the kiosk, but certain variations from what's listed aren't unavailable or are difficult to locate.  English muffin well-done (because their toasting device only warms the muffins); light ice in a soft drink; etc.  When I stopped in and was refused counter service several other customers were heard complaining about the kiosks.  So, I walked out and went across the street to Wendy's where the breakfast sandwich was as good and the "meal" cost 2 dollars less.  This, too, is an example of how the management of a business (this particular McDonalds) doesn't understand its clientele.

When you say "kiosk" ...you mean the computer screen thing you order & pay ??

 

[floridarob]

16 hours ago, Mavica said:

This, too, is an example of how the management of a business (this particular McDonalds) doesn't understand its clientele.

It's true, in Brazil they've had these kiosks for a few years and refuse to take orders at the counter even though they have many workers just standing around, so I don't think it's an issue if they have the employees or not.....

Then they'll blame their decline on uncertainty, whereas it might be a little of something lese too.... I'm not going to McDonals that only have kiosk as an option anymore,,I hate them....for the exact reasons you mentioned.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/mcdonalds-us-sales-drop-pandemic-middle-income-consumers-pull-back-rcna204032

 

[Olddaddy]

Supermarket has them.

Actually I like them better than standing at a check out counter waiting for a checkout person to scan 

[unicorn]

16 hours ago, omega said:

It might be they employ 20-something Marketing/sales folk who think QR codes and phone surveys to be the natural way to get feedback. 

Ironic, since I imagine if could actually get good feedback, their customers would probably express a preference for pen and paper or emailed surveys. 

I think you mail have hit the hammer on the nail. Interestingly, they seem to understand (apparently) that their demographic wants to hear '70s and '80s music (see prior post about my wondering why no more recent music at the evening entertainment), but don't seem to understand the demographic when it comes to their surveys. Or maybe they really aren't interested in hearing their guests' opinions. 

[Mavica]

5 hours ago, Olddaddy said:

Supermarket has them.

Actually I like them better than standing at a check out counter waiting for a checkout person to scan 

Apples to oranges comparison, IMO.

[Mavica]

5 hours ago, Olddaddy said:

When you say "kiosk" ...you mean the computer screen thing you order & pay ??

 

Yes. They're stand-alone someone in the middle of the floor of the restaurant.

[PeterRS]

I might just have a job for @Olddaddy. In the early 2000s, thanks to a very good friend who spent his summers lecturing on the smaller cruise ships like those from Seabourn or Silver Sea, I joined him on three cruises. On each there were something like six gentlemen, all seemingly in their 50s or 60s, whose only job was to dance. Not as in Broadway-style dancing. Merely to ensure that the eldery ladies who always seemed to outnumber men had partners when it came to ballroom dance-type evenings. As long as he does not have two left feet, I see @Olddaddy as a gentleman dancer in the evenings who could exercise his charms to meet up for sex with some of the many young Filipino staff on board. That would be against a ship's policy, but I am sure @Olddaddy could find a way around it! 🤣

[Olddaddy]

3 hours ago, PeterRS said:

I might just have a job for @Olddaddy. In the early 2000s, thanks to a very good friend who spent his summers lecturing on the smaller cruise ships like those from Seabourn or Silver Sea, I joined him on three cruises. On each there were something like six gentlemen, all seemingly in their 50s or 60s, whose only job was to dance. Not as in Broadway-style dancing. Merely to ensure that the eldery ladies who always seemed to outnumber men had partners when it came to ballroom dance-type evenings. As long as he does not have two left feet, I see @Olddaddy as a gentleman dancer in the evenings who could exercise his charms to meet up for sex with some of the many young Filipino staff on board. That would be against a ship's policy, but I am sure @Olddaddy could find a way around it! 🤣

I'm a good dancer.💃🕺..just ask FloridaRob ,he was my dancing partner at the Cocka2 bar 

[PeterRS]

1 hour ago, Olddaddy said:

I'm a good dancer.💃🕺..just ask FloridaRob ,he was my dancing partner at the Cocka2 bar 

Excellent. I hope you are well up on the Quickstep, Foxtrot and Tango, and no doubt you have your own fascinating version of the Carolina Shag!! Do you need an agent?

[BjornAgain]

On 6/5/2025 at 1:23 AM, unicorn said:

...only way to complete their survey was to scan a QR code, which was available at the Guests' Services desk or in the Library, and complete the survey on one's phone...

QR codes don't just link to a website. Depending how it's been created, they can download Apps, manipulate your WiFi, network and security settings, transmit data etc.

As an ex IT security consultant I have this facility disabled on my phone because of the risks.

Was at a resturant couple of months ago where they had QR codes for the menu. Waitress had to hand over her phone as all the old printed menus had been binned.

[fedssocr]

when I cruised with Virgin they sent a survey on the app every day