Many travelers choose to cruise because it’s a very convenient way to vacation, so it’s no surprise that many cruise passengers prioritize convenience during their time on board the ship.
Having meals included in your cruise fare adds convenience, as does having a wide variety of dining options available on board.
Related: Carnival Cruise Line under fire over cruise dining dilemma
For even more ease, most cruise lines welcome passengers to eat in their staterooms if they choose. This convenience creates complications on Carnival cruise ships, however, because of the way the resulting dirty dishes are handled.
While other cruise lines like Norwegian ask their passengers to leave dirty dishes inside their cabins for stateroom attendants to collect, Carnival Cruise Line instructs passengers to leave their dirty dishes in cruise ship hallways outside their cabin doors.
Many passengers don’t like that Carnival cruise ship hallways are often littered with dirty dishes, but the majority of Carnival cruisers say they’re willing to deal with it if it allows them to carry on enjoying the convenience of dining in their staterooms.
At least that’s what the results of a recent poll conducted on Carnival Cruise Line Brand Ambassador John Heald’s Facebook page indicate.
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Image source: Carnival Cruise Line
Most Carnival cruisers are fine with food in cabins, dishes in hallways
The brand ambassador’s poll stems from a passenger request for Carnival to prohibit passengers from bringing food to their staterooms so that cruisers don’t have to see uneaten food sitting outside of rooms. The passenger incorrectly stated that Norwegian and other cruise lines ban this.
“NCL certainly does allow food to be brought to the cabin and also have room service. The room stewards take the trays from inside the cabin though,” Deb Heister clarified in the comments on the poll post. “Hallways are narrower on NCL ships so trays in the hallway would be a hazard.”
Related: Carnival Cruise Line fixes a major passenger pain point
Although the majority of passengers who participated in the poll indicated that they think it’s fine for people to be able to bring food back to their cabins and for dishes and trays to be placed in the hallways, some passengers want to see Carnival collect dishes more often.
“What is ridiculous with Carnival is the amount of time trays sit in the hallway,” Heister pointed out. “It’s apparently food services job to collect trays. They seem to only make a sweep through once a day. I’ve seen the same trays sit out almost 24 hours.”
Passengers suggest Carnival could improve on dish pickup
Heister suggested a couple of things the cruise line could do to improve its dish and tray collection process.
“Food services should make several sweeps a day to collect trays or have a room service trolley somewhere so room stewards can collect them and place on the trolley for food services to pick up.”
Other passengers proposed that the cruise line add some sort of dish collection station in hallways to provide a dedicated spot for passengers to place their plates.
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A few cruisers also noted how unruly passengers can make dishes in the hallways a bigger issue.
“It’s appropriate to leave trays/dishes outside your door, what’s not appropriate is the kids or drunk adults running or staggering down the halls and kicking those dishes over,” Grenay Bordeaux noted.
Another passenger pointed out the trip hazards dishes can create in the hallways, especially after they’ve been kicked around.
“I hate all the plates and cups in the hallway, they always get kicked over so I have to avoid stepping in it, and as a person who walks with a cane the tripping hazards aren’t fun,” Sara Lukins-Templin wrote. “It also is unsightly to see all the mess.”
Regardless of whether Carnival Cruise Line changes its dish collection process, more than 26,000 passengers who voted in the poll want the convenience of taking food to their cruise ship cabins to continue.
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