Simple Courtesy Smooths the Waters

We sometimes hear passengers complain about a lack of courtesy from staff aboard a cruise ship, but in the 200-plus cruises that we’ve taken, we’ve noticed far more passengers being brusque, even rude, to crew members than staffers being impolite to passengers.

The easiest way to get excellent service aboard a cruise ship is not by tipping bartenders and waiters in advance, as some travelers claim, but simply by noting the name of the crew member on his badge and calling him by name when requesting a service. It’s doubly effective if you look at his face rather than his badge when you do it, and triply effective if you smile and say “Please” and “Thank you.”

Yet we frequently see passengers at assigned tables in the dining room summon a server by calling “Waiter!” or “Hey, you!” even when the same staffer has been waiting on their table for days.

The democratization of cruising during the last decade has come under fire from self-appointed Emily Posts who gather at teatime to complain about fellow passengers not following dress code--like the clueless young man who showed up at the captain’s formal dinner wearing jeans and a polo shirt. Princess Cruises used to publish the following announcement in its formal-night programs:

“Tonight’s dress is formal. Because many of our passengers enjoy the special shipboard ambience of these more elegant evenings, we respectfully request that formal attire be worn throughout the duration of the evening, and in all areas of the ship.”

We would underscore the part about wearing formal attire throughout the evening, since many first-seating passengers go back to their cabins after dinner, change into jogging suits and return to the shows, casinos and bars to mingle with fellow passengers still wearing formal clothing.

Remember that you don’t have to book a cruise that requires formal attire. Aboard the mega-ships you can dine in casual clothes in the ship’s cafeteria-style restaurant rather than the dining room.

While the cruise lines themselves are more forgiving than some veteran passengers--we haven’t seen Princess Cruises or Holland America Line enforce their formerly ironclad no-shorts rule at breakfast and lunch in the dining rooms lately--each evening’s dress code appears on the shipboard newsletter’s cover page. Because the old terms--”casual,” “informal” and “formal”--were often confusing to first-time cruisers, who considered “informal” to mean “casual,” some lines have taken to calling “informal” garb “business attire.” Others have changed all but the one or two formal nights aboard to “casual.”

But ignoring dress codes for formal nights is only the most obvious lapse. Subtler are the little rude actions that many of us have been guilty of:

* Staking out prime deck chairs for the whole day with towels, sun block and a paperback book, then going to an afternoon movie or to the cabin for a nap.

* Trying to hold front-row seats at the show for a party of six who are still finishing dinner.

* Picking up numbered tickets for the first boat ashore, then going back to the cabin to get ready.

* Monopolizing gym machines.

* Leaving laundry in a washer or dryer for hours after it’s finished.

* Accepting wine at dinner from a table mate’s bottle but never reciprocating, or, even worse, allowing the waiter to fill your glass, then taking only a sip.

* On a multi-language ship, talking loudly after the announcements in English are finished, leaving the non-English-speaking passengers straining to hear information in their own languages.

* Congregating at the gangway and pushing to disembark without waiting for the announcement that the ship has cleared the local authorities.

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Shirley Slater and Harry Basch travel as guests of the cruise lines. Cruise Views appears the first and third week of every month.