Thread: The Cruise Director: Importance to you?

I voted "CD doesn't concern me at all".
Till now, we didn't have any negative or extremly positiv experience with our CD.

I voted" No hope for a good one". We have had both and if you get a bad one pray that they have good assissant's.

I make my own fun on a cruise. If I have a problem I wouldn't hesitate to contact the CD. I do make it a point to always say hello to the CD & let him/her know how I am enjoying the activities on board.

It doesn't matter to me in the least. As long as I'm on board a ship, I'm happy!

Yes, but even then I'll make my own fun

I feel that I miss understood the question before voting. I like to know who the CD is before we board out of curiosity, nothing more. This is after we have booked and normally do not check until a month or less out since CD's are always moving around. I do not care who the CD is before I book.

Since the CD is the one responsible for the daily program and daily activities - it is important to know who the CD is - BUT with that said - some cruise lines change CD's as often as most people change their sox (OK, yeah, I am trying to be polite).

I have found some CD's to be very lazy and just repeat the daily activities from one cruise to another without any thought if there are any conflicts. There once was a time that the daily programs would tell you the current exchange rates of the local currency and the expected temperature for the various ports – so you could plan ahead. I see the daily program becoming more and more of advertising for the shops and services offered by the cruise lines rather than activities that the passengers might enjoy – especially the new cruisers.

I will now get off my soap box

I've learned that the current CD on the Hawaiian RT on the Golden Princess has a pretty bad reputation among Princess vets. He tends to get out the Patters extremely late, doesn't go to activities, etc. So even worse than the one on our sailing, who basically left his staff to do the social aspects (at least our Patters were in the cabin on time).

Fortunately, there were already a full range of activities in place, especially because of this husband-wife duo (even though on the man's FB page, it says he's engaged, so maybe they never got hitched) that really kicked the Hawaiian atmosphere into high gear since they were hired (I can tell compared to my 2005 cruise before Elua). They teach many of the activities, conduct many seminars and perform Hawaiian music just about every day. I think if you ask many of those who have taken this cruise several times, they'll say Elua is a major reason why.