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Mar. 25, 2005 (By way of counterpoint to his ongoing series, “Romantic Spots I’ve Known,” internationally best-selling novelist William J. Lambert III now confirms that all that “sounds” romantic isn’t necessarily so): Had I been the one to have paid out the full price for the SSC Radisson Diamond Suite 902, as had T&W (the rest of the ship’s cabins “going” at budge prices), I certainly, from my past experience as a paying guest in the luxury hotels of the world (having mistaken the SSC Radisson Diamond to be the equivalent), would have expected far more, by way of accommodations and services. In this day and age of cruising, where one-class ships compete with one another for the lucrative tourist business, one expects less than in the days of first-class versus second- and even third-class accommodations and services. Booking a Master or Owner’s suite on any of today’s ships may not mean it will come with a butler, although it can on the QEII, or that it will come with doting one-on-one attention, although it can on the Crystal Harmony. However, one expects some token of additional service and/or courtesies when paying today’s full fare for a Master or Owner’s Suite, especially on a cruise whereon most, if not all, of the remaining passengers sail at bargain prices. Suite 902’s ballyhooed extra floor space was mostly hallway, leftover space cluttered (at least at the time of my initial look-see), by a front panel detached and fallen from the television cabinet. Even more space was consumed by a massive sofa-of-sorts, soon dubbed “Moby Dick,” in that it proved as big, uncomfortable, unstable, and as slippery as Melville’s sea mammal ridden bareback; later dubbed “Don Juan,” in that it proved especially bothersome for any woman who, through no fault of her own, and to no detriment of her impeachable character, was forced to slide into a supine position each and every time she sat down. Requests to the staff to “Please have this thing harpooned and replaced” met with a no less incredulous “no-can- do” than had we asked all sea life to be exterminated by a card-carrying member of Green Peace. Drapery cords were found arranged in an indecipherable macramé that might have held a potted plant but wouldn’t have opened the curtains on a bet. While the plethora of liquor bottles, gratis, in the suite upon check-in, might seem to have been a nice gesture, as was the white wine-on-ice, and the champagne-on-ice, it becomes less so when realizing it had been called to the attention of Seven Seas Cruises, long before embarkation, that no one in the suite would be drinking any wine but red. Suggestions on-site that all of the liquor and white wine, plus the champagne, be exchanged for a couple bottles of red, met only with wide-eyed “can’t be done” expressions and protests. In the Grand Dining Room (after having been assured the ship came well stocked with good red wine that wouldn’t go sour because of the liner’s stabilizing catamaran design), the wine steward proceeded to serve a hardly drinkable vintage initially contained by a cork so dry it split on the screw. Hoping to make reservations at the alternative restaurant, Don Vito’s for Italian Cuisine, our polite request to forego the manager’s pre-dinner “wine-tasting” met with such a vehement not-possible response that we passed on our intended meal there. Through it all, the ship’s Hotel Director remained pretty much incognito. No luxury hotel director, on land, would have been so seemingly unaware, nor leave his staff unaware, of anyone checked into his hotel’s penthouse. I suggested that Radisson either lower the prices of its ships’ master suites to be more commensurate with the non-existent additional services provided by ships' staffs, or that it at least instruct its hotel directors to provide master-suite guests with a few more of those low- cost courtesies and amenities that come as part of any hands-on package when booking into any luxury hotel found on land.
Having persuaded T&W to take the trip, and put
out the money, I’m especially disconcerted that
I came away with proverbial “egg on my
face.” As a result, I shall be decidedly
more careful whenever recommending to anyone,
ever again, that they provide the additional
cash outlay required to book the master suites
on any of the Radisson ships.
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