Worst Trained Crew

This was our 56th cruise and the Jade has the dubious distinction of having the worst trained crew we ever had.Let's start with the waiting area at the pier. They took my wife and all the other handicapped passengers in wheelchairs and walkers to get on board. Some woman near the elevator would not let us pass saying we all had to have numbers and gave us each 39. I complained but she told all the crew pushing the wheelchairs to take us back to the handicap area. When we got there, those staff members told the pushers to ignore that other person and take us to board. In the meantime, they started boarding the passengers and all those handicapped people had to mix in with the crowd.

The bar wait staff could not remember where their drink orders went. In the Stardust, the Sapphire, and the Gran Pacific.  The bar staff would ask people if they ordered one of the drinks on their tray, tried to give drinks to people that did not order them, and walked by us several times with our drinks on their tray, not recognizing us. The tables in the Sapphire were never cleaned and always sticky. And, we were charged for a cocktail and a canned soda we never had.

The service desk gave us wrong information the three times we stopped by to ask a question. They were not very pleasant. It took my wife four trips there to get the drinks finally removed from our bill.

My wife won a free picture at Deal or no Deal so we had pictures taken and were told they would be ready at 9pm. We went at 9:30 but the prints were not ready and were told to come back at 10. My wife went back at 10:30 and was told to return at 7 am the next morning. They also could not find our free picture and tried to charge us for it. Two more trips to get rid of that charge.

One day at the buffet, we asked three different crew to wipe the table as it was sticky and each said they would be right back. None ever returned. Finally had to get a maitre d to do it.

We went to a scheduled sudoku challenge and none of the cruise staff ever showed up. The cruise director said that the person on library duty probably did not know that he/she was supposed to do it. That is poor training.

The food on the ship was not bad but not good either. The meat at both the Brazilian restaurant and the steak house were both beneath par and certainly not worth the extra cost. Teppanyaki was the only specialty restaurant we went to that had good food and Jasmine, the Chinese restaurant, had the best food on the ship. It also bothered us that the only sugar free dessert was ice cream both in the dining room and on the buffet. Every other cruise we have ever been on had sugar free selections.

The bathroom was a joke. There was a nice shower and sink area but the toilet was so close to the wall that the only way to use it was side saddle.