Cruise line's communicate with their passengers more than land-based resorts. At Disney World, you may have some messages relayed to you when you check in, like that a pool is closed or a certain restaurant has limited hours, but after that communication is limited.
Some resorts may have daily schedules, but when you visit a theme park or the Las Vegas Strip, activities are generally not planned by where you stay. A boutique hotel may have a happy hours, but Caesars Palace or Park MGM don't plan events for their guests.
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Cruises, however, are a very different thing. Your cruise line needs to communicate with you about important things like safety and less important things like when bingo cards are being sold or the time for the port destination show in the main theater.
When you board a cruise ship — at least a Carnival or Royal Caribbean ship — the captain will make repeated announcements about the muster drill. Both of those cruise lines use a virtual muster where passengers must watch some videos on their phone and then check-in a their muster station (where they would go in case of an actual emergency).
Exactly when the captain or cruise director should use the ship's public address system, however, is actually fairly contentious because it can wake you up, or interrupt whatever you might be doing.
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Image source: Dan Kline/Come Cruise With Me
Carnival takes a stand on ship announcements
On Royal Caribbean and Carnival ships only safety and emergency announcements are pumped into passenger cabins. They are, however, played in common areas adjacent to cabins and noise bleed can be a problem.
Carnival Brand Ambassador John Heald recently responded to a question about the announcements.
"Question! Do we really need the Cruise Director coming over the loud speaker 3 or 4 times each day to READ to us the daily schedule of events? Nothing of note was ever added, ------- just advised us what time Bingo was, what the shops were selling and info that is on the app and in the paper fun time copy of the program. We don't listen, since we have meticulously read the daily program. Less than 5% of the ship listen. The only announcement I really want to here on sea days is the captain talking at noon," the unnamed person wrote.
Heald tried to be kind in his response.
"Thank you for your opinion and I hope perhaps that if you don’t want to listen to the announcements, well, please don’t. Saying that 'less than 5% of the ship' you are on do not like to listen to the announcements is also an opinion and unless you have asked every single one of the 6,000 people on board then obviously that figure is a bit silly," he wrote.
Carnival's Brand Ambassador explains its policy
Heald, a former cruise director (CD), explained that every person who holds that has something that they think is the their "most important event, something that sets the scene for their cruise."
"For me, it was the Welcome Aboard show. This show featuring an overweight British CD, a spoon and two bits of string allowed me a chance to sell myself to you...If I could sell myself as someone fun, then the following morning, when I asked guests to come to the lounge to listen to me talk about the ports and the excursions, they would hopefully do so because the guest thinks, 'Oh, that’s the fat man who made us laugh last night, let’s go and see what he is doing,'" he wrote.
Heald felt it was important to build credibility with passengers.
"And that was the same thinking when I used the PA system with a rundown of the events of the day. I always hoped the guests would listen because once again they recognize my voice and know they needed to listen," he added.
The brand ambassador made it clear that the cruise line always tries to be respectful of its passengers.
"Ultimately, you are always going to disturb someone. I don’t mean in the cabins as we only make announcements inside the staterooms when there is something we feel the entire ship needs to hear. What I do mean is that, with speakers in the guest corridors, you may disturb someone who is still asleep at 10:30 a.m. or disturb someone having a nap in the sun or simply disturb someone who was seeking a little peace and quiet," he shared.
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Heald also pushed back on one common passenger gripe about announcements pushing sales.
“'You are just nickel and diming us,' they say. I have to admit that this phrase makes me want to do naughty things with a nipple clamp," he posted. "How sodding dare we try and make money, what would our shareholders say? It is the Cruise Director's responsibility to promote the revenue and it is the onboard revenue that has always been the reason which Carnival Cruise Line can keep the cost of your cruises the most affordable."
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