New York Customers Push Norwegian To New Heights
by Cheryl Rosen /Gem is now sailing out of New York. Photo:
To those who work on a cruise line, each ship has a distinct personality. And Norwegian Gem, sailing out of New York, has a certain flair that comes from its unique guest profile, says Norwegian’s food and beverage director Frank Deamicis.
“We have a very vocal clientele, much like the one I saw when I worked in five-star hotels,” he told TMR editor Cheryl Rosen, herself sailing the Gem on an intergenerational vacation cruise. “The Manhattan crowd is different from Miami or Honolulu; it knows what it wants.”
To keep up with the expectations of these and other customers, Norwegian Cruise Lines twice this year revamped its menu. It also changed its meal packages to allow for three-night and five-night options in the specialty restaurants, where previously a package was available only for the full cruise.
Also new are a la carte options in the specialty restaurants as well as the main dining room, adding new and broader shades of meaning to the NCL catchphrase “Freestyle Dining.”
The new menu moved toward “more classic, rather than modern, fare,” Deamicis said. A la carte offerings in the specialty dining rooms include surf and turf, lobster and ribeye, for example; about 7% of guests pay extra for these on Jewel-class ships like the Gem, and about 700 of the 2,900 guests (24%) sign up for the meal packages.
Also “very heavily subscribed” is the beverage package—about 40% of customers pay the $79 per day charge, up a whopping 20% over last year’s figure.
“Our marketing techniques have improved, and it’s a good deal,” Deamicis said. “But I also think travel agents are helping sell all these packages. They understand that the more they sell, the more they make.”
Beyond the food, there’s also a Request for Proposals on the street to refurbish the Gem’s staterooms, (and her sister ship, Norwegian Sky, will go into drydock for an upgrade of its own next year).
“It’s time to do a facelift,” Gem’s hotel director Sonja Sommereggersaid. “We redid all the public areas last year, so now things don’t all match any more. So now we’re going to change all the carpets and the furniture, and put in more of a calm color scheme, more blue and gray and beige.”
As hotel director, Sommeregger is in charge of the front of the house, guest services, food and beverage, the spa and the gift shops; she oversees a staff of 950. Her schedule is four months on the ship, then two months off. “I’m here 16 years and never have had it in my mind to change,” she said. “Of course there are challenges, but that’s what makes the job interesting. Every week we deal with the same situations, but in a different way, with different guests.”
Indeed, guests are more different than ever these days, Sommeregger noted, not just in New York but across the board. “We have every kind of client, more so than in the past,” as the proliferation of cruise lines and ships has pushed down prices and allowed more and more families to take to the seas.
Where the mega ships high-end luxury customers are more separated, in more of a two-level class structure, smaller ships like Gem are much more conducive to everyone mingling. Even guests in the luxury Haven suites share the same amenities, the same spa, shows and menus as everyone else.
“It’s a little quieter up there in the Haven, but we want everyone to come out and about. We don’t want to separate our guests,” Sommeregger said.
She has worked on cruise ships since signing on as a waitress for Cunard in 1998; she came to NCL in 2001.
“I grew up on a farm, and when I went to sea for the first time it was like heaven to wake up every day in a new country,” she said. “In the end, we all know why we are here—it’s because we love to travel. You go home and you have so many memories, so many things you have done and seen.”