Cruise Ship Flowers – Disappointment yet so much Opportunity
Wow, I’m currently on an 8 day cruise in the Western Caribbean. My 12 year old daughter and I left on Saturday February 13th. We started in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and arrived yesterday in Cozumel, Mexico. The weather actually wasn’t so cooperative for the first two days (Sunday and Monday). However, today the weather has been gorgeous with a lot of sunshine and warmth. Just what the doctor ordered to chase away those winter blues. I was also expecting some amazing looking cruise ship flowers.
This post is about my experience here on the cruise ship with respect to the fresh flowers that were sold to passengers for the recent Valentine’s day celebration. My post title definitely provides you were a precursor to what I’m about to describe.
To my utter disbelief, the roses available for purchase were not high quality at all. It was very evident that the staff and floral personnel in the on board flower shop (which is shared with "candy", if you can believe it) are not professionally trained floral personnel. I felt really terrible for the unsuspecting passengers (wives, girl friends, partners and significant others) who were going to be receiving the flowers ordered by their special someone.
First of all, the dozen of arranged roses on display looked very amateurish in terms of design. The vase was a basic vase, and of the type typically used by lower end florists who don’t consider the vase an important part of the overall arrangement and design. A good florist can actually minimize any potential negative perception of a vase through a beautiful display design. Sadly, that was not the case here on board.
The roses were way too short for the height of the vase that was used. In addition, the greenery was not prepped correctly and there were leaves and petals of the greens below the water line. This is an absolutely "no-no" when it comes to flower arrangements as that will clearly cause bacterial growth problems in the water and cause premature death of the bouquet.
I found myself mentioning to my daughter how disappointing it was for me to see the arrangement on display and that perhaps I should consider coming to work on a cruise ship doing the professional floral arrangements. After all, I love to travel and I love to design flowers! Maybe I’m on to something in my future…. Well, for now, I’m enjoying the freedom to travel and do as I please so I’ll pass on that option for now. I would suggest saving your money on those cruise ship flowers unless you are certain the staff is qualified to deliver the quality flowers to your room or function which will last for most of (or the entire) cruise.
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