Here are a few things I've suggested to Mr. Conroy:

1. Cut out the included set-ups (liquor, not the water and soft drinks) in the rooms, substituting "Happy Hours" - open bar in all venues - from an hour or so before dinner through the dinner hours - so no one feels obliged to go into the dining room for their "free" pre-dinner cocktail. Make set-ups in the suites at reasonable cost optional, with ordering instructions available on the preference form that you get with your tickets.

2. When planning the following year's itineraries, invite the cruise consultants from the ships as well as key travel agents (i.e., Ngaire and others who aspire to her exalted levels of knowledge and service). Also, invite written input WELL IN ADVANCE from a selection of past passengers, not only those with 200+ nights, but also some who have made just 3 or 4 cruises with RSSC and those in between, selected randomly. LISTEN TO WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY. Doesn’t mean you have to do what they say, just listen and carefully consider.

3. Have annual Seven Seas Society sailings with top executives and those responsible for itinerary planning on board. During these cruises, schedule open meetings like those on during the Voyager shakedown cruises, to help communications between the powers what be at RSSC and us cruiser-clients, who think we know better how to run the cruise line. IMPORTANT: In one meeting, put the Itinerary Planners up front and make them explain why they route ships like they do. My favorite, now several years old, would be to explain why the Mariner's world cruise went from So. Africa and Ascension or St. Helena direct to Fortelisa, bypassing Rio?
3-b. Offer special Society savings for this annual Society trip: 1% discount for every 5 days previously cruised on RSSC, so 100 days, 20% off; 300 days, 60$ off; 500 days = free! (Actually, never suggested this before; just thought of it now.)

4-a. Replace enough of the tubs on Mariner - all categories - so that anyone who wants one can have one. These tubs are dangerous, and they know it!
4-b. Provide night-lights in the bathrooms, so you don’t have to go from blissful darkness to blazing light to see what you're doing in the middle of the night. (Interim solution: bring a three-way tap with a night-light plugged into the end of it, and plug the tap itself into the 120 volt shaver outlet in the overhead above the sink area. HOWEVER, before you leave home, make sure you grind down or cut off the fat part of the wide prong on the tap, because the ships have old style receptacles, without one of the sockets bigger to accommodate the wide prong. If the light bothers you too, but you're not sure what I mean, drop me an e-mail [see profile] and I’ll answer questions and even send a picture if you're stuck.) THIS IS NOT HAZZARDOUS if you only plug shavers, etc. into the other sockets on the tap.