Chanman76

Hi All,

Just wondering what would be the best excursion in the Caribbean for actually swimming with Dolphins? (Not sure if you can actually swim with them or not but hoping we can) The OH has always wanted to do this and would be nice to surprise her with an excursion which offers this?

Many Thanks

We loved Celebrity on out 1st cruise and being honest couldn't really fault them in anyway. The boat was fantastic, Staff were friendly and food was amazing and a great time was had by all.

We are currently booked with with NCL after we originally booked with Celebrity for our Honeymoon as returning customers until it got royally messed up (very long story but there is a post dedicated to the sorry tale). After that mistake we felt being on ANY Celebrity boat for our Honeymoon would just bring back memories of the entire fiasco and stress we had with the booking and trying to sort it all out. I am sure it is not a common occurrence, however at the moment we are not feeling the love for Celebrity as a company.

Well after a long stressful 2.5 hours meeting the TA we have a Honeymoon...all be it not the original we had planned.

Ended up walking away from Celebrity Cruises mainly as this whole experience has sullied the whole honeymoon on this cruise and neither of us would be happy even on a different Celebrity boat (bringing back memories of this fiasco)

Instead we have booked on Norweagian (Epic) for 14 days and seem to have a good deal /if not better (Less than original booking after the TA heavy discount in light of the issues and ruined honeymoon) including flights,hotels and transfers.

Norwegian were told of the issues with our booking are leaving champagne, chocolates and upgraded room for free as they felt awful for us (and happy to take business away from Celebrity)

So out if this whole fiasco....

TA couldn't get original cruise but managed to get us discounted price. Not 100% happy but better than the big zero offer from Celebrity other than tough and payup.

Norwegian upgraded room (without us asking ) and more than happy for our custom. And have already emailed flight info, booking reference, hotel info and full cruise details to ensure we are confident in booking.

Would like to thank everyone here for listening to my tale of woe and the suggestions. A lot were a huge help today in getting us sorted.

Again many thanks :D

Thanks JB for the clarification.

We have not spoken directly to the CruiseLine (Celebrity Cruises) ourselves seeing as our booking was made by our local Travel Agent (who is a cruise specialist according to the website) and have left it to them to deal with that side so we are only taking the TA's word on what they have said and done.

Seemingly this has went as high as director level at Celebrity and they have pretty much said no chance of it getting changed and to either pay or cancel! I guess they can/will get someone very easily to pay full price for the cabin if they get rid of us rather than giving it to us at a discounted price.

We are still planning on the TA meeting tomorrow and going to bring along our solicitor to at least try and find out how this got messed up so badly and to at least try and get some decent compensation for all the of the hassle/stress and tears that have been happening over this. Right now not sure we will even be looking at Celebrity again after this nightmare. :(

will let you know how that fun meeting goes.

Basically our honeymoon is in tatters. My other half is in bits and I am trying to pick up the pieces.

I don't know what cruise line this was with (couldn't find it if it was even mentioned). But if this was with Celebrity you might post this on their board. There seems to be a Celebrity rep that monitors that board and will sometimes chime in on posts with legitimate issues. Good luck.

 

If it was not Celebrity...I AM NOT TRYING TO START RUMORS!!!! Love X

Yeah it has not been mentioned as wasn't sure I was allowed to list the name directly or not (newbie user)

Hmmm Interesting you said that though (100% spot on) . Wasnt sure if I would be allowed to post a complaint like this directly onto <insert Cruise Line > board or not.

Feel so bad for you & your fiancee ...:(

 

Why would the TA offer Something at cost if they had not made the mistake? Go over this TA's head if you can. Also if all else fails go to social media...Ie Facebook. Tell your story on the cruiselines facebook page .

 

Good luck!

Reader

We have the social media option lined up. We were holding off naming and shaming till we knew 100% what was going on with the infighting. If they cant sort us out they might as well put up with some bad PR and social backlash out of if. After all not just a holiday that is ruined but a once in a lifetime honeymoon cruise.

New Update

Got call from TA a short while ago, They have taken it as far as they can go and both the TA or Cruise Line will NOT be honoring or moving on the price (hmm breach of contract??). Best the cruise line can do is offer a free cancellation and the TA "may" offer another Honeymoon at cost price "if" we use them again.

We still do not know where the mistake was made as nobody is putting there hands up to it and I do want to know now.

Still have a meeting planned for tomorrow afternoon with them with a friend tagging along for moral support (And keep things calm) and to try and keep my fiancee from breaking down once more, as there has already been tears over this today. (I hate seeing her getting so upset)

So looks like our dream honeymoon is in ruins and what should have been something to look forward to has been nothing but a nightmare, :mad::mad::mad:

Whole thing has left a very bad taste and to be honest both of us are feeling this experience has worn us and tainted what should be a magical time. Hope both companies are proud of what they have put us through.

Anyone recommend a nice cruise line for a Caribbean cruise for a Honeymoon willing to please two very unhappy and disappointed people?

Again all many thanks everyone for listening to these rants and I will let you know what happens tomorrow...other than losing the cruise I suspect.

Hi All,

Thanks for the advice and feedback.

Another day of no information of feedback from the local TA.

We are still planning on holding a meeting tomorrow to discuss where we are at.

1. Exactly what documents did TA get from Cruise Line AFTER booking...who checked them and were they correct? Do they match with our documents?

2. As we have a contract (signed on day of booking) with the TA to provide 14 day cruise at the price given, why is it we are now getting asked to pay double.

3. Why has it taken over 2 weeks and we (the customer) seems to be the only one taking this seriously and doing all the chasing for info. (OK I know we dont sail till next year but its our honeymoon which is in the balance and the aft cabin which goes back on sale on Friday afternoon)

4. A mistake has been made somewhere (not by us) What can be done remembering the original contract is signed and has dates/prices listed from the TA. Should the TA not be honoring this agreement? (they should have insurance to cover mistakes like this surely?)

5. Surely the TA should have discovered this if their checks were carried out??

6. When was call to head office escalated and what has been done? Have they spoken to their own Cruise Line contacts - And if so what has been said?

7. If the TA is not at fault then why didn't Cruise Line question that if we were on a 7 day cruise then why would we request flights departing after 14 days (the day the cruise was meant to end)- Cruise line have confirmed the flights are correct at least. So even if we do end up on a 7 day cruise we would need to find a hotel to stay for the last 7 days until our flight departs!

8. Secret Ace Card will be played, Not sure what if any good this will do - I will let you know what it is after the meeting ;)

Worst case :

We lose cabin (our lovely aft cabin we really wanted). If we lose this cabin we may want to cancel as my fiancee probably wont be happy on the cruise knowing it was not what we wanted:

1. In light of the total mess on the this cruise booking find us another one/better one and we will NOT be paying full price and expecting a discount (as compensation for stress/upset/lost work time and potential breach of contract)

2. If option 1 fails, refund all money and we go to another company and expect twitter to light up naming companies and the sorry tales of woe which we have had in dealing with them and our booking.

Who would have thought cruising was so stressful :rolleyes:

We are having a similar issues with our honeymoon Cruise. We booked for 14 days but either the travel agent on cruise line has booked us for a 7 day cruise instead and now wanting more than double the original price we were quoted when we booked. I am not sure about what Cruise Lines offer as compensation as right now we just want to know where the mistake happened and to discuss the options open to us as paying double is not an option as we have just bought a house, a new car and getting married this year so you can imagine there is a lot of expenses.

Hope you can get something sorted.

Latest Update:

After many phone calls chasing up the Travel Agent yesterday...who promised over the weekend to call us back on the 17th it turns out he was on a days holiday so no escalation was carried out from their side (not happy at all). After a few more calls it turns out the Cruise Line is now only holding our dream cabin until Friday :eek:

So we are now busy re-arranging out diary's and work commitments to get into the Travel Agent on Friday afternoon for a meeting to sort this out for good or bad as the phone call route is not working too well.

The longer this is going on I suspect the Cruise Line is going to simply cancel the booking to avoid the hassle and give the deposit back. However seeing as this is our Honeymoon (and I have a rather upset girl) I really want to fight to either get this sorted and get our dream cruise or at the very least someone to stand up and say yes a mistake has been made and lets see what we can get done to find a option to keep everyone happy.

Right now NOBODY has actually said a mistake has been made or who made the booking error, which is the most annoying thing. :(:mad::eek:

I'm confused....

 

There seems to be three entities the OP is dealing with. A Tour Company, a Cruise company (cruise line), and a tour operator.

Could this be some sort of package or bundle? The OP only booked one part of the package? Or is it a case of a different English being written?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

Sorry for the confusion we are dealing with Travel Agent. Who in turn booked with the Cruise Line.

Geez, what a mess! I am thinking about this from a US perspective (our countries have different consumer protection laws). If you have no documentation from the cruise line then we suspect you are out of luck unless your tour company takes pity and pays the extra money (unlikely). In our country, what was said (or not said) over the phone is really useless unless it was followed-up with documentation from the cruise line. The sad reality is that honest mistakes do happen and they can certainly be painful. And by the way, a good piece of advice is that whenever you book a cruise through a 3rd party (tour company, cruise agency, travel agency, etc) ask for the cruise line's "Booking Number" and then log into the cruise line's own web site and check that your reservation is correct.

 

In your situation we might quickly look around for other options (before we cancel) and then make a decision once you have explored those options and examined your budget.

 

Hank

Thanks Hlitner, I am already looking for other deals and can get cheaper cruises with other larger companies....if it came it it. However this cruise was the one she had set her heart on. Just hate seeing my fiancee so upset over this. Right now someone (TA or Cruiseline) has made a royal mistake and its going to be us which is left footing the bill for it (I dont think so).

If we had no documents from the TA I would put it down to experience but all paper work we have is for 14 days and by the power of greyskull I will move heaven and earth just to get this sorted and have a happy woman in my life again. :)

Hi Everyone :)

Here is my(long) story of our dream honeymoon booking and wondering what we should do.

It was a cold Christmas eve and my wife to be and I were out doing some last minute shopping. Wandering past or local travel agent we noticed it was quite so we decided to take a break from the maddening crowds and go and and price our honeymoon.

Seeing as we got engaged on a cruise earlier in the year we had decided to price a 2 week Caribbean cruise with the same cruise line we traveled on earlier that year (as we loved it). We informed the local travel agent of the month we would live to travel and the cruise line in question. He got to work and after a few moments came back with a cruise which ticked all our wishes....now for the prices.....

He called up the cruise line and passed over our travel dates and cabin requests (We got the cabin we really wanted at the aft, happy days) and came back with a price after taking off the early booking discounts etc. It was a bit more cash than we wanted to spend but seeing as it was our honeymoon we decided to book it and look forward to our 2 week cruise. We paid the deposit and a number of days later received the booking confirmation with the full itinerary and Cruise booking reference from the travel agent.

Now over this time our house got sold and we needed to move so image 2.5 months of house hunting/buying, packing boxes, sorting out banks, solicitors and then the unpacking into our new home. As you can expect the honeymoon took a back seat over this time.

So here is the issue......

A week last Wednesday we decided to look at the shore excursions available on our cruise as we got notification the 2017 ones were now online. My Fiancee rushed away and got the booking details out and we signed onto the cruise line website. This was when we noticed on the cruise line website we were listed as a being on a 7 day cruise (Not the 14 we asked for). So that Saturday we popped into our travel agent to enquirer about the booking.

He went to his computer and brought up our travel documents they had stored and confirmed the booking was for a 14 day so called up the cruise line. After a lengthy talk he then discovers the cruise line had only a booking for 7 days and that if we wanted the 14 nights we would have to pay more than DOUBLE what was originally quoted. Our tour operator was far from happy at this as he made the booking himself (while we waited) and can verify that he did indeed ask for 14 days and at no point asked for a 7 day cruise. All paperwork which we have received from the tour operator is for a 14 day cruise and deposit has been paid for the 14 days as well.

Our tour operator has been trying to get the cruise line to honor the original booking for 14 days however the cruise line has said that the recording of the booking call is lost, and cant be reviewed so in light of this have said if we want to cruise it would be at the much higher price.

Now the tour operator who is hitting a brick wall trying to get this mess sorted - Tour operator is blaming cruise line and cruise line is blaming tour operator and neither are budging while we are stuck waiting patiently (but now getting frustrated) for an answer. Last update is the tour manager is speaking to his manager at head office for help/advice.

All our paper work which we have and tour operator have is for 14 days as well as the prices we have agreed to pay. In the mean time I am dealing with a very upset bride to be who is now in tears anytime someone asks how the wedding planning is going due to this, as well as trying to sort out this booking issue.

So here are the facts :

1. All documents we have from tour company is for a 14 day cruise. Lists dates, full travel schedule and cabin number

2. Tour Company agree that they asked for for 14 days (we were their with them and can honestly say we did not hear anything from their side which puts in doubt the booking days requested...or we would have mentioned it there and then)

3. Deposit has been paid for 14 days

4. Cruise company claim it was only ever for 7 days the price they quoted (At no point were we EVER interested in a 7 day cruise for our honeymoon)

5. Lost recording to prove our side of the story (convenient for cruise line??)

Just wondering if :

1. We stick it out and keep arguing due to supporting documents from Travel company and get someone to honor it. This was a good price for a 14 day cruise (not brilliantly cheap nor obviously wrongly priced, even travel agent didn't think it was badly priced for 14 days.....however for 7 days at the prices quoted it is one of the most expensive cruises he has seen in 17 years of working)

2. Demand a refund, loose the dream honeymoon cruise and book else where.

I kind of suspect we are going to loose out on this cruise and just wondering if it is worth fighting over, just hate seeing my fiancee so upset over this as we both thought the honeymoon was all sorted (and the perfect one for us)

Sorry for rambling on.

So what would you do in this situation?