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Do not have a wedding on Royal Caribbean


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I did a cruise ship wedding on the Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas last July. It was a BIG mistake. Before planning I did check the Cruise Ship Critic webpage and saw many bad experiences but we still wanted to do it. At first we had a wedding planner who helped us picked things out that we wanted such as the room, food and other packages that were available. She said that she would need to talk to me a few months before the wedding. So she did things on her end and I kept planning. About 5 months out from the wedding, I emailed her with some questions I had. I received emailed back right away saying this email address no longer exists. I sent a few more but got the same response. So then I tried the 800 number and told them what was happening. They informed me that she no longer worked for Royal Caribbean and I got a new wedding planner. It would have be nice to been told that! The second coordinator would not email me back. I sent over questions and it was three weeks later for a response on every email. She told me a lot of things that was not correct. I filled out my Bridal Informative packet and that was suppose to have how many were attending the ceremony, how many guest were sailing with us, pre ceremony breakfast foods, the main dinner, the drinks, the flowers and the option for pictures. I filled everything out an faxed it to her. For my favors I was going to do a little sailboat candle that had the “love boat” written on it. My planner told me since the candle would not be lit and it was going to be in a gift bag that it would be fine to use. The Monday before the wedding I was on the Royal Caribbean website under items that are not allowed and sure enough candles were on there. I immediately called her and told her what I found. She gave the response to “Well I guess they aren’t allowed then.” I had to go out and buy all new favors at the store since shipping was not an option. The week of the wedding I had questions that were still unanswered so I called her number at Royal Caribbean with her extension. Then she has the nerve to put "phone calls are by appointments only" on her next email. Also the week of the wedding I totally forget to give flower arrangements to the moms. So I call her again and she said it was fine. She ordered me red roses that matched the boutonneers of the men. If she would just answer her emails people wouldn’t have to call and track her down. Then the wedding came and I really wish it didn’t because everything was a disaster. When we arrived we were greeted by two Royal Caribbean people. One took the guest who were sailing and the other took the non-sailing guest. After security and checkin we were waiting in the terminal. We were waiting for awhile because six people did not get off the ship yet. I saw a box on the seat that said Flowers. I peaked in and only say a bouquet of flowers for me and my husband. I asked the lady if the ones for my bridesmaid, groomsmen and flower girls were in the cabins that we were changing in? She said this was the only flower order she received from my planner. I immediately broke down. Good thing I had my papers with me! I showed her where I ordered flowers in red. She called some people and told me there was nothing that could be done. My brother (the best man) asked if there was a Publix nearby he could go get some. Luckily she let him but it was a while before he go back with the security and all the other people trying to board. Once we finally got onboard, I went to my stateroom with the bridesmaids. While I was up there my mother called me and told me that the cake was not designed the way I was told it could be. All I wanted was the ribbon, the color of the bridesmaids dresses, on the bottom of the cake. Also they didn’t know about my cake topper. My mom was helping the lady set the cake and make a favor table because she didn’t know I was bringing favors either. The pre-ceremony food was cut short because they had to make up time from the six people who were still on the ship. Then the wedding started and I came down. The ceremony was lovely. For our first dance the DJ started to play other songs and cut it off quickly while trying to find our wedding song so we were just standing there awkwardly until we heard our song start to play. Then we ate. The food was good but the bride party was rushed to take group pictures around the ship. When we came back we did toasts and cake. Then it was over. We said goodbye to our guest who were not sailing and then did a check of the room. Then we went to our staterooms. After dinner we had a one hour picture time to get shots of just my husband and I and family members who sailed with us. About the third day the photographer gave us a CD of all the pictures, edited. Just this week I went to Walgreens to get some group shots enlarged to an 8x10. They came back completely blurry. I showed my brother-n-law and he look at the properties of the photos on the computer. The photos I received on the disk were LESS than a megapixel. This mean I could only get 4x6’s without the picture becoming blurry! I paid for the most expensive photo package and was received crap! I wrote an email to Royal Caribbean and waiting back.

 

I received an email from the Photo Support of Royal Caribbean and they were trying to contact the photographer since he quit. They could not reach him and had to refund me my money. Now I can not enlarge any of my photos. I asked Royal Caribbean to give my bridal party and I a free cruise to redo my wedding photos. I did not hire the photographer since you have to use everything from Royal Caribbean. This is their photographer so they should be able to fix their problem the employee made. I was emailed from Royal Caribbean that they would only give me a free photo session next time I sailed with them. Why should my bridal party and I have to repay to do another cruise just to have photos done. This response was not reasonable. My family already saved their money to go on the wedding cruise. It is not fair for us to have to repay just because Royal Caribbean messed up. Not me. Do not get married on Royal Caribbean!

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  • 11 months later...

Wow that sounds horrible!! All the details, all that stress!!! I was thinking of a wedding with RC and now I'm *really* not sure. Damn. Thank you SO much for sharing your experience, and I hope by now you've forgotten the bad stuff and remember the good. <3

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OP has many posts about her wedding, which was in 2016.

Her main complaint, if you read all her posts, is that she was unhappy with the photographs, and she wanted the cruise line to give her and her bridal party a free cruise to retake the pictures. They declined. No idea if anything else happened.

If you want a cruise wedding, you have to be willing to give up some control. It’s not for everyone.

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  • 3 weeks later...

my daughter has already signed up to have a royal c wedding.can you think of anything that we can do to prevent the problems you had.her wedding is durring the cruise in spain so maybe us being on the ship days before the wedding we can double check everything

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  • 3 weeks later...
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  • 1 month later...
On 1/21/2019 at 8:51 PM, Mediterranean_Honeymooner said:

I’m really sorry that this happened to you.  I would be devastated if I didn’t have any high quality photos of my wedding. 

OP’s wedding was in 2016.  Hopefully, she’s been able to move forward from this.

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  • 1 month later...

Honestly I think a new cruise to re-do wedding photos is more than fair.  Just to refund someone is not ok, the pictures are the most important aspect of the wedding day and to not have photos is a massive mistake.  Mistakes happen, in 15 years in this business we once had a photographer lose someone's entire wedding photos.  Since I had recommended the photographer, who quickly left island because this got around and killed his reputation, I paid for their flights, car rental and vacation rental and hired another photographer to do vow renewal shots.  Mistakes happen but it is how you correct them that makes the difference between a good company and a bad company.  Asking for a do-over is not out of line in my eyes.  

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