Grrr @ Tie the Knot

[MikeyToo]

We contacted several travel agents explaining our needs (married aboard ship by the captain on a cruise to Alaska). The third time's the charm and we begin the booking process. The TA contacts "Tie the Knot" and inquires about the availability of getting married onboard on our selected cruise (Golden Princess sailing from Seattle on 5/15). "Oh yes, it's no problem", she's told. She actually had better luck contacting them than I did. I tried several times and after holding went over to voicemail. Maybe they don't like dealing with men?

 

So we book the trip, airline, hotel before and after. I try to contact them and get dead air for several days. Finally they get back to me.

 

"I'm sorry, we don't have any availabilities on that cruise".

 

Their policies are horrid. They won't even begin to discuss a booking with you until AFTER you have your cruise booked. I doubt the first person the TA talked to even looked up the cruise information. Why would I book a particular cruise if I knew that there were no times available? Oh and no deposit. You have to pay the total amount up front. Maybe they're afraid they won't get any more money from them after you find out how shoddy their customer service is.

 

I call Princess. They can't do anything for me. All we want is a simple 15 minute ceremony here.

 

The TA is an absolute angel. She gets us rebooked on the same ship, same itinerary, different date with available times for a wedding. She even gets Princess to waive the change in deposit.

 

I hope things go smoother from here on out. Thanks for listening.

[lifeguardjen]

Wow that stinks, I had to call Carnival Weddings before booking the cruise to make sure they had a spot for me to get married in St. Thomas. I was so nervous when I put down the deposit on the cruise then called Carnival Weddings right away to get booked for the wedding thank god we still had our spot, which made me nervous since they only allow 2 weddings per port. So I feel you, hopefully things will look up for you though!

[never2late]

I am getting a bit nervous myself -- I was told we would get a phone call 30 days before our cruise. It is now 20 days and we have not heard anything. They have zapped our credit card for the whole amount --- of course. Their customer service needs improvement. Hopefully I will hear something soon. :eek: Tie the Knot -- where are you?

[Kayakbride]

Never2Late....I just got back from my wedding cruise on Star Princess and everything went as planned. Even better. We made sure to meet with the Wedding Coordinator (who is also the Asst. Purser), the pianist, the photographer and the florist (all separately, by appointment) on the second day of our cruise. Our wedding wasn't until day 15, so it gave everyone a chance to breathe. Of course none of the info from The Wedding Experience People was right, but the WC fixed most of it. Our vows were still wrong after repeated emails to TWE, but the important thing is we are now married and loving it.

 

I brought some silk hydrangeas and my own ribbon to mix in with the pink roses. Although the florist was appalled at using fake flowers, he did as asked and even he was thrilled with the results. I saw two other rose-only bouquets and they looked very stilted. I loved my bouquet.

 

The pianist worked with my fiance who surprised me with a song at the end of the ceremony accompanied by the pianist. Very charming. The WC even used our camera to video-tape the ceremony, which was fortuitous since the webcam never got turned on. It won't be the same quality as the video service, but we saved $800 there.

 

We met with the photographer beforehand with a list of shots we wanted, and created a rapport that served us well. We ended up with two hours of photography instead of one, and about 365 photos on our CD (extra cost for the CD about $500). He was happy to work with our props (hand-fast tartan, guest book, little stuffed geocaching dog) and took pictures of us with our GPSer verifying our latitude and longitude coordinates. I think we made it more fun for him instead of just standing for the traditional posed photos. You have to ask for someone to come and take your cake cutting photo if you have it separate from the ceremony. Another couple asked but it was formal night and they ended up with one shot of them at the table just like any other couple, and the cake didn't end up in the picture. You must be firm about that if that's what you want. Since it was a different photographer, you have to go to the photo counter and pay extra unless....like we did, buy the CD and insist that the cake photos go on the CD.

 

If you haven't heard from the ladies in Miami yet, call them. I didn't hear until about 2 weeks out and that's because I emailed and called several times. Do bring copies of everything they sent you because they may not have sent it on to the ship's WC. They sent only the introduction page of our chosen music to the WC....we sent 10 pages of sheet music so the pianist could pick out the best section of Tales from Vienna Woods. The introduction only would have been a disaster. Our WC said she was really frustrated with TWE because the success of the weddings reflects on her performance evaluations, but there was nothing she could do about changing the vendor. I feel sorry for her having to deal with them over and over.

 

Someone else asked about tipping. We tipped the photographer $20 and bought the WC an alpaca shawl in Chile. We never saw the florist again and suspect that like the photographer, he left the ship for vacation at the next port. Of course I tipped the young lady who did my hair but we did not tip the Captain...I think he would have found it undignified.

 

Oh, we did not have family with us, but after seeing one wedding that was just in-n-out, we opted to have some guests. About six couples we had met on the cruise actually asked us if they could attend and we were delighted that they did. We treated them all to champagne later in the afternoon. The bartender at the Wheelhouse estimated three bottles and he was correct. It cost about $75.

[never2late]

You have made me feel so much better and made me think about details that I did not even think of -- We are getting married on day 2 of the cruise, so we are certainly going to have to hustle to get everything done. I am glad to see there is some flexibility once we are on board about guests as we were thinking the same thing since we are coming into BA early and will be staying at the same hotel as other CCrs and hopefully we will want to have some of these new friends there for our ceremony too.

 

Congratulations and Best Wishes! I will update you when "it" happens!:D

[Michele M]

KayakBride, thanks for posting all the info of your wedding. We will be getting married very soon 1/14 on Island Princess

 

Never2Late, I never got my 30 day call either, so I called them. They emailed me final paperwork to fax and I never got a call or email to say they received it. I had to call again and they did have all the information in order, but their customer service is lacking.

[never2late]

We were looking up our names on Google and found the posting in the Bermuda Sun Post of our Intention to Marry! We still haven't heard from Tie the Knot, but at least we know someone has been working on the details. This is good news. We are 18 days out. We leave for Buenos Aires on the 12th -- excited and nervous!

[Michele M]

We were looking up our names on Google and found the posting in the Bermuda Sun Post of our Intention to Marry! We still haven't heard from Tie the Knot, but at least we know someone has been working on the details. This is good news. We are 18 days out. We leave for Buenos Aires on the 12th -- excited and nervous!

Thanks, I just found our names there also.

[MikeyToo]

Good news. We're all set for June 13th. My fiancee called Tie the Knot today and actually spoke to a person. They were moving offices over the holiday and things are still messed up but they have our paperwork. My fiancee had to call them to inform them that we had additional guests as my parents, brother and SIL are now coming on the cruise with us.

[never2late]

:( We are suppose to be getting married on Jan. 18, 2010 on board the Star Princess -- I have e-mailed Alexandra and called and left her a message -- nothing yet. Very odd way to run a business -- but of course, they have already taken the money. I will let you all know if it happens -- it just seems like it's an important event for us, but not for them. :(

[halifaxgirl]

I have also left several messages and emails for Alexandra and haven't heard anything back from her! I guess if they moved offices over the holidays that may by why, although that doesn't give you much comfort with less than 2 weeks to go! We fly out 10 weeks from today and get married 11 weeks from today! Good luck, can't wait to hear about your January weddings :)

[never2late]

Eleven days until the ceremony, buy who's counting? We finally got a call from Anna at TWE. Everything is set -- last step, she will be e-mailing a final details letter to us -- we initial everything and send it back, then we are done.

 

We will be receiving a letter when we board in our cabin with info from the WC and the time we will be meeting with her. The rehearsal will be the evening before the ceremony. If we do not have 2 witnesses, Princess will provide them for $15 each (she said uniformed staff). Or we can provide our own -- we plan on hooking up with some other CC people in Buenos Aires prior to boarding the ship and I am sure we will have some candidates there. So this is it!

 

I will post when we get back and are officially Mr. and Mrs.

:)

[halifaxgirl]

So glad to hear you got your call! Sounds like everything is falling into place nicely, enjoy!