Princess responds to our complaint

[Bugslyboo.com]

Only really bad experience we had was a tour in Aruba (this past Jan.). Bus aircon broke down. Aloe factory tour an absolute joke: seriously bad attempt to disguise a store stop. Then off to what I can only describe as big rocks with stairs to the top after I think about 10 other buses had already arrived. We had enough time to get in line and wait with what seemed like a thousand others and slowly creep our way to the top and back down again....Bus swapped for something that looked like it had seen better days 40 years ago, but with working aircon. We were then dropped off at a beach (eagle?) only to find that if we wanted to use the beach chairs we would have to cough up $20 per person for our one hour stop...All in all just a really crappy tour. They refused to drop us off (most of the bus wanted off) downtown on our way back, as if we wouldn't be able to find our way to that big ship that wasn't to be missed... I complained at the pursors desk about the quality of it and was surprised to see 20% refunded the next day. I wasn't expecting that.

[Pam in CA]

I can tell you why Princess' policy is to refund 50% for an unsatisfactory shore excursion. It is my understanding that Princess receives 50% of the revenue from most excursions. It is also my understanding that tour operators do not get paid when passengers complain. Therefore, Princess still gets its compensation even when the passenger is credited back the 50%.

I'd be very surprised that Princess gets 50% of most shore excursions.

 

One thing I have found is that if your excursion is less than satisfactory, you need to make sure you remember the bus # and hopefully, the guide's name, and be specific about how it didn't live up to your expectations.

 

Last Fall, I was on a HAL excursion in Tunesia to ride camels in the desert for the day. It was about a 3-hour ride from the port to the oasis and back. We were put in cars, 4 passengers per car. Our driver didn't speak any English, rubbed his private parts the entire time, and had Arabic music blaring away. There was no A/C so we had to have the windows open. Anyway, we were extremely uncomfortable with the driver acting the way he did. When we returned, we immediately went to the Shore Desk and they told us it didn't matter because they did this tour only once a year and the drivers change. Never even got an apology or a "We'll look into this for you."

 

In my experience, Princess is far more accommodating and responsive than HAL (we had another tour that was way oversold so we were all stuffed in the bus with no extra seats anywhere for an all-day bus tour.)

[Denny01]

We received all of our money back from the train on St. Kitts--it jumped the track--we were very lucky we had just crossed a bridge and didn't fall a great distance.

 

Another time we were given at least 60 percent back--I'm sure it had something to do with a non-running boat somewhere and some time ago.

 

It seems if there is a real problem that Princess will step up and take care of it.

 

Nancy:D

Wow, your train jumped the tracks?!?! I would think That deserves a full refund while my shyster tour guide was a 50% return since we gave up and went off on our own and met up to get transportation back.

 

Denny

[skimom89]

Was on the CB in March and my son got sick on the bus at the beginning of the tour. Princess refunded both my son and my husband 100% but proceeded to quarantine my son for 24 hours. No problem he didn't feel well enough to do anything anyway.

[lovn2liv]

Never thought to ask for some kind of refund when we booked the Dune Buggy tour on Turks and Caicos. My daughter (8 at the time) got a pile of horse dung flung at her from the tires of the Dune buggy in front of her. It stuck right to her helmet thankfully, but she couldn't stop focusing on the poop, (it covered the front of the helmet over her right eye. We were able to stop and clean it off somewhat. Not a happy place....we laugh about it a lot now. She was sooooo disappointed, because this was one of those excursions that they were really looking forward to. Anyway, I'm kidding about the refund, but if it were up to here, she would have wanted to start that ride all over again.

[rdsqrl]

Years ago, on the original Island, I took a Princess tour of Gibraltar, which involved the whole magillah: the cable car ride up, an extensive tour inside the Rock, seeing the monkeys (ew), and then a walking tour through the town. Our tour ended there, although the description said that the tour bus would deposit you back to the ship. I and the people I was hanging with didn't notice or care about the discrepancy -- it's not that long a walk from downtown to the pier and we were having fun beginning our pub crawl (there are reportedly 365 pubs there; someone had to undertake an "official" count!). Anyway, I was very surprised the next morning to have a letter in my cabin from the Excursion Desk explaining that people on this tour had reported that they were not returned to the ship as the tour promised, apologizing for the mistake, and giving us an onboard credit as a goodwill gesture (don't recall how much -- it was a long time ago!). I was really impressed, especially since I got an OBC for not complaining about something I would have done anyway -- ditched the bus ride back and walked.