Double booked cabin

[UKexplorer]

Just got back from the 4 night cork trip on the Indy where our room was double booked. i heard from a few others i met on the ship that this had happened to them too. All of the instances seemed to come from people who booked Guarantee cabins through a travel agent. I'm not sure if this has happened perviously on other cruises but it's left me a bit wary of guarantee cabins. We booked an inside guarantee and the TA called me 2 weeks before and said we'd been allocated an aft balcony on deck 7.

 

After going down to guest relations (the other couple were let into our room while we were inside by the stateroom attendant. Luckily we were just looking at the balcony!) we were offered an oceanview room on deck 2. We sat down in the bar with the other very nice couple and as it was their first cruise we gave them the balcony cabin. The girl on guest relations did give us $200 OBC and they gave us a bottle of fizz aswell. It was an unfortunate situation for everyone but the lovely girl on the guest relations desk was very apologetic and went out of her way to make sure we were ok throughout the cruise. All in all a great trip and i even got the start of a tan - in ireland! :D

[minnie00]

You were understanding and $200 OBC was nice. I would have been bummed to give up the nice balcony...but you really probably made the other people's day:D

[norcalal]

Just got back from the 4 night cork trip on the Indy where our room was double booked. i heard from a few others i met on the ship that this had happened to them too. All of the instances seemed to come from people who booked Guarantee cabins through a travel agent. I'm not sure if this has happened perviously on other cruises but it's left me a bit wary of guarantee cabins. We booked an inside guarantee and the TA called me 2 weeks before and said we'd been allocated an aft balcony on deck 7.

 

After going down to guest relations (the other couple were let into our room while we were inside by the stateroom attendant. Luckily we were just looking at the balcony!) we were offered an oceanview room on deck 2. We sat down in the bar with the other very nice couple and as it was their first cruise we gave them the balcony cabin. The girl on guest relations did give us $200 OBC and they gave us a bottle of fizz aswell. It was an unfortunate situation for everyone but the lovely girl on the guest relations desk was very apologetic and went out of her way to make sure we were ok throughout the cruise. All in all a great trip and i even got the start of a tan - in ireland! :D

 

 

Welcome to CC...I applaud your uncommon graciousness:):)

[CaroleC]

as it was their first cruise we gave them the balcony cabin

 

What an extremely nice gesture, not sure I would have been so accommodating!! :D

[UKexplorer]

Well DH and i thought that for 4 nights we wouldn't really be missing out. I can't imagine how dissapointed we would be if we had loads of disruption on our 1st cruise.

And we'd had our first wedding anniversary a few days before so all we should need is each other's company not a fancy room! :)

[CruisesOnMyMind]

Just got back from the 4 night cork trip on the Indy where our room was double booked. i heard from a few others i met on the ship that this had happened to them too. All of the instances seemed to come from people who booked Guarantee cabins through a travel agent. I'm not sure if this has happened perviously on other cruises but it's left me a bit wary of guarantee cabins. We booked an inside guarantee and the TA called me 2 weeks before and said we'd been allocated an aft balcony on deck 7.

 

After going down to guest relations (the other couple were let into our room while we were inside by the stateroom attendant. Luckily we were just looking at the balcony!) we were offered an oceanview room on deck 2. We sat down in the bar with the other very nice couple and as it was their first cruise we gave them the balcony cabin. The girl on guest relations did give us $200 OBC and they gave us a bottle of fizz aswell. It was an unfortunate situation for everyone but the lovely girl on the guest relations desk was very apologetic and went out of her way to make sure we were ok throughout the cruise. All in all a great trip and i even got the start of a tan - in ireland! :D

 

I'd say the stars were alligned all along with you:D. Booking an inside guarantee, ending up with an OV (an upgrade) with 200 bucks to boot in the end. For a 4 nighter I would have taken this deal over an upgrade balcony anyday.

Glad it all worked out and I am sure the first time cruisers were estatic!

[Jimnbigd]

Gosh, what if there were not enough cabins? I wonder if that has ever happened -- double booked and no more available cabins. Anyhow, you would have been happy, I suppose, if you had your inside cabin as originally booked, so you came out way ahead. Well, we usually get a guaranteed cabin number, so no chance of this happening to us I suppose.

[funat55]

I think what you did was gracious and classy. Glad to hear you had a nice trip.

[BND]

Sounds like time for a good software upgrade. A well written program wouldn't allow that to happen as it should only allow one reservation per cabin. The TA wasn't responsible at all. Fortunately, that's a rare occurrence, but still you have to wonder how it happens.

[MelissaE1]

Welcome to CC...I applaud your uncommon graciousness:):)

 

Seconded. How nice of you. And happy anniversary! :)

[land lover]

Just curious did you find out what CAT the other couple originally booked?

[nancronin]

Generous - and I'll bet the other couple was thrilled! Yeah for you!!!:D

[daze6399]

Glad to hear you got an upgrade. You get tons of Karma points for giving up the balcony. But like you said, ya'll are newlyweds(ish) so all you really need is a....

 

 

room to uh...sleep in.

 

 

Glad you had a good trip, and someone else did too. :D

 

BTW Isn't it against the law to get a suntan in Ireland? :p

 

daze

[royalcruz]

You are a great sport!

 

We once got double booked. We were planning to go to Disney World but I twisted my ankle and couldn't walk around the parks, so we booked a cruise about 3 days prior to sailing date instead of going to Disney. We purchased an inside guarantee and found online that we were assigned to a room far from an elevator. So I called RCCL and requested to be put back into the "pool" (it would have cost a lot more to choose a cabin). We ended up with a worse room, a smaller than usual interior hallway room at the very front end of the ship. It took us about 90 minutes to check in (standing on my bad foot) because that room was assigned to other people and they had to switch the names and other information. I had to line up several times in the trouble-shooting line because the card was linked to another person and they wouldn't let me on the ship and sent me back to the line. The people who originally had our room were upgraded to a balcony. Meanwhile, their luggage showed up at our door and the beds were set up apart. We had to go to the dining room for table assignments because we had none. It took about 3 hrs and lots of running around for us to straighten everything out, and then the final bill had the names mixed up. I wrote a letter to RCCL after we got home and they called and offered me $200 OBC if I would give them another chance, which we accepted.

[travelbug11]

On a short Carnival cruise a couple years ago that I had booked 2 days in advance, just as I was starting to change my clothes a man walked in - had his own key and said it was his cabin. We both had the same cabin but he was gentleman enough to leave and get assigned another.

[UKexplorer]

From what we were told RCI were blaming the software and said that in our case both travel agents selected the same cabin at the same time. How true that is, i don't know.

 

daze6399- very true! My Dad who was born in Ireland thinks this is the first documented case of anyone getting a tan there! ;)

 

jimnbigd - we were terrified at first when we went to guest relations there was a sign up asking for people to stop asking about room upgrades as the cruise was full and there were no more availiable cabins! we had visions of sleeping on the pool deck!

[pantherdk]

As a owner of a Software developet company, that scares me they are saying that :)

 

The chance of someone picking the same cabin in excatly the same milisec is not something i would every think would happend.

 

And the system should also have a checkup for that.

 

Sounds like someone just made a big human mistake and gave the system the fault :)

[Caliterp07]

From what we were told RCI were blaming the software and said that in our case both travel agents selected the same cabin at the same time. How true that is, i don't know.

 

Is that even how guarantees work? I thought RC assigned them. I didn't realize TA's selected the room you got.

[BND]

Is that even how guarantees work? I thought RC assigned them. I didn't realize TA's selected the room you got.

 

RCI does select them. So, there's no way two TA's seclected the same cabin at the same time. All the TA's do is book a guarantee and RCI assigns them later. As someone else said, you go into a pool of others who have selected guarantees and then are assigned at a later date based on what is available. Whoever at RCI said that was giving the answer that they were told to give.

 

The only time I've ever seen double booking has been in a hotel and it's always due to human error. A person overrides something in the software and in the process is able to do something they shouldn't be able to. So, more than likely someone at RCI overrode something else and caused a glitch to occur.

[wg6530]

RCI does select them. So, there's no way two TA's seclected the same cabin at the same time. All the TA's do is book a guarantee and RCI assigns them later. As someone else said, you go into a pool of others who have selected guarantees and then are assigned at a later date based on what is available. Whoever at RCI said that was giving the answer that they were told to give.

 

The only time I've ever seen double booking has been in a hotel and it's always due to human error. A person overrides something in the software and in the process is able to do something they shouldn't be able to. So, more than likely someone at RCI overrode something else and caused a glitch to occur.

 

If the OP booked an inside gty, their travel agent obviously did not select your cabin. I suppose the other couple booked a balcony and selected that cabin at the same time RCL was assigning it to the OP (in that case the other couple had a far stronger claim to the cabin than the OP who agreed to take any cabin at all). But, human error sounds more likely to me, too.

[UKexplorer]

Both of us booked inside GTYs through a travel agent so we were in the same boat with regards to booking (no pun intended!).

It would be intersting to know how many other people on the ship were in the same situation. The couple at our dining table had also had to move cabin and they knew of other people who had the same issue. Lets hope we don't hear of this again!

[BND]

If the OP booked an inside gty, their travel agent obviously did not select your cabin. I suppose the other couple booked a balcony and selected that cabin at the same time RCL was assigning it to the OP (in that case the other couple had a far stronger claim to the cabin than the OP who agreed to take any cabin at all). But, human error sounds more likely to me, too.

 

 

I'm sure it was human error as guarantees are just that guarantees, not specific cabins. The odds of them selecting at exactly the same time are slim to none. As the OP said, this happened to several people on the cruise which is even more long odds, so yeah, they'll probably find someone at RCI did something they weren't supposed to.