Cowardly Princess Cruises treats passengers with contempt

[Pam in CA]

Bill, I understand what you're saying and acknowledge that there are some very valid points. It brings to mind the Royal fire a few years ago when Princess sent a Care Team to Cairo to assist passengers back to Rome. The complaints and rants were unbelievable. There was one case where someone insisted Princess arrange (and pay) for a flight to Athens and hotel instead of Rome because they had extra days since the cruise ended early. There were angry complaints that the Care Team was too slow, wouldn't personalize/modify flights according to each passenger's wishes, and wouldn't book the flights they wanted, not taking into consideration that there weren't many seats available. It was a mess with a lot more complaints than those registered on this thread. The Care Team was sent in that instance as it was a Princess problem, not an "Act of God." It seemed Princess couldn't catch a break with all the complaints.

[caribill]

It brings to mind the Royal fire a few years ago when Princess sent a Care Team to Cairo to assist passengers back to Rome. The complaints and rants were unbelievable.

 

For an example of what I consider great customer service, think back to late last year when a Carnival ship caught fire off the Mexican coast and it was several days before the ship could be towed to San Diego (the embarkation and disembarkation port) and the passengers able to disembark.

 

o Carnival was willing to make air arrangements for all passengers, even if they had not booked air through Carnival.

o Carnival booked hotel rooms for passengers who had to stay until their flights the next day.

o If passengers wanted to say in San Diego until their originally scheduled flights at the scheduled end of the cruise, Carnival arranged and paid for the hotel rooms.

 

Of course this was a cruise cut short by a Carnival problem and one in which the passengers endured very poor conditions until the ship made it to shore. But the compensation for all that is an entirely different subject.

 

Did some people complain? Yes. But you cannot satisfy everyone even who putting out such a great effort. Unfortuneately, Princess did not make any similar effort for the passengers on the Ocean Princess.

[Loonbeam]

Now, see, here's where I have a small problem. As you are noted, you are perfectly happy to be your own travel agent... until there is a problem...

 

I've been in similar situations, although not quite this dramatic. As soon as my TA is aware of the situation, she handles it and advises me either of options or new plan. Had I been on the ship, I might have needed 1-2 emails to take care of the whole problem, its very possible that the changes would have been handled before I contacted her if she was notified by Princess.

 

This is the classic travel agent tradeoff. The expectation is that if you use a TA they will help you in a situation like this. They have access to the booking, your card, etc. But there is a cost and you often get what you pay for.

 

If you do not pay that cost and do it yourself, then no one is obligated to help you when you have a problem. That would be like driving your car into a mechanic and asking them to fix it for free, even though you never had them do the work in the first place. Or for another example, if you book a private shore excursion, would you expect Princess to change it if you miss a port? I would think not.

 

The risk of not using a TA/not getting insurance/booking tours via ship is just that, risk. You are balancing less cost against the risk of problem/loss. Sometimes you lose the gamble.

 

A couple of other notes - If you do not book through Princess, Princess CAN NOT (not will not, CAN NOT) change the booking. They do not have control of the PNR at that point and PNRs generally can not be transferred once travel has started.

 

If you handle travel yourself, you need to make sure you have a reliable method of communication. It's common knowledge that ship internet is slow/not reliable. Therefore always have a backup plan. In today's age of rental cell phones, not having a basic phone capability when traveling internationally is just silly. Also, if your TA doesn't have some level of 24 hour contact support? Find another.

 

Here's the summary:

 

What Princess was OBLIGATED to do:

 

Take care of any passengers who used them in the TA role, including making and confirming alternate air arrangements.

 

Depending on your reading of the cruise contract, provide an option for transport to Osaka at Princess' cost, if such an option was feasible. If such an option is not available (for example if Osaka was not accepting flights), Princess' obligation is generally legally considered to be null at this point.

 

Provide timely and frequent communication to the affected parties (it sounds like they MAY have dropped the ball on this one - hard to know for sure).

 

What Princess SHOULD have done:

 

Provide additional REASONABLE support at the first couple of ports. This could have taken the form of more people, some phones, etc. Although they were not obligated to do this, given a situation like this, I do consider this a customer service necessity, especially since they have an established team for this purpose. Even if communications support was not an option, just having people on hand to explain options and what Princess could/could not do for them would have helped, as the majority of ship's crew are not trained for this kind of thing.

 

 

What Princess COULD have done (which is a very important distinction from MUST and SHOULD)

 

Arrange for pre-ordered international cell phone rentals at the next feasible port, user paid and charged to ship account.

 

Offered, via a form, to send ONE email on behalf of each passenger (presumably to a TA) and print the response out for the passenger, delivered to cabin.

 

Take additional crew on board at first available port and dedicate them to assisting customers subject to the restrictions above.

 

Immediately block all video/audio applications from the ship network to ensure fair usage of limited bandwith. I saw on another board where someone said they had a 30 min skype call with their daughter to explain their new travel plans. Nice for them, a big middle finger to the others on board in a situation like that.

 

While the diversion was certainly out of Princess' control, some compensation is probably warranted simply for good customer service. If I was running the show, I would offer an FCC good for 25% of the price of the original cruise, 5 year expiration, plus of course refund all port fees and taxes for missed ports. In addition, I would cover the cost of change fees (not fare differential) for flights out of Hong Kong.

 

Summary:

 

In this incident, Princess failed at crisis management. Not because they didn't provide free travel agent services or solve every problem, but because its apparent that they don't have a ready to go execution plan for situations like this, and they should. Again, that doesn't mean taking on obligations not theirs, but there should be clear procedures to follow to make sure that the process of what MUST be done is handled efficiently.

 

That said, passengers need to have reasonable expectations of what a cruise line CAN do in situations like this, and have their own resources in place to supplement that.

 

It is fine to say book with Princess EZAir, but EZAir, for example, does not allow bookings with frequent flyer miles which many people use for these expensive international flights.

 

I am quite happy playing Travel Agent when I sit by my computer and phone at home making flight, hotel and other arrangments long before a cruise.

 

It is another thing to be playing Travel Agent while on vacation at sea and having to do with trying to find alternative one way last minute international fares while still trying to get some residual value out of an existing reservation that cannot be used. And the airline the existing reservation is on may not have flights out of Hong Kong. And, oh yes, trying to also have some time to enjoy the cruise.

 

 

 

o First of all, explain what costs of changing flights would be covered. This in itself would have removed much of the anxiety that passengers had. (When they changed, many months in advance, from Bangkok to Singapore as a embarkation/disembarkation port last year due to political unrest, there was a clear statement that any documented costs of changing air reservations would be 100% covered.)

 

o Have someone (or a team) from corporate fly to meet the ship at its first port in China. This person could then have assisted passengers in making arrangements to fly home from the alternate port. The Princess person could then use the ship's Internet and international phone capabilities to make these arrangements.

 

o For those who booked independently, they could at least lookup alternative arrangements from Hong Kong and advise the passengers what is available, possibly even arranging for low cost options. Passengers could then ask Princess to make the new arrangements for them.

 

o For those flying to the USA, Princess could charter a flight to get at least to the west coast, even if the passengers had to arrange getting home from that point themselves (which they should not have to do). Ditto if there were a significant number of passengers from another country.