Help- My TA lost my Aft

[nenasmum]

I am Australian and in October booked a cruise to Norway. I REALLY wanted a deck 10 Aft cabin and only booked that particular cruise because I could get that cabin.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed there was a substantial price drop. In the past when I have uses a US agent I just asked for the drop to be applied and got it immediately.

I asked my Australian TA and she said I would have to cancel, pay a new deposit and rebook. Fair enough I thought . I asked her to assurre me we would get the same cabin which she did.

Now I look on the booking and I have lost my cabin and been given one in a drreadful position I would never have chosen. I am devastated. Of course my lovely Aft has been snapped up by some lucky person.

And I have not even got my $1200 deposit back yet!!

Jennie

[BekkaW]

It is one of e problems with Aussie (and I think UK) bookings that you can't get a price drop unless you're in a position to cancel and rebook. This is the reason I don't use an Australian TA

 

To the problem at hand - do you have anything in writing that you would get the same cabin? If yes, I would pursue this relentlessly with the TA and you should get some form of compensation. I think what has happened is that your new booking didn't go through quick enough and someone else has managed to book that aft. Sadly there is not much you can do about that as it's not that new passengers fault, nor is it RCL's. Your TA should have done more to secure it.

 

Would you be happy with compensation such as OBC? If not cancel and make your TA cover any associated costs.

[CruisinCat31]

I am Australian and in October booked a cruise to Norway. I REALLY wanted a deck 10 Aft cabin and only booked that particular cruise because I could get that cabin.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed there was a substantial price drop. In the past when I have uses a US agent I just asked for the drop to be applied and got it immediately.

I asked my Australian TA and she said I would have to cancel, pay a new deposit and rebook. Fair enough I thought . I asked her to assurre me we would get the same cabin which she did.

Now I look on the booking and I have lost my cabin and been given one in a drreadful position I would never have chosen. I am devastated. Of course my lovely Aft has been snapped up by some lucky person.

And I have not even got my $1200 deposit back yet!!

Jennie

 

That is really poor management by your TA, and probably not much you can do unfortunately but I would try to negotiate an upgrade to a room of your choice at your T/As expense.

 

I will give you some advice though for future if you are in the same circumstance again where you want to cancel and rebook to get the savings. I just did the same thing to save $1000 on my cruise booking in September. I had a hump cabin I didn't want to lose (Wasn't through a T/A, I'd booked myself on line but had to call RCI to cancel and rebook) . I asked them to do the new booking all the way through to room selection, then immediately hop on my old booking and change my hump cabin to any other cabin, then immediately click back in to book that hump cabin in the new booking. The only way it could have been booked is if someone else was selecting it in that approximately 10 second period. We then progressed with cancelling the old booking (which is quite a time consuming process as it's not officially cancelled until the refund is processed).

 

Good Luck with your TA.

[bbbearden]

I would kick your TA in the aft......:D

 

Good luck resolving this.

[RichYak]

Do highly sought after cabins have waitlists on RCI? If so, as soon as you release the cabin, it could be gone.

[Clarea]

Do highly sought after cabins have waitlists on RCI? If so, as soon as you release the cabin, it could be gone.

Yes, Royal allows a stateroom waitlist.

[trev71]

That is the price you pay for making that move. *no punt intended* Its not your TA fault at all, once you cancel your room and try to rebook it, it can be snaped up pretty fast

[CruiserNic]

That is the price you pay for making that move. *no punt intended* Its not your TA fault at all, once you cancel your room and try to rebook it, it can be snaped up pretty fast

 

Not sure what football has to do with it but, if my TA assured me the same cabin I would think they knew what they were doing.

[critterchick]

Do highly sought after cabins have waitlists on RCI? If so, as soon as you release the cabin, it could be gone.

 

My experience with waitlisting a cabin is that it doesn't work - I've done it three or four times and have read every time on our Roll Call that somebody else saw it available and snatched it up, so unless they've upgraded their system (don't laugh too loudly), that probably wasn't it.

 

Not sure what football has to do with it but, if my TA assured me the same cabin I would think they knew what they were doing.

 

In the US, the TA (or the passenger, if booked directly with RCI) could have called RCI and told them what you wanted to do and RCI would have held the cabin while rebooking. I don't know what the rules in Australia are, but if she assured you that you would keep the cabin, she had a duty to follow through or at the very least fess up that she'd blown it instead of letting you discover it by mistake.

 

I would pursue the matter with her or her supervisor and, if they won't give you some kind of compensation, cancel the cruise altogether and rebook with somebody else (if you're locked in because you've already purchased nonrefundable airfare; otherwise just cancel).

 

Also, it's just possible that, since you haven't gotten your deposit back, you are double booked on the cruise. Did you try putting your old confirmation number in and see what happens?

[jnojr]

Not sure what football has to do with it

 

I'm pretty sure he meant rowing, since we're discussing a water-related topic and all :D

[ctcruiser1721]

Not sure what football has to do with it but, if my TA assured me the same cabin I would think they knew what they were doing.

 

I respectfully disagree. If you specifically told your TA that you would not want to lose that cabin, he/or she should have provided you with better council. I would elevate until you are satisfied with the resolution.

[CruiserNic]

I respectfully disagree. If you specifically told your TA that you would not want to lose that cabin, he/or she should have provided you with better council. I would elevate until you are satisfied with the resolution.

 

I'm not sure what we are disagreeing on? :confused: If I am the OP, I don't know that the TA should provide better council. If the TA told me that I am able to get the same cabin, I would think that the TA knew what they were talking about. They do this everyday. Obviously, the TA didn't know what they were talking about. I absolutely think that the TA needs to do something to help resolve this.

 

Am I just being really stupid today, or are we saying the same thing, but in different ways??

[goodycruising]

How sad for you. You do expect the TA to tell you the truth. If they said you may not get the same cabin you could have weighed up the cost decrease against the angst of losing the cabin you wanted. This whole international different rules for different countries is wrong.

[BEAV]

That is the price you pay for making that move. *no punt intended* Its not your TA fault at all, once you cancel your room and try to rebook it, it can be snaped up pretty fast

 

I beg to differ.....

 

We were booked in a Central Park balcony on Oasis, and one evening (after our TA had gone home for the day), I noticed a price drop in oceanview balconies and one on the "hump" (with larger balcony) was available. I grabbed it on the RCL website, then contaced our TA the next morning. She got on the phone to RCL, give them both booking numbers (our original, plus the new one I had just booked the evening previous) and they "transferrred" the new cabin over to our existing booking and cancelled the Central Park balcony. So with a decent TA, a cabin transfer can be done without having to release the cabin we wanted back into general inventory for anyone else to grab and losing it in the process.

[goodycruising]

I think the difference my be the rules that Australian TAs get stiffed with. They seem to have a whole bunch of different setups depending on country. We have to pay more deposit, 5 months before the sailing date we have to pay the balance, we have not got the same price protection offers, our banks charge international bank transactions even if we pay on the .com.au RCI website in AU$, all sorts of rubbish.