Need help, Carnival Customer Service impasse

[jimcald]

Hello All,

 

Sorry for the long post but I have reached an impasse with Carnival Customer Service and I was hoping to get some suggestions from the great collection of cruise knowledge here.

 

Back in January of 2014 my wife contacted Carnival group sales to plan our first group cruise for March of 2015. The person we dealt with was very nice and had no problems sending us a spreadsheet of the cabins that were in our cruise along with a group cruise number for everyone to use when booking. When we asked about the group perks/discounts at that time we were told they had not opened it yet and we should keep checking back with him. The last email we sent to him in April went unanswered and by the time we were able to reach him we were told that they never opened group discounts for our sailing and this was at just over 100 days from sailing.

 

I have since contacted several levels of customer support at Carnival and am now being told that they closed group booking in October and that we were never booked as a group and in the future we should make sure we call the correct number and get a contract.

 

Yes, we are basically being told that it is OUR fault that the original group sales rep we dealt with did not put our 18 cabins in the system correctly.

 

I have forwarded numerous emails from February-April of 2014 between him and my wife where he gives us information about our group and how many cabins were book and who was in each cabin, etc. So we had no way of knowing until it was too late that he had not booked anything correctly.

 

We are now less than 2 months out from our cruise and customer service seems to be hung up on the fact we we not booked as a group and has not even had the decency to apologize for any mistake that was made on their end but would rather say we did it wrong and they have no interest in offering any recompense for the mistake (we are asking for nothing more than the amount we would have gotten in shipboard credit had it been booked correctly in the first place).

 

Not only are they not interested in good customer service but I have now reached a Guest Solutions Specialist who is unwilling to put me in contact with someone above them.

 

I was hoping that someone here might have some suggestions to break through to someone who actually has the power to fix this or a contact for someone higher up in Carnival's customer service.

 

Thanks in advance for any suggestions you can offer.

[oomwizard]

Why do you want to book as a group? I don't think there is any group discounts (it may actually be more expensive.) If you want collective dining assignments or reserve a party room most of that can be arranged onboard. If you wanted a row of rooms then you could have bought online or agent booked early enough to picked/booked adjacent cabins.

 

Don't see any need to book as a group. The hassles of group management don't make for a more fun trip. As long as all are on the same boat you can arrange meeting times and activities via cabin phone, door notes, maybe even bring all walkie talkies.

 

As far as your shipboard credit. It is usually the difference from early advance booking and the price drop that occurs shortly before that cruise date. If you paid in advance you can check and ask for the difference. If you haven't paid yet then you've probably saved as the fare prices drop.

 

Suggestion: don't worry about being a group. You WILL be a group and should still have big fun!

[Elaine515]

Send everything you have to cclsupport@carnival.com Attn: Mischelle ...Not going to swear it will get resolved, but for sure it will get looked at... If anyone can figure it out and get it fixed, whether by explaining why they can't or hopefully correcting it, Mischelle can..

 

Good Luck and let us know what happens..

 

 

:)

[Frank12]

Why do you want to book as a group? I don't think there is any group discounts (it may actually be more expensive.) If you want collective dining assignments or reserve a party room most of that can be arranged onboard. If you wanted a row of rooms then you could have bought online or agent booked early enough to picked/booked adjacent cabins.

 

Don't see any need to book as a group. The hassles of group management don't make for a more fun trip. As long as all are on the same boat you can arrange meeting times and activities via cabin phone, door notes, maybe even bring all walkie talkies.

 

As far as your shipboard credit. It is usually the difference from early advance booking and the price drop that occurs shortly before that cruise date. If you paid in advance you can check and ask for the difference. If you haven't paid yet then you've probably saved as the fare prices drop.

 

Suggestion: don't worry about being a group. You WILL be a group and should still have big fun!

 

If you book as a group you get a free stateroom.

[cruizinisthebest]

Call back and ask for a personal vacation planner or contact a travel agent. Either can assist with your planning. Can't comment on why Carnival group sales dropped the ball but you can get your group booked without them.

[jimcald]

If you book as a group you get a free stateroom.

 

As Frank12 said, when we booked we were told one free berth per 8 cabins and we have 18 cabins booked so that would be one free stateroom, we were also told that we could take the dollar equivalent of the free berth(s) and spread it out as onboard credit between the cabins booked.

[kicia]

By booking a group you do get the base amount of one free berth for every eight cabins so in your case it would be one cabin. This amount can be divided among all the cabins as OBC. You would also receive a certain number of amenity points that you could use for various things like a group cocktail party, bottle of wine, photo coupon, etc. Yes the price is a little higher than if you booked without the group price.

 

Basically, Carnival screwed up and I would definitely follow up. I think Mischelle will help you because she is very good at this sort of thing.

 

Carnival does close group space out as there is a limited number of groups allowed per sailing. I tried to book a group on the 13 night Feb. 21, 2016 sailing of the Sunshine and was told that group bookings are already closed and it's still more than a year away.

 

I hope you get your group booked as a group, but if worse comes to worst, you will still have a great time.

[jimcald]

Send everything you have to cclsupport@carnival.com Attn: Mischelle...Not going to swear it will get resolved, but for sure it will get looked at... If anyone can figure it out and get it fixed, whether by explaining why they can't or hopefully correcting it, Mischelle can..

 

Good Luck and let us know what happens..

 

 

:)

 

Thanks Elaine,

 

I fired off an email this morning including all of the correspondence I have had so hopefully Mischelle will be able to assist.

[jimcald]

I am not sure if Mischelle was involved or not but within 30 minutes of sending my email I got a call from someone at Carnival apologizing profusely for the mix up and they are no in the process of moving our 18 cabins over to a group booking and calculating the dollar amount for the free berth plus giving us the group points based on when we booked (which puts us in the highest points category).

 

The person I spoke to was also going to "coach" the others we had dealt with before.

 

Thanks for all your suggestions...

[springs741]

jimcald, you are an example of how to approach a problem. You were calm, explained the issue well and were not asking for anything other than what you were rightly entitled to get. I am so glad things worked out for you and I thank you for coming back here to let us know Carnival is working on a fix. May you and your group have a wonderful cruise with smooth seas and lifelong memories.

[It's a Ship!!!]

OP, I'm glad they were able to get it fixed for you.

 

 

I just wanted to clear up a few things about groups because people don't seem to understand.

 

You do get a free berth for every 8 cabins as someone said, but there are other perks as well. A lot of people are saying that the group rate is often higher than some of the other rates, and that is true. However, you can still book a different rate (like an early saver) into the group. The other thing being in a group gives you is something called amenity points. Those can be used for different things like a cocktail party or even just some OBC for each cabin in the group.

[winddawn]

I am not sure if Mischelle was involved or not but within 30 minutes of sending my email I got a call from someone at Carnival apologizing profusely for the mix up and they are no in the process of moving our 18 cabins over to a group booking and calculating the dollar amount for the free berth plus giving us the group points based on when we booked (which puts us in the highest points category).

 

The person I spoke to was also going to "coach" the others we had dealt with before.

 

Thanks for all your suggestions...

I love stories with happy endings. :-)

 

Enjoy your group cruise!

[cruizinisthebest]

I am not sure if Mischelle was involved or not but within 30 minutes of sending my email I got a call from someone at Carnival apologizing profusely for the mix up and they are no in the process of moving our 18 cabins over to a group booking and calculating the dollar amount for the free berth plus giving us the group points based on when we booked (which puts us in the highest points category).

 

The person I spoke to was also going to "coach" the others we had dealt with before.

 

Thanks for all your suggestions...

Awesome. Enjoy your trip.

[Roscoe13]

I am not sure if Mischelle was involved or not but within 30 minutes of sending my email I got a call from someone at Carnival apologizing profusely for the mix up and they are no in the process of moving our 18 cabins over to a group booking and calculating the dollar amount for the free berth plus giving us the group points based on when we booked (which puts us in the highest points category).

 

The person I spoke to was also going to "coach" the others we had dealt with before.

 

Thanks for all your suggestions...

 

Now that's what the original intention behind Cruise Critic.

 

Solutions, knowledge and support!!

 

I'll bet Mischelle was involved...she's legendary.:D

[sjn911]

Really happy for you OP and many like moi here appreciate the learning!!

 

Sarah

[lisajm]

I'm so happy things worked out for you! Enjoy your cruise.

[kteachcruiser52]

If you book as a group you get a free stateroom.

 

We were able to transfer our ES booking to a group booking organized by a member of our FB group (not a TA). We ended up with 30+ Cabins in our group. Each cabin got $100 OBC, plus the group divided the berth credits. We got one berth credit (amount of cabin rate for 1 person) for every 8 cabins booked and the total berth credit was divided by the number of cabins in our group. The amount of the credit depended on the type of room booked. We got around $40 per cabin for the berth credits so we gained $140 of OBC by joining a group booking.

Edited January 30, 2015 by kteachcruiser52

[Tampa8]

Great informative thread. OP is a good example how to go about getting something done wrong to be right using these forums.