Brilliance of the Sea Fiasco

[Alexis]

What I would like to know is how long had this fisherman's strike been going on? Was it just that morning? In other words how much time had RCI staff had to assess the situation and react? And lying isn't a smart reaction!!

 

You would think that a cruise line as big as RCI would have some game plans in place for all situations, especially in Europe where strikes are a normal way of life. Look at Marseille lately. Italian rail strikes.

 

I hope they are ready for some real catastrophe.:eek:

 

Snowbird

 

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Let's all hope that your comment will never become a reality.

[jbond]

What I would like to know is how long had this fisherman's strike been going on? Was it just that morning? In other words how much time had RCI staff had to assess the situation and react? And lying isn't a smart reaction!!

Snowbird

The strike had been going on for four days prior to us arriving in Barcelona. We were in Corfu when RCI knew that thhe ports were blockaded. We had a sea day, a day in Rome and another sea day.

[FitzLA]

I would love for all of you to let us know what comes of this. Please keep us informed. This is a legitimate complaint and you have my interest. Unlike the Bermuda cruise to Canada. That is just mother nature and nothing can be done about that. Part of travelling in Hurricane Season. This, however, it a warranted complaint. I do believe that they knew about this strike before hand as their was info on the web before the RCI fiasco happened. Good luck to all of you. I would be PISSED!!! Don't back down and stick to your guns.

[dougp26364]

To add salt into the wound, I just got off the phone with customer service. It seems there are no plans in place for reimbursement of hotel expenses. In re-reading the letter we were given, it states that hotel rooms will be "provided," not reimbursed.

 

 

 

Just got off the phone with CS. They are refunding out hotel expense back to the CC used for our Seapass account. That makes me feel at least a little better not having to fight over the cost of the hotel.

[dougp26364]

The strike had been going on for four days prior to us arriving in Barcelona. We were in Corfu when RCI knew that thhe ports were blockaded. We had a sea day, a day in Rome and another sea day.

 

Even though the strike had been going on for 4 days, there really wasn't much RCI could do other than start to prepare a "what if" scenario. It wouldn't have done much good to tell passengers at that point as there was plenty of time for the strike to be resolved.

 

Unfortunately, it does not appear that RCI did much in the way of planning. Everything from the charter flights to the busses and hotel accomadations seemed to be done at the very last minute.

 

Now perhaps they were already shopping for alternatives to get us home and setting things up on a contigancy basis, which is why they were able to get at least one flight out on Friday. However, giving out phone numbers to passengers that would not work if called from Spain is absurd. With 4 days notification that there could be a problem, they should have been able to, at the very least, set up phone numbers that could actually be called without requiring an AT&T calling card to bill the charges.

 

One would think that with as many storms that have blown through FL in the last couple of years, that RCI would be getting pretty good at crisis management.

[GEP901]

I agree with Doug in that RCI had lied through their teeth. After being told not to contact the airlines and travel agents, and then being told that we would be "taken care of" it's very difficult to stomache what many had endured. I had even gone up to the Guest Relations desk repeatedly to find out what they're doing to "take care of us." I was told that they are contacting the airlines and hotels to notify them of the situation and that hotel accommodations have already been made for those of us who missed our flights. "What about our flights, will that be taken care of also?" they respond "yes, if you filled out the forms delivered to you by your state room attendant, you should receive all the information you need when you disembark."

 

We waited and waited to disembark, and finally when we did, all we were given was a sheet of paper with a phone number and then quickly herded into a bus to some mystery hotel. Once the bus was full, we are told that the hotel we will be bused to is 1 hour outside the city of Barcelona and that there is a representative to greet us once we arrive. There was no representative at the hotel and the number they had provided did not work. A few HOURS later, the hotel received a fax from RCI providing 2 OPTIONS.

 

#1 - call our airlines and travel agents and find our own way back home (after being told not to contact our airlines and travel agents)

by this time, the airlines were not honoring missed flights because noone had contacted them to cancell (again, we were deceived and lied to, RCI had ensured that THEY WOULD CONTACT OUR AIRLINES.)

 

#2 - PAY RCI $500.00 per person for a chartered flight to JFK; or $700 for a flight to JFK and any connecting city. Consolation was we would each receive $250 ON BOARD SHIP CREDIT for our next cruise.

 

Great, so now, we had been cornered into paying THEM to fly us out....and the consolation is only redeemable if we cruise with them AGAIN.

 

With no alternative option, and because our airline refused to honor our missed flight, I called RCI and booked option #2 and gave our credit card info to a rep named "Paul" he said that the flight is though IberAir and that a bus will be available at 6AM to pick us up.

 

I did not sleep that night and at 5:30, I got this sinking feeling that something was wrong. I call RCI to get confirmation that we are on that 10:45 flight...surely we WERE NOT CONFIRMED. I then started to gather names of other people who were waiting and sure enough the only people who were confirmed were the AIR/Sea guests. I told the representative that we had spoken to someone named "Paul" and they told me that they do not have a rep by that name at that number (Shady). That afternoon, my husband had called RCI to try to get confirmation that we are on the 9am flight the next morning...he then explained the situation the the rep, and said we were told there was noone named "Paul" working there. The rep he was speaking to tells him that there IS a "Paul" who works there but the list we were all put on was a list of people who were not "Air/Sea." Lie after Lie after LIE....

 

To make a long story short, I booked a 9am flight the next day. Later that afternoon, we are told that the 9am flight is cancelled and that they are working on getting us a flight out at 7pm, we finally got it in writing and faxed to the hotel later that evening. They did not allow us to get on a 10am flight that same day because we were told that it was FULL....we later found out that there were 100 empty seats on that 10AM flight.

 

We arrived at Newark, NJ at 12am Sunday morning.

 

The amount of lying that had gone on during this time is beyond comprehension....

[dougp26364]

I was hoping more people would post their individual experience about this. I was sure that we were all told different things by different people and that does seem to be the case.

 

FWIW, the first flight out was not 100% air/sea passengers. There was a handfull of cruise only passengers that gutted it out at the airport and in the end, we found out that the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing. While we were not on the air/sea list, which most RCI reps seemed to be working from, we were on the flight manifest, which was the list that counted. There were at least two other cruise only passengers on our flight that I know because we were talking between ourselves constantly, trying to keep updated about out situation.

 

I know for a fact that there were empty seats on the Friday flight home. I was fortunate enough to be sitting next to one of them. I say fortunate because we were all crammed in there like a can of sardines. It was nice to be able to move my legs into the empty space beside me.

 

Also, my letter says "Each Guest who take advantage of option 2 will also be sent a certificate for a $250 disount on a future Royal Caribbean International sailing." That should be a discount of the price of a cruise per passenger and not an onboard credit. So if there are two of you, that's a value of $500. That is if you trust them enough to sail with them again.

 

This probably won't cost them all that much as I wonder just how many people will take advantage of it.

 

Will we use it? I'm not sure. My wife has been very put off by all of this. As Jbond said, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. I know better than to trust what I'm being told and next time I'll just take matters into my own hands.

[GEP901]

I am very put off by this and will be very surprised if we ever get the $250/pp... or if I will ever cruise with them again.

 

Did I mention that after the 2nd night, we were told that RCI would be pulling the plug on the customer service number we were provided with? They said they were closing down that call center.

 

it just kept getting better and better....

[GEP901]

If I'm making alot of typos it is because I have the flu to top it all off and feel a bit woozy from the dayquil and halls drops.

 

*joy*

[dougp26364]

I am very put off by this and will be very surprised if we ever get the $250/pp... or if I will ever cruise with them again.

 

Did I mention that after the 2nd night, we were told that RCI would be pulling the plug on the customer service number we were provided with? They said they were closing down that call center.

 

it just kept getting better and better....

 

When we were in NJ and not able to get through to the 1-800 # at 06:00, I though I'd try calling the emergancy hotline number they had set up. The numbers had been disconnected then. I could only think, "Thank God we got out of Spain when we did." I knew there were passengers still stuck in Spain and wondered what they would do since the hotline number had been discontinued about 24 hours after it had been given to passengers.

 

BTW, we are down with a cold/flu like illness ourselves. I had chalked it up to a combination of stress and jet lag.

[jbond]

I've downloaded all my photos and I've been editing them and getting them set up to put onto a DVD. Looking at the photos, it was a great cruise. Even the photos taken in Santa Susana (where RCI exiled us to) look really good. Hope we get some kind of word from RCI soon, if only an explaination and a promise to look into the issues.

[dougp26364]

I've sent my E-mails but I'm not going to hold my breath on a responce. As long winded as I was, it will either take some time to read all the way through it or get file 13'd.

 

To be honest, I'm not sure what I'm looking for them to do. I would like some satisfaction but I don't know where that would come from. They have promised to reimburse my hotel fee and that's really the final thing I expected them to do for us. Even though it was a disjointed trip home, we are home.

 

What can be done about all the lies, half truths and misdirections other than to promise never to let it happen again? After all I've been through, a promise such as that would ring hollow with me. I'd have a tough time believing it.

[critterchick]

I just read it and I hope he has better luck next time.

It was not the fault of RCCL.

 

I just added my 2 cents' worth to the post. Although the strike wasn't RCCL's fault, their complete and utter lack of contingency planning, not to mention their complete lack of communication to disembarking and embarking passengers alike, was.

[Alexis]

I just added my 2 cents' worth to the post. Although the strike wasn't RCCL's fault, their complete and utter lack of contingency planning, not to mention their complete lack of communication to disembarking and embarking passengers alike, was.

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That is the great privilege of these boards. We can all agree to disagree. ;)

Below is the posting I was answering to and referring to. It seems this poster had a whole different experience than the others, and seemed to actually enjoy his cruise. My answer was to him and no one else.

His posting had nothing to do with the other people and their treatment. There were no other postings on here when I answered his.

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By German Wunderkind

 

Report Brilliance (3night Med cruise after the Strike)

Hello

 

I just want to give you a report about our 3 night Mediterranean Cruise on Brilliance of the Seas.

 

The plan was leaving home on Thursday October 27th and fly directly to Barcelona where we would land at 11.30 am and then board the vessel for a 3-night trip to Ajacco, Palma de Mallorca and then back to Barcelona where we wanted to fly back home at 1pm.

 

Like I said that was the plan but everything changed when I heard on Wednesday evening at 7pm that the Spanish fisherman were blocking all Spanish ports including the port of Barcelona.

So I phoned Royal Caribbean in Miami and my American Travel agent and both had no information what so ever about the blockade.

 

Here on Cruise Critic other members already posted about that issue and that the German office did not know anything as well.

At approximately 10.30pm there was an update of the RCCL website and it know said that the passengers for the cruise on the next day should fly to Barcelona because Brilliance would go there for the turnaround.

 

So the next morning we flew to Barcelona with some minor things happening on the Lufthansa flights.

Nothing spectacular but we landed about 30 minutes late.

When we got out of the baggage claim area there was a young lady waiting for passengers of Brilliance of the Seas.

We asked here about the situation because late that night someone wrote here at Cruise Critic that the fisherman and the Spanish government were close to an agreement.

 

Well, unfortunately there was no agreement at noon so everybody would go to the harbor first where we would get more information.

So we waited for the shuttle bus to arrive and the next “problem” came up.

Part of the highway into Barcelona downtown area was closed due to extensive rebuilding. So instead of the normal 20 – 25 minute drive the bus had to go right through the downtown area to get to the harbor. That would make it a 45-minute ride.

No problem at least because Brilliance was not in port so no hurry at all. We came to the port at 2pm and were greeted by some RCL people who said that the strike of the fisherman was not over yet but they expected it to be over very soon.

We already were able to check in the luggage and were invited into the Terminal area.

There Check-In counters were not manned and we were told to sit down and wait for new information. We were provided with sandwiches and something to drink.

At about 3pm someone said on the PA-System that the strike was still going on and that Royal Caribbean was providing a continues shuttle bus into downtown area so that people could stroll around there instead of waiting in the terminal.

I think that was a great idea and a lot of people took the opportunity to go into downtown and I think another reason was that at the same time they said that the Check-In process would not begin until 8pm. So that would mean 5 hours in the Terminal.

We stayed there and waited and waited and waited. The Terminal was filling up again when someone came around at 5.15pm and said that the port was open again and that Brilliance was on their way. I asked her at what time the Check-In process would start and she said to me that normally it would take them 4 hours to disembark everybody and clean the staterooms in order to start he embarkation. That would start the process at 10pm.

Brilliance was finally docked at the pier at 5.45pm. At about 7pm a lot of people came back and at that time someone announced over the PA-System for the first time that Check-In would start not before 10pm.

Well we waited and waited and approximately 9pm the first passengers started to build a line in front of the Check-In counters. A short time after 10pm there was loud applause and yelling because the first Check-In people showed finally up and opened the counters.

There are about 25 to 30 counters available for Check-In but there were only a handful of people working. So the lines did not get any shorter. Someone went to the counters shortly before 10pm and he came back to his waiting family with the seapass cards shortly after 12am!

We waited in one of the seats for the cues to become less long and shortly after 12am I cued up at one of the counters and got our seapass cards within 15 minutes.

 

So off we were to our short cruise.

We finally came into our cabin at 1am and went straight to the Windjammer to get something warm to eat.

Windjammer was open until 2am for eating.

We finally left port at 3am mostly unnoticed I would presume by tired passengers.

 

Muster drill was scheduled at 9.30am that morning so we got ready for that only to find out that it was postponed to 11am because of the late departure.

At the muster drill the captain also said that we would not go to Corsica because there was no way he could make it in time for us to enjoy the island. Instead he was trying to get into Palma de Mallorca earlier that our scheduled time of 12pm on Saturday.

 

Later during the day the captain said that we would go to Palma de Mallorca at 8am instead of 12pm which was fine for most of the passengers and that everybody would receive a $100 onboard credit this problem which was actually not in produced by RCCL.

I thought that that was really nice of the company. The only problem was how do you spend $100 per person in 24hours on a ship.

You could say no problem for me but you cannot drink for $100 per person. And if you are not a person that buys staff that nobody needs the things you can buy onboard are a little bit limited. For example spa appointments were gone in an instant.

 

Mallorca was really nice and we had great weather for almost beginning of November. It was sunny and we had temperatures of 26 degrees Celsius.

 

Due to the late departure the entertainment was also mixed up and we only had one production show, which was Tango Buenos Aires.

I don’t know if they moved it from the Jewel of the Seas where I saw only 6 weeks before or if the brought it out on a second ship but I think this show is a must when you cruise on Brilliance.

Even if I thought that the show was a little bit better on Jewel it was still a fabulous show.

 

Some last things about Brilliance.

It is know equipped with WiFi Internet access in different areas so you can use your laptop in these areas to connect to the Internet.

She clearly shows some wears in certain areas and I hope when I come back to her in 12 days some of the more obvious areas are fixed.

 

I hope that my return journey home will be without any hassle, delays or problem because we already had enough on the really short cruise.

If you have questions about Brilliance I’m happy to try to answer them.a

Have a great evening and a nice weekend. Keep on cruising.

G.W.

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[critterchick]

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That is the great privilege of these boards. We can all agree to disagree. ;)

Below is the posting I was answering to and referring to. It seems this poster had a whole different experience than the others, and seemed to actually enjoy his cruise. My answer was to him and no one else.

His posting had nothing to do with the other people and their treatment. There were no other postings on here when I answered his.

 

Huh? I didn't infer that he enjoyed the embarkation process any more than the rest of us. It was a miserable experience, although I think the disembarking passengers had a far worse time than we did.

 

We enjoyed the cruise, even with the nits and lice that happened onboard. There just seemed to be a lot more of them on this cruise than we've ever experienced before.

 

As for the onboard credit, I think any unused portion was credited back to the passenger's credit card, so if they weren't able to spend it on board, they got a partial refund. We never seem to have that problem.:eek:

[dougp26364]

MrCruise has posted to the old Roll Call thread. I think they maybe had a worse time than anyone else I've talked to or read about. It seems they were bussed to the outskirts of town, put out of their hotel room after two nights, had to get to Madrid to catch a flight, couldn't find anyone who spoke English, couldn't find a hotel room and had to spend the night at the airport before finally getting on a plane to come home.

 

I had hoped my attitude towards RCI would soften a bit as time went on. I'm afraid it's just getting worse.

[sailnsee]

Just reading some comments about the strike delay on Brilliance...we were on the cruise and met many of you at the meet 'n mingle...It was a great cruise and we enjoyed all of the ports-except for Corfu,more time in Rome please!- and different excursions(both RCI's and private cars and on our own. )First of all we had insurance-never go without it -esp. on a lenghty cruise overseas-we came in the day of the cruise(never do that again,even tho' we had a 7 hr. window,everything was fine but the possibilities to worry about were endless.) We did plan 1 night after the cruise in Barcelona ;we wanted to explore one day there...well, it turned out to be the smartest thing we did! Not getting to explore Barcelona was nothing compared to the problems that several of the fellow cruisers posted! We stayed at the Tryp Hotel(great,by the way, and 5 min. from the airport with free shuttle).

We too took our travel info to the guest relation desk(very late,only after we weren't sure when we were getting off of the ship and when Peter encouraged ALL passengers that RCI would help with reservations etc.( My DH was worried that the process would be done with but came back saying the box was overflowing and didn't look like they had looked at them!) Anyway we weren't concerned because of the next day flight but had no idea that we would end up waiting in the lounge over 5 hrs. just to walk off of the ship! We finally did something we don't normally do and went before our color was called . One of our suitcases was taken off of the go around and placed with some other luggage like it had been there a long time(?) Luckily there were lots of taxis available and the rest of the short evening was pretty calm. One thing, the Tryp near the airport was not full-we kept expecting fellow cruisers to arrive by the busfull but it didn't happen-it was a 4 star hotel that wasn't that expensive- with the shuttle to the airport, so it makes you wonder how hard RCI looked...The way RCI has handled this is so different than their reputation-I think that the bigger they become the smaller their concerns are for their clients-the mixup with the luggage and the extreme delay in disembarking was ridiculous... butthe lying to fellow cruisers is unforgiveable...so,get insurance,come in early,stay an extra day and write/call RCI if you feel like they didn't do their job properly!