What do you think about compensation?

[DYKWIA]

Celebrity promotes "Modern Luxury"

 

Modern Luxury shouldn't be about asking for compensation when things go wrong. When things go wrong management should automatically deal with matters so the guest doesn't just feel as though they've come out even.

 

A few years ago we were staying at a renowned luxury hotel. One evening we came back to our room to find that after the evening turn down service our room door had been left ajar. We reported this to reception (never once mentioning compensation, although my wife was upset at the thought of someone getting into the room) and then the hotel management without prompting stepped in

- An immediate visit from Head of security to see if anything was missing

- An undertaking they would review key access and room videos and we were entitled to join them

- A large box of deluxe chocolates, flowers and wine addressed to my wife

- A visit from the Hotel Manager the following morning to report on their investigation

- An invitation to dine at the manager expense at the Hotel's best restaurant.

 

Okay this was perhaps an over the top response from the hotel management but the point is this hotel had set it stall up to offer a luxury product, you are paying for it, and the hotel prided itself on security (it's where visiting dignitaries usually stay) and none of this did we have to ask for! They screwed up, they knew it and they went the extra distance to sort it. Outcome - as a result of a mistake by the hotel we ended up having an even better stay!

[richsea]

The title of your thread is "What do you think about compensation". That is the topic; you picked it. People are telling you what they think about it. I don't see the problem. Maybe you should have asked only those who agree with you to respond without comment.

[fantasy51]

Celebrity promotes "Modern Luxury"

 

Modern Luxury shouldn't be about asking for compensation when things go wrong. When things go wrong management should automatically deal with matters so the guest doesn't just feel as though they've come out even.

 

A few years ago we were staying at a renowned luxury hotel. One evening we came back to our room to find that after the evening turn down service our room door had been left ajar. We reported this to reception (never once mentioning compensation, although my wife was upset at the thought of someone getting into the room) and then the hotel management without prompting stepped in

- An immediate visit from Head of security to see if anything was missing

- An undertaking they would review key access and room videos and we were entitled to join them

- A large box of deluxe chocolates, flowers and wine addressed to my wife

- A visit from the Hotel Manager the following morning to report on their investigation

- An invitation to dine at the manager expense at the Hotel's best restaurant.

 

Okay this was perhaps an over the top response from the hotel management but the point is this hotel had set it stall up to offer a luxury product, you are paying for it, and the hotel prided itself on security (it's where visiting dignitaries usually stay) and none of this did we have to ask for! They screwed up, they knew it and they went the extra distance to sort it. Outcome - as a result of a mistake by the hotel we ended up having an even better stay!

 

What a great story! I agree, that's how it should be. Make the guest feel valued. I agree you didn't need all of these special offers but even half of them would certainly make you want to visit that hotel again.

 

If I screw up in my house, even on such a minor thing as providing the wrong type of milk for a friend who is staying (at no payment) in my house, I apologise and try to do better next time. I might even buy their favourite cakes to give them a treat as my apology. If we do this as hosts on an unpaid basis, shouldn't a luxury experience, who has taken our money, show an appropriate level of consideration?

[fantasy51]

Letter written and posted, with a copy to both Celebrity UK and Celebrity Miami. I will report back when I get a reply. Until then, all the best.

[bEwAbG]

Except Celebrity is not a luxury product by any stretch of the imagination, unless you're staying in a high-end suite (and even then, you're still on a large mass market cruise ship).

 

I agree the lack of emergency lighting is worth the discussion. The other stuff is negligible inconvenience. Their first-line customer service people have been empowered to offer what they can offer: in this case, it sounds like wine is what they could reasonably offer as a gesture of goodwill in acknowledgement that something went wrong. If you were unhappy with that, then you could have requested a meeting with the hotel director. He or she could have perhaps offered more or at least something else and even answered your questions in more detail.

 

Does anyone have a definitive answer on what "emergency lighting" is present in each room? Or is this misinformation?

Edited September 9, 2016 by bEwAbG

[lvz2cruz]

Everyone loves a perfect vacation when everything goes well. It can happen. When it does, it is fabulous. However, things can and do go wrong. Be flexible and you will enjoy your vacation. When things happen, give the cruise line/tour co./hotel some time to correct the problem. Nobody's perfect. Do not think in terms of compensation! I have met people who look for ways to find fault with everything. They are miserable. I try not to be with that kind of person. Relax and enjoy!

 

We need a like/LOVE button. I agree totally.

[Gordoncruickshank]

Except Celebrity is not a luxury product by any stretch of the imagination, unless you're staying in a high-end suite (and even then, you're still on a large mass market cruise ship).

 

I agree the lack of emergency lighting is worth the discussion. The other stuff is negligible inconvenience. Their first-line customer service people have been empowered to offer what they can offer: in this case, it sounds like wine is what they could reasonably offer as a gesture of goodwill in acknowledgement that something went wrong. If you were unhappy with that, then you could have requested a meeting with the hotel director. He or she could have perhaps offered more or at least something else and even answered your questions in more detail.

 

Does anyone have a definitive answer on what "emergency lighting" is present in each room? Or is this misinformation?

 

 

When we had our problem on the Eclipse we were in a RS and I have to say that the response from maintenance was not great. We and the other couple who had issues, who were in an RS on the other side of the ship, were on first name terms with the head of housekeeping as they kept sending cleaners rather than plumbers. All the officers knew about it. We went to the captains event in the shy lounge and they were all trying to not catch our eye. As we left, which was probably before the captain did his bit, the hotel director made the chief engineer discuss the issues with us and he promised it would be sorted in Lisbon when we were off ship.

 

What they did worked but by the time we reached Lisbon we only had to go to Southampton. You can imagine how we felt when we had the same smell on the Silhouette. It cleared quickly.

 

We still totally enjoyed our cruise but the RS was for my 60th birthday and it did slightly spoil things.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Edited September 9, 2016 by Gordoncruickshank

[cle-guy]

Does anyone have a definitive answer on what "emergency lighting" is present in each room? Or is this misinformation?

 

I think it may be misinformation. When we lost all power on Summit, there was nothing on in the cabin, though about every 4th bulb was lit in the hallways. Public spaces were decently lit. But there was noting on the cabin, unless we opened the drapes and got ambient ship light from the veranda.

 

I live in a combo residence/hotel. I have no emergency lights in my apartment, nor do any of the hotel rooms. I wouldn't think it's needed on a ship in private cabins.

Edited September 9, 2016 by cle-guy

[Bo1953]

Please let us know if and when you get a response to the letter you are going to send.

 

I'm not sure why your travel companion didn't leave the room while you were in the shower. It seems like the polite thing to do based on your comments. Even if the problem hadn't occurred,it would have been nice for him to give you some "space" while you showered.

 

 

My thinking as well, even on the balcony would have provided some additional privacy and space, regardless...

 

Also, could not showers in the gym or spa area be used in this case?

 

Not sure...

 

bon voyage

[teecee60]

 

I wondered if I am being unreasonable?

 

 

Yes.

[warmwinds]

 

If I screw up in my house, even on such a minor thing as providing the wrong type of milk for a friend who is staying (at no payment) in my house, I apologise and try to do better next time. I might even buy their favourite cakes to give them a treat as my apology. If we do this as hosts on an unpaid basis, shouldn't a luxury experience, who has taken our money, show an appropriate level of consideration?

 

I find this to be truly bizarre. When I am a guest in someone's home, or I have guests in mine, I would not THINK to criticize what I was given. Wrong milk...really? Maybe if they have a serious dietary issue (lactose intolerant) that would be one thing, but if they "like" whole and I have skim, or vice versa, you just deal with what there is.

 

You seem to really have a hard time rolling with the punches.

[roxievegas]

we were on the Silhouette in May traveling with my brother and his girlfriend. They had problems with their sea pass card getting into their room. The first time their cards did not work, they called for help from our room and a tech was sent to fix the door lock. After it was fixed (?) they could not get into the room and the maintenane spent all day working on the lock and the next day took the whole lock off and replaced it. my brother joking said a free dinner in murano would be nice and the next day they had a card telling them that dinner was complimentary for two in murano. They were not upset and didn't expect the compensation, but we had a great dinner (hubby and i had dinner for $30 each).

We have had problems (minor) in the past and we have always felt that Celebrity bent over backwards to try and take care of the issues and make sure that we were satisfied with their solutions.

We had one major issue that took two weeks to get corrected after returning from our cruise, but again Celebrity took care of the problem and us.

Can't say enough about their customer service - good people.

[A Sixth?]

My bad....

 

I edit because of my misread.....

Edited September 10, 2016 by A Sixth?

[chemmo]

I have just read this post for the first time right through....

 

If a wind up torch wasn't adequate to safely light the bathroom why didn't you phone housekeeping/maintenance and request someone sent you some sort of temporary lighting? Or did you do that and they refused? Maintenance must have some quality torches/lamps that could have made the situation acceptable and safe. Not perfect I agree but it would lessen the problem.

 

We have had in the past some occasional issues with rooms..we have always focused on sorting the problem where possible. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't like my lights to fail but if they did I would be requesting a torch not compensation.

 

Gordoncruickshank, re Royal Suite smells! We had a similar issue on the Solstice....plumbers galore came to fix, smell returned. Our room attendant told us to leave the plug in the bath and an inch of water. Problem disappeared....He told us on sloshing seas the bend empties allowing smells to come up. Sounds like your problem may have been more severe but if you are in the same situation again it may be worth a try.

[delondin]

Why is everyone so tolerant? It is not acceptable to have a room in complete darkness no matter what length of time. Surely it is up to the cruise line to be pro active contacting the passenger assuring them it will be fixed giving them a timeline for repairs and trying to 'sweeten' the situation. Not left to the passenger to realise they should have emergency lighting - why would they?

I certainly wouldn't expect to be staying at a 4 or 5 star land based hotel for say one night and have to spend it in complete darkness and then Upon checkout charged the full amount and given a bottle of wine, whether I drank alcohol or not as acceptable compensation.

[Nachosdelux]

Why is everyone so tolerant? It is not acceptable to have a room in complete darkness no matter what length of time.

 

What about at night when you are sleeping?

[fantasy51]

Why is everyone so tolerant? It is not acceptable to have a room in complete darkness no matter what length of time. Surely it is up to the cruise line to be pro active contacting the passenger assuring them it will be fixed giving them a timeline for repairs and trying to 'sweeten' the situation. Not left to the passenger to realise they should have emergency lighting - why would they?

I certainly wouldn't expect to be staying at a 4 or 5 star land based hotel for say one night and have to spend it in complete darkness and then Upon checkout charged the full amount and given a bottle of wine, whether I drank alcohol or not as acceptable compensation.

 

Hi Delondin. In my letter to Celebrity I suggested that they should put a policy in place so that they checked each room at some point in the event of a blackout, to make sure that emergency lighting was working.

 

Nachosdelux, it sounds as though you have not yet reached the age where you need to use the bathroom at night! It is certainly helpful at my age to have some light to navigate a strange room. :D

[Nachosdelux]

Nachosdelux, it sounds as though you have not yet reached the age where you need to use the bathroom at night! It is certainly helpful at my age to have some light to navigate a strange room. :D

 

Unfortunately I have reached that point in my life; and I agree with you on this point!

[delondin]

Unfortunately I have reached that point in my life; and I agree with you on this point!

 

What you also have to ( with time differences etc)

remember with travelling is your night suddenly becomes day. However regardless of this whenever is it ok that you do not have any light at all - never

[compman9]

I agree with you! Really bad form to return a gift to the sender! I view the wine as a gift and not direct compensation. Ships can and do experience mechanical problems. Autos and planes also experience mechanical problems as do washing machines and refrigerators. Anything mechanical can and does experience problems. I've experienced problems on a number of cruises, including flooding from a broken pipe in the shower and have not once asked for compensation. I have been given "compensation", but I've never asked for it.

Now some might argue that I receive special attention due to my cruising history, but I can assure you that I was treated more than fairly early in my cruising.

I can give two pieces of advice:

1. Always pack a working flashlight, or whatever you call it in your country.

2. If an issue cannot be resolved on the ship contact Celebrity and address your concern to the appropriate department. Everyone seems to write to the CEO and that letter or Email is read by a staff member who sends it to the proper department. Someone from that department contacts you. You can save time by contacting that department directly. The proper department in this case would be the Post Cruise department. They have a Resolutions area that attempts to resolve situations like the OPs.

 

I am fascinated by your replies to the original poster, not just your patronising advice, but your standpoint on the OP's experience

 

May I ask, if you checked into a hotel and found there was no electricity in the room, and there were no other rooms available in the area - what would you expect the hotel to do for you?

[cruzsnooze]

 

 

 

Two days later someone arrived at our door with a letter of apology and another bottle of Merlot! I took it back to Guest Relations with a 'thanks but no thanks' and laughed as I pointed out how silly it is to give this to someone with a drinks package who does not like red wine. The lady at the desk grinned along with me. She said she would see what she could do, especially as she knew we had been without emergency lighting as well. Two days later I was phoned again to say that Head Office would not budge, despite others complaining. She offered to exchange it for white wine to take home or share with friends in our room but I could not see the point. She was very helpful and asked if she could do anything else for us. I felt she did not agree with the decision of Head Office.

?

 

What did you ask for that the head office would not budge?

Sounds like you want a free cruise replacement and that's not going to happen.

Edited September 10, 2016 by cruzsnooze

[richstowe]

I am fascinated by your replies to the original poster, not just your patronising advice, but your standpoint on the OP's experience

 

May I ask, if you checked into a hotel and found there was no electricity in the room, and there were no other rooms available in the area - what would you expect the hotel to do for you?

Not only patronizing but lots of sit down and shut up - you're lucky to be cruising comments .

 

What did you ask for that the head office would not budge?

Sounds like you want a free cruise replacement and that's not going to happen.

Sounds like you want a free cruise replacement ?

Is that what you got out of it ? Why ? I do think that she wanted more then another bottle of cheap red .

[Orator]

I am fascinated by your replies to the original poster, not just your patronising advice, but your standpoint on the OP's experience

 

May I ask, if you checked into a hotel and found there was no electricity in the room, and there were no other rooms available in the area - what would you expect the hotel to do for you?

 

I am pleased to answer your post.

The first point in my advice is based on information provided over the years by people in the cruise industry and many who have shared experiences on Cruise Critic.

My second piece of advice was based on many years as a Celebrity passenger and knowledge of how communication works.

I am not in a position to determine the validity of the claims made by the OP since I wasn't there and only heard one side. There is some evidence that the same situation was reported by at least one other poster. This is a situation for Celebrity and the poster to work out, not me.

My advice is, and always been rooted in my desire to help fellow cruisers enhance their cruising experience and help them to resolve problems by pointing them in the right direction.

 

In terms of what I would do: this is not a hypothetical question as I've faced problems on both land and sea. My approach is usually the same. I approach the person in charge and there is a problem I would like to address. I briefly describe the problem and ask what we might do to solve it. I've never asked for compensation, but it is usually offered. I try to remain friendly and calm. If I detect a lie, I immediately take it to a different level where I challenge what I've been told. Rarely has it gone that far. Only once in my my years with Celebrity did I fail to achieve a good outcome. Many are aware of the event and I can say that at a later time someone high in the Miami office told me the real story and more than made up for it.

If you think I've been patronizing fine. Be assured that if you ever post that you need information and help I'll be there to offer advice that might be helpful or not.

When I was told that my reserved room wasn't available the hotel just put me comp into a nearby and better hotel. Obviously can't do this on a cruise ship.

Edited September 10, 2016 by Orator

[bboop51]

When we had our problem on the Eclipse we were in a RS and I have to say that the response from maintenance was not great. We and the other couple who had issues, who were in an RS on the other side of the ship, were on first name terms with the head of housekeeping as they kept sending cleaners rather than plumbers. All the officers knew about it. We went to the captains event in the shy lounge and they were all trying to not catch our eye. As we left, which was probably before the captain did his bit, the hotel director made the chief engineer discuss the issues with us and he promised it would be sorted in Lisbon when we were off ship.

 

What they did worked but by the time we reached Lisbon we only had to go to Southampton. You can imagine how we felt when we had the same smell on the Silhouette. It cleared quickly.

 

We still totally enjoyed our cruise but the RS was for my 60th birthday and it did slightly spoil things.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

On our very first cruise, Celebrity - Infinity to Alaska we had a serious smell issue in our cabin. It was making us sick. Maintenance first tried to fix it and then refused to acknowledge it (rudely.) I also had another more personal issue story for another day.) I was FURIOUS. I wound up in the office of the head of customer relations, who moved us to another cabin and comped us for for a dinner and drinks. He could not have been more apologetic and I could not have more delighted. Much to my surprise on the night before we were to arrive back in port, we were presented with two certificates for $500 each to cruise again. It was totally unexpected but so appreciated. I was not sure if were going to ever cruise again. But of course this gave us the incentive to try again and now were are cruisers for life (and lovers of Celebrity of course.) Earlier this year because of circumstance we tried NCL and said never again. Back to Celebrity for us.

[fantasy51]

What did you ask for that the head office would not budge?

Sounds like you want a free cruise replacement and that's not going to happen.

 

Actually, I did not ask for anything. I just laughed at the thought of handing out bottles of red wine to someone with a drinks package, etc. (Also, what if a recipient is a recovering alcoholic?) It was the person at Reception who said she would see what she could do.

 

You have obviously not read this thread through completely if you think I expect a free cruise replacement. In an earlier post I mentioned 4 other things that the line could have offered, things like a free dinner at one of the specialty restaurants. Seeing these are generally not full, it would not have cost the ship much.