Royal Cancelled My Fully Paid Cruise Reservation

[coolbluegreenseas]

My thoughts exactly. Not to mention how difficult it is to find replacements for software developers, most places don't like to let us go. It's quite expensive both in time and money to find qaulified candidates.

 

 

 

Doubtful. While I can imagine how anxious this ordeal must be to the OP, on the surface, it's not a huge issue. Even if it has happened to a handful of people, the overall cost of this issue would still be considered pretty low. As an IT professional, I can assure you that I have made much larger mistakes and kept my job. I remember an incident early in my career when I was given a new application due to a developer leaving the company. I was given 3 days of turnover before he left. First weekend I received a call at 5AM on a Saturday morning that a client hadn't received their file so I instructed the datacenter to release the file. I didn't know better at the time but something else was supposed to update that file before it could be sent out and that process was delayed. This issue could have cost the bank millions of dollars and there were several big wigs that wanted my head delivered on a platter. Thankfully there was a manager (not my manager) whom I had a good working relationship. She went to bat for me and told them that the application had been dropped on my lap earlier in the week and I had only 3 days of information exchange with the previous developer. That I thought I was doing what was best for our customer and that it was an honest mistake on my part. She also told them that the problem could be fixed so it wasn't worth getting all worked up over. Thing is, she was the one who had to fix the problem and she still stood up for me.

 

So is it frustrating to have all these issues with RCCL's IT? It sure is. Does that mean someone needs to be fired? Not necessarily. It actually could be that they are vastly understaffed (developers are expensive and bean counters usually hate funding IT departments).

 

Nice to know I am not the only geek on this board.

[nealstuber]

... if someone's reservation is cancelled for a third time, they get a free set of steak knives for two and a free bottle of water.

 

 

And then they'll be charged for the water after the cruise.

 

 

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[grapau27]

I think they have took the water.

 

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[nealstuber]

My thoughts exactly. Not to mention how difficult it is to find replacements for software developers, most places don't like to let us go. It's quite expensive both in time and money to find qaulified candidates.

 

 

 

Doubtful. While I can imagine how anxious this ordeal must be to the OP, on the surface, it's not a huge issue. Even if it has happened to a handful of people, the overall cost of this issue would still be considered pretty low. As an IT professional, I can assure you that I have made much larger mistakes and kept my job. I remember an incident early in my career when I was given a new application due to a developer leaving the company. I was given 3 days of turnover before he left. First weekend I received a call at 5AM on a Saturday morning that a client hadn't received their file so I instructed the datacenter to release the file. I didn't know better at the time but something else was supposed to update that file before it could be sent out and that process was delayed. This issue could have cost the bank millions of dollars and there were several big wigs that wanted my head delivered on a platter. Thankfully there was a manager (not my manager) whom I had a good working relationship. She went to bat for me and told them that the application had been dropped on my lap earlier in the week and I had only 3 days of information exchange with the previous developer. That I thought I was doing what was best for our customer and that it was an honest mistake on my part. She also told them that the problem could be fixed so it wasn't worth getting all worked up over. Thing is, she was the one who had to fix the problem and she still stood up for me.

 

So is it frustrating to have all these issues with RCCL's IT? It sure is. Does that mean someone needs to be fired? Not necessarily. It actually could be that they are vastly understaffed (developers are expensive and bean counters usually hate funding IT departments).

 

 

As an IT guy maybe you can tell us if these simple fixes would work:

 

Instead of cancelling cruises and extras automatically and sending an email that it happened, just send out an email to the customer and TA if applicable. Give a fair amount of time for them to call back, then have a human review and try and make contact before cancelling.

 

And would it be very hard to put reservations previously marked "paid in full" in to a category requiring human review before automatic cancelation?

 

How hard would it be to avoid automatically cancelling reservations from Thursday afternoon to Sunday night?

 

The booking and extras experience is part of the cruising experience, and those above IT, with responsibility for insuring product quality should insist on something like this.

 

It is plainly clear that RCCL's IT is at the root of many of these issues and has been for some time. As such it is grossly negligent on senior management's part to entrust them with the ability to automatically cancel reservations.

 

PS - The closest I came to loosing a reservation that was paid in full was when I booked two cabins for my family on a military rate with Carnival almost 10 years ago. I had done this many times previously, but did not read the fine print that said that there needed to be a qualifying person in each cabin under the promotion for the current cruise. Instead of just cancelling when they did not receive proof of service for the second cabin, they called my TA and they got hold of us and we paid what was due. If Carnival could do this 10 years ago, why can't RCCL do it now when the ramifications of losing reservations for extras are so much more impactful?

 

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Edited March 3, 2017 by nealstuber

[BEENSAILING]

You should not just be satisfied with getting everything back the way it was before the problems began. Royal should be providing you with lots of on board credit for what you have been thru. You tell your travel agent that you expect him/her to get this for you, plus other "make goods" - if the TA cannot do this you should reach out ASAP to Michael Bayley's office with the "diary" of what has happened to you. And, my snarky comment - for most of us who have been sailing on Royal for many years - we have seen and experienced many changes...with some things on a down spiral. The IT dept. is part of the problem. Guess they were all too busy doing stateroom recategorization for the new 2018/2019 deployment schedule.

[Denversail]

My eyes literally just rolled all the way to the back of my head.

 

 

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[mollyeilis]

As an IT guy maybe you can tell us if these simple fixes would work:

 

Instead of cancelling cruises and extras automatically and sending an email that it happened, just send out an email to the customer and TA if applicable. Give a fair amount of time for them to call back, then have a human review and try and make contact before cancelling.

 

And would it be very hard to put reservations previously marked "paid in full" in to a category requiring human review before automatic cancelation?

 

How hard would it be to avoid automatically cancelling reservations from Thursday afternoon to Sunday night?

 

....Instead of just cancelling when they did not receive proof of service for the second cabin, they called my TA and they got hold of us and we paid what was due. If Carnival could do this 10 years ago, why can't RCCL do it now when the ramifications of losing reservations for extras are so much more impactful?

 

 

But I don't think that there is an intention built into the software to cancel cruises when there's been a refund if one aspect of the cruise. This sounds like a glitch, an accident. Otherwise everyone who cancelled a drinks package would have it happen. But that's not so.

 

It's not like your military rate where someone is looking at it. Imo this is just happening, and not always, which makes it that much harder to work out and fix.

 

 

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[nealstuber]

But I don't think that there is an intention built into the software to cancel cruises when there's been a refund if one aspect of the cruise. This sounds like a glitch, an accident. Otherwise everyone who cancelled a drinks package would have it happen. But that's not so.

 

It's not like your military rate where someone is looking at it. Imo this is just happening, and not always, which makes it that much harder to work out and fix.

 

 

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The systems sends out an email to the customer and goes the extra step to automatically cancel reservations for extras. These are not passive acts. What's so hard about an "IF-THEN" line of code in front of those actions that says "IF previous reservation state = "Paid in Full" THEN get a human involved?

 

 

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[swoopy2110]

But I don't think that there is an intention built into the software to cancel cruises when there's been a refund if one aspect of the cruise. This sounds like a glitch, an accident. Otherwise everyone who cancelled a drinks package would have it happen. But that's not so.

 

It's not like your military rate where someone is looking at it. Imo this is just happening, and not always, which makes it that much harder to work out and fix.

 

 

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The amount of 'glitches' we hear about are quite staggering

 

The small % population of those who sail RCI on Cruise Critic that have their cruises re-priced because they log into their booking is appauling. If that is happening to those on here, how many people outside CC is it happening to?

 

A Cruise planner full of bugs that can't carry out basic reservations

 

It's laughable

[Cuizer2]

My eyes literally just rolled all the way to the back of my head.

 

 

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Does this mean that you truly have eyes in the back of your head? :confused:

[ewenix]

As an IT guy maybe you can tell us if these simple fixes would work:

 

Instead of cancelling cruises and extras automatically and sending an email that it happened, just send out an email to the customer and TA if applicable. Give a fair amount of time for them to call back, then have a human review and try and make contact before cancelling.

 

And would it be very hard to put reservations previously marked "paid in full" in to a category requiring human review before automatic cancelation?

 

How hard would it be to avoid automatically cancelling reservations from Thursday afternoon to Sunday night?

 

The booking and extras experience is part of the cruising experience, and those above IT, with responsibility for insuring product quality should insist on something like this.

 

It is plainly clear that RCCL's IT is at the root of many of these issues and has been for some time. As such it is grossly negligent on senior management's part to entrust them with the ability to automatically cancel reservations.

 

My family and I have been affected by RCCL problems in the past and I was not satisfied with their resolution.

As such we cruise on RCCL half as much as we previously did.

It is my experience that RCCL doesn't do a very good job handling problems they have caused.

 

I've worked for many companies in IT for over 18 years, so I'll give you my thoughts on your 'simple fixes.'

First keep in mind that what is happening is not the intended process. It's an error and based on the annecdotal evidence it's only affecting *some* people people who perform a specific action. That makes it more difficult

to troubleshoot. If it were happening to everyone who performed that action, that would indicate a glaring QA issue.

 

Your first and second fix means the customer and TA get an email after you intentionally cancel a cruise. Then you have to a human talk to you or the TA in order to actually cancel.

So basically you want to remove the ability for people to cancel via the website and force them to call. The effect of this is that people will complain how backward and outdated the RCCI IT department is because you cannot cancel online and must call someone. Secondly there will be a certain percentage increase in the call center staff to handle cancellations, which means

the cost of your cruise goes up. There will be the CC complaints about how someone had to wait an hour on the phone to cancel a cruise, and why can't they just let you do that online?

 

Your third fix, should be easy to implement. The downside is listening to people complain about how backward and outdated RCCI IT department is because they don't run cancellations from thursday afternoon to sunday night. Then the wild speculation on CC about how they must only do this so they can hold the money longer, and how you're getting double billed for a couple days if you cancel to book on another ship but have to make the payment for the new reservation.

 

On your fourth statement about product quality I think I know what you mean and I think we agree. QA normally falls under the IT pervue, and I'm not sure what you mean by 'those above IT.' Certainly someone in the IT chain of command is responsible for QA, but outside of IT it's normally a President, CEO, and or Board which is directing the CIO.

 

I would like to add that IT problems aren't always the fault of the IT department. I've worked places where there were known problems voiced to management, and management refused to approve budget fix the problems.

In some cases it was just cheaper for them to handle those problems on a case by case basis depending on how badly the customers complained. I've also seen where there were known problems, there was money available to purchase the software and hardware to fix the issues but it required critical systems to be taken offline and the business units delayed and delayed.

 

Also I want to mention that the people who answer the phones and deal directly with the customer likely have no idea what the problem really is or when an expected fix is coming. They may not ever even be notified that the problem was resolved.

 

One consideration is how much of their total bookings are made through the website? If the majority is via phone and through TAs then it would not be surprising that the website gets less attention.

I'd expect more time/money would then be put towards TA specific systems, and internal call center systems.

 

There were some other comments in this thread about how people should just be fired.

You can't fire people everytime someone makes a mistake if you plan to remain in business. That also doesn't mean if a given employee has a pattern of egregious mistakes you just ignore it.

 

One thing I wonder about and maybe someone can enlighten me on this is how often there are similar problems on other subsidary lines. I'd be a little surprised if the Royal, Celebrity, and Azamara IT systems are completely separated. I wonder if there is a systemic problem with the Royal systems that the others don't experience. There does appear to be some separation since the Royal UK site looks to run off of Amazon Ireland, and the Celebrity and Royal sites appear to be separately US based.

Edited March 3, 2017 by ewenix

[gwsster]

Staggering is the word + a few others too. I have never sailed RCI but have booked or sailed on 4 other lines. Reading about this hot mess of cancellations for RCI cruisers has raised a huge red flag for me. I most likely won't be taking a Royal chance of roulette with booking a RCI cruise. I wonder how many cruisers that don't check their email or itinerary or credit card statement will be surprised when they show up in port that their cruise was cancelled? The posts at the middle to end of March about RCI and cancellations might be heart breaking.

 

 

The amount of 'glitches' we hear about are quite staggering

 

The small % population of those who sail RCI on Cruise Critic that have their cruises re-priced because they log into their booking is appauling. If that is happening to those on here, how many people outside CC is it happening to?

 

A Cruise planner full of bugs that can't carry out basic reservations

 

It's laughable

[cbaker1974]

Staggering is the word + a few others too. I have never sailed RCI but have booked or sailed on 4 other lines. Reading about this hot mess of cancellations for RCI cruisers has raised a huge red flag for me. I most likely won't be taking a Royal chance of roulette with booking a RCI cruise. I wonder how many cruisers that don't check their email or itinerary or credit card statement will be surprised when they show up in port that their cruise was cancelled? The posts at the middle to end of March about RCI and cancellations might be heart breaking.

 

 

I don't think there are a large number of these glitches/accidents from a % perspective, yet they are highly visible especially on this forum, and the stories about them are very personal.

 

Millions of people sail with RCI and don't have these problems. The Oasis class ships each carry over 300,000 passengers every year. Problems and mistakes are going to happen. And unfortunately when they do happen sometimes they are doozies and take a lot of effort to remediate. But while they can be complex problems, saying they occur with any large frequency is anecdotal at best and in most cases the passengers get good outcomes.

 

This doesn't excuse the problems, but it seems a bit of an overreaction to suggest that this should prevent people from booking online.

 

It would be like saying that there are people who miss the ship when it sails away from port (a small fraction of a percent) and because this happens nobody should cruise due to the risk.

[grapau27]

I think 1 is too many.

 

live in UK love USA and Royal Caribbean Cruises.

[hpy2b246]

Update on my situation. I got the call late this afternoon that my reservation has been reinstated with a new #. That Royal was able to put everything back in my cruise planner at the prices that I had paid. I am also receiving an obc for the trouble. It took longer then expected, but I am just happy to have it resolved. Now I can get back to planning and packing!

[Biker19]

Just hope it doesn't happen again.

[BEENSAILING]

Update on my situation. I got the call late this afternoon that my reservation has been reinstated with a new #. That Royal was able to put everything back in my cruise planner at the prices that I had paid. I am also receiving an obc for the trouble. It took longer then expected, but I am just happy to have it resolved. Now I can get back to planning and packing!

 

 

Great! How much OBC did you get from Royal?

Edited March 4, 2017 by BEENSAILING

[mollyeilis]

The systems sends out an email to the customer and goes the extra step to automatically cancel reservations for extras. These are not passive acts. What's so hard about an "IF-THEN" line of code in front of those actions that says "IF previous reservation state = "Paid in Full" THEN get a human involved?

 

 

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So then you want cruises that are *not* PIF to cancel because a refund is generated for a non essential aspect of the cruise?

 

 

The amount of 'glitches' we hear about are quite staggering

 

The small % population of those who sail RCI on Cruise Critic that have their cruises re-priced because they log into their booking is appauling. If that is happening to those on here, how many people outside CC is it happening to?

 

A Cruise planner full of bugs that can't carry out basic reservations

 

It's laughable

 

 

You feel it's "staggering"? Someone has been tracking it on one of the threads where it's happening and there are, like, 6 of them.

 

From the IT standpoint or the company standpoint I doubt that's staggering.

 

Important to fix once they get all the info, sure, but staggering?

 

You want staggering, look at WDW's website issues over the last 5 years or so. As they were slowly and painfully changing over their systems there were two distinct times that almost everyone lost their booked dining reservations; wdw opens those 180 days from checkin so some of those had been booked ages in advance. Actually one of those times I don't think it was real; a few of us on the boards didn't touch our accounts and just waited, and the reservations came back. Second time, though... And they still have well known glitches that (by definition imo) don't happen to everyone doing the same function. Makes it so much harder to get info on, track, and then fix.

 

(Dh was a field engineer at amazon for 8 years and I've heard him talk about how hard it is to get accurate info first from the customer then through the CS channels in order to get towards a fix...pretty sure they actually hope that a VP or the CEO have it happen so they can get trustworthy immediate firsthand info to make the fix happen faster. Alas I doubt that the VIPs at RCI are booking through the normal site and cancelling drinks packages...and I have a feeling that even if they did they might not be as trustworthy in explaining what happened on their end as higher ups at another company are)

 

 

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[Canuckle-head]

UPDATE: Finally, three days before we are scheduled to leave on our cruise, Royal has managed to get back all our reservations they cancelled. Unbelievable that it took so long! At least that's some good news. However, when our travel agent originally asked about compensation for the stress and hassle Royal indicated that they would discuss compensation once they reinstated all the reservations. As that was done today, they offered us our compensation... wait for it... a $50 bottle of wine and strawberries. I am underwhelmed with their generosity.

 

When Royal cancelled our reservation, we received an email on a Saturday night. They couldn't reconfirm the reservation until Monday - so we spent a couple of very stressful days wondering if our vacation would turn out to be a total disaster. We have spent the last week and a half corresponding with our travel agent on a daily basis to get updates as to what reservations had or had not yet been reinstated.

 

In my view, a $50 bottle of wine and strawberries hardly amounts to much compensation given that it is at Royal's inflated onboard prices. In any event, my wife and I already have the deluxe drink package so we can have as many $12 glasses of wine as we want or a discount on a bottle of wine. I've told our travel agent to let Royal know that if that's the best they can do, we aren't interested in their compensation as the stress and inconvenience was worth far more. I suspect Royal's actual cost of this compensation is probably around the $20 range.

 

This experience has pretty much soured us on Royal Caribbean. Undoubtedly we will enjoy our upcoming cruise but it will likely be our last with Royal.

 

 

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[Johnamac123]

UPDATE: Finally, three days before we are scheduled to leave on our cruise, Royal has managed to get back all our reservations they cancelled. Unbelievable that it took so long! At least that's some good news. However, when our travel agent originally asked about compensation for the stress and hassle Royal indicated that they would discuss compensation once they reinstated all the reservations. As that was done today, they offered us our compensation... wait for it... a $50 bottle of wine and strawberries. I am underwhelmed with their generosity.

 

When Royal cancelled our reservation, we received an email on a Saturday night. They couldn't reconfirm the reservation until Monday - so we spent a couple of very stressful days wondering if our vacation would turn out to be a total disaster. We have spent the last week and a half corresponding with our travel agent on a daily basis to get updates as to what reservations had or had not yet been reinstated.

 

In my view, a $50 bottle of wine and strawberries hardly amounts to much compensation given that it is at Royal's inflated onboard prices. In any event, my wife and I already have the deluxe drink package so we can have as many $12 glasses of wine as we want or a discount on a bottle of wine. I've told our travel agent to let Royal know that if that's the best they can do, we aren't interested in their compensation as the stress and inconvenience was worth far more. I suspect Royal's actual cost of this compensation is probably around the $20 range.

 

This experience has pretty much soured us on Royal Caribbean. Undoubtedly we will enjoy our upcoming cruise but it will likely be our last with Royal.

 

 

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No one would blame you for feeling the way you do. All you can do at this point is enjoy your cruise vacation and possibly deal with RCI after you return. That way you can more accurately gauge the effect of their IT errors on your overall enjoyment....

[LisaAtlCruiser]

UPDATE: Finally, three days before we are scheduled to leave on our cruise, Royal has managed to get back all our reservations they cancelled. Unbelievable that it took so long! At least that's some good news. However, when our travel agent originally asked about compensation for the stress and hassle Royal indicated that they would discuss compensation once they reinstated all the reservations. As that was done today, they offered us our compensation... wait for it... a $50 bottle of wine and strawberries. I am underwhelmed with their generosity.

 

When Royal cancelled our reservation, we received an email on a Saturday night. They couldn't reconfirm the reservation until Monday - so we spent a couple of very stressful days wondering if our vacation would turn out to be a total disaster. We have spent the last week and a half corresponding with our travel agent on a daily basis to get updates as to what reservations had or had not yet been reinstated.

 

In my view, a $50 bottle of wine and strawberries hardly amounts to much compensation given that it is at Royal's inflated onboard prices. In any event, my wife and I already have the deluxe drink package so we can have as many $12 glasses of wine as we want or a discount on a bottle of wine. I've told our travel agent to let Royal know that if that's the best they can do, we aren't interested in their compensation as the stress and inconvenience was worth far more. I suspect Royal's actual cost of this compensation is probably around the $20 range.

 

This experience has pretty much soured us on Royal Caribbean. Undoubtedly we will enjoy our upcoming cruise but it will likely be our last with Royal.

 

 

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I feel for you and can understand your frustration. But please don't let it sour your cruise as the only ones that will hurt is you. Have a great time, enjoy yourself and when you get home you have plenty of time to decide if you want to cruise with RCCL again.

[BEENSAILING]

UPDATE: Finally, three days before we are scheduled to leave on our cruise, Royal has managed to get back all our reservations they cancelled. Unbelievable that it took so long! At least that's some good news. However, when our travel agent originally asked about compensation for the stress and hassle Royal indicated that they would discuss compensation once they reinstated all the reservations. As that was done today, they offered us our compensation... wait for it... a $50 bottle of wine and strawberries. I am underwhelmed with their generosity.

 

When Royal cancelled our reservation, we received an email on a Saturday night. They couldn't reconfirm the reservation until Monday - so we spent a couple of very stressful days wondering if our vacation would turn out to be a total disaster. We have spent the last week and a half corresponding with our travel agent on a daily basis to get updates as to what reservations had or had not yet been reinstated.

 

In my view, a $50 bottle of wine and strawberries hardly amounts to much compensation given that it is at Royal's inflated onboard prices. In any event, my wife and I already have the deluxe drink package so we can have as many $12 glasses of wine as we want or a discount on a bottle of wine. I've told our travel agent to let Royal know that if that's the best they can do, we aren't interested in their compensation as the stress and inconvenience was worth far more. I suspect Royal's actual cost of this compensation is probably around the $20 range.

 

This experience has pretty much soured us on Royal Caribbean. Undoubtedly we will enjoy our upcoming cruise but it will likely be our last with Royal.

 

 

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their "compensation" offer is horrible. Your travel agent seems to not be fighting for your rights (you should not use that agent again.) You can call Royal Caribbean yourself - if you get no satisfaction by calling reservations or crown and anchor (if you are a C and A member) ask to speak to the resolutions dept. insist on it before you go on your cruise so you can have them add on board credit into you account.

[Canuckle-head]

I feel for you and can understand your frustration. But please don't let it sour your cruise as the only ones that will hurt is you. Have a great time, enjoy yourself and when you get home you have plenty of time to decide if you want to cruise with RCCL again.

 

 

No worries - we will all enjoy our cruise (I have yet to have a "bad" day on a cruise with any cruise line as any day on a cruise is better than a day in the office). However, we were considering booking a cruise on board for Christmas 2018 - needless to say, that won't be happening.

 

 

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[Biker19]

Your travel agent seems to not be fighting for your rights

:confused: what right would that be? The OP got everything back the way it was before the cancellation. If you were in front of Judge Judy you'd get no compensation for "pain and suffering".

 

Biker, who just chuckles at the "entitlement" mentality with some in the CC crowd.

[grapau27]

:confused: what right would that be? The OP got everything back the way it was before the cancellation. If you were in front of Judge Judy you'd get no compensation for "pain and suffering".

 

Biker, who just chuckles at the "entitlement" mentality with some in the CC crowd.

I think the op deserves a proper monetary goodwill gesture not just a derisory amount. I know in American you have a sue and compensation culture but in this instance the op thoroughly deserves compensation.

 

love sailing with RCCL