Ticked off at RCCL...

[lyst]

Mine on Allure for Jan 26th was changed from Roatan to Nassau! One of the reasons I booked was for the snorkeling in Roatan. I really don't like Nassau. I'm surprised they're not offering something like $50 OBC or a dinner.

[holiday-shrek]

7 hours ago, flukemaster said:

The bottom line is they just do not care about their customers. You would think that since this effects ALL of the cruise dates until dry dock in February of 2020 they would tell everyone NOW about it, but NO they still have the same ports were booked with on their website as of today, total false advertising!

+1 very true!

[123funcruiser]

19 hours ago, CruisingDaddy said:

Am I being unreasonable in asking for something?  I normally don't ask and I know in our cruise contract it does say that they can change the itinerary for any reason but I feel this issues was in their control and it could have been remedied.  They have a broken ship and they choose to not fix it and affect all their next cruises until they bring her into dry dock.  I mean if we were our to sea and something happens to the ship and we miss a port it's one thing, or unrest in a port like in San Juan I'd have no issues with changing our ports of call, but this I feel should fall on them.  What do you guys think?  Am I crazy in asking for something in return?  I would like to get your thoughts on it.  Thanks

 

I´m not sure if you are unreasonable in asking for something, but IMO you are definitely unreasonable in expecting something and being pi$$ed when you don´t get anything. 

Nope I don´t think your Situation rewards any compensation, even being it as small as a sampler plate of strawberries.

[doones2]

6 minutes ago, 123funcruiser said:

 

I´m not sure if you are unreasonable in asking for something, but IMO you are definitely unreasonable in expecting something and being pi$$ed when you don´t get anything. 

Nope I don´t think your Situation rewards any compensation, even being it as small as a sampler plate of strawberries.

Whoa!!!!! I think that was a nasty response.  

[katiel53]

At least you were given the opportunity to get a refund where we cruised on Allure in June and I asked before final payment if we were going to San Juan instead of St Thomas as our last few cruises had gone to San Juan and my son and his family have not been to St Thomas and wanted to do so.  I saw that we were going to San Juan on the RC app on my phone, but I wasn't notified.

 

I asked, as I said, and was assured we were going to St Thomas so I paid the balance of the cruise.  Guess what?  We were told a few days after the final payment date that we were not going to St Thomas.  There was nothing given to us at all.  Zip, zero, nada.

 

We had another cruise booked on Allure for January and I again asked if we were going to St Thomas and I was assured that of course we would because the problem was going to be fixed about the end of October or so.  Something inside me told me that I needed to make  a change in ships because no way was that going to happen with no dry dock location near the US.

 

I cancelled the Allure (fortunately I was booked into a group rate so I didn't have a non-refundable deposit) and booked Harmony.  I think perhaps Royal Caribbean has learned a lesson and decided to give people an option to cancel the cruise even with a  non-refundable deposit.  I would have done so for our June cruise, but we weren't given that choice.

[jagsfan]

Having to take a ship to Europe for repairs because of a scarcity of dry docks in the US is a sad commentary on our shipbuilding and repair industry. 

And why is that?

Because our merchant fleet has shrunk so much there is no need for the facilities any more. 

[hallux]

21 hours ago, flukemaster said:

All of our cards were charged the deposits on 7-22-19.

 

I think you mean final payment rather than deposit.  You may be on to something, they're waiting for final payment has happened then change the cruise so people HAVE to go or they lose their full cruise cost (or a good portion of it).  It's not the best way to run things, but at this point anyone that does even a little research (such as the OP) would have an idea that something is up with the ship and should expect there to be itinerary changes.

 

As others noted - they simply can't fix the ship without doing a TA to get to a facility that can do the repairs.  I realize Carnival is in the process of repairing a ship using an unusual platform for the task but that platform won't fit Oasis-class ships, and that situation was MUCH more dire.

[travelplus]

On 7/26/2019 at 10:47 AM, CruisingDaddy said:

This will mostly be a rant because our itinerary changed on our upcoming AOTS Jan 19, 2020 cruise.  Here's why I feel ticked off this time around and I have to take on some of the blame... long story but stay with me on this one.  So my saga started back in January 2019. We were about to sail on the OOTS when one of our friends got ill and they had to cancel the cruise.  So we decided at the time to push our cruise out by a year, after paying $200 to move the booking due to non-refundable deposits... I knew about the fee if we needed to change and am ok with it.  We changed the cruise to Feb 2, 2020 and still on the OOTS then a few months back I get a lovely email from RCCL advising the have charted the OOTS and I would need to either change ships, change sail date or cancel and get a refund. 

 

After looking at their website, I found the itinerary for the AOTS worked for us.  So I call up RCCL to make the change and they were accommodating on doing the changes without any hassle.  They even gave us like $100 OBC or something like that for our inconvenience.  In locking up the new sail date and ship, I then needed to make changes with work to move my vacation days as well as start looking for a new hotel since the date and port was different.  It was a bit of inconvenience, but hey, I was lucky enough to find something suitable for the 4 of us and no big deal.

 

Here's where my ticked off part starts coming into play.  A few months ago, I saw messages that the AOTS were having propulsion issues and the ship was going at a slower pace and they needed to modify like 25 cruises because of it... and I only found out after I had made the changes.  The good news was that ours was not going to be affected... Hurray right!!  But last night I get the dreaded email saying that due to ongoing propulsion issues we need to modify your itinerary.  It says, instead of going to St. Thomas for a day, we'll be stopping in San Juan instead for 6 hours (7am to 1pm).  Our option was again to keep this cruise, cancel and get a refund but not for our flights (so no good to us) or change cruises again.  I thought, ok, let's take a look to see if anything comes up that would still work with our flight schedule because I really don't want to go to San Juan especially with all that's happening there right now.  So I call RCCL and asked them to move my cruise. they said sure, we can do that for you but I will need to pay for the difference in price.  I'm like really?? It's like double the price of what I have now and no way I'm going to pay double.  I asked for some OBC or discount at least if I keep this cruise and again they said no....

 

Am I being unreasonable in asking for something?  I normally don't ask and I know in our cruise contract it does say that they can change the itinerary for any reason but I feel this issues was in their control and it could have been remedied.  They have a broken ship and they choose to not fix it and affect all their next cruises until they bring her into dry dock.  I mean if we were our to sea and something happens to the ship and we miss a port it's one thing, or unrest in a port like in San Juan I'd have no issues with changing our ports of call, but this I feel should fall on them.  What do you guys think?  Am I crazy in asking for something in return?  I would like to get your thoughts on it.  Thanks

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. The same scenario could happen to any vendor in the travel industry. Royal never promised you a full day in San Juan per their contract. 

 

Royal  never promised you that there would be no mechanical issues just like an airline can't guarantee your itinerary 330 days in advance. Unfortunately the earlier you book like two years in advance the ship can become chartered. 

 

If you book your own non refundable air without insurance Royal has no obligation to accommodate you. 

 

One option may be to fly to San Juan for a week on a land vacation. 

 

If I were in your shoes I would make lemmings out of lemnaid and just go. 

 

We missed Dublin due to weather well guess what we'll go again. We missed Villefranche due to weather well guess what we're going again this year. 

 

My point is yoh can rant all you want but Royal owes you nothing except pethaos extra OBC for goodwill. It's better to go to San Juan for six hours then none at all. 

 

Please keep us posted 

[rcclmiami]

On 7/26/2019 at 1:47 PM, CruisingDaddy said:

This will mostly be a rant because our itinerary changed on our upcoming AOTS Jan 19, 2020 cruise.  Here's why I feel ticked off this time around and I have to take on some of the blame... long story but stay with me on this one.  So my saga started back in January 2019. We were about to sail on the OOTS when one of our friends got ill and they had to cancel the cruise.  So we decided at the time to push our cruise out by a year, after paying $200 to move the booking due to non-refundable deposits... I knew about the fee if we needed to change and am ok with it.  We changed the cruise to Feb 2, 2020 and still on the OOTS then a few months back I get a lovely email from RCCL advising the have charted the OOTS and I would need to either change ships, change sail date or cancel and get a refund. 

 

After looking at their website, I found the itinerary for the AOTS worked for us.  So I call up RCCL to make the change and they were accommodating on doing the changes without any hassle.  They even gave us like $100 OBC or something like that for our inconvenience.  In locking up the new sail date and ship, I then needed to make changes with work to move my vacation days as well as start looking for a new hotel since the date and port was different.  It was a bit of inconvenience, but hey, I was lucky enough to find something suitable for the 4 of us and no big deal.

 

Here's where my ticked off part starts coming into play.  A few months ago, I saw messages that the AOTS were having propulsion issues and the ship was going at a slower pace and they needed to modify like 25 cruises because of it... and I only found out after I had made the changes.  The good news was that ours was not going to be affected... Hurray right!!  But last night I get the dreaded email saying that due to ongoing propulsion issues we need to modify your itinerary.  It says, instead of going to St. Thomas for a day, we'll be stopping in San Juan instead for 6 hours (7am to 1pm).  Our option was again to keep this cruise, cancel and get a refund but not for our flights (so no good to us) or change cruises again.  I thought, ok, let's take a look to see if anything comes up that would still work with our flight schedule because I really don't want to go to San Juan especially with all that's happening there right now.  So I call RCCL and asked them to move my cruise. they said sure, we can do that for you but I will need to pay for the difference in price.  I'm like really?? It's like double the price of what I have now and no way I'm going to pay double.  I asked for some OBC or discount at least if I keep this cruise and again they said no....

 

Am I being unreasonable in asking for something?  I normally don't ask and I know in our cruise contract it does say that they can change the itinerary for any reason but I feel this issues was in their control and it could have been remedied.  They have a broken ship and they choose to not fix it and affect all their next cruises until they bring her into dry dock.  I mean if we were our to sea and something happens to the ship and we miss a port it's one thing, or unrest in a port like in San Juan I'd have no issues with changing our ports of call, but this I feel should fall on them.  What do you guys think?  Am I crazy in asking for something in return?  I would like to get your thoughts on it.  Thanks

Allure was scheduled for repIr this October. The incident with Oasis removed that facility and time slot. Since the have the amplification for Allure set for April -May 2020, it only made sense to wait until then and do the best they could to give passengers as many ports as possible. This is an ongoing problem, as I experienced the slower speed due to a bad azipod in 2013.

[papaflamingo]

22 hours ago, doones2 said:

Whoa!!!!! I think that was a nasty response.  

Why do you think 123funcruier's comment was nasty?  The OP asked for opinions on whether or not they were being reasonable and an opinion was given.  There was nothing nasty about it that I saw.  

[lazydayz]

OP, I don’t think you are being unreasonable.  While others argue Royal can do whatever they want due to your agreeing to the adhesion contract you are forced to sign, that does mean they should. When a company inconveniences its customers, the good ones try to make reasonable accommodations. 

 

I hope you are able to enjoy your cruise.  Luckily for Royal, their onboard experience is usually much more pleasant than trying to work with corporate before the cruise.  

 

 

[time4u2go]

40 minutes ago, lazydayz said:

OP, I don’t think you are being unreasonable.  While others argue Royal can do whatever they want due to your agreeing to the adhesion contract you are forced to sign, that does mean they should. When a company inconveniences its customers, the good ones try to make reasonable accommodations. 

 

I hope you are able to enjoy your cruise.  Luckily for Royal, their onboard experience is usually much more pleasant than trying to work with corporate before the cruise.  

 

 

Forced to sign?

[flukemaster]

My main point which you have missed, was it was 2 days BEFORE my Deposit ( yes deposit, not full payment, the TA we use has a deal with RCCL not to charge the deposit for months) and I called to ask them about it, had at that time they told us we could have gotten our money back or made a different ship or cruise line since we would get a full refund we would have done so, but we cannot do that now with booked airfare. TP your are correct they are not responsible  for our airfare, but that is why I called to make sure before we booked it. Its not like we were told a month or more about this. As I said they are still advertising the original ports.

You would think they would help out in some way, but the attitude of the stupidvisior was appalling.    

Edited July 28, 2019 by flukemaster

[flukemaster]

Customer service and sales

 

[lazydayz]

41 minutes ago, time4u2go said:

Forced to sign?

Yes. You have to sign if you want to cruise. Perfect example of an adhesion contract.

[time4u2go]

9 minutes ago, lazydayz said:

Yes. You have to sign if you want to cruise. Perfect example of an adhesion contract.

Lol nobody is forced to cruise, therefore nobody is forced to sign the contract.

[mayleeman]

36 minutes ago, time4u2go said:

Lol nobody is forced to cruise, therefore nobody is forced to sign the contract.

The better description is that it is a non-negotiable contract. Unfortunately, contract law continues to have a firm bedrock on the absurd notion that people who voluntarily enter into contracts have the opportunity to negotiate all the terms. A concept that works for negotiating with the company cutting your lawn, but not modern megacorporations or internet providers with 40 page Terms and Conditions that they reserve the right to change without notice. No one "forces" anyone to sign them, but they usually contain non-negotiable extraordinarily one-sided terms not directly relevant to the sale, so they are quite similar to classic adhesion contracts.

 

"Don't like 'em, go elsewhere" is the fiction of the law upholding these things. Ignoring the practical impossibility of the virtual uniformity of such terms throughout an entire industry.

 

I guess we can always find Gilligan, the Captain, and the Minnow if we want to negotiate better terms for a 6 hour tour...

Edited July 28, 2019 by mayleeman

[Darstime]

As I found out in our last cruise decide before you leave you are going to have a great time. To many grumbled the whole cruise and what a waste it was. We had a great time even though there was 6 different changes in the year leading up to the cruise. It’s a cruise and no laundry or making dinner. Have fun

[frank808]

8 hours ago, mayleeman said:

The better description is that it is a non-negotiable contract. Unfortunately, contract law continues to have a firm bedrock on the absurd notion that people who voluntarily enter into contracts have the opportunity to negotiate all the terms. A concept that works for negotiating with the company cutting your lawn, but not modern megacorporations or internet providers with 40 page Terms and Conditions that they reserve the right to change without notice. No one "forces" anyone to sign them, but they usually contain non-negotiable extraordinarily one-sided terms not directly relevant to the sale, so they are quite similar to classic adhesion contracts.

 

"Don't like 'em, go elsewhere" is the fiction of the law upholding these things. Ignoring the practical impossibility of the virtual uniformity of such terms throughout an entire industry.

 

I guess we can always find Gilligan, the Captain, and the Minnow if we want to negotiate better terms for a 6 hour tour...

Don't like the terms, don't cruise at all if all the different cruiselunes have the same t&c. You can do a land vacation and do not have to abide by the absurd notion of adhesion contracts.

 

As earlier poster has suggested, if you dont like the TERMS and CONDITIONS from all the cruise lines, do not cruise.

 

I like to cruise with royal and MSC.  So I pay for a cruise and abide by these t&c.  I know that if they change ports of call, I am not ENTITLED to anything.  

[Mikew0805]

On 7/26/2019 at 1:47 PM, CruisingDaddy said:

This will mostly be a rant because our itinerary changed on our upcoming AOTS Jan 19, 2020 cruise.  Here's why I feel ticked off this time around and I have to take on some of the blame... long story but stay with me on this one.  So my saga started back in January 2019. We were about to sail on the OOTS when one of our friends got ill and they had to cancel the cruise.  So we decided at the time to push our cruise out by a year, after paying $200 to move the booking due to non-refundable deposits... I knew about the fee if we needed to change and am ok with it.  We changed the cruise to Feb 2, 2020 and still on the OOTS then a few months back I get a lovely email from RCCL advising the have charted the OOTS and I would need to either change ships, change sail date or cancel and get a refund. 

 

After looking at their website, I found the itinerary for the AOTS worked for us.  So I call up RCCL to make the change and they were accommodating on doing the changes without any hassle.  They even gave us like $100 OBC or something like that for our inconvenience.  In locking up the new sail date and ship, I then needed to make changes with work to move my vacation days as well as start looking for a new hotel since the date and port was different.  It was a bit of inconvenience, but hey, I was lucky enough to find something suitable for the 4 of us and no big deal.

 

Here's where my ticked off part starts coming into play.  A few months ago, I saw messages that the AOTS were having propulsion issues and the ship was going at a slower pace and they needed to modify like 25 cruises because of it... and I only found out after I had made the changes.  The good news was that ours was not going to be affected... Hurray right!!  But last night I get the dreaded email saying that due to ongoing propulsion issues we need to modify your itinerary.  It says, instead of going to St. Thomas for a day, we'll be stopping in San Juan instead for 6 hours (7am to 1pm).  Our option was again to keep this cruise, cancel and get a refund but not for our flights (so no good to us) or change cruises again.  I thought, ok, let's take a look to see if anything comes up that would still work with our flight schedule because I really don't want to go to San Juan especially with all that's happening there right now.  So I call RCCL and asked them to move my cruise. they said sure, we can do that for you but I will need to pay for the difference in price.  I'm like really?? It's like double the price of what I have now and no way I'm going to pay double.  I asked for some OBC or discount at least if I keep this cruise and again they said no....

 

Am I being unreasonable in asking for something?  I normally don't ask and I know in our cruise contract it does say that they can change the itinerary for any reason but I feel this issues was in their control and it could have been remedied.  They have a broken ship and they choose to not fix it and affect all their next cruises until they bring her into dry dock.  I mean if we were our to sea and something happens to the ship and we miss a port it's one thing, or unrest in a port like in San Juan I'd have no issues with changing our ports of call, but this I feel should fall on them.  What do you guys think?  Am I crazy in asking for something in return?  I would like to get your thoughts on it.  Thanks

I do not think you are being unreasonable, and that is my opinion. I do not mind changes due to things out of their control. (Weather, unrest, political changes, or even last minute mechanical problems) However, when it is within their control.... and it is, they are just choosing to wait, then they should be a bit more accommodating. A couple hundred bucks in OBC, or to meet you closer to your price on another ship does not seem unreasonable to me. Others here will have a different point of view, and that is okay.. I just happen to not be so quick to let RCI off the hook on things within their control. 

[smplybcause]

My main point which you have missed, was it was 2 days BEFORE my Deposit ( yes deposit, not full payment, the TA we use has a deal with RCCL not to charge the deposit for months) and I called to ask them about it, had at that time they told us we could have gotten our money back or made a different ship or cruise line since we would get a full refund we would have done so, but we cannot do that now with booked airfare. TP your are correct they are not responsible  for our airfare, but that is why I called to make sure before we booked it. Its not like we were told a month or more about this. As I said they are still advertising the original ports.
You would think they would help out in some way, but the attitude of the stupidvisior was appalling.    

It's not like royal was just waiting for your specific deposit before they made the announcement. Everyone you talked to was bottom of the rung and not aware of more than what they are told. They higher ups hadn't made the scheduled announcements so everyone you talked to didn't know.

Though, as been stated, the fact that the only drydock that could handle Allure on the east coast was destroyed it was almost guaranteed those sailings would be changed too. Azipods aren't self healing so the only other option would have been canceling weeks of crises for her to sail to Europe and back.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[cruisinfanatic]

10 hours ago, lazydayz said:

Yes. You have to sign if you want to cruise. Perfect example of an adhesion contract.

many cruises and never signed anything

[lazydayz]

17 minutes ago, cruisinfanatic said:

many cruises and never signed anything

 

Who does your online check in?  Someone is checking the box that you are agreeing to the contract.  

[sfaaa]

16 hours ago, mayleeman said:

The better description is that it is a non-negotiable contract. Unfortunately, contract law continues to have a firm bedrock on the absurd notion that people who voluntarily enter into contracts have the opportunity to negotiate all the terms. A concept that works for negotiating with the company cutting your lawn, but not modern megacorporations or internet providers with 40 page Terms and Conditions that they reserve the right to change without notice. No one "forces" anyone to sign them, but they usually contain non-negotiable extraordinarily one-sided terms not directly relevant to the sale, so they are quite similar to classic adhesion contracts.

 

"Don't like 'em, go elsewhere" is the fiction of the law upholding these things. Ignoring the practical impossibility of the virtual uniformity of such terms throughout an entire industry.

 

Well this is just silly. Of course you can always negotiate the terms if you are a big account or want to charter the whole ship. Play like a big league player if you want big league benefits. Or you can go home and stop wasting other people's time. It's that simple.

Edited July 29, 2019 by sfaaa

[BensonFan711]

Ehhh....I think you might be being slightly unreasonable, in this particular case.  First of all, your objections towards San Juan are pretty weak, in my opinion.  The governor resigned, protests and unrest are over.  Secondly, there's no quick fix for the propulsion issues Allure is having, which she was also having back in 2017 (and is the reason I booked Oasis and not Allure back then).  She needs to be in dry dock for that to happen, and since she's not totally dead in the water, it's not really a big enough issue for Royal to cancel cruises to fix.

 

It's actually not false advertising.  In the cruise contract, it states that they can change itineraries for any reason at any time.  This is the nature of cruising.  I've had two cruises where the entire itinerary changed due to hurricanes.  Nothing you can do about it.  The azopod isn't working properly.  Nothing you can do about it.  And more importantly, nothing Royal can do about it to fix it right now.  I'm sure if they could, they would, considering how many complaints they're getting (you're not the only one complaining, I guarantee that.  ANY itinerary change results in a bunch of whiny, pissed off people).  Pack your bathing suit, have a cocktail, and relax.  It's not worth the aggrevation.