Really annoyed by Royal Caribbean's lack of customer service

[Vacationlover2]

About a month and a half ago, I put in a bid for a Royal up to a balcony. I had an ocean view guarantee booked. Last week I got an email saying that my cabin had to be changed due to increased social distancing and I was getting a $100 onboard credit and a comparable cabin. Shortly after that I noticed I had cabin 6360 in my cruise docs. That's a spacious ocean view balcony.

 

Fast forward to today and I get an email telling me that I won my royal up bid and for $80 my cabin was changed from this great spacious ocean view balcony to a regular balcony which is about two categories lower.

 

I called Royal Caribbean to try and have them fix it. In my opinion they should remove the $80 charge and give me my other cabin back. Instead after even speaking to a supervisor, Kevin, who really gave no customer service at all and seemed like I was a bothering him, there was no way for them to refund the money or make any changes. It's an automated system and it looked at what I had booked not what I was in now.

 

I said I understand your process might be automated but you should manually change it now. As soon as I was given that balcony cabin, my royal up should have been deleted.

 

Does anyone have suggestions on what I can do? This seems so outrageous, and I don't understand why they're refusing to refund. And I don't really like the cabin that they gave me. It's right at an elevator. The cabin I had was awesome.

 

I work in customer service so it really irks me when I see people who really just don't seem to care about their customers. No how can I help you, no how can we make this right for you, just it's all automated and there's nothing we can do.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Vacationlover2

[firefly333]

Unfortunately what you needed to do was to cancel your royal up bid. Royal up is run by another company and states all bids when accepted are final and the money will be immediately charged. You agreed to these terms. 

 

I get you already got upgraded to a better cabin. .. sorry. Good luck. 

 

Several people have posted they got a worse cabin with royal up. I personally wouldnt do it for several reasons. Solos get charges x 2. If you get a JS thru royal up you dont get suite pts etc. 

 

You arent the first who was disappointed.

[reallyitsmema]

As soon as you were assigned a cabin, you should have cancelled your Royal Up bid for the balcony cabin.  With a GTY cabin, you have no idea if you will get better than your GTY category.  We had a similar situation happen with us with a suite GTY.  We knew we would get a JS because that is what we always get when we do a suite GTY.  We were assigned a 2 BR GS!  I had already put bids on a GS and OS through Royal Up but was able to cancel them before a bid was accepted.  We have learned our lesson and will not bid with ROyal Up again if we have a GTY cabin.

[Starry Eyes]

Pity you forgot to cancel your bid.  Forget you ever had a chance at the more spacious cabin. Enjoy your cruise.

[Sigma Cruiser]

While I agree with the other posts, I do have one question. Did you place other bids for higher category rooms along with the balcony bid?

[Vacationlover2]

10 minutes ago, Sigma Cruiser said:

While I agree with the other posts, I do have one question. Did you place other bids for higher category rooms along with the balcony bid?

Yes, I did.

[Sigma Cruiser]

This happened to me as well. Sorry it turned out this way for you.

 

[S.A.M.J.R.]

If you're in customer service, I'm sure you know "the customer is not always right".  Unfortunately, I think this is one of those cases.  

[Jasukkie]

I know it doesn't help anything but I'm sympathetic to your plight. Not cool.

[Vacationlover2]

6 minutes ago, S.A.M.J.R. said:

If you're in customer service, I'm sure you know "the customer is not always right".  Unfortunately, I think this is one of those cases.  

Please expound.

[SG65CB]

When they "Royal Upped" you to the balcony it's likely they "Royal Upped" someone else into the cabin you were previously assigned, making it impossible to move you back.

 

Have you checked to see if 6360 is currently available to book?

[Biker19]

4 hours ago, SG65CB said:

 

Have you checked to see if 6360 is currently available to book?

To what end? To aggravate the OP more when the answer will still be no on the move request?

[zoepipes]

I do learn alot from reading these posts. . .I wouldn't have thought about canceling my Royal Up but it makes sense.

[tbo]

So I get the whole thing about cancelling the Royal Up bid, but I think that the OP has a legit argument here.

 

RCI made the original change. The whole bit about it's an automated system run by an outside source is an excuse. They are still in charge of their ships right? Someone can't go a step above to help out in this situation? Who there could honestly look at this situation and say yes this customer wants to pay more for a lesser cabin?

 

I agree with OP-this is just poor customer service.

 

Edit to add another thought: We are taking our first RCI cruise Jan 29 and I'm looking forward to it, but I have to say, the times I've contacted them have not been great experiences.

Edited December 30, 2021 by tbo

[The_Big_M]

33 minutes ago, tbo said:

So I get the whole thing about cancelling the Royal Up bid, but I think that the OP has a legit argument here.

 

RCI made the original change. The whole bit about it's an automated system run by an outside source is an excuse. They are still in charge of their ships right? Someone can't go a step above to help out in this situation? Who there could honestly look at this situation and say yes this customer wants to pay more for a lesser cabin?

 

I agree with OP-this is just poor customer service.

 

Edit to add another thought: We are taking our first RCI cruise Jan 29 and I'm looking forward to it, but I have to say, the times I've contacted them have not been great experiences.

 

Conceptually that's right... but the customer is _also_ responsible for the bid. 

 

Being transferred to another cabin in this situation is very much an exceptional situation, but whenever it happens, RCL can't just automatically choose to cancel their bid.

 

As the passenger mentioned, they even have higher bids open for other upgrades. Now some passengers might well be more than satisfied by the extra space in a spacious ocean view so also want to cancel a Junior Suite. But another passenger might still want that. And even in the balcony category, what if he was only upgraded to a different (badly positioned) balcony, so still was happy to gamble on getting a better positioned balcony for $80? 

 

Essentially, whenever you change cabins, you should reassess the value of any existing bids you have open on MoveUp. I don't see that RCL can just unilaterally change or amend existing bookings you have, and that may also generate complaint about why RCL is changing something that is meant to be controlled by the customer.

 

And yes, in respect of your point about someone overriding it, I just don't see that it's the companies responsibility to correct mistakes in hindsight that people have done, where they have still gotten what they had requested at one time i.e. the company has not done anything wrong.

Edited December 30, 2021 by The_Big_M

[Vacationlover2]

The royal up email and all follow up emails said royal Caribbean. No indication that it is a different company and it shouldn't matter. I shouldn't have to understand their rules and know to cancel a bid when they themselves gave me the cabin.

 

I'm just trying to go on a cruise, not learn the ins and outs of royals business.  

 

It's a simple fix. Refund the money. If the other cabin is still available, move me back.  Sadly, customer service has become a joke at many places lately and looking at some responses, it seems that many are willing to just allow it to continue.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Vacationlover2

[The_Big_M]

3 minutes ago, Vacationlover2 said:

The royal up email and all follow up emails said royal Caribbean. No indication that it is a different company and it shouldn't matter. I shouldn't have to understand their rules and know to cancel a bid when they themselves gave me the cabin.

 

You made a bid for another cabin category, and agreed to the terms regarding assignment. If you wanted to cancel, you could but RCL can't arbitrarily cancel. As you mentioned you had other bids for other cabin types e.g. suites that you probably still wanted.

 

Amending people's bids, or worse cancelling them, would just annoy another group of passengers who would be unhappy that RCL is changing something after they made bid instructions and lost out the opportunity until they discovered it. 

 

And while it's true it would be nice if everything was integrated and it wasn't through a 3rd party, the reality is it is, and there's nothing wrong about that. But it does mean that the bidding system has no awareness of your cabin replacement, so as the one bidding you are also responsible for ensuring bids are still relevant and accurate if your cabin assignment changes.

[tbo]

I think my bigger point,  is that yes this happened and after the fact OP called to see what could be done to remedy the situation and got sorry, suck it up buttercup.

 

Regardless of the process, and whether or not OP understood those (not sure I would have), RCI has it within their power to correct this. Maybe that cabin is gone, what about another in that class? What about balcony cabin away from the elevator? What about just refunding the $80? Multiple ways to provide customer service here instead of "you get what you get".

 

I work in customer service. Customer is FAR from always right, doesn't mean they shouldn't be helped at all.

[Starry Eyes]

1 hour ago, tbo said:

So I get the whole thing about cancelling the Royal Up bid, but I think that the OP has a legit argument here.

 

RCI made the original change. The whole bit about it's an automated system run by an outside source is an excuse. They are still in charge of their ships right? Someone can't go a step above to help out in this situation? Who there could honestly look at this situation and say yes this customer wants to pay more for a lesser cabin?

 

I agree with OP-this is just poor customer service.

 

Edit to add another thought: We are taking our first RCI cruise Jan 29 and I'm looking forward to it, but I have to say, the times I've contacted them have not been great experiences.

The OP booked an oceanview gty.  So, his Royal has the right to move his booking anytime before the cruise to any cabin (OV or better).  Yes, he was briefly assigned an upgraded cabin, but, as his was a gty booking, the cruiseline still had the option to move him back to an OV cabin, right up until checkin at the terminal.  Granted, they do not do it often, but it is the cruiseline’s right to do so…. Those who cannot live with that ought not book gty.  As he did not pay for the the spacious balcony cabin, he has no standing to demand it back.  

As the the RoyalUp bid, that was under the OP’s control; he should have canceled it (or tried to cancel it…it may have been locked).  Failing to do so, he was upgraded from OV to balcony, just as got requested by submitting his bid.  Now he will sail in a balcony at minimum.

 

if the OP had actually paid to upgrade himself all the way to spacious balcony, then RoyalUp acted on the old bid, the OP would gave a beef.  But that is not what happened.

[Starry Eyes]

38 minutes ago, tbo said:

I think my bigger point,  is that yes this happened and after the fact OP called to see what could be done to remedy the situation and got sorry, suck it up buttercup.

 

Regardless of the process, and whether or not OP understood those (not sure I would have), RCI has it within their power to correct this. Maybe that cabin is gone, what about another in that class? What about balcony cabin away from the elevator? What about just refunding the $80? Multiple ways to provide customer service here instead of "you get what you get".

 

I work in customer service. Customer is FAR from always right, doesn't mean they shouldn't be helped at all.

If there is another balcony cabin in OP’s currently assigned category whose location the OP prefers, the OP may ask to be moved to that cabin.  If it is close to the cruise, however, such cabins may all be assigned.  Worth a look, though.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Starry Eyes

[S.A.M.J.R.]

9 hours ago, Vacationlover2 said:

Please expound.

Sure... you're the customer.  You feel you have been "cheated" and you DESERVE a refund or the previous cabin you got moved to.  You're not right.  

 

I don't know how "Royal Up" works.  Of course, I'm the type that selects the cabin I WANT and pay for it.  My (obviously) simple understanding is I can put in "bids" to hopefully get moved to a certain standard of cabin.  If my bid (presumably cheaper than paying for the cabin outright) is accepted, I get moved to that category.  

 

So, you purchased an OV guarantee and submitted a bid for balcony and above.  Hey, your bid was accepted!  So you're getting exactly what you paid for and agreed to.  The only fly in the ointment is RC had already moved you to spacious balcony in a prime location.   Now you want back in the spacious balcony and a refund of the bid.  But, they're actually following the terms you agreed to and you're faulting them for that.  

[lovescats5]

Another reason why we book the cabin we want.  Our RoyalUp upgrade, if we would choose to do one, would only be above a basic Star Class cabin on Oasis or Quantum class ship.  A learning lesson for OP but at some point in time we need to take responsibility for our actions and stop blaming someone else if we don't get what we want.  I hope the OP still has a great trip.

[Diver2014]

"lack of customer service"........that title should read "they didn't give in to what I wanted because I failed to cancel my RoyalUp".   

[GWM907]

Send an email to mbayley@rccl.com explaining the situation. You will get a response one way or the other.

[Starry Eyes]

5 minutes ago, Diver2014 said:

"lack of customer service"........that title should read "they didn't give in to what I wanted because I failed to cancel my RoyalUp".   

Yes, and also, as he only booked OV gty, Royal had the right at any time to move him out if that upgraded cabin and into any oceanview cabin anywhere on the ship.