Just arrived home in UK from 1st ever Cruise!

[Clio1610]

Have posted this thread in the "First Time Cruisers" also, but thought it might be useful to people on here too.....

 

Freedom of the Seas - 12th April - Western Caribbean - D1 cat Balcony Stateroom Deck 9.....

What a wonderful experience !!!

 

Everything was FAB - except we only have 1 Complaint......

 

When we boarded we CLEARLY authorised and marked on the form for "my Credit Card company to convert my onboard charges to GB Pounds in lieu of participating in the RCI currency conversion program" (as advised by kind CC Members prior to our cruise...)

 

However at 06:30 on the morning of our disembarkation, this had been completely ignored and our printed SeaPass account stated the following... "You have elected to have Royal Caribbean convert your onboard charges to the currency of your credit card. Your statement reflects the charge as it will appear on your credit card statement - 1 USD = .6998 GBP........"

 

I was understandably upset by this and went straight down to the Customer Relations Desk on Deck 5 and was told (by Santiago Lomello - Guest Services Officer) that they couldn't do anything about it and that my best course of action was to call my credit card company and tell them to reject the charge from RCI and to then accept it only in $'s !!!

 

We then got off the ship, drove back up to Orlando to our timeshare and called our credit card company in the UK who told us that by law now, they are not allowed to reject any credit card charges and that the payment has already gone through ! they also told us that if we have given anyone our credit card number, then we have authorised any charges to it.... we explained - but to no avail.....So we then called Royal Caribbean International Head Office in Miami, but was told that they couldn't help us as our booking had been made through our Travel Agent with RCI UK Office and we had to call them.....

 

So yesterday (Fri 24th) after we arrived back home in the UK, I telephoned Royal Caribbean in the UK and spoke to CHRIS who was most apologetic and helpful and agreed with me that RCI had made a mistake in ignoring my written authorisation at Miami Cruise Port at embarkation ! He then did a quick calculation and worked out the difference in overcharge on my card to what it should have been and said he will send me a cheque for the difference within 10-14 days - This was EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE !!!!!!!

 

So Folks - as this was our first ever Cruise, (Hub, Me & 12 yr old Son) we will be very happy to answer any questions you may have !!!!!

__________________

[coxswain]

Why are RCI still doing this !! this has happened to us twice ( is it a scam by RCI ? )

 

 

 

 

 

JJ.......

[Mydnite]

I have dealt with Chris on a couple of occasions, for exactly the same thing, he sorted it out both times. Apparently the issue is when you get the set sail pass before going on board, the default is for RCL to do the conversion, and few of the agents actually paper the paperwork any attention and do not change it from the default. (I have a dollar account to it was really annoying).

 

 

I got my cheque very quickly and Chris was very good. Now I know to make sure at 'check in' that they change the default.

 

I don't think it is a scam at all., but there is a very low awareness of currency issues by many US employees, I think it is a training issue for the check in staff.

[cinnamon]

We have had this happen to us twice too. It is extremely annoying and as you said, very difficult to sort out. The cost in their office worker's time of them having to re-imburse the credit card must out weigh any profit. They just assume we will give up. My DH finds it very stressful.

[swcruise]

This has also happened to us twice and we spent many trips back and forth to the pursers desk to get it sorted, and despite them saying it would be done it never was....

On our last trip it was correct and Visa did the currency conversion, hopefully that will happen again next week as I have already indicated this on our setsail documents.

 

It is a fairly basic process and when it is pointed out I see no reason why RCI can't rectify it. On principle, it is a bit og a bug bear and RCI definitely benefit $$ wise by ignoring a request for follow up.,

 

Thanks for the pointer re Chris,hope we wdon't have to use him but it is good to know.

[Bobal]

Does Chris deal with all queries relating to accounts in the UK? I have an ongoing issue whereby I cancelled a Portofino booking for 2 (in order to rebook for 4) and 2.5 months later I still haven't received the credit (although they debited the card immediately for the booking for 4 :rolleyes:). After a number of emails (and only after I copied Adam Goldstein's office) I had a call from someone in Miami who claims that they refunded the card.

 

I have credit card statements to prove that they did not and I am more than happy to send copies of my statements to someone in the UK to prove that this is not the case but when I asked her for a contact number she said that customers are not allowed to contact the finance department in the UK :rolleyes:

[Mydnite]

I don't know if Chris deals with it all, he is prob just one a few few people in customer relations. I got hold of him as I called RCL in the UK and asked to speak to someone in customer relations (or whichever department deals with complaints) and got put through to him. He was very helpful, that might be worth a try.