Fed up with royal caribbean - never again

[sammyt]

I have found that whenever you are complaining about anything to any company, forget the phone calls to the customer service people.

 

Write a letter directly to the CEO of the company. I have found that is the only way you can get satisfaction.

 

Ask for compensation for the 3 days missed as well.

[ladytaekwondo]

We never use RCCL air---the prices ARE HORRIBLE---and after hearing your story, we will NEVER EVER use it. I am so sorry to hear about your experience. I hope it gets resolved soon--

[amybeth4]

It sounds like you transferred your booking from one date to the other but in reality final payment is not due on the new cruise until Sept or so (don't have a calendar in front of me) CALL and see if they will let you still cancel the air and book yourself.

 

Make sure you check the flights yourself first for price, http://www.sidestep.com is a great way to find flights.

 

I think you're not getting this person's point. She paid in full because they were supposed to have cruised seven months ago. Final payment would've been due, when, late August '08 or early Sept? It sounds like she found out about her husband's surgery sometime between August '08 and Nov '08.

 

Therefore, they took all that money, "canceled" their '08 cruise and applied it all to the '09 cruise, thereby paying it in full.

[CrusinAgain]

Disputing what? way too late for the original air charged by RCL. The $900 the OP spent for a new ticket was through the airline.

 

Ummm.....so if you paid Royal for the airline fare and you get to the airport and found out Royal had not paid the airline, what would you do? Would you eat the fare you paid Royal and the last minute high fare? Its not too late to dispute the fare on the charge card. Royal does not even book the air until 30 days or less before the cruise leaves. If Royal did indeed pay the fare and it was the airline fault then Royal needs to refund the money and go dispute it with the airline since the OP did what they were told to do by Royal and Royal is the agent buying the airline fare which is charged to the passenger way more than what Royal pays.

 

In the meantime this causes undue stress to the person as $900 is not pocket change to most of us. I think I would at this point put in a dispute with the credit card company for the original fare and then the credit card company acts as the OP's agent and Royal has to show proof.

[EGG]

I have a hypothetical question, which might be a lesson learned:

 

With a situation such as this, where you get to the airport 2 hours early as we always do, and you are told that the airfare has not been paid (but you have a seat assignment), would the best thing be to whip out your credit card right then and there to secure the seat and then to argue with the airline and the cruiseline or the TA about being reimbursed? Or is that not possible because the plane is overbooked. The worst part of the story is that the OP paid $900 to fly to a farther port to get on the cruise 3 days later.

 

And yes we always book our own air but we live in a hub city where we can generally get nonstops of our choice cheaper than the cruise lines posted prices and we always fly in a day early but would never pay the cruise line precruise hotel rate. We also print our boarding passes a day ahead of time if possible, although not on the ship.

 

And I would not throw away the cruise credit. Get even by using it on a really cheap cruise (it should be easier for you to snag a special than the rest of us), and you get your TA commission. Look for a cruise out of cheap port to fly to. Even if you have to take an inside room or a guarantee - just enjoy a cheap cruise. Book your own airfare.

[Older Party]

My mantra is ALWAYS USE AMEX! They are the best at disputing charges. The few times I have had to do this, AmEx got the credit for me before the company even responded.

 

Using AmEx is especially important when you are in foreign countries ... they've helped me in Barcelona, London and Paris (although many Parisienne establishments don't like taking AmEX - but that's another story ;-)

[CrusinAgain]

I have a hypothetical question, which might be a lesson learned:

 

With a situation such as this, where you get to the airport 2 hours early as we always do, and you are told that the airfare has not been paid (but you have a seat assignment), would the best thing be to whip out your credit card right then and there to secure the seat and then to argue with the airline and the cruiseline or the TA about being reimbursed? Or is that not possible because the plane is overbooked. The worst part of the story is that the OP paid $900 to fly to a farther port to get on the cruise 3 days later.

 

Indeed and apparently from the OP's first post explaining, it was said "It was his senior year Spring Break with a lot of his friends and their families. There were no tickets to purchase as everything was oversold." You would think that the airline would have tried to get him on especially since he had a seat assignment - doesn't make sense to me why they would be booked solid yet showed a seat assignment for the son yet had no room for them to pay for the seat. The OP's family must have been the last of the group to show up as they said the plane was making final call.

[luckyprincess]

Indeed and apparently from the OP's first post explaining, it was said "It was his senior year Spring Break with a lot of his friends and their families. There were no tickets to purchase as everything was oversold." You would think that the airline would have tried to get him on especially since he had a seat assignment - doesn't make sense to me why they would be booked solid yet showed a seat assignment for the son yet had no room for them to pay for the seat. The OP's family must have been the last of the group to show up as they said the plane was making final call.

I think I recall from earlier that the reason the plane was making final call when they reached it was because they had been at the Customer Service check in area for hours trying to get him a seat. They arrived 2 hours early as recommended with his confirmed seat assignment, but since they didn't have a seat for him, they weren't allowed to let him through. They showed a seat for the son, confirmed on a seat assignment from RCCL to the OP, but when they got to the airport there was no paid seat for him and the seat had been sold to someone else in between the time that RCCL was supposed to buy it and when they arrived. Confusing, I know but I think that's the gist... Positively a horrible situation - I would be pretty upset right now especially with the great amount of time it seems to be taking to credit the OP.:confused: I'm thinking it would be like getting your vacation documents through a ta for a resort in Hawaii, taking the plane there, getting to the resort and them saying there was never a vacation bought there for you and they don't have a room as they are booked solid. Even though you have the confirmed documents from the actual booking party in your hands, the booking party never ACTUALLY purchased the room.....I would flip a lid!

[CrusinAgain]

I think I recall from earlier that the reason the plane was making final call when they reached it was because they had been at the Customer Service check in area for hours trying to get him a seat. They arrived 2 hours early as recommended with his confirmed seat assignment, but since they didn't have a seat for him, they weren't allowed to let him through. They showed a seat for the son, confirmed on a seat assignment from RCCL to the OP, but when they got to the airport there was no paid seat for him and the seat had been sold to someone else in between the time that RCCL was supposed to buy it and when they arrived. Confusing, I know but I think that's the gist... Positively a horrible situation - I would be pretty upset right now especially with the great amount of time it seems to be taking to credit the OP.:confused: I'm thinking it would be like getting your vacation documents through a ta for a resort in Hawaii, taking the plane there, getting to the resort and them saying there was never a vacation bought there for you and they don't have a room as they are booked solid. Even though you have the confirmed documents from the actual booking party in your hands, the booking party never ACTUALLY purchased the room.....I would flip a lid!

 

No customer service anymore is there? That airline could have solved the problem had someone wanted to. They are always offering people deals to get off and I'm sure they could have for this also. I would have popped a cork also especially after confirming.

[VernRDH]

I feel badly that the OP's husband missed the first three days of the trip and had to shell out $900 to get there. But there are a few things that I am not understanding:

 

1) The group of 43 was on 2 different carriers going down. Did you check to see if by some bizarre chance the son was on American (the other airline if I recall) and not on Delta? And why did you not question why there were 2 different carriers down, but only 1 back?

 

2) Didn't you try to do online check in the day before? I know all the airlines do it now, wouldn't you have known a full 24 hrs in advance that there was a problem, thereby having time to resolve the issue?

 

3)Why in the name of Sam Hill would you book air thru RCI when you can book group air with the airline directly? Less problems if you cut out the middle man. Don't tell me its easier for RCI to do the air-you are a TA, booking group air should be simple. You had stated that it was less expensive, when you booked a year ago (when the gas prices were so high). But you could have waited on flights and gotten something less expensive closer to the time of travel. Aren't these the types of things a TA should know?

 

Like I said, I feel badly, but it seems that there should have been more diligence on your end to prevent this from happening. Does someone owe you the $900, yes. Should you prevent clients from booking RCI because of it? Well that is your choice, but I would not advise them to book cruise air, but the cruise portion of your trip was fine, if I remember.

 

Good luck to you.

[kaylorcc]

I feel badly that the OP's husband missed the first three days of the trip and had to shell out $900 to get there. But there are a few things that I am not understanding:

 

1) The group of 43 was on 2 different carriers going down. Did you check to see if by some bizarre chance the son was on American (the other airline if I recall) and not on Delta? And why did you not question why there were 2 different carriers down, but only 1 back?

 

2) Didn't you try to do online check in the day before? I know all the airlines do it now, wouldn't you have known a full 24 hrs in advance that there was a problem, thereby having time to resolve the issue?

 

3)Why in the name of Sam Hill would you book air thru RCI when you can book group air with the airline directly? Less problems if you cut out the middle man. Don't tell me its easier for RCI to do the air-you are a TA, booking group air should be simple. You had stated that it was less expensive, when you booked a year ago (when the gas prices were so high). But you could have waited on flights and gotten something less expensive closer to the time of travel. Aren't these the types of things a TA should know?

 

Like I said, I feel badly, but it seems that there should have been more diligence on your end to prevent this from happening. Does someone owe you the $900, yes. Should you prevent clients from booking RCI because of it? Well that is your choice, but I would not advise them to book cruise air, but the cruise portion of your trip was fine, if I remember.

 

Good luck to you.

 

I disagree. I think the OP did her part, and RCI dropped the ball. If you read her post, she states that she had confirmed the son's seating assignment with Delta, and had no reason to believe that there was any problem. There's no way to prevent RCI from not paying for the tickets as they contracted with the passengers to do, which is apparently what happened. I agree that booking the air through RCI is frequently inefficient and expensive-- which is why I've never done it-- but as RCI offers the service as a viable alternative to booking directly with the airlines, there was no way for the OP to know that it would turn into such a nightmare. I don't see how extra planning was required or would have prevented this. JMHO.

[Kristi Williamson]

I think it's really easy to sit at our computers, in our nice cool homes and ask the OP, "Why didn't you do this?", "Why didn't you do that?", Why in the Sam Hill....?"

 

I've been in situations that were just unbelievable and you simply don't think like that when you're NOT sitting at your computer with plenty of time to judge and plenty of time to think how perfectly you would have handled the situation.

 

The OP's complaint is flat out valid and all the cheerleaders in the world aren't going to remove the responsibility from RCI's shoulders on this one. It's THEIR fault. Period. They screwed up, they ruined somone's vacation, they haven't reimbursed him yet and they owe him a hell of a lot more than 900.00 bucks, in my opinion. If I lost 3 days of my ONLY two weeks a year vacation, had to fork out tons of extra money and STILL couldn't get my money....makes my blood boil just thinking about it and it wasn't even me! :rolleyes:

[Aquahound]

Forgive me if I missed this somewhere in this thread.

 

I am still confused how a seat was assigned on the airplane if it supposedly was not paid for. That is something I have never seen before and therefore makes me ask the question. Do the airlines allow the cruise lines to reserve seats without paying for them?

[VernRDH]

Forgive me if I sounded harsh, but the OP is a TA. It is reasonable to expect her to be more aware of these issues than the average consumer.

 

Again, as Aquahound asked, how did he have a confirmed seat without it being paid for?

 

And as I asked, what about online check in? Would that not have given her an extra 24 hours to settle the problem? I would estimate that most of us here on CC use online check in for air travel, we sure do use it for our cruises!

 

I didn't say that she wasn't due the money, she is. But the fact remains that there are a few questions about how this happened. I am not a cheerleader, just pointing out that possibly RCI is not at fault, maybe Delta is.

[long4theocean]

Yes I did. Several times I checked the seat assignments and everything looked in order.

[long4theocean]

Trust me I was popping a cork. I worked for an airline at the couner for 5 years. I am pretty sure they could have done something but with the flight oversold and no tickets showing in inventory to sell then they really had nothing to go off of. I know that our supervisors at the airline that I worked for did some pretty crafty things in certain situations. Each one has their own policy and each supervisor is different in how they handle situations. I got on the plane crying my eyes out.

[long4theocean]

Evidenly they do. Like I said I checked the seat assignments several times prior to departure. I did try to check in online the night before but was unalbe to. I didn't think much of it because if there is a change in aircraft sometimes that can dump the seat assignments, etc. There are a lot of different factors that can happen so since I had checked everything many many times I thought everything was fine.

[long4theocean]

We were not last to show up. We were at the kiosk to check in along with everyone else. I had 6 of us on that flight and 21 on an American flight. The rest of the group had their own air as some had vouchers with Southwest, etc. The reason for the last call is because we were at the counter then the rest of the time trying to get the problem resolved.

[long4theocean]

Thank you.

[alexkrn46]

Just an update. It is now June 5th and still no check in hand. I continue to get the run around from RCI and they really act like they don't care. I have emailed one of our local news stations with there "problem solvers" but I guess they are not interested since I have not heard from them.

 

Will keep you posted. I'm still very angry with Royal.

\

 

 

Wow, thanks for the update, I hope you can find some resolution.