Beware of cabin switching

[CaymanCraig]

Let me preface this by saying that we LOVE Celebrity. We have been on many lines and Celebrity is, hands down, our favorite. However, we did have our first bad experience with Celebrity recently and just wanted to give folks a heads up. We booked a suite guarantee. Right before the cruise, Celebrity assigned us to a handicapped suite. Cool! Awesome bathroom with huge shower, room to move around, etc. No problem. On our third day of the cruise we got a call from the front desk. They said they had a guest in a regular suite who was not able to climb into the tub/bath and would we consider changing cabins with them. For one brief moment, we felt put out by the inconvenience of having to move all of our stuff and unpack again in the new cabin. But then our feelings of kindness for the woman in need quickly overcame any hesitation. The actual move wasn’t that bad as the butlers in the two suites helped by using wheeled garment racks to move our stuff. It was after the move that the nightmare began. The first time we tried to exit the ship my wife’s sign-and-sail card was rejected because the computer showed the other person’s picture that we switched with. We went to the front desk and they got it straightened out but it took forever to get off the ship. This happened again SEVERAL times during the cruise. We got so tired of trips to the front desk and enough new sign-and-sail cards to start a collection. Then there were issues with excursion tickets being delivered to the wrong cabin. Invitations to special events being delivered to the wrong cabin. And don’t even let me get started about the number of charges to our account that belonged to the other people we switched with. It was a nightmare sorting it all out. Also, we were rather surprised we weren’t offered any type of monetary compensation for our troubles. We weren’t necessarily expecting anything—we wanted to do this as a kindness to the handicapped woman who was in need and no reward was needed. But still, we were surprised that the cruise line didn’t do something. We did get an invitation to the Captain’s table and a bridge tour, but we don’t know if that was a result of the cabin switch or just because we were in a suite. Anyway, so after our cruise, we thought it was finally all behind us, when we got a call from Celebrity SIX months later stating that we still had an outstanding balance owed on our account! This nightmare just won’t seem to end. We still love Celebrity and we will be cruising them often. But if any cruiseline ever asks you to switch cabins for any reason, word to the wise, don’t do it.

[Elaine0138]

You cannot disembark the ship if you have any outstanding balance on your account, perhaps the other passengers are disputing some of the charges they had on their account.

[Jade13]

Is this resolved yet? Yikes.

[dkjretired]

Let me preface this by saying that we LOVE Celebrity. We have been on many lines and Celebrity is, hands down, our favorite. However, we did have our first bad experience with Celebrity recently and just wanted to give folks a heads up. We booked a suite guarantee. Right before the cruise, Celebrity assigned us to a handicapped suite. Cool! Awesome bathroom with huge shower, room to move around, etc. No problem. On our third day of the cruise we got a call from the front desk. They said they had a guest in a regular suite who was not able to climb into the tub/bath and would we consider changing cabins with them. For one brief moment, we felt put out by the inconvenience of having to move all of our stuff and unpack again in the new cabin. But then our feelings of kindness for the woman in need quickly overcame any hesitation. The actual move wasn’t that bad as the butlers in the two suites helped by using wheeled garment racks to move our stuff. It was after the move that the nightmare began. The first time we tried to exit the ship my wife’s sign-and-sail card was rejected because the computer showed the other person’s picture that we switched with. We went to the front desk and they got it straightened out but it took forever to get off the ship. This happened again SEVERAL times during the cruise. We got so tired of trips to the front desk and enough new sign-and-sail cards to start a collection. Then there were issues with excursion tickets being delivered to the wrong cabin. Invitations to special events being delivered to the wrong cabin. And don’t even let me get started about the number of charges to our account that belonged to the other people we switched with. It was a nightmare sorting it all out. Also, we were rather surprised we weren’t offered any type of monetary compensation for our troubles. We weren’t necessarily expecting anything—we wanted to do this as a kindness to the handicapped woman who was in need and no reward was needed. But still, we were surprised that the cruise line didn’t do something. We did get an invitation to the Captain’s table and a bridge tour, but we don’t know if that was a result of the cabin switch or just because we were in a suite. Anyway, so after our cruise, we thought it was finally all behind us, when we got a call from Celebrity SIX months later stating that we still had an outstanding balance owed on our account! This nightmare just won’t seem to end. We still love Celebrity and we will be cruising them often. But if any cruiseline ever asks you to switch cabins for any reason, word to the wise, don’t do it.

 

Thank you for the excellent letter and you should be congratulated for changing the cabins in the first place and your attitude afterwards. This is a good heads up to cruisers out there.

[chessbriar]

Sorry to hear of your troubles with switching cabins. We have done it many time and never had any problems.

 

Good luck on putting this behind you

[GD2J]

You cannot disembark the ship if you have any outstanding balance on your account, perhaps the other passengers are disputing some of the charges they had on their account.

So, if you continue to not pay up, do you get to go on the next sailing? :confused: We were talking about this exact thing at work this morning, and we thought going on the next departure because they won't let you off the ship would not be much of a deterrant! :D

[iflyjets]

I would be writing a letter to the CEO/President of the Celebrity division of RCI. You should not feel badgered for your kindness. If this has not stopped by now, I might even tell Celebrity that I was making a complaint to the BBB (as RCI is a Miami-based corporation).

 

You can, of course, do all this without sounding vitriolic, merely firm in trying to make Celebrity understand your frustration and irritation at their failure to correct the situation.

 

Good luck, and please let us all know how this ends.

[usha]

No good deed goes unpunished, does it?:eek:

What a mess, but I do admire your generosity in agreeing to the switch to begin with, and I appreciate the heads-up to the rest of us.

[sunlovermtl]

I agree defintely write letterSSS. We did this in 2004 when we had a problem with the way my mother in laws injury was treated and the fact that the delapitated stairs were to blame. The letterSSSS worked and we did receive compensation. Persistant pays off. You might want to mention that because of this event you are now looking at other cruise lines like Holland America who have an excellent rating.

[lysolqn]

Also, we were rather surprised we weren’t offered any type of monetary compensation for our troubles. We weren’t necessarily expecting anything—we wanted to do this as a kindness to the handicapped woman who was in need and no reward was needed. But still, we were surprised that the cruise line didn’t do something.

 

I was with you all the way re the hassle you experienced, although even without changing cabins there have been times when our cards haven't worked at the gangway (and elsewhere!) and times when charges we didn't incur showed up on our account, resulting in our having had to spend time righting the annoying wrongs. However, you lost me big time by mentioning the cruise line not doing "something" and your not having been offered "any type of monetary compensation" in exchange for the kindness you showed another passenger. Though you say "no reward was needed" and you weren't "necessarily expecting anything," your surprise and apparent disappointment in not getting that which you say you weren't expecting in the first place, says otherwise. IMHO, the cruise line owed you nothing other than insuring the cabin switch was seamless for you, which unfortunately, it was not. Annoying as they are, card issues and account errors are not unusual. Beyond that, thanks should have come directly from the passenger - a nice note or perhaps a bottle of wine. I can't imagine why you'd be 'surprised' by getting nothing from the cruise line other than assistance with your move.

 

Re the demand six months after the fact that you pay for charges you didn't incur, call your credit card company and you should be able to easily resolve that issue to your satisfaction.

Good luck.

[FinelyCruising]

How much are we taking about and are the charges in fact yours? If they are in fact yours I suspect that you would have known that your bill was short if what they are asking is not an incidental amount. I too would have taken a wait and see if that was the case, after all the card mix-ups who knows what they would have ever gotten accounted for.

 

Good for you for being a good samaritan. :)

[sasset]

I was with you all the way re the hassle you experienced, although even without changing cabins there have been times when our cards haven't worked at the gangway (and elsewhere!) and times when charges we didn't incur showed up on our account, resulting in our having had to spend time righting the annoying wrongs. However, you lost me big time by mentioning the cruise line not doing "something" and your not having been offered "any type of monetary compensation" in exchange for the kindness you showed another passenger. Though you say "no reward was needed" and you weren't "necessarily expecting anything," your surprise and apparent disappointment in not getting that which you say you weren't expecting in the first place, says otherwise. IMHO, the cruise line owed you nothing other than insuring the cabin switch was seamless for you, which unfortunately, it was not. Annoying as they are, card issues and account errors are not unusual. Beyond that, thanks should have come directly from the passenger - a nice note or perhaps a bottle of wine. I can't imagine why you'd be 'surprised' by getting nothing from the cruise line other than assistance with your move.

 

Re the demand six months after the fact that you pay for charges you didn't incur, call your credit card company and you should be able to easily resolve that issue to your satisfaction.

Good luck.

 

I think that the original poster is due some "Thank you" compensation from Celebrity. Not for graciously agreeing to change cabins, but for Celebrity's incompetent bookkeeping in the accounts after the switch.

 

Regards

[lysolqn]

I think that the original poster is due some "Thank you" compensation from Celebrity. Not for graciously agreeing to change cabins, but for Celebrity's incompetent bookkeeping in the accounts after the switch.

 

Regards

 

I respectfully disagree with you; not every unpleasant, unfair, undeserving and/or aggravating thing that happens to us merits compensation. What X owes the OP now is a quick and complete resolution to the issue of its demand that he make good on charges not incurred by him or his wife. The easiest way to accomplish that is for the OP to work through his credit card company, assuming he settled his account with a credit card. The entitlement mindset that X owes him something for his troubles is outrageous. What does American Express, Mastercard, Visa, et. al. owe someone when an error appears on someone's monthly bill? The answer is nothing other than the correction of that error. Why hold the cruise line to a higher standard? Stuff happens. Deal with it.

[sasset]

My problem here is that Celebrity has not made any effort to correct the mistake. The poster has to jump through hoops to prove his/her case rather than Celebrity taking it upon themselves to fix it. Celebrity asked the poster to change cabins and so far the poster's thank you for agreeing is nothing but grief all caused by Celebrity.

[JennAngel9]

What X owes the OP now is a quick and complete resolution to the issue of its demand that he make good on charges not incurred by him or his wife... Deal with it.

 

lysolqn, i think we all agree with you that compensation is not owed for every inconvenience, but I think a number of us reading this thread feel that there was no "quick and complete resolution" of many issues the OP dealt with. It's one thing to have a broken key card or a missed invitation-- but if you are wasting hours of your cruise at the purser's desk, and having to deal with the same problems over and over again.. at a certain point, it doesn't even feel like a vacation.

 

I'm not saying that the OP should get a free cruise (and it doesn't sound like they are/were looking for anything like that), but a specialty dining & bottle of wine would probably have been a nice and appropriate gesture.

 

On the other hand, if Captain's Table WAS the special thank you gesture... well, I'm not sure it gets much better than that!

[CaymanCraig]

Thank you all for your comments. To answer one of the questions posted, yes, the matter is completely resolved now. First, no, we did not know there was a balance due when we disembarked because there wasn't any. We settled up with the ship the day before. The outstanding balance that they called us about six months later was for charges that they had not put on our bill yet because of the confusion about charges made by us and the folks we switched with. And when they called us to notify us there was a balance due, we asked for an itemized statement. Both our bill on the ship and this bill, were sooooo confusing we couldn't make heads or tails out of it. There were so many credits and debits from where the ship DAILY had to make adjustments to our bill because of continued mix-ups between us and the folks we switched with, that it would have taken a CPA to figure it all out. Not to mention one tends to forget what one had to eat or drink six months ago. Some things were obvious, like excursions and spa treatments, but all the little stuff was just one big confusing mess. And the credits and debits didn't match up at all. The amount in question was only about $160 so we just paid it so we could put the matter to rest.

 

Our sole purpose in writing this posting is to give folks a heads up that switching cabins can be really, really tricky.

 

Thanks again for the comments and advice. Much appreciated. We still love cruising and we still love Celebrity. Cruise on!!! :-)

[FinelyCruising]

I re-read this again after some recent posts, my read is that the newest issue is the contact from X on the newly found uncollected balance just accounted for. The issues of known erroneous charges were dealt with while on board.

 

Still, Kiss this one up. It was a Good Deed for sure. :)

 

(Did the Lady say Thank You????:o)

[pris993]

I was with you all the way re the hassle you experienced, although even without changing cabins there have been times when our cards haven't worked at the gangway (and elsewhere!) and times when charges we didn't incur showed up on our account, resulting in our having had to spend time righting the annoying wrongs. However, you lost me big time by mentioning the cruise line not doing "something" and your not having been offered "any type of monetary compensation" in exchange for the kindness you showed another passenger. Though you say "no reward was needed" and you weren't "necessarily expecting anything," your surprise and apparent disappointment in not getting that which you say you weren't expecting in the first place, says otherwise. IMHO, the cruise line owed you nothing other than insuring the cabin switch was seamless for you, which unfortunately, it was not. Annoying as they are, card issues and account errors are not unusual. Beyond that, thanks should have come directly from the passenger - a nice note or perhaps a bottle of wine. I can't imagine why you'd be 'surprised' by getting nothing from the cruise line other than assistance with your move.

 

Re the demand six months after the fact that you pay for charges you didn't incur, call your credit card company and you should be able to easily resolve that issue to your satisfaction.

Good luck.

 

 

I disagree because cruiselines did not make this a seamless switch at all. I think the cruiseline needed to step up to the plate and reward these folks. The cruiseline had more to gain by doing so than the other passenger in good PR. Unfortunately the cruiseline screwed up!!

[FinelyCruising]

I disagree because cruiselines did not make this a seamless switch at all. I think the cruiseline needed to step up to the plate and reward these folks. The cruiseline had more to gain by doing so than the other passenger in good PR. Unfortunately the cruiseline screwed up!!

 

Disagree. Each guest paid in full for the cabin they received. There was no deception, and the cruise line merely acted as an intermediary to accommodate a guest. The beneficiary of that relationship between the cruiseline and the OP was the Lady.

 

Who I hope at least passed to the OP a hearty and sincere Thanks. As in a bottle of wine, or the like.

[CaymanCraig]

Yes, the woman and her daughter thanked us profusely. Turns out, they booked the cruise originally in a handicap room. Then the woman, who is both handicapped and terminally ill, was told by her doc that she was too sick to cruise. So they cancelled the cruise. Then the doc said, "hey, you know what--you should just go anyway and have a great time." So they called and re-booked the cruise. But by then, the cruiseline had already assigned that previously-booked handicap room to us. So they put the folks in a regular suite. But the gals didn't realize until after they boarded that the suite has a very tall bathtub. Thus, the request to switch. Needless to say, we were very glad we could help her out. They were very nice about the whole thing. Her only other option would have been to take all her showers in the spa and we didn't want her to have to do that.

 

For all the resulting issues we dealt with, our hearts went out to these nice ladies who probably had to deal with all the very same issues as we did, in addition to being seriously ill.

 

If we ever book another guarantee, we will probably not accept a handicap cabin. I know they do assign un-used handicap cabins at the last minute, but I don't think we would take that chance again. And honestly, we liked the layout of the regular suite much better than the handicap suite which only had chairs and no sofa. We really enjoyed the sofa and comfy chair in the regular suite.

[excitedofharpenden]

Cayman Craig, that must have been a very frustrating experience to go through. I would like to think I'd be the same kind spirited passenger as you, but I know I would have been cross if they kept messing things up with my keycard, onboard account, invites etc. It would have been nice if Celebrity, once they understood the mistakes you'd had to endure had given you some token to say "sorry". Sometimes this is all that is needed to pacify. I'm glad you have it sorted out now and you can be happy in the knowledge that you made the cabin experience for one person in difficulty much easier, even if they may have had to put up with the same kind administration errors you did!

 

Phil

[Longboysfan]

No good deed goes unpunished, does it?:eek:

 

You got this right.

 

Was the charge from the room cross over change that was the switched passangers?

[joolsb]

But still, we were surprised that the cruise line didn’t do something.

 

This was my feeling entirely when we had problems during our recent Summit cruise (which I have mentioned on a previous thread); at the end of the day if we had had an apology along with a small token (just a bottle of wine even!) then we would probably have been placated to some extent. We received nothing.

 

As it was we felt that we needed to communicate our experiences further, and through our TA we have now received a small amount of compensation, along with a very detailed letter which deals thoroughly with all of our issues. Bearing in mind that we only arrived home 3 weeks ago, we are very impressed with the speed and efficiency with which our concerns have been dealt with.

 

I agree with previous posters therefore that you should write to the cruise line if you are unhappy with the way things were dealt with onboard.

[Longboysfan]

Cayman Craig, that must have been a very frustrating experience to go through. I would like to think I'd be the same kind spirited passenger as you, but I know I would have been cross if they kept messing things up with my keycard, onboard account, invites etc. It would have been nice if Celebrity, once they understood the mistakes you'd had to endure had given you some token to say "sorry". Sometimes this is all that is needed to pacify. I'm glad you have it sorted out now and you can be happy in the knowledge that you made the cabin experience for one person in difficulty much easier, even if they may have had to put up with the same kind administration errors you did!

 

Phil

 

Even a bottle of house champagne in the room would have been nice.

 

The captains table invite may have been you big perc. on the cabin switch.

Bridge tours are for the suites and long time Celebrity cruisers.

[Gracie115]

NO question that whether you expected it or not Celebrity SHOULD have done something for you, I manage a resort in Florida, if I asked a guest to move for ANY reason I would compensate them for their troubles, I should say, I HAVE compensated for their troubles. Yes, the OP did a nice thing they did not have to do. NO, Celebrity owed them nothing, but the OP is the one who was inconvenienced...no matter how little...and as thanks Celebrity should have been gracious enough to do something, if only a bottle of wine..... It's the hospitality business after all and that's what we do.

 

As far as the "charges" now in question, I would definitely be writing a letter now and relaying the WHOLE experience, because what was once a kindness you extended has turned into nothing but an unnecessary hassle and the powers that be at X should know about it. I suspect when they hear/read the whole story your charges will "disappear"....