Royal Caribbean Problem UPDATE
 

We cruised RCL Majesty of the Seas 7-19 to 7-23. We arrived at the boat at 11. Check in easy. Went to have lunch and went tour our cabin around 1;30. The luggage was outside the door. Great. Open the door there is a fan on the floor and the room smells.

I call to the front desk and tell them and they said let housekeeping come and look at it and get back to us in an hour. I said housekeeping is not going to be able to fix this problem. We ran into our steward who said he told them no one would stay in that cabin. The plumbing from upstairs leaked down.

An hour later we call and they say yes there is a problem. No fooling. They tell me that the ship is full and they will see what they can do. Great what does that mean should we just leave because there is no way we can stay in that room. Call back she will let us know.

4:30 I call and she says we can not get a room until all the passengers have boarded and they see what rooms they have left. I burst into tears. We left Chicago at 4AM here it is 4Pm we are wearing the same clothes would love to take a shower and a nap. 6Pm we finally get a room and they tell us they up graded us from an interior cabin to a ocean view cabin.

OK Not a good way to start a vacation but it is not going to ruin our vacation either. We will call customer service when we arrive home. I will say that the food , drink, entertainment, wait staff and ship itself was awesome. But the front desk and customer service absolutely sucked

On Wednesday we played Bingo and I won an upgrade to a balcony suite. WOW HURRAY. Another couple also won. We go pack from one room to go to the new room. We meet the other couple outside the door and they said don’t go in there. She put her key in the door opened it and there was a couple in there. They had given us keys to rooms that were occupied. Our room had people in it also.

I go to the courtesy phone and tell them what happened and they tell us to come back down and switch keys. I don’t think so you made this mistake you bring us our new keys.

When we returned I documented all of this to RCL. Yes I was looking for a little compensation. They told me my compensation was the upgrade from the interior cabin to the ocean view cabin.

I posted this on cruisecritic.com besides being told whats the big deal I am a cry baby by some, now post has been deleted. I feel Cruise critic does not want postings about problems on cruises.


This is our fourth cruise with RCL And probably our last. The customer service is terrible. To tell me that I was compensated by being upgraded is insulting. The room that you were going to give was uninhabitable. For us to have to wait till the ship takes off to get a
Room is ridiculous. We were all set to book another cruise onboard as you get a onboard credit if you book your next sailing while you are on the ship. If you are a first time cruiser I would try RCL but hope you do not have any problems that require the front desk or
Customer service.

I read your post on cruise critic this morning. I am so sorry that you had the problem. However, $hit happens on all vacations. Best thing to do is try to make lemonade out of lemons. I, too, have had problems with the staff at the RCI's pursers desk (I have been on 8 RCI cruises). Frustrating, YES. It did not help that you were tired. (I always fly into a port at least one day, if not two prior to a cruise.) Yes, you were upgraded to an ocean view cabin in RCI's eyes. Perhaps RCI is not the cruise line for you. All have there pros and cons.

At least you had a good time on the cruise despite the problems. Look it as an adventure (albeit not one you want to repeat).

Sorry, but I think you're out for compensation and nothing else. I'll echo what you've already heard. An upgrade like that is a lot of compensation. So, you couldn't go to your room for a couple of hours, big whoop....

I'm sure it was frustrating and irritating. But you WERE compensated, and compensated nicely with an upgrade. I think that was completely in line with what should be expected.

I believe cruise critic probably deleted your thread due to the way the initial post was formatted. I have been a cc member for years and years and have seen hundreds of complaints of various cruiselines. I don't think they were trying to hide a problem on a cruise.

I understand if this has tainted your view, however, I think they did the best they could for you.

I understand your frustration, but honestly the upgrade to an oceanview cabin seems like adequate compensation to me.

You guys are tougher than we are on the CC board!
 

Having said that, I agree that the upgrade was way and above what one should expect in compensation.

I don't cruise RCL, Please explain the rationale of switching cabins (granted a balcony) in the middle of a cruise. ( you did say it was as the result of a win in the casino and casinos don't open until you are at sea}.

ralph

What is it you are looking for from them? Money? A free trip? Every trip for the rest of your life free?

I really don't see what you expect from them. Things happen. They made good on it by giving you a new room. End of discussion.

Am I missing something here? The way I read the OP's post she WON the upgrade at bingo. She would have had that even if there had not been a problem with the original cabin. So RCCL did not compensate her at all for the stink hole they put her in.

[QUOTE=cordelli;14392923]What is it you are looking for from them? Money? A free trip? Every trip for the rest of your life free?

No Of course not. An apology for one thing would be nice. Maybe a 25.00 credit to get two drinks while waiting would have been nice.Ok Lets jut say we took off and there were no rooms available then where would be. They told us they did not know. It is hard to start your vacation like that.

If the only room that had available was the ocean view and they put us in there that is not an upgrade that is they paid for a room and that is the only one we have left.

My point here is we still had a good time because we realized that all is not perfect BUT RCL has a problem with the front desk personnell.

They booked an inside cabin, where there was a problem
They were moved to an ocean view cabin. That was the upgrade they feel was compensation.

The suite thing came later and is totally not related to the issue at hand at all.

They could have "upgraded" one of the more frequent travelers who had booked an inside to that outside and given the OP their inside, but they choose to upgrade them for the inconvenience.


Well you know that's not true, because apparently there were also at least two suites available.

I agree with cordelli. OP was compensated. Truth be known, most ships go out with a few cabins available even if it is considered sold out. RCI is not known for their warm and fuzzy purser's office. Turnaround day is very busy at the purser's office. I'm sure there is paper (computer) work to change cabins, etc., etc. It takes time. Who knows, they may have upgraded someone from an OV cabin to a suite to get the OV cabin for the OP.

As for compensation other than an upgrade, heck, on my last B2B cruise in the Caribbean (second day of the first cruise), one the photographers was hounding me so much that he pushed me into a concrete bench. I received a black and blue mark the size of a grapefruit and it sure hurt. It took a month to heal. By the end of the cruise every on the ship wanted to see the bruise (on my upper thigh). I visited the purser's office to complain about the photographers in general..."no" means "no photo" (wasn't looking for compensation). I did not get a "sorry", but they sent me a $10 bottle of wine. I guess they thought the wine would make my boo boo better! We laugh about it now.

Sure RCL could've done that but IMHO would still have had to compensate OP in some way for the delay in getting the family an inhabitable cabin, such as an OBC. There was also the risk OP found out someone else had been bumped up and they accommodated in that person's interior cabin which might've made an already challenging situation worse.

FWIW I think RCL tried to make good on a tough situation at the start and that says something to me, the latter suite snafu notwithstanding. Of course that's just MHO.

I find this post very dissapointing.

There was a relatively minor unforeseen problem that was sorted out to your very generous advantage. You then basically went on to do all you could to ruin your own holiday out of a sense of misplaced and over-optimistic greed. This attitude of unrelenting pursuit of compensation come what may even when the problem is unforeseen and resolved well is one of the most distasteful developments of consumerism.

Go back and thank them for handling the problem well and giving you an upgrade.

So they put you in a room with a major leak. How is it they didn't know immediately what cabins would be empty (they made you wait till boarding was done) and yet they had two empty balconies to give away as prizes later? (were they just balcony cabins or actually suites..)

You may argue that the upgrade from inside to view is nice, but if they had an empty balcony/suite, good customer service would be to put the distressed passenger in the nice room. An Ocean view room isn't THAT big an upgrade -- they are still small. And dont forget, the line does owe them a habitable room.

With respect ..... why should everything in life that goes wrong in life - however trivial and however quickly resolved - always be compensated for as though a great catastrophe has caused despicable suffering?

There is a difference between resolving a problem quickly and generously- and putting right through compensation some great loss. The cruise line put this issue right to the customers advantage as quickly as they could. The demand of compensation is outrageous.

Let's please get a grip to some sort of reality.