YVR Cockroach

Out of interest, which HAL ship and what was the issue that prevented use of the balcony? I don't think the staff on board for the mass market lines (haven't sailed any premium/luxury ones yet, and the next one is French....) are empowered to do very much, not even move cabins (even on ships that are not sailing full) when there's a problem. I do think they're also trained to smile and fob off doing anything of value. Fortunately I've never had any issues that weren't easily addressed.

On my first HAL cruise, that was exactly how onboard CS response was to top-tier loyal customers who paid for suites. The issue was raw sewage stench on one (sunny) side of the ship that pretty much made sitting on the verandah impossible (we noticed it walking around the ship). Fortunately we were on the shady side which had no stench.

bicker

This difference makes a lot of sense and should be expected. Holland America is a mass-market, mid-grade cruise line, affordable by a sizable portion of the marketplace. As do all mass-market service providers, in all industries, Holland America crafts a product offering deliberately balancing costs and quality. Meanwhile, Regent Seven Seas is a luxury cruise line, affordable by very few, and so they had better offer substantially better - everything - as compared to Holland America.

Yes, there are surely a lot of people who jump from the frying pan into the fire, spiting themselves out of some misguided believe that some other service provider of the same grade will perform differently in the same circumstances. After you jump from Holland America to Princess to Celebrity (or Royal Caribbean to Carnival to NCL, for that matter) and then back again, you come to realize all you have done is spread your patronage around, thereby making it more difficult to obtain the valuable elite status on any of the cruise lines.