I have never received worst customer service in all my life. I was onboard the Serenade of the Seas on June 7, 2008 and had a problem with the shower pipe leaking and our carpet was wet. We told maintenance and they fixed the leakage but didn't do anything about the carpet. We called them again and they used a machine to suck up the water. The floor was still wet. We called them AGAIN and they told us they will bring an air blower to dry the carpet. At night we couldn't move the blower out of the room because it was so heavy that we could just push it aside. Our room was 165 square feet, it is really small to have that in the room and to walk around it in the dark to head to the washroom at night. Next day, our room had a really bad odor. I went to the guest services desk (which was the first of many trips over there and there were always line ups) and never did they apologize for our inconvenience. (name deleted) (Asst. Guest Services Manager) called the floor manager to check out our room. He agreed with the odor and told maintenance to change the carpet. Maintenance said not until next morning. They didn't have rooms to switch us to and thus they shampooed the carpet to remove the odor. (Name deleted) told us she will see how they will compensate us for the days of inconvenience and get back to me the next day with a letter in my room around 9 am or 10am. The fumes from the shampooing was just as strong as the odor and we were forced to sleep with it. The floor manager told us at night to call maintenance and they will take the blower out of the room for us. We called and they answered and said they will send someone to our room. NO ONE ever came! Next day after returning from the port of call, I returned to the room and no letter. I again made a trip to guest services and (name deleted) was not going to be there for another 2 hours. Shouldn't there be another supervisor or manager on hand?? She promised a letter and it was just a broken promise. Throughout the course of time I had to continue to chase for things to be done and chase for answers. All I kept getting were excuses. I went to the desk and she said that the manager was in a meeting all day and told me she still has yet to get an answer for the compensation. She finally got it and called me to tell me that she will give us a 20% discount on a future cruise. I told her it was unacceptable as it wasn't like we spilled water onto the carpet and got it wet ourselves. We paid for 7 days and should have received 7 days of no inconvenience and after this experience I do not plan on stepping foot on another Royal Caribbean ship ever and her answer was "the decision is final". She doesn't know what customer service means and instead of ruining 2 to 3 days she ruined the remainder of the trip. If you cruise with Royal Carribbean and have no problems with your stateroom then you will have a good trip but if you are unlucky to get a leaky room then it is like buyer beware and you have to just deal with it. Even their Corporate office refuses to apologize for their maintenance ruining our cruise. All I want is an apology and I was not able to get one from anyone. Please save your money and cruise with any other line except for Royal Caribbean and Celebrity. I paid full price for a non-leaky room and should get some money refunded but again they do not know what customer service means.


Edited to delete employee names.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Cruise Fanatic,

The people on the ship are not empowered to make calls on compensation. They have to contact the home office. Don't shoot the messenger. She was just telling you what corporate had approved.

So on the basis on one problem on one cruise, we should throw the entire line and their other brand (Celebrity) under the bus? Sorry, but using that logic I'd never again be able to buy gasoline, buy food, buy a car, etc.

Take the 20% and move on. Your rant here may make you feel better but it isn't going to change my mind or anyone else's.

I just returned from an RCI cruise where the crew, purser's desk, and vessel condition was the best I've seen. So therefore I highly recommend RCI to everyone. See, it can work both ways.

quote:

If you cruise with Royal Carribbean and have no problems with your stateroom then you will have a good trip but if you are unlucky to get a leaky room then it is like buyer beware and you have to just deal with it.

We had a soggy carpet on a Celebrity cruise last year, and they took very good care of us. They apologized immediately and even sent a gift to our cabin. We still had a great time. RCI's offer to you was very generous, and I agree with Dave that I'd accept it and move on.

LisaP

Picky picky.....What they offered was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick...
You may have been inconvenienced but life isn't always fair.....Happier cruising next time...

Bob E

quote:

We had a soggy carpet on a Celebrity cruise last year, and they took very good care of us. They apologized immediately and even sent a gift to our cabin. We still had a great time. RCI's offer to you was very generous, and I agree with Dave that I'd accept it and move on.

Lisa, you are polite and considerate of others. That tone and a request for for a sollution is always a great start. An angry rant, whether in person or on a chat forum seldom gets the desired result. It causes defensiveness, then combine an angry rant with a demand, yes I said demand not request, an you'll usually convince those with decision making ability that this is not a person that will go quietly away and say nice things about the sollution offered. What compensation would have satisfied this guest? I suspect we'll never know since this was the first and probably only post we'll see. They will certainly find as many places as possible to spread this rant.

It is very unfortunate when things go wrong on vacation, on a ship or anywhere. I've sailed with RCCL many times and never had soggy carpet or a leaky pipe. Hope I never do. I have had a pipe burst at home and ruined sheetrock, carpet insulation and more. It was frustrating and expensive. It took longer to get someone out to fix than I'd have liked. It cost more than I wanted to pay. Such is life, and things do sometimes go wrong. Your attitude will greatly determine how you are dealt with in most things in life.

I'll be back on RCCL in the future and I look forward to it.

Cheers, Neil

What does Celebrity have to do with this?

I have cruised many times with Royal Caribbean, and have never experienced bad customer service. It's unfortunate that your pipe was leaky, but it sounds like they did what was feasible to remedy the situation.

Are you thinking you deserve more compensation than the 20% off your next cruise? What more do you think they should do? Did you and your party not eat the food several times a day? Did you go to the shows? Did you use any of the ship's free facilities, like the gym?

Had you planned to stay in your room 24 hours a day, but couldn't because it was so unpleasant? Is that how your vacation was ruined? Did you miss activities onboard because you were on the phone or on line?

I hate to use the old "glass half full vs glass half empty" adage, but...

As was mentioned, stamping your foot and saying you'll never sail Royal Caribbean again, and you'll make sure no one else ever does, either, is enough reason for folks not to be sympathetic to you. I'm actually surprised they gave you anything because you said you'd never sail RCI again, so why should they bother giving you a future discount?

Certainly it's a good idea for you to "vote with your feet" and not sail any cruise line again that you didn't like the last time. But if you think your description of this cruise will keep anyone from sailing with them, you're not aware of the great job they do 99.999% of the time for the million people who have sailed with them.

Sandy

I think you wanted an opportunity to vent and you got it! It sounds like a really bad experience and I do sympathize with you. I can't imagine spending several days with wet carpet. Yuck! We all want our cruises to be perfect. But it just doesn't happen. You want to look at the positives--good food, new friends, interesting ports, etc.

We just returned from a Princess cruise and were not totally happy with the service. One of our problems concerned a maintenance issue also. It took 5 days (out of a 7 day cruise) to get it resolved. So it is not just RCCL! However, there were so many positives on this cruise that we refuse to let the negatives spoil the wonderful memories.

Now that you have vented, I hope you can look at the pictures you took and remember the good times that you had. RCCL and Celebrity are good lines and I do hope you can get past this and give them another chance.

Nadine

Just what I want to hear…more negativism.

We was on the Serenade in May. We had a nightmare bus ride from Seattle to Vancouver that we purchased thru RCCI, It was 85 degrees and we rode in a bus for 4 1/2 hrs without no AC and couldn't open the windows.It was a misable ride.They did give us a warm bottle of water and 2 cookies. After we got on the Serenade, I went to the Pursers Desk about something else and said something about the bus ride.The woman I talked to said she was sorry to hear about the bus ride and said there was not much she could do but did offer me $10.00 credit to use the internet and told me to call customer service when we got home.I not only called but also wrote a letter. 2 weeks after we had been back,I received 2 letters from RCCI and they both said sorry about the bus ride and they hope we sail RCCI again and they will keep in mind about the bus company.Well,we had already booked a cruise on AOS from San Juan next year and i called my agent to finalize it and told her about the bus ride.While I was on the phone with her,she called RCCI and told them about our bus ride and that we was booking the cruise on AOS next april and they gave us a $50.00 on board credit for our next cruise on the AOS. Was we unhappy about the bus ride,you bet,but sometimes things are out of control of the cruise lines and sometimes when things don't go right,it depends on how you talk to people and what people talk to them. As far as getting help on the ship with something wrong (my experience ),I have found Carnival goes above and beyond more than RCCI.

stop your moaning they offered you 20 percent take it while you can. By the sound of it there was a lack of communications along the line. But You told them there was a leaking pipe then they tried to fix it and clean the carpet and offer you 20 percent of the next cruise what more do you want.????

If we had quit RCCL after a bad experience (Nordic Prince 1994--She was already sold to another cruiseline and had not been maintained at all toward the end of her run) we would have missed the trips of a life time (EVERYTHING since 1994). But even the 1994 debacle had some great food, funny comedians, warm sunshine, and ports of call we had not seen before. Plus I was pregnant and the WHOLE ships crew bent over backward to "take care of the little pregnant lady". I would have to tax my memory bank some to remember the soot on deck from a bad engine, dirty and peeled back carpeting, construction noises form a room worse off than ours, endless noise and dirt--I guess I was happier not remembering. Love those new Voyager Class ships! Focus on what was good or all the money you spent is going to be wasted.

Normally, one of the moderators welcomes a new poster to the board, but I didn't see one - so welcome to cruise-chat.

As you have seen, some of the posters on this board take umbrage at people who disparage RCL. Don't take it personally - you aren't the first and won't be the last to draw their ire.

Like all cruise lines, RCL has its good points and not so good points. It sounds like you had a bad experience, and I support your right to vent, but you need to understand that RCL, at any one point in time, has tens of thousands of passengers and crew at sea. I cringe at the thought of how many problems arise every day that they are forced to deal with.

If you cruise often enough you will find that you are going to have some types of inconveniences - after all you are on a ship hundreds or thousands of miles from land (and the home office). Generally, the hotel staff does it best to resolve those problems, but you need to learn to roll with the punches. Don't let one problem ruin a whole cruise.

I know your vent was not about the problem, but about the ship's response to your problem, but from you said it appears that they tried to be responsive. Give them the benefit of the doubt - take the 20% and cruise RCL again and see how good they can be.

By the way, all cruise lines have similar problems. On my last two cruises (not RCL), we had (1)a collision at sea that punched a hole in the front of the boat (room service was slow for HOURS after that!), and (2) a cabin with no beds (it did make the cabin appear much larger).

And remember, the worst day on a cruise is better than the best day at work.

quote:

As you have seen, some of the posters on this board take umbrage at people who disparage RCL

The umbrage has nothing to do with it being RCI. You will find similar replies to rants about Carnival, Celebrity, Princess, even NCL.

The jaundiced eye falls on any new post which is an opus about one problem and how it destroyed the entire cruise, but they don't ever mention anything that was good. It happens every week or so and to be honest they get tiresome to read after a couple sentences. I guess I could write eight or ten paragraphs bemoaning the steam-table hardened hot dog buns at the Windjammer last week, but then that was the only problem we encountered.

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Beers:

quote:

As you have seen, some of the posters on this board take umbrage at people who disparage RCL

The umbrage has nothing to do with it being RCI. You will find similar replies to rants about Carnival, Celebrity, Princess, even NCL.

The jaundiced eye falls on any new post which is an opus about one problem and how it destroyed the entire cruise, but they don't ever mention anything that was good. It happens every week or so and to be honest they get tiresome to read after a couple sentences. I guess I could write eight or ten paragraphs bemoaning the steam-table hardened hot dog buns at the Windjammer last week, but then that was the only problem we encountered.

Dave, I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea about the job description for a Moderator. But I dare say it does include the use of a jaundiced eye

One would think that a Moderator would treat posters equally - be they philes or phobes. I know that in your time you have seen your share of negative comments, but I guess that would go with the job.

Perhaps what Rudyard Kipling said in "If" -

"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs...And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;"

might apply to the Moderator's job. One might get tired of what is perceived to be a negative post, but one should also realize that this might be a brand new experience for a poster.

Perhaps we could try to educate them rather than putting them down?

I'm sorry you had a bad experience. I believe you posted the same post on another forum as well.

We have never had a problem on a RCL ship. We had an airline mixup one time (due to our TAs mistake) and the staff on Enchantment went above and beyond what we expected to help us straighten it out.

This OP has bellowed the same disparaging review on other boards as well. Pass the popcorn

I'm going to close this thread since it is nothing but an endless loop with regard to the original post. Nothing against Rudyard Kipling or his coaching acumen. <ahem>