My wife and I will celebrate our joint retirements while on-board the Star Princess Dec. 3, 2007, sailing from Rome to Ft.Lauderdale.
Our biggest mistakes pre-cruise involve booking through the cruise line and then believing they have credibility and honesty.
As an elite member of Princess Cruises and 38 prior cruises, the only reason why we didn't book with our travel agent is that she has retired.
We had problems with a South America booking in 2006 and they refunded our entire trip cost less than 30 days out from embarkation. We decided to give Princess another try.
Some problems in the booking of this cruise were met with the offer of a $200/pp on-board credit. We asked for a simple upgrade from inside to outside. We received no reply.
We asked three more times for them to respond. Finally we wrote to the main lady in charge of the department. She passed it along to an underling who said, "we never offered anything." That letter just hit us today--five days before the cruise.
We'll have a good time anyway--but will never set foot on another Princess ship. Proverbially, they "lie like a rug."

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Cunard, QM 2
Holland America, Nieuw Amsterdam, Rotterdam
NCL, Norway, Norwegian Dream
Celebrity, Infinity
Princess, Fairwind, Regal,
RCCL, Legend of the Seas
Other now defunct lines, and several sailings upon vessels listed
RCCL

<edited to remove names of Princess employees>

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Dave Beers,

I'm getting the sense that some rather important details are being left out. What exactly do you mean by, "problems in the booking . . ."? A $200 pp onboard credit hardly equates to an upgrade from inside to outside on a 17 day cruise; especially just before Christmas. It sounds to me like you rejected their offer and made an unreasonable counter offer; and nothing was ever actually settled.

I wouldn't consider an upgrade from inside to outside to be "simple" or normal regardless of loyalty status.

Please note that I have also edited this message and it's title to remove the name of the Princess employee. We do not want the names of people used here without their permission, even if those names can be found at a company website. The point can be made without name-dropping, which is little more than a backdoor attack on the person.

I think you are missing the most important point and that is one of BASIC COURTESY. When you are spending thousands of dollars on a vacation, ANY request that you make as a customer deserves a response. That is called "customer service", or you could call it simple "decency". We have found Princess Cruises to have the worst customer service of any of the cruise lines. They are rude and arrogant as veterancruiser39 has discovered. A letter, phone call, fax or email to the customer would have at least addressed his/ her request no matter how unreasonable some may think it was. PRINCESS IS BAD, VERY BAD!

I was explained that cruise ships do sell out and it is almost impossible an upgrade few days prior the cruise.. however, I do think that cruise companies need to follow up with their passengers!

quote:

Originally posted by familycruisin:
I think you are missing the most important point and that is one of BASIC COURTESY. When you are spending thousands of dollars on a vacation, ANY request that you make as a customer deserves a response. That is called "customer service", or you could call it simple "decency". We have found Princess Cruises to have the worst customer service of any of the cruise lines. They are rude and arrogant as veterancruiser39 has discovered. A letter, phone call, fax or email to the customer would have at least addressed his/ her request no matter how unreasonable some may think it was. PRINCESS IS BAD, VERY BAD!

Although I agree with familycruisin about the simple decency of a reply I'm going to do something that's completely new for me and stand up for PCL customer Service. Never thought I'd ever do that as I agree that their service off the ship (at their corporate Office level) was at one time the worst in the industry and is still in need of improvement.

When a cruise is in penalty the cruiseline is not in a position to have to offer anything for "issues". Sounds like there had become a patern of issues for the original poster. A South America sailing that PCL ate the penalty on. Now another issue with a request for compensation because "I have 38 cruises with them" (implying that now the poster deserves special treatment). You'd be amazed how often the "I'm a past cruiser with X sailings" is used as leverage almost as a threat in many cases. First of all, that is the worst way to approach a company that has tens of thousands of past passengers and future passengers are every bit as important to their business, maybe more so since they know the loyal past client likes their product already and has a pre-disposition to sail with them over their competition. They hold all the cards in the matter being addressed, you're asking for them to make an exception to the norm when you ask for special treatment for an issue. They offered compensation, again, they didn't have to make the offer. The offer they made was rejected in an attempt to get more, a free upgrade. They should have responded to the counter offer, no doubt. By this point though I understand the cruiselines position that now there would be no compensation, nothing is good enough. They gave a full refund on a prior sailing, WAY above and beyond in a full penalty situation to keep them happy once (this is very, very rare indeed). Then the very next sailing there are more requests for special treatment. PCL again goes above and beyond and makes an offer that the client rejects. At some point PCL has to decide this client is unreasonable and worth losing. Not knowing many details I'm not saying their decision was the right one but if I were in the position they were in with the record of notes in the system showing a patern like this I'm not sure I'd have done a thing different other than, I'd have responded. The result would have no doubt been the same. A client who felt I was in the wrong and he was far more valuable than the rules in place and he'd have still written bad things about me on here and moved on.

I've criticized princess Customer Service on here before myself. It was horrible just a short time ago, the worst in the industry by far. They have made some changes recently and are beginning to show they do care about the issue and are addressing it. They have implimented a new survey system for incoming calls to track the performance of their agents. They have softened theor tone of snapping at clients and outside agents who ask for special consideration for issues that sometimes arise and need to be addressed. They don't immediately read the script from the screen when you ask for personalized attention to something. They actually get a supervisor involved to discuss the situation. They are by no means the best out there for customer service... yet. But they are trying like never before. I give them credit for recognizing there was a problem and making a sincere effort to address and fix it. Sorry for writing a book on the subject.

Cheers, Neil

This is a strange post. Why should the cruise line give the OP an upgrade? Being Elite is certainly no reason since there are many of us in that category. If the terms of the booking specified an upgrade to an outside cabin than its a valid complaint. Otherwise its a nothing. We have seen passengers on several cruise lines expect to be treated special just because they are frequent cruisers. We ourselves have been on more than 60 different ships, and have very high status in several repeater clubs, but have never been given an upgrade that was not specifically promised as a condition of booking.

Hank

Thank you Hank for that post. You're the kind of client your T/A loves to have and deal with! There are a few out there who think they deseve special recognition and goodies each and every time they book and nothing is ever good enough. Fortunately they are the minority. I'd like it a lot if all my clients were Hanks and fewer veterancruiser39s. The give me more, I'm special and I'm never satisfied mentality gets really old quickly.

Cheers, Neil

It seems at one time upgrades were an exception and pleasant surprise. Now their "expected" and reason for irateness if not given.

A cruise line has an obligation to provide the same cruise experience and level of service to every passenger - whether it is their first cruise with the line or their 100th. Both paid their money. Repeaters should not expect anything more than what is promised to them for being a loyalty club member.

In recent years we've never had a unexpected upgrade on Princess even as an Elite passenger & didn't really expect one although we did get an additional $25 cabin credit. With the ships being almost sold out on most trips I couldn't see how the cruise line could do it anyhow. The customer service dept has never answered any of my emails & I've about given up for a response & have just asked my questions on our next cruise. The crews on ALL of our Princes ships couldn't be more friendly or helpful & I couldn't see how anyone would have a problem with the service. Perhaps RCI or Celebrity will give more preferential treatment to past cruisers.

I, like RichC, am an Elite Captain's Circle member, and have never received or expected an upgrade. I never book a gurantee catagory--I book the exact cabin I want.

I have never tried to e-mail customer service. The few issues I've had over the years were always resolved to my complete satisfaction with one or two calls to their 800 number.

On the last "upgrade" that we received from Princess they stuck us in cabin A201 on the Star Princess. Nice cabin if you like to walk a lot with a good view of the bridge.
btw- another perk of being an Elite member is the wine tasting (not as thought I'm a wine connoisseur). On both the Caribbean P & the Grand we received the after diner liquor glasses. I just go & get my glass & cut out. My wife has a set of 8 so far.

HAL and Carnival are the best about providing unexpected upgrades to past pax. CCL creates a number of promotions where it happens at the time of booking. With HAL it happens most frequently with Guar status bookings but they have a little box in the booking engine where you can be considered for upgrades (even if you have an assigned cabin) or decline them if you like the cabin assigned. With most other lines upgrades can happen but are rarer and happen most times with Guar only. Be very careful with Costa if you don't choose your cabin. I recently had three elderly couples that booked an inside Guar above the bunkbed possible category 1A to assure that would not be an issue. What happened? They got upgraded to a Cat 6A which on Costa is a window cabin but back in bunkbeds. They even have some cabins on some ships that have bunkbed configuration in 8A balconies. The call from the ship from an 80+ yr old couple saying they were given bunkbeds and have no other cabins available is not a call any T/A wants to recieve. I was able to purchase two significanly higher category cabins and pay the difference (the agency paid it, not the client or cruiseline) to get two of the three cabin situations resolved. For the third there was no other cabin available even with no shows at the pier. A roll away cot was the only sollution. So be careful about doing a Guar on any Costa ship with these multiple categories that have bunks, you never know what you'll end up with and they won't notify you or your agent if they assign a bunk. You'll find out aboard the ship when it may be too late to resolve.

Cheers, Neil

When you say, "go and get your glasses", where do you go? This is new to me. Do you mean at the wine tasting? If so, I'll have to go next time.

I think upgrades are more luck of the draw than anything else. Our first time of the Pride in 02, we were upgrade 3 times before we got our final cabin. Twice while on board and finding out our assigned room was already booked and the people had checked in.
We have not been upgraded on any of our other cruises. When a ship is full it is hard to change your cabin.

quote:

Originally posted by f-mattox:
When you say, "go and get your glasses", where do you go? This is new to me. Do you mean at the wine tasting? If so, I'll have to go next time.

The glasses I was referring to are the given out at the end of the wine tasting secession in one of the dr's. They started it some time back for Elite members as a free invitation but I never bothered to go since wine tasting is not my thing. (if it tastes good it's OK by me).
There given out with a cognac & you get to keep the glass. The glass is only 4 1/2 inches high with a heavy colored round glass base. If I could figure out how to post a photo I'll do so.

Thank's again, RichC; I've never been to one of the wine tastings--like you, I'm not that fussy; I just ask for the wine steward's recommendation and I've never been disappointed yet. But I do like cognac, so I'll try the next one.

TrvlPro--Thanks for the heads up on the bunk beds issue. I have another one to add: STAIRS!

We usually book Guar. Rate and have had some very nice upgrades, especially 2 on NCL Sun from Inside to Oveanview... but one of those rooms was on a deck that was a half-flight of stairs between decks 6 and 7 called deck 6A. It was fine for us but we didn't know ahead of time and it could have been a disaster for someone else. If we got bunk beds we'd just laugh and have a good time anyway but we're able enough to put up with it, and for someone else it could ruin their vacation.

Carnival also has a lot of ships with bunk bed rooms but I think all are in the lowest catagory.

Yes! We must do the homework first to investigate worst case senarios for a given ship if we're going to take a pig-in-a-poke cheap rate with a Guar. catagory and be aware of our limitations! But it can be a big savings and it allows us to take longer cruises for the money. On the NCL Sun we did a back-to-back and sailed for 2 weeks for $100 more per person than what a balcony room was going for. It was great even though we had to change rooms at the end of the first week. I'd love to do it again...but not booked on anything yet this year, yet...