Vlad

On 4/10/2024 at 2:55 PM, Sharla said:

This has happened to a few clients- there's no rhyme or reason to it that I can figure out. Fortunately we have been able to figure it out every time but it's so weird that it happens- the Cruise Planner money and the Cruise Fare money are completely separate accounts. 

Did you get it resolved how? 

What happened to me is that the system decided to withdraw money from the cruise balance for the cruise planner purchases/excursions , weeks after all were paid by credit card. 

My TA after working with Royal said that invoice can't be fixed. They fixed my balance but had to change it to sort of manual mode. Now my TA must make my final payment directly to Royal when time is due. They will issue a letter stating that my cruise is paid off and amount. I've seen intermediate letter from the groups department, noting of this system error and my balance due, the correct amount. 

On 3/29/2024 at 9:59 AM, loki007 said:

Uber would be around $125. Definitely the most convenient. It a 45 minute drive. There are also bus transports from the airport. 

No definitely not 

Uber / Lyft would be around $65-75 or sometimes even less... 

Need to check both. 

18 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

True..they possibly have experience and know exactly what to ask for if any of their clients has had this issue in the past. Either way they should do everything in their power to get a resolution for you and if they drop the ball, they're responsible for re-instating the cruise if it comes to that.  Even if you controlled the reservation yourself, even getting past the call center gatekeepers to the right people to speak with about would take a lot.

Hopefully they are more professional, I know they are using different resolution department. The one that deals with agent and group cruises. They don't go through the usual # that you or me would call into Royal Caribbean 

5 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

True..they possibly have experience and know exactly what to ask for if any of their clients has had this issue in the past. Either way they should do everything in their power to get a resolution for you and if they drop the ball, they're responsible for re-instating the cruise if it comes to that.  Even if you controlled the reservation yourself, even getting past the call center gatekeepers to the right people to speak with about would take a lot.

I can tell you the name of company, not a secret, just not sure if I can say it here, then it would be discussed, and sounds like advertisement 

Probably against the forum rules

7 minutes ago, Dad2Cue said:

Does your credit card actually show a charge for your cruise planner purchases?  I have made cruise planner purchases with my credit card.  The cruise planner would say I made the purchase except my credit wasn't charge. The cruise planner planner purchases were charged to my credit card but they were only "temporary authorizations" and then the charges disappeared.I found the charges on my balance due for the cruise.  Several calls to Royal only to find out my cruise showed "paid in full" on their system so I didn't have a balance due for the cruise. 

It all worked out after a month or two without my intervention .  What you describe  sounds like a quirk in Royal's system that usually happens during the Black Friday sale.  I think the volume of sales on cruise planner exceeds the capability of Royal's system and these quirks happen.  I don't try to understand it anymore.  Just make sure the balance due goes back to $0 eventually before the final payment date.

Yes, what you're talking about happened to me as well after black Friday. That was completely different. And yes was resolved by itself. 

25 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

Unfortunately that's a drawback of a bigger agency..less personal service if you don't have a single point of contact to stay on top of this for you. 

It's super frustrating and folks in a similar situation have had their cruise canceled for non-payment because of it, so definitely stay on top of your TA to make sure it is actively being resolved especially as you get close to the final payment date. I read those having the issue would try to make the extra payment (effectively an overpayment) to ensure their cruise wasn't canceled but the payment system didn't recognize there was a balance so it wouldn't take a payment.  

Yes, but I do have a point of contact. 

By bigger company, I meant that they must know how to solve this problem. 

Probably seen plenty of different problems and errors in billing. 

1 minute ago, CanHardlyWait said:

Sounds like the two wallets still could be in play in your situation. This is why I will never use an agent (was one in the 90s). I couldn't sit on the sidelines and wait for someone else to handle it for me. 

I hear you, but without an agent, I mean group rate, prices were much much higher. Something I couldn't possibly pay for 

3 minutes ago, CanHardlyWait said:

There are 2 wallets. One for your cruise fare and one for your planer purchases. When you buy something from the planner (excursion/drinks package/etc) and then cancel to say maybe rebook at better price. The system sometimes takes the money from your cruise fare wallet to refund your planner purchase instead of taking the money from your cruise planner wallet. This leaves your cruise fare with a mysterious balance due. Royal claims this "almost never happens", yet I read posting after posting about it. It took me 5 days of endless calls (and a lot of barking) to get mine resolved. Only supervisor's know what this is and how to fix it. Do not assume your agent will understand. Explain this possible scenario to the agent. Also explain only someone in management will understand and be able to adjust accounts. I know exactly what has happened to you. This is why I fear cancelling anything from the planner anymore. Make sure whoever calls explains the 2 wallet situation to the Royal employee. 

Thanks for the detailed response. 

I'm my case I didn't even cancel, Royal was doing something to the system like a month or so ago 

And on one cruise, icon reservation. They cancelled everything purchased from the planner, refunded back the money and automatically rebooked it all almost right after. 

So they did refund to my card and then in about 2 weeks charged the same card for everything as 1 charge. 

Now a couple of weeks from that, they took money from what I owed for the cruise, and added it to the balance, so balance increased for that same amount. 

I'm hoping TA would be able to resolve it, since it's booked through travel agency and cabin is probably part the group fare rate. Royal won't deal with me directly on this. This is a pretty big Travel agency. Not sure if I can say the name here on the forum. 

But all been good for like almost two months from when this automatic refund/rebook procedure started on their end. 

4 minutes ago, TessFromFlorida said:

Correct. It was a hot mess. I was double charged, then over credited, then they were refunding to the wrong card somehow (I used 1 card for the cruise, 1 for excursions). I was very surprised that a company in 2023/4 could even run a system that makes such errors. I called resolutions and worked with a woman named Hazel. 

For me everything seemed simple enough. 

Was 1 refund, then 1 charge of same credit card. And about 2 weeks later they suddenly added same amount to the cruise balance that I owe to the travel agency. 

I guess I can't even get it resolved or call Royal. Have to wait till TA tries to to resolve it. But if it takes hours on the phone line. I'm not sure my TA would be doing that 

4 minutes ago, TessFromFlorida said:

This happened to me with a recent Allure sailing and I wasted hours dealing with it. Long story short, they (RCI) did not keep my excursions/add-on ons separate from my cruise fare. My cruise was paid in full but each time I would adjust the add ons the final price of my cruise was impacted. I think they are running things on Windows 3.1. 

But all your add-ons were paid anyway? But they still wanted you to pay again? 

Correct? 

How did you had it resolved? Some saying the system may cancel the cruise when it gets close to the sail date? 

24 minutes ago, Gilley said:

Does that apply to drink packages too?  Because rep on phone said they had to cancel my order and refund me and then have me repurchase.   I did this for the refresher package for myself (husband has DBP) and my grandson who is a minor (his dad has DBP).  I gave my credit card information over the phone again for the new purchase.  Looked at my credit card statement and I see full charge for new purchase but no refund or price difference.

Did you had a balance problem? 

Or just trying to save money? 

3 minutes ago, Fastfaller said:

Well if you cancel and rebook, which is what Matt says, you will get a refund. Which is what I have experienced.

That's not the problem. I'm not sure, maybe you've misunderstood the problem of this thread and mine as well. 

Royal posts the charge of excursions or purchases to the cruise balance. Even though they were paid for. 

For some reason the system thinking that you owe them money because it sees the refunds, but does not see the payment that followed it. 

So even though all is paid, especially the cruise. They sort want more money or your cruise is getting canceled! 

12 minutes ago, Pattycruise said:

In the end

after they said I owed money

they put a credit on my credit card on file for the first portion, and then put a charge for that same amount  on that same card which zeroed out my balance due
Then they put another credit on my card on file for the remainder of the balance of the item purchased and again a charge of the same amount to zero out the charge.

i wholeheartedly believe it was an IT issue. Somehow the system showed an additional refund of $ -taken from a fully paid cruise balance-  on returned items that were already credited to me from the original form of payment.  The original refund was accounted for.  There was no way anyone owed -me to them or them to me. I think the only way they could clear this bizarre accounting error was to issue a refund and then charge it again. The reason it was done in 2 parts was the purchase was done for a few cabins and despite paying “$100 for 2 cabins item reservations” when Royal refunds it shows as “$50 and $50”  their refunds are broken down to “per cabin refunds” so essentially 2 different charges/refunds had to be done to clear their system. 

 

Thanks for the update. 

Hopefully my similar problem, gets sorted out as well. 

Waiting for my TA to email me back. Since I've just recently found out about this problem. 

On 12/20/2023 at 10:02 AM, Pattycruise said:

Not to scare you, but.....
I have a February cruise, paid in full via my ttravel agent.
He just received a letter from RC stating I have an outstanding balance.
He spent 2 hours on the phone with them going over charges that are all Black Friday related.  It is extremely unfortunate as I was the one who did all purchases/returns/purchases....I had a total of 18 purchases and 10 returns spread across a number of cruises.
I feel my privacy was violated with them going over ALL of my purchase/return history-which included many cruises that are NOT booked with this travel agent.

I spent another 4 hours on my purchase history, credit card statements and my email confirmation/cancellations for all transactions to reconcile the things I could not figure out.  Royal broke transactions into 6 seperate returns for what was one credit card charge.  Things like this happened numerous times and I had to play detective to find the postings on my statement.  Anyhow, I have it all figured out-there were a number of things that had used OBC so I thought Royal owed ME money!!  but I have now reconciled every single purchase as well as cancellation with them.  I do not owe a penny, nor am I owed a penny.  They currently charged me $183 and change-via my travel agent and then called him back last night to ask for more $. 
Understand that if they think you owe $ they will cancel your cruise if it is not paid in full-according to THEIR paid in full standards. So everything might seem ok but if they can figure out an issue (or invent one) it may just bite you in the....

I have an email into Michael Bayley's office about my situation.  I've also asked my travel agent to bring me into a 3 way call if resolutions calls again.  He shouldn't be privvy to every single line item with Royal on cruise planner purchases for cruises he does not hold the booking for.  I also want a guarantee tha tthe 4 cabins I have booked for my daughter's 21st birthday celebration are not cancelled.
The irony of this is they are saying the issue is regarding hideaway beach. purchases and returns.  My purchases and returns for hideaway were done under MY reservation.  My daughter's reservation only dealt with Internet and beverage packages.  Resolutions says that they somehow charged a purchase to the balance of my sailing, just yesterday issued a refund (not anywhere on my credit card statement) and then had the TA charge me via my card on file.  I figure worst ase scenario is I do a dispute with my credit card company, but I would have to wait til the cruise ends in March-I want to be sure I get onboard that ship!

Can you tell us about the update regarding this issue? 

I was just charged an amount towards my cruise balance for excursions/purchases that were previously charged on my credit card and paid in full. 

This additional charge were added to balance I owe you my travel agency. 

I've emailed TA with all the info, waiting for reply back. 

2 minutes ago, Sharla said:

Absolutely nothing in my TA system has changed. It's possible your TA doesn't use the same system and they have a different booking engine. But Royal's official system has not changed. 

As I was explained by TA. It's not Royal system, but only part of it that has to do with Icon. 

I'm not sure if it's allowed to say on this forums, the company I'm using. 

But my travel agency is directly connected to Royal. I as a costomer, can by myself see any and all available cabins and can book everything directly by myself. 

Not those travel agents that deal only through email or calls. 

4 minutes ago, Sharla said:

This is not true. It's possible whatever TA you use has a new system, but Royal Caribbean does not. 

No, sorry, this is definitely not TA !!! 

As I've explained in details, changes were automatically done, purchases cancelled and rebooked at the old prices. This is nothing to do with TA and such can only be done by Royal itself. 

And I have other cruises booked with TA, but this was only done for my Icon cruise. Not other ships. 

3 minutes ago, HeWhoWaits said:

Lots of us have seen unexpected balances due when cruise planner changes were made after final payment, but for a sailing 8 months out this seems to be a brand new example of Royal IT incompetence.

Yes, after Icon's release, I was advised by TA, that Icon would be moving to some kind new reservation system. So I won't be alarmed. They basically automatically cancelled all excursions / purchases, refunded the money, then rebooked everything automatically. My credit card was later charged for the same amount as refunded, but that was done a few weeks later. 

I would say, around 3 weeks ago, credit card was charged, all without any problems. 

And yesterday I've noticed extra charge added to my cruise balance. Exactly for that amount. 

So definitely not the case of making any changes after final payment. 

But I'm guessing I'm the only one with exactly this problem. If it's another system glitch, it usually happens to thousands or more people. 

Guys, strange thing just happened. 

Sailing Icon in November, purchased through travel agency. 

Yesterday logged in to check my balance, noticed that price of all my excursions, that were fully paid for by credit card, were added to the balance due for my cruise, about $140.

I've emailed my TA with all the details of what happened. 

Did this happened to anyone? 

I'm guessing this has something to do with the change of Icon's system that happened earlier this year. When they refunded / rebilled for all extra cruise planner purchases. 

10 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

So Utopia has suffered the opposite fate as Star. Instead of delaying the inaugural they're moving it up. So anyone booked on what was to be the inaugural will now be on the 2nd cruise.

Awesome, Royal can sell another full cruise at way overpriced prices

2 minutes ago, Va4fam said:

Wish they would mix it up every now and then and offer a 7 day itinerary for Allure and Utopia.    Booking a 3d/4d B2B to the same places is not quite the same.

I was thinking about that as well. Back to back in the same cabin is a problem on its own. 

But the biggest one is the islands. 2 visits to CocoCay is pretty good. But Nassau? Twice? Total waste... There's absolutely nothing to do there. Especially after you've benn there before... 

6 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

Next week when 2025-2026 short Caribbean cruises are released.

The deployment schedule can be found here..

https://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Deployment/2025_2026/2025-2026_Deployment_Opening_Schedule.pdf

Great, thanks 

So that's assuming Utopia will continue with short cruises. 

Would you know what Long Carribean are? Don't remember those in the past... 

Hi guys, anyone heard or knows when Royal will extend Utopia of the Seas deployment schedule / reservations? 

Right now it's only till April 2025.

Just now, jbrinkm said:

Oh my goodness @Vlad! You seem to have the worst luck with Royal billing!! Didn't it take you forever to get your BF refunds?

Nope, wasn't me. I didn't return anything on bf, I just wasn't charged. But that wasn't just me, it was thousands and thousands... 

And then all basically were charged the same day. Like couple weeks later. 

Now it's different, also not me. Have to do something with Royal moving cruise planner purchases into the new system. It effected hundreds of thousands of people. 

So nothing to do with my luck or not being lucky. 

8 hours ago, Pattycruise said:

Contact your TA and make them aware.

Keep an eye on your credit card statement they’ll likely charge you to zero out the refund mistake.  If they don’t you’ll have a balance due , outside of what you already owe for final payment 

There's no balance due for me, since it's booked through Travel agency under a group. And official invoice from the Royal Caribbean shows correct amounts! 

This is some kind of automatic rebooking due to the Icon of the Seas system change / update. 

System automatically generated new order after previous ones were refunded. New order # confirmed as paid 100%. 

2 minutes ago, CrznTxn said:

Have not seen or heard of that for our cruises booked so far this year. Will keep an eye out on our excursions and dining reservations.

Do you have anything booked specifically for Icon this year? 

Guessing it has something to do specifically with Icon reservation system, since I have another cruise ship booked and nothing happened there.