Vlad

1 minute ago, Crown&AnchorEsq said:

Assuming Wonder is 3/4 that likely means we're looking at Odyssey (winter) and Symphony (Summer) again for Port Liberty.  Just through basic process of elimination.  

That's indeed possible. 

But would be unfortunate in having Symphony again in NY, which is very close port to me. 

And really unfortunate wasting 2 newer ships on short cruises. It's hard to believe that instead of like 6000 per week, they can get enough people to sail 12000 weekly. 

2 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

Based on a reliable source, Wonder will be doing 3/4's just like Utopia is now. One will stay at PC and the other will go to either Ft. Lauderdale or Miami.

It should be part of the short Caribbean release the week of February 12th.

And Utopia ? 

Ft Lauderdale is Oasis 

Miami is Icon 

One of them should go to Cape Liberty anyway 

Just now, ScottD said:

Maybe Wonder is finally heading to Asia! 

Wow, didn't think about that. Yes, I remember it was supposed to be. Then Covid started... 

Just now, CruisingSteve said:

Kinda seems like Star will be replacing Wonder.

That's probably true, but that's exactly why I'm asking... Where would they go? 

Icon is taking over Miami. At least till April 2026.

Then where would Wonder, Utopia and Symphony be based? 

They were NOT included in the release of Carribean deployment May 25-April 26

44 minutes ago, KevinJ said:

I've been following this thread and another with interest as I had a similar situation a couple years ago and now watch all this stuff very carefully. I'm always learning things through this board. The "make payment" tab is interesting, however none of my cruises give me the option of selecting "payment details". I've booked through a TA so I suppose that is the difference.

Yes, same here. I've posted screenshot. Since payment goes through travel agency, system thinks that we're paid off from the start. All zeros... 

I'm happy to report that this problem is finally over 

All charges posted straight to the card late yesterday. Dated the 8th with post date 22nd

1 hour ago, DMcrusin said:

My 11/8 excursion purchase posted on my card as well I see.

Interesting, not mine... 

Did you had the same problem as I did? 

Purchases pending, then dropped off and disappeared? 

Just now, Starrynight0154 said:

All of the 11/8 purchases finally posted to my credit card tonight. Going to have to hire an accountant to figure it all out, it’s a hot mess 

But it's not really 11/08 purchases at all

You've canceled them all. 

10 minutes ago, Starrynight0154 said:

After thinking this was resolved, a balance has reappeared today on the RC website for a paid in full cruise. $129.76 for Hideaway Beach which was posted to my credit card, and refunded since I cancelled it for a lower price. 

Called multiple times, spoke to 2 different people. First person sent me an emailed invoice to show me the cruise is paid in full, checked my email and it showed balance due instead. Called back. 2nd person said zero balance due. I said that’s not what I see when I log in, and the previous person sent me an invoice of a balance due for my paid in full cruise. Put me on hold to talk to technical support. They said my due date is being extended 5 days, wait for a refund of $129.76, and then told me to pay $129.76 on my cruise that’s already been paid. I said I already did that out of fear my cruise would be cancelled, because I’ve heard of this happening to people. Got him to acknowledge it’s a computer glitch, but there seems to be no desire to fix it, or solution to the root cause. Do they not have any IT specialists capable of fixing this?

I’m never making changes to my cruise planner purchases ever again after final payment is made. Probably going to deal with this single $129.76 charge and refund the next two months to keep the balance at zero, like a game of ping pong, just to keep the cruise from being cancelled due to a glitch. 

So at the end, they still end up owning you money? But they didn't acknowledge that refund was processed or anything like that? 

If I understand correctly? 

I'm still thinking that original charge that disappeared will come back to your credit card. 

3 minutes ago, JohnK6404 said:

I didn't want to, but I did ...

I contacted Royal via the chat function through Royal's FB page this time. I pushed and they too insist emphatically that everything is in order and they even sent me an e-mail confirming all 7 of my completed cruise planner purchases (6 from this sale) with transaction numbers, amounts, dates, etc.

Excerpt... just Royal's FB chat comments...

 

I called Chase again... this time they state there are no pending transactions (as previously confirmed in detail by Chase as waiting for "collection" by Royal) and that they all have dropped off... they assured me that if Royal collects these funds they were pre-authorized, etc., and not to worry... we'll see...

There is nothing showing on my Chase credit card in any status related to these purchases.

I have a feeling, as mentioned earlier, that the charges will mysteriously appear next month with 11/8 and/or 11/9 transaction dates. 

Thanks buddy, and thanks for sharing. 

Very useful info for me and the rest of us. We're in the same boat. 

I have a feeling we'll be good as well. 

I've contacted my TA about this. Explained in details. Initially she said she haven't heard anything about this problem, but will look into it. Don't really hope anything will come out from it, but doesn't hurt to ask. 

18 minutes ago, DMcrusin said:

I figure I’ll add my situation in here as well.

I used my phone, but through the Royal website, not the app.

I booked excursions for our family on the evening of Nov. 8th.  Everything went through normal, received a confirmation e-mail (which says the 9th) and checked that the charges were pending on my card (Visa, but not Chase). This was the first and only booking of the excursion, and not a cancel and re-book.

On the 9th, I decided to purchase an internet package.  From phone, on website, etc. (all same as above). Again I received a confirmation e-mail, and noticed again that the charges were pending (and saw the previous ones still there as well)

Not until I saw this post first pop up did I check again.  Yup, the excursion from the 8th was dropped from pending, and never made it to “posted” charges.  However, the internet from the 9th did get posted and charged.

Everything on the website still shows that I have the excursion booked and paid for.

We don't sail till April, so currently I’m not concerned, as I’m fairly confident that the excursion charges will just eventually go through on the card.

More so, I’m just adding more info to this post if it helps anyone pinpoint the problem.

If you read the thread that I started from the beginning. It's almost identical to my initial problem. Except I've made the other purchase 3 days later, 11th.

But the 1st day, evening the 8th,I've actually made 2 separate orders, different cruises. So that rules out the problem with specific cruise, date, or ship. 

Since Royal sells so much, especially now, I'm guessing just from the evening of 8th, same probably happened to thousands or tens of thousands of people. Definitely not just a few that posted on this forum. 

1 minute ago, jbrinkm said:

Does anyone remember from 2 years ago, when the charges finally posted, was the date in the credit card statement/transactions the one from the original purchase, or a new date? I'm wondering if I want to be continuing to monitor Nov 8-9, or just looking at new charges. 

That's good question... I'm just keeping the eye on available balance. I'll definitely notice the charges once any appear from Royal Caribbean . 

7 minutes ago, benc42793 said:

 I think the issue is though, at least on my end, the cruise planner purchase says "paid" but still not showing up on our credit card statement. That's where I think a lot of people are confused and worried.

I'm not too worried though because as I said in a previous message, I think I'm just going to wake up one day and the charges will be back on my credit card.

That's what I'm hoping as well. 

I don't want start dealing with canceling and rebooking. Then I will have refunds or no refunds and still initial charges must be taken care of someway. 

So will make this whole thing much more confusing than it's already is. 

8 minutes ago, Dad2Cue said:

My cruise planner purchases showed up on my credit card initially as "temporary authorizations" but after a few days they disappeared.

The corresponding amounts for my cruise planner purchases then showed up in the payment history of my cruise but they were "pending" for about 5 days. 

Today, the payments in the payment history for my cruise are "paid."

Thanks, it's sort of continuation of my case. And in a weird sense, even more interesting... 

So the system thinks it billed you directly instead of credit card, and then paid itself of... 

Unbelievable... 

Huge mess... 

1 minute ago, Dad2Cue said:

I'm happy to report my cruise planner purchases listed in the payment history of my cruise are now "paid"  instead of "pending."  I'm not sure how they were paid because there is no transaction on my credit card. 

My cruise is still 'paid in full."  In fact when all my cruise fare payments are added up ... I have overpaid for my cruise.

I'm not sure if this is progress or not.  To my knowledge ...  I still haven't paid for my cruise planner purchases.  

Congratulations... I guess... 

Honestly, I've never heard or seen, purchases to be pending... Mine said paid right away after credit card was charged... 

Can you remind, were your card charged in the beginning and then pending charges dropped off or it wasn't charged at all? 

14 minutes ago, DoomSlayer said:

This is such a strange thread and no doubt something weird has happened since so many people were affected.  To make it worse, it seems to be inconsistent, making it harder to determine what exactly is going on.  I too did refund and repurchase of items in the cruise planner on Nov. 8, but my charges all went through as expected on my card -- pending and then settled as well as correct items refunded.  No issue with my booking as it still shows paid in full and no e-mail.  The only data point I can add is that I do all of my planning and purchases through the website on the computer, I never use the app for planning.  I am curious if people experiencing the issue are using the app.

I've purchased using mobile /cell phone, but used the website, browser. 

The only reason I can think of is whoever, purchased it at certain times, when sales started. System was not up to date or messed up. Those purchases weren't finalized and transactions dropped off. Hopefully it will sort itself out. I'm not sure what to do. Royal doesn't want to confirm there's a problem. Any rep just looks at the screen and says it's booked and paid for. 

10 minutes ago, Ampurp85 said:

I stated earlier in the post the exact same thing happened. I made CP purchases on Nov 8th. The charge was pending and eventually dropped off. On Nov 10th an excursion went down and I cancelled and rebooked. They refunded the cost of the excursion and it went on my cruise balance as if I owed that. I was paid in full and didn't want the cruise cancelled but I waited. It was 10days after the fact and the charges were still pending on Royal's end but never charged to my card despite them being booked. I cancelled the order and now the charges are pending again on my card. 

Thanks, got it. Similar, but different error. 

Charges were never changed to your card after you rebooked under sale prices. 

Wait, so you never actually received the refunds back? They went to your balance, then disappeared. 

4 minutes ago, KevinJ said:

@Vlad my TA tried several times, but couldn't get any sort of final answer. I did have a zero balance invoice though, but they were still saying there was something going on, my TA assured me that at worst they might not acknowledge that I had covered all the gratuities. It seemed to just resolve itself and not directly related to an interaction with them, although they kept saying that it was being worked on. The charges were in Feb, the cruise was in June, so it did take quite some time.

Thanks for additional info. 

Sounds bad, I'm not paying gratuities upfront on my cruises. Sailing like a month before you did. It looks like one can't possibly resolve this system error/problem. Since Royal Caribbean basically confirms over and over again, that system is showing that cruise planner purchases are reserved and paid in full. 

2 minutes ago, KevinJ said:

For those concerned about cruise cancelled due to outstanding balance. Two years ago I cancelled and rebooked some items for a cruise. Never paid much attention to it. When I went to make final payment my TA told me that RC could not tell us what the final balance was as there was a cruise planner purchase that was somehow stuck in an indeterminate state. Since I always pre-pay gratuities my TA said that should cover any potential discrepancy in the balance as the disputed amount was less. There was finally a sequence of charges and refunds that hit my card only a couple weeks before we sailed. The end result to me looked like I got refunded twice. Since then I have been very careful about keeping track of all purchases, the dates when I cancel, and when I get refunds. I'm glad all my BF purchases were made later than first day.

 

Hope you all get resolutions as these sorts of things just add unnecessary stress.

Thanks Kevin for the info. 

I'm personally also booked through travel agency, so I'm hoping it will sort out like it did exactly 2 yrs ago on black Friday. People confirming all charges going through towards Christmas time. 

But if anything, I'm making my final payment through travel agency, in couple of months. And after I'll receive Royal's invoice through my TA. So thinking if it will say balance ZERO. That should be enough proof that any of these purchases don't ruin the cruise itself. 

Was thinking of canceling and rebooking purchases. But not sure, since that would confuse situation even more. Making it look like I'm getting refunds for something that wasn't even paid for yet. 

But from what you've said, looks like charges sorted itself out by themselves? 

Or was it your TA who was working on it to get them resolved? 

1 hour ago, Ampurp85 said:

So I decided to cancel all the ones not charged and then reorder them while on sale. As soon as I did this the balance went away.

I had called the casino and was given the same info. They said the purchases were there on their end and to just wait.

I now have the pending charges for the new orders.

Wait, were you charged before or not at all? 

Because me, and other were charged, they were pending and disappeared. 

But all the status, info, calls keep confirming that the purchases are reserved and paid. 

But what was your deal? 

14 minutes ago, jbrinkm said:

My latest update.

Twitter rep sent me to cruise planner department. Luckily, even though the recorded message said there might be long wait times, I did not wait longer than a minute or two with either department I got sent to today. The cruise planner rep could see my purchases, just like before, and didn't see any problem. I explained again what the problem was. I'm running out of ways to say "I haven't paid for this." He decided that since I have a group booking (from my TA), that I needed to talk to that department. 

I called the Group reservations department and explained again. This guy actually seemed to understand what the problem was and looked into it further. He did not offer a resolution, BUT he did see that these two transactions are under review and gave me the internal Royal financial transaction number for each of my two missing purchases. I asked what that meant - "under review"? He said that he used to work at a bank (I will point out that this was a random rep, not an accounting person). I asked about speaking to accounting and he said they don't talk with customers (of course) and that "under review" usually meant that the bank flagged it for fraud. He said typically transactions shouldn't take more than 24 hours, and since this has taken over a week (11 days now), I should check with my bank again. 

When I make a charge that my bank thinks might be fraudulent - I get a call, a text, an app notification AND an email. And if I don't answer them, they keep calling. So I know that my bank has not flagged this as fraud, and I told him that. He didn't have any answer for me other than just giving me my financial transaction number that Royal uses internally. It is only a 9 digit number, not a long alpha-numeric string, so I don't know if it will help if I call my card again. I stressed that the card people said Royal has not collected the money (they told me cancelled, but I went with the other explanation of not collected) but he could not help me any further. 

So tomorrow I may try my bank again. Or maybe I'll just wait to see if it resolves before my final payment date in December. I'm honestly a little tired of reaching out about this. At least I've documented well that I tried to resolve it if something gets cancelled for non payment. 

Thanks a lot for all the info. 

But in my opinion, it sounds like a total BS. My cruise is also group booking, through travel agency. And that department deals only with cruises, directly with travel agents. All of these purchases are individual. Have nothing to do with group. 

I'm not sure about your credit card, but it sounds like another total BS about transactions being flagged. My credit card is from chase and I've made a lot of payment to royal for $500 and much more. My purchases now are like 200-300, a total of about 400. And most important like you said if it's flagged, you get a text, a call from the credit card company. Once you reply to it, transaction continues as normal. And Royal wouldn't flag this credit card, since it's the same card I use, and a few days after 8th, I've used the same card for cruise planner purchase, that went through with any problems. 

I'm not sure how to go further either, I'm guessing there's thousand or tens of thousands transactions like this from 8th of November. 

So from what I understand he couldn't help you or try to help you, since all the screens and info are showing, reserved and paid in full. That's what I've been told. 

And the last thing, not sure if you've seen, I've posted a link either on this thread or another similar thread here, a link to the forum thread from exactly this time from 2021. There's good long discussiona from people of exactly same problem with disappearing black Friday transactions from credit card. Long story short, no one was able to resolve it, but transactions magically were back on credit cards, around December 21st or so, like month or more after initial purchases. 

This was confirmed on that thread by many and all were magically charged around the same time... 

If anyone interested to read 

Exactly same problem was 2 yrs ago, looks like everything was sorted out by itself almost 1.5 months later 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2817074-black-friday-purchase-not-showing-on-credit-card/

3 minutes ago, Starrynight0154 said:

Yes canceled and rebooked. Don’t know, it’s Sunday so not much banking activity. It’ll take a few business days to see what happens. Credit card now has pending charges for everything I just rebooked. Yes, emails are accurate, I screenshot every email to remind myself what I booked and have quick access to the order numbers. 

I was thinking of doing the same thing, but probably won't be, since it doesn't really solve the problem. When system is fixed, you/we will probably be charged for everything anyways. 

OR what happens, since you received refunds for purchases that weren't really paid for, the system would think and show that you have the balance and owe them money. 

Or to make this even worse, like happened to some, your refunds would go back to the cruise balance and charges, instead of refunds. 

1 minute ago, Starrynight0154 said:

I went ahead and did this yesterday for my cruise planner purchases on Odyssey. Left the Wonder cruise alone since it’s paid in full. We’ll see how it plays out. I’m confident it’ll be ok in the end. 

So you just cancelled and rebooked? 

How it's looking so far? 

Did you received all refund and new purchases emails? With correct info? And the credit card was charged again?