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Royal Throws a wrench - What would you have done....


JasonD

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I'm back in action after a relocation and slight break... 

 

I'll set the stage.. 

 

I stalked like crazy in March for RCI to release the 2016 European bookings and on the day they released, booked a Larger Ocean View Panoramic room on the Navigator OTS (1864)  in May 2016 to Norway. There are only 2 of these rooms on the ship and offer incredible views out of the 133 sqft panoramic windows over the front of the ship.. The room is huge, 283 sqft and is one of the new ones they added.. We are a family of 4, ( 2yo and 4 yo) so we were excited for the space... 

 

September rolls around, and RCI decides to redeploy.. Takes one night off the trip, now a 7 night instead of 8 night.. No biggie, they contact you and ask you to re-book based on the protected rate minus the discount you receive for the day taken off. All is fine and dandy in September when I re-booked... 

 

I start looking around and find that Harmony has two short sailings prior to the "inaugural" sailing out of Southampton, and this just happens to be right before our Navigator trip.. I finagle it to get two connecting balcony rooms for a B2B on the Harmony (they didn't have any rooms for both sailings for 4 people) and it turns out to only be about $200 total extra for the adjoining rooms instead of moving for each trip.. 

 

All is fine and dandy, we get this booked.. Now we are on a B2B, a day on shore in Southampton, and then off for a 3rd one.. We get the points for Diamond on the first night of the second of the B2B and RCI claims that If I hound them enough they will honor Diamond on Navigator.. 

 

I get a call last week from the Resolutions group at RCI... It appears that the system had a "glitch" and allowed someone else to reserve my Panoramic room that I reserved on March 13th while the ship was being "redeployed". They reserved it on 14 September, before RCI had called me to arrange the redeployment. I have documentation dated 30 September stating I am in that exact room. They claim that because their booking date for the new sailing is newer than mine, I am the one to lose the room.. Initially, they offered me a Panoramic room with 250 OBC and no rate reduction despite it being a lower class room, or a balcony room with no OBC.. I took some time to think about it.. and didn't seem satisfied with it.. I had the room first, and have two separate documents with it listed as mine. So after quite a bit of running around, and trying to figure out if we were upset enough to cancel, RCI presented its final offer... 300 OBC and they gave us a family oceanview room (which is about 40 sqft bigger than the panoramic view but without the fantastic view). They were not willing to budge on a rate reduction. At one point they got up to $500 OBC if I took the regular Panoramic, but the space wasn't what we were looking for.. We opted to take the FO/300 OBC but I feel like I settled. I've been cruising with RCI for 18 years and never have I had this happen, nor have I felt that RCI really didn't care enough to put in serious effort.. 

 

I still don't feel like they really tried all that hard and I'm at a loss.... 

 

 

What would you have done?

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Sorry to hear that.

 

What I would have done is booked with a TA so they could fight with RC. 

 

I had a similar situation happen to me where something I booked magically got cancelled and before we could realize what was happening, my room was rebooked.

 

Long story, short: My TA fought for me while I played video games and got me another room plus a slew of OBC + freebies for the inconvenience.  

 

Unfortunately this may not help you in this situation but it's more for future reference.

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That's a tough one .... especially when you did everything right, booked way in advance, etc.

 

Your leverage (as you know) is limited, so really it comes down to whether you are irritated enough to just cancel it or take their best offer and move on. Sometimes very minor things can be enough to pull the trigger and say enough is enough, other times pretty major sounds issues may not be a big deal.

 

I haven't done Norway but picturing it I would tend to think the view would be a major part of that cruise (coastlines, etc.) in which case I would be inclined to dig in a little harder, for most cruises though I would roll with the room that is a similar size and not stress it to much since I don't spend a lot of time in the room.

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JT - It was a major factor in the decision. The most frustrating aspect was that it seemed they would only let me talk to one person with the resolutions dept... She was nice, but we exhausted our options with each other and she exhausted her authorities.. She had to keep going back to her mgmt, despite my requests to talk to them.. If I had to venture a guess, I would say I spent 3.5-4 hrs on the phone with her across a few nights.. 

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This is an excellent question and of the best my wife and I have read or heard in quite some time.

 

You are correct, summer cruises along the Norwegian coast are all about the view.

 

Susie believes that the room should go to the earliest booking, not the most recent. But....also believes that whom ever presently has the room is going to pay substantially more money than you were going to pay. So she thinks that is how RCL is going to think of the situation. What might be limiting the compensation is that they just plain don't give away what they used to. She suggests to try and barter some shore excursions, drink packages for the kids, an all access tour, and specialty dining in addition to what they already have offered. Those types of things won't have such affect on RCL's margin on the cabins.

 

I agree with all of the above. But I am more vindictive than my wife so I suggest 1) Switch to an aft cabin! Same view, just the obverse. 2) Be an absolute voracious pig on lobster night. Make 'em pay on the most expensive meal of the week. (My record is 6 --just say'n) 3) Same holds true for the Diamond Lounge. I shouldn't have to tell you upgrade your go to drink of choice to the best of what they will give you so let me remind you that the soonest you will be able to soak up the free drinks is immediately after the muster drill. Hopefully they will serve the bacon wrapped scallops in the lounge while you are aboard, they are delishious!

 

Please keep us posted, we are interested how this all pans out.

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