Customer service experience

[Zain]

Recently I booked a 12 night Mediterranean cruise and was feeling extremely happy and confident, but the experiences I have had over the phone has left me nervous. I called the other day to have the cost of our cruise reduced to the price listed on the website. We are farther than 90 days out so I thought this would be a simple process. Before adjusting the booking I asked the agent on the line if we could receive on cruise credit for the difference in refreshment packages that would need to be re-ordered and she said it would be no problem (at time of purchase $19 per day and now it is $28 per day) After waiting 2 hours on the phone for the booking to be done I asked to speak to the supervisor who transferred the funds to ensure everything was correct. The funds were transferred correctly and the price was correctly adjusted but the supervisor told me I would not receive credit for the refreshment package. I was very upset because I had essentially been lied to. Once more (very frustrated at this point) I asked the supervisor if she could look into compensation for the drink package and the now 2 and a half hour phone call. She said she could but I would need to be put on hold. Only two seconds of being on hold she hung up. The supervisor called back 30 minutes later and said there was another phone call she had to take. I was upset beyond belief and decided it would be best to speak to her supervisor. I was supposed to receive a call back from that manager over a day ago. 

I want very much to experience a Royal Caribbean Cruise but the poor service so far has left me very unnerved. My hope is someone can offer me a bit of advice, and/or some insight on wether or not people have experienced similar problems and what the resolution to said problems was?

 

Edit- To make clear we had to redo our entire booking because we had a friends and family discount. This is the reason the refreshment package has to be repurchased, and is probably the main reason for our troubles.

[Ogilthorpe]

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. In any repricing actions in which I have been involved, the cruise fare and the extras are handled independently. Beverage  packages, shore excursions, etc all remain as is with a reprice. The only thought I have is that perhaps an OBC was used to book the beverage packages which was not a part of the new pricing structure. I have not seen that, so there may be limitations in that case.

[SpeedNoodles]

My advice (and the advice you will get from others) is to always use a travel agent so that they are the ones who can sit on the phone for hours and hash this out with Royal instead of you.  This won't help you this time, but it's really the value of a travel agent.  Don't give up on Royal, but I understand  your frustration.

[Ampurp85]

@Zain I don't quite understand your post. There would be no reason to change the refreshment package unless you change the booking dates. If all you were doing was repricing then your booking number should stay the same, keeping your cruise planner purchases intact. So if that is not the case they probably just honored the price instead of giving you a credit.

[RCIDreamer96]

Customer service issues are why I ALWAYS book online or with my TA. Much better customer service and I can play around with the options on my own. I'm a visual person, so I like to see what the website can offer me before calling for details. Definitely use a TA! Cruise Planner is extremely important when purchasing the add-ons, I usually use this before I call because some of the customer service reps are very busy and feel pressured to get done as fast as possible so they can take another call.