Another example of RC agents who don't know the fine print

[Lovetocruise2002]

Here's my vent for today....So we are booked on Anthem in March 2018 in two connecting balconies at the moment (1 adult, 1 child in each room).  Well this morning I happen to notice that there is a new Kids Sail Free promo which means this is now my way to convince hubby to get back into a suite.  So I called RC right away with the understanding on my part already that by going from two cabins to one I will be paying a $100 service charge for the two people in the cabin that I will be cancelling and adding them to the other existing reservation.  I was ok with that. Also, I have to mention that over the last two weeks, I have called RC on three other occasions inquiring about the switch to a suite and all three agents assured me that my penalty would be $200 (cause we have 2 in a room right now) and the remainder of the deposit in the form of a FCC.  Ok, so I call this morning telling them that I want to upgrade (give them more money) and take advantage of Kids Sail Free and the agent tells me that I have to cancel both my reservations (and pick up a $400 penalty) to take advantage of the KSF offer.  What??!  I then continued to question him on how this would be different from me just getting a price adjustment (because I would not be incurring a penalty for that) and I also read the fine print on the KSF promo this morning and it said nothing about how it was for new bookings only which is what he kept telling me. I also let him know (nicely still at this point) that other agents had previously assured me that to go from two cabins to a suite I would only be cancelling the one reservation and he tried to tell me that they all gave me wrong information and that he had been doing this for years and he knows his stuff.  So still not satisfied at this point, I requested to speak to a supervisor.  He then put me on hold for about 10 minutes so that he could speak to a supervisor.  Well as it turns out, he was wrong and I could take advantage of KSF and get a suite and just pay the penalty for 2 guests instead of 4.  But....and this is where I got angry....as bad luck would have it, in the time that it took him to work all that out, their 3/4 capacity for this particular sailing had been maxed out!  So now I can no longer put 4 in a room because of coast guard regulations and because he took so long to figure it out.  Back to square one...I am not normally one to complain but I had to post this.  Because just the other day I responded to another post about how most of the agents still don't know the rules around the new policies.  Fingers crossed that some people cancel and I can call back....

[Matt]

Sorry to hear about your frustrating experience. 

You booked a non-refundable fare for the two rooms initially, right?

[Jason.H.]

Sorry about your bad experience. The cruise will still be great and you'll have a little more money to spend now, and two bathrooms.

[Shazel2003]

Sorry about your experience. I think you would be fine with the two rooms if you can't sort it. There are 4 of us(2 adults, a 9 year old and a 14 year old) and we manage perfectly fine in an interior cabin. Travel agents in the UK are normally like that. We often book onboard and took part in the $50 deposit scheme- even though that no longer exists but don't get me started on that- and every time we would come home and they would claim we had to pay an additional £800 deposit! When we have previously tried to change our cruise or cabin we were told that we couldn't do this desire being told otherwise on the ship. We had to tell the travel agent 3 times to ring RCCL to get them to understand. Cruising, especially on RCCL isn't as popular in the U.K. as in the US and travel agents just aren't prepared for it. They can call themselves experts if they have been on a cruise ship for the day. I hope you get your issue resolved.

[Lovetocruise2002]

Happy to report that early this morning I checked online again and notice that limit had been lifted.  So I called RC right away to ask for the upgrade.  In the end we are good, now in a suite with 1 1/2 bath and an extra pullman bed so the kids don't have to share a bed plus free gratuities for all   Told the kiddies they would get their own room maybe next time lol.  And yes, Matt, I booked with the NRD so it was my understanding all along that I would have to pay a penalty of $100pp for one of the cancelled rooms (not both rooms) which is what ended up happening.  The remainder of my deposit goes to a FCC which can be applied to this cruise in a few weeks.  Something interesting though, after reading bcarney's posts about his FCC, I did ask them what happens after I apply this FCC and sometime before sailing in March I decide I want to upgrade again, would my FCC be lost since already applied?  They (agent and supervisor) assured me no it would not be, it would simply be reapplied by a supervisor since it is not expired and I am not changing the sail date or ship.  They said this is done all the time.  So what I have learned from all this is that the front end agents often do not know the rules and sometimes even the supervisor does not because with my case they had to go to a manager.  With all this I was on hold for probably over and hour but worth it because it was good learning experience to not take the first agent's word for it all the time.  And I may be in the minority here but I prefer to book and deal directly with RC because I can argue my own case and have control over my own booking.  I blame it on my Type A personality lol.

[ellcee]

Good news!

[Shazel2003]

That's great!