Jump to content

Shore Excursions - BEWARE!!


princevaliantus

Recommended Posts

On another board, there is a wave of individuals who were getting upset at Royal's latest blunder, followed by their ever relenting faux pas. I was curious to see if in fact any of my 8 cruises were affect.  Came down to 1 excursion. Apparently, Royal bit a little more off than they could chew. Through their recent Cruise Planner sale, Royal cut prices a little too much and now to make up the loss, they are cancelling certain excursions and re-pricing them higher. This is how it starts:

First the email:

Dear Guest, We’re looking forward to welcoming you aboard Royal Caribbean. As you prepare for this exciting vacation, we need to let you know that your tour reservation for Baroque Charm and the Bay of Kotor (KV70) in Kotor, Montenegro has been canceled due to due operation reasons. Here are some authentic destination excursions in Kotor, Montenegro that may be of interest to you: KVD6 - Baroque Charm and the Bay of Kotor We’ve already updated your itinerary and refunded your original form(s) of payment in the full amount. To select a new tour, we’ll need to create a new reservation for you. Please visit http://www.royalcaribbean.com/beforeyouboard/shoreExcursions.do or call us at (800)398-9819 to ensure space on your new excursion.

Second:

You go check in your cruise planner and to find that the same excursion in name, detail, etc., is being offered at a higher rate, which is evidenced in their OWN EMAIL above.

Third:

I called their Shore Excursion Department, to get transferred to numerous individuals who didn't either grasp the English language and/or had clue what they were doing. The excuses offered made absolutely no sense.  I actually re-booked it to show the C.S. Rep what I was referring to and sent it to her via email. The C.S. Rep rushed to get a Supervisor on and the Supervisor was speechless, and among their attempt to get back on the phone to give me an excuse, they forgot to put me ON HOLD!! DUHHHHH!! I HEARD EVERYTHING and I must truly say that Royal just gave me the ONLY reason I needed to second guess any future sailings with them.

Finally:

When they got back on the phone, before she even spoke, I told her to save any and all excuses as she forgot to put me on hold and I heard all the chatter and scheming of excuses that they were going to attempt to tell me. I informed them that "this call was being monitored and recorded for quality purposes" and I will be informing corporate and vigorously giving thought to cancelling all 2018 AND 2019 cruises. I thanked them and then I hung up!

I can't actually believe that Royal has stooped to the same tactics as Carnival Cruises. Un-freaken-believble!!  Sorry for the rant but guess you guess should keep an eye out for your future reservations/excursions. TGIF!!!!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unfortunately, pricing errors happen semi-frequently online, and I'm not just talking about RC.  This happens on Amazon, Target, Walmart, etc.  It's a mistake on someone's part and it stinks when you think you land a great deal only to have it cancelled because of the pricing error.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IF this is the case then it is certainly poor customer service. It would be better for them to admit the error ("due to a pricing error on our website....") and offer  to rebook the excursion at their best possible price (say what it is costing them) and maybe offering some onboard credit (Which again while they might give you $100 the actual cost to them is probably $33 due to markups etc).

I've had a number of instances when on-line companies have mistakenly put a price on a site and in most cases they have either honoured it or admitted their mistake and made an offer I was happy with etc leading to longterm customer satisfaction. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/1/2017 at 2:30 PM, princevaliantus said:

On another board, there is a wave of individuals who were getting upset at Royal's latest blunder, followed by their ever relenting faux pas. I was curious to see if in fact any of my 8 cruises were affect.  Came down to 1 excursion. Apparently, Royal bit a little more off than they could chew. Through their recent Cruise Planner sale, Royal cut prices a little too much and now to make up the loss, they are cancelling certain excursions and re-pricing them higher. This is how it starts:

First the email:

Dear Guest, We’re looking forward to welcoming you aboard Royal Caribbean. As you prepare for this exciting vacation, we need to let you know that your tour reservation for Baroque Charm and the Bay of Kotor (KV70) in Kotor, Montenegro has been canceled due to due operation reasons. Here are some authentic destination excursions in Kotor, Montenegro that may be of interest to you: KVD6 - Baroque Charm and the Bay of Kotor We’ve already updated your itinerary and refunded your original form(s) of payment in the full amount. To select a new tour, we’ll need to create a new reservation for you. Please visit http://www.royalcaribbean.com/beforeyouboard/shoreExcursions.do or call us at (800)398-9819 to ensure space on your new excursion.

Second:

You go check in your cruise planner and to find that the same excursion in name, detail, etc., is being offered at a higher rate, which is evidenced in their OWN EMAIL above.

Third:

I called their Shore Excursion Department, to get transferred to numerous individuals who didn't either grasp the English language and/or had clue what they were doing. The excuses offered made absolutely no sense.  I actually re-booked it to show the C.S. Rep what I was referring to and sent it to her via email. The C.S. Rep rushed to get a Supervisor on and the Supervisor was speechless, and among their attempt to get back on the phone to give me an excuse, they forgot to put me ON HOLD!! DUHHHHH!! I HEARD EVERYTHING and I must truly say that Royal just gave me the ONLY reason I needed to second guess any future sailings with them.

Finally:

When they got back on the phone, before she even spoke, I told her to save any and all excuses as she forgot to put me on hold and I heard all the chatter and scheming of excuses that they were going to attempt to tell me. I informed them that "this call was being monitored and recorded for quality purposes" and I will be informing corporate and vigorously giving thought to cancelling all 2018 AND 2019 cruises. I thanked them and then I hung up!

I can't actually believe that Royal has stooped to the same tactics as Carnival Cruises. Un-freaken-believble!!  Sorry for the rant but guess you guess should keep an eye out for your future reservations/excursions. TGIF!!!!!!

Question:  Are these emails copied verbatim?  They are presented as such.  If so, I highly doubt their validity.  Poor grammar, no apology, and poor conjugation.  Not from Royal Caribbean.  This is a scam.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

59 minutes ago, RCVoyager said:

Question:  Are these emails copied verbatim?  They are presented as such.  If so, I highly doubt their validity.  Poor grammar, no apology, and poor conjugation.  Not from Royal Caribbean.

Yes...the email was copied verbatim. Annexed hereto is a screenshot of the email for the Doubting Thomas. Directly from Royal Caribbean  and if there is still any further doubt, please feel free to contact Royal Caribbean directly and confirm. What followed after the email was the back-and-forth with the C.S. Rep over the phone.

Studio_20171202_213003.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, princevaliantus said:

Yes...the email was copied verbatim. Annexed hereto is a screenshot of the email for the Doubting Thomas. Directly from Royal Caribbean  and if there is still any further doubt, please feel free to contact Royal Caribbean directly and confirm. What followed after the email was the back-and-forth with the C.S. Rep over the phone.

Studio_20171202_213003.png

With the poor use of the Language, this can't be directly from Royal.  It must be from a third party or just flat out inaccurate.  Has anyone seen a correspondence written this poorly from any above board business let alone one as conscientious as RCCL

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For what it's worth, and I have had my gripes with Royal Caribbean, something similar happened to me with a Berlin excursion when the dock changed from one port to another. As a result, they had to cancel and rebook passangers. While the price did change, Royal honored the initial booking price when I inquired as it was essentially the same tour.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • DocLC locked this topic
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...