room swap

GottaCruz · May 18, 2004

karbob,

Did this get resolved yet? :huh:

scapel · June 4, 2004

I have a lot of respect for cruise.com. I will have someone check this.

DaCruzNut · June 5, 2004

It seems that Carnival did nothing wrong. In fact, they offered an upgrade, which is not very common, and your TA gave permission for the upgrade.

The fault lies totally with your TA, who, basically, "screwed up."

Your TA acted on your behalf, totally without your approval. You may want to call your agent first thing Monday morning. Advise him/her that you have posted yiour problem with their mishandling of your cruise reservastions on ALL of the various cruise forums, such as this, and many cruisers have taken note of their name and are waiting to see how this is resolved. Further, advise them that the adjoining room was for your children, and, if you can't keep an eye on them, you may have to consider cancelling the cruise and, if necessary, sue them for the money you paid based on a breach of contract, on their behalf, when they acted without your permission. Be friendly, but firm.

You might want to call your local TV, or newspaper, "Action Line," also. TA's hate bad publicity.

This all points out why it's important to use a good TA, who will go to bat for you!

P.S. Have you tried to call Carnival, directly, and explained the problem?

scapel · June 5, 2004

karbob,

Well as promised I did some checking. Here is as you know what went down.

===================================================

This is what I have been able to find out. Apparently Carnival called the cruise.com customer service rather than the cruise.com travel agent and offered the customer an upgrade. The customer service representative called the customer to get permission for the upgrade, but the customer did not call back. When Carnival called again offering an upgrade the second time, the cruise.com customer service agent not the booking travel agent took it upon themselves to grant the upgrade. This took the customer out of the original adjoining rooms and into rooms that were not even next to each other. Apparently working around things they were able to get the customer two rooms next to each other, but not the original type of adjoining rooms.

So the cruise.com customer service agent thought they were doing the customer a favor, but messed things up big time. She or he should have checked with the original T.A in charge of the booking, or gotten permission from the customer. No one should ever change a booking without the customerÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s approval. The original booking travel agent did not find out about this change until the poor customer called notifying that the rooms had been swapped. This has put a new rule into place at cruise.com that no one moves anyone anywhere without approval from the customer, even if it is to move from an inside cabin to the penthouse suite at no extra charge.

This was an unfortunate situation, and I am sorry it put a dent on your vacation. I hope you will continue to cruise.

I have also had bad experiences with merchants and travel agents in the past. I know how you feel, but you now have some sort of an "In" with cruise.com. I would use them particularly that travel agent again and remind him or her who you are. I would think that you should get the most expert service. I would also use that same travel agent, since it was not the TA fault. I would ask for free upgrades if possible and I can assure you that these Travel Agents have more pull in swinging things your way with cruise lines than we as individuals have.

karbob · June 6, 2004

I have NO respect for cruise.com. We spent the last week and a half before we left calling cruise.com trying to resolve this. Most days, we could not get them to come to the phone. When we gave our name, they would say they were in a meeting, or they were out of the office. We would leave our number for them to call us, which they never would. We would start all over the next day. This went on until a few days before we were set to leave. Finally, they offered a $200.00 on ship credit, which we did not feel was adequate, but reluctantly accepted since we were only a couple of days from sailing. We didn't check the credit until the day before the cruise ended when we were told there was no credit. When we returned home, we had a message that was left shortly after we left for our cruise that they had waited too long and Carnival could not issue the credit, but they would send us a check that should be here when we returned home. There was no check so we again called them. Of course, we couldn't talk to anyone so they called us back and said they were cutting the check (This is FIVE days after we returned) So the check is in the mail!! I'll believe it when I see it! We would NEVER even consider using cruise.com again! They put us through so much unnecessary stress for our first cruise. They also seemed very unconcerned with us even though this was all THEIR FAULT. We did however, have a blast on the cruise, no thanks to Cruise.com.

Lisa63 · June 6, 2004

So -- karbob's situation was the impetus for a new rule at the travel agency, but karbob gets nothing? Doesn't sound fair to me.

DaCruzNut · June 6, 2004

I think we will ALL remember how "CRUISE.COM" handled this entire matter, in the future, and be sure to stay as far away from them as possible!

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GottaCruz · June 8, 2004

I'm so sorry that your first cruise involved so much aggravation for you. But I'm glad you were able to enjoy the cruise anyway. Thank you for letting us know what happened to you so that we can make use of that information when we book a cruise. When we book, we will be sure to let the agent know that she is not to change our rooms no matter what, as we also have kids that we want to be right next door to. Thank you, karbob, for sharing your experience with us. :cool: