Topic: Royal Caribbean - Right Royal Rip Off???

Thanks for the tip off Carolyn. I will make sure I never book with Royal Caribean. We need to use the internet to get consumer power against these profit focussed companies. Once they learn that their all powerful one way focussed T & C's actually work against them, they will improve on customer care (or hopefully go out of business). It costs them nothing to give a flexible customer friendly approach so a £25 admin fee (per booking, NOT per person) would be fair. I recommend you do not book well in advance ever again, and embark on using Facebook, Twitter and every communication means available to you to accurately tell the world about how you have been treated on this occassion. Forego the deposit & forego Royal Carribean forever.

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You have a point of Principle here and only that.
RCCL european operations are now managed by a separate Company RCCL UK.

You must not even consider losing the £600 paid it is a lot of money.

* Six hundred Pounds is indeed a lot of money, but not to RCCL-UK.
Royal Caribbean must reckon that customers have money growing
on trees in their back yards! :D -I have one...would you like a cutting?


* Would American Royal Carib. cruisers get this sort of run-around??


* Principles used to count for something, at one time.


* How interesting that the situation is now managed by a separate UK entity!
.

its a lot of money but its lost....Royal Caribean are essentially recognising that in insisting on not being flexible. Re-book at last minute & benefit from probably more than £600 off the new booking. Dont ever want something so badly that you cant be flexible....book late & be flexible in what you then accept as a holiday. Last minute booking can give some of the best holidays possible in my experience, and at a particularly good price for the quality....not always cheap but always excellent value.Stop booking with companies whose T & C's are one way only ...it tells the consumer that they are not a worthy consumer friendly company hence should be avoided. Travel companies are guilty of not doing their besdt for their customers ...they need to get on the customer side more.

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Re-book at last minute & benefit from probably more than £600 off the new booking.

The only thing in favour of booking with Royal Caribbean is their price promise, which many people dont know about. See the same grade of cabin you have booked at a lower cost and they will meet the price and give you a reduction in fare.
Its a pity that they will no longer allow us to book through a USA Travel Agent as the rules are totally different over there. If you need to cancel for whatever reason and you are outside final payment due date you can have your deposit refunded IN FULL. Sadly they recently changed their rules so we can no longer go through a US TA

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Thanks for the tip off Carolyn.
I will make sure I never book with Royal Caribbean.

In my brief cruising experience I've always found
that it was Royal Caribbean who made sure I never booked with Royal Caribbean!

I say this because any time I ever investigated the cost of one of their cruises
I've been dismayed by the sheer over-the-top cost of it!
You'd think it was a Seabourn cruise product or something!

..................................................


Not that I'm one but, from an American cruiser viewpoint
if you spent more time on Cruisecritic's Carnival boards, like I sometimes do
you'd discover the many comparisons made re. value received between the two brands
with RCI cruises costing around 30% more, for what is essentially the same itinerary and cruise product.
The only seeming difference being Carnival's decidedly-better food <<< !
and RCI's decidedly "calmer" decor.

How does RCI justify this? Do they even need to!?

Over There, they seem to have a sort of well-heeled (American) clubby clique
who will fork over the extra dosh
-who enjoy feeling 'superior' to That Carnival Lot somewhere down there..
and that seems to be it!

RCI will probably never get my money, until I perceive real value for that extra money
and even so, I'm "cheap" enough to select Carnival or some other Value Line instead
and save the extra money for Boolchands in Sint Maarten!!
.

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The only thing in favour of booking with Royal Caribbean is their price promise, which many people dont know about. See the same grade of cabin you have booked at a lower cost and they will meet the price and give you a reduction in fare.
Its a pity that they will no longer allow us to book through a USA Travel Agent as the rules are totally different over there. If you need to cancel for whatever reason and you are outside final payment due date you can have your deposit refunded IN FULL. Sadly they recently changed their rules so we can no longer go through a US TA

You can still book via a US travel agent. One major online agency stopped taking bookings, but there are multitudes who will take your booking.

i thought you liked P&O? i dont

any way, how you keeping? best wishes to the misses and especialy the "little ones"

Peter

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Send a message to Gordon Rhys. This seems a mirror image of his recent battle with P&O. In fact from reading these pages over the years it would appear that all the lines operate a similar policy.

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It sounds like you either work for Royal Caribbean
-or have never had anything go wrong with a booking!

The former. Definitely. ;)
.

Aplmac -
How right you are. So many people are willing to pay much more just to <<enjoy feeling 'superior' to That Carnival Lot somewhere down there..and that seems to be it!>>

I suppose it's not just in cruising. After all there are lots of articles at Harrods that aren't that much superior to the average High Street chain store.

Carnival has the reputation of catering for 'fun loving' folk who aren't willing to pay high fares.

I really can't understand why it's so easy for Americans to cancel and get their deposit back while it's impossible to do so over here.

Has there ever been an explanation ?

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i thought you liked P&O? i dont

any way, how you keeping? best wishes to the misses and especialy the "little ones"

Peter

I know you don't Peter. I was being facetious. Anyway, we are fine thank you and I trust you and Margeret are well. I'm only up this early because the ships fog horns in the Solent woke me. Have a nice day.