Shame on Holland!!!! Never again!

[joedniceguy]

I agree. I'm a guy that travels with my sister. We always get seperate cabins and pay the single supplement.

[Watson's aunt]

I just wish Holland America would give double mariner points to solo cruises. We are paying the double fares.

 

 

Mary

[sail7seas]

I hope OP had a good cruise and we'll hear about it.

 

[jhcrossfield]

Excellent service and good value over all. Thanks to all of you who were compassionate with our situation. My time with my mother in the same came was a lot of fun.......but a contract is a contract. We were booked in two outside cabins as singles until HA forced us into one and upgraded us to a balcony cabin, which was lovely. There was no mistake by my agent. The onboard staff confirmed that we were indeed forced to share the cabin and had NO offer of alretnate dates. Do not think this was an agent mistake as it was NOT.

 

Would I book HA again......not as a single "guarantee" with another related booking in the same catagory as that means NOTHING to HA. I was not even given the option of my money back and cancelling the cruise.

 

In spite of corporate policies, know that the onboard front line staff is lovely and that they will do all they can to give you a quality experience. That said, they over work the staff and stretch them too thin do consistently deliver consistently attentive, personal service.....even in a suite catagory as I was.

 

I'll just go back to the smaller lines (Silverseas, Seaborun, etc. ) that honor their bookings as booked ...... but may do HA for a cheap cruise in the future just to get away but only in a deisgnated cabin as opposed to a gurarantee.............corporate has no scruples.

 

My thanks to the onboard staff who were all supurb!

[lovetocruise2020]

Shocking that they got away with this. Wow Hal. Not Cool.

 

Glad you had a great cruise!

BUT- I can see where you are coming from. You deserved 2 cabins-

NO MATTER WHAT!

 

Are you going to write to HAL? I know your cruise was great but that would have been a huge disapoint for me.

 

Please let us know if you plan to contact them.

That was a very unsavory way for HAL to handle a booking.

I am still kind of shocked.

[kazu]

Excellent service and good value over all. Thanks to all of you who were compassionate with our situation. My time with my mother in the same came was a lot of fun.......but a contract is a contract. We were booked in two outside cabins as singles until HA forced us into one and upgraded us to a balcony cabin, which was lovely. There was no mistake by my agent. The onboard staff confirmed that we were indeed forced to share the cabin and had NO offer of alretnate dates. Do not think this was an agent mistake as it was NOT.

 

Would I book HA again......not as a single "guarantee" with another related booking in the same catagory as that means NOTHING to HA. I was not even given the option of my money back and cancelling the cruise.

 

In spite of corporate policies, know that the onboard front line staff is lovely and that they will do all they can to give you a quality experience. That said, they over work the staff and stretch them too thin do consistently deliver consistently attentive, personal service.....even in a suite catagory as I was.

 

I'll just go back to the smaller lines (Silverseas, Seaborun, etc. ) that honor their bookings as booked ...... but may do HA for a cheap cruise in the future just to get away but only in a deisgnated cabin as opposed to a gurarantee.............corporate has no scruples.

 

My thanks to the onboard staff who were all supurb!

 

Thanks so much for coming back and sharing your experience:D I am still shocked that this happened but I am glad to hear that you were able to make the best of it and still enjoy your cruise:)

[soccerpapi]

Thank you very much for coming back to Cruise Critic and posting about your experience onboard the ms VOLENDAM. I'm glad to hear that you had a nice cruise and that things worked out for you and your mother.

 

Thank you for clarifying that you feel it was Holland America that caused the your two outside cabins to become one after all was said and done.

 

A question if you do not mind....Overall, are you and your mother happy with the compensation, upgrade to a nicer cabin and refund that Holland America has provided to you as a result of the change in cabins from two to one?

 

Again, I'm glad things worked out for you and that you had a nice cruise, thanks again for reporting back to us on your cruise.

 

soccer

[3rdGenCunarder]

Excellent service and good value over all. Thanks to all of you who were compassionate with our situation. My time with my mother in the same came was a lot of fun.......but a contract is a contract. We were booked in two outside cabins as singles until HA forced us into one and upgraded us to a balcony cabin, which was lovely. There was no mistake by my agent. The onboard staff confirmed that we were indeed forced to share the cabin and had NO offer of alretnate dates. Do not think this was an agent mistake as it was NOT.

 

Would I book HA again......not as a single "guarantee" with another related booking in the same catagory as that means NOTHING to HA. I was not even given the option of my money back and cancelling the cruise.

 

In spite of corporate policies, know that the onboard front line staff is lovely and that they will do all they can to give you a quality experience. That said, they over work the staff and stretch them too thin do consistently deliver consistently attentive, personal service.....even in a suite catagory as I was.

 

I'll just go back to the smaller lines (Silverseas, Seaborun, etc. ) that honor their bookings as booked ...... but may do HA for a cheap cruise in the future just to get away but only in a deisgnated cabin as opposed to a gurarantee.............corporate has no scruples.

 

My thanks to the onboard staff who were all supurb!

 

I often wonder how much time the onboard staff spend sorting out the mistakes made shoreside. I'm glad you were able to enjoy the cruise despite all the problems you had with HAL leading up to the cruise.

[vbmom87]

I, too, hope you write to corporate in Seattle. This should NEVER have happened.

[Jade13]

Excellent service and good value over all. Thanks to all of you who were compassionate with our situation. My time with my mother in the same came was a lot of fun.......but a contract is a contract. We were booked in two outside cabins as singles until HA forced us into one and upgraded us to a balcony cabin, which was lovely. There was no mistake by my agent. The onboard staff confirmed that we were indeed forced to share the cabin and had NO offer of alretnate dates. Do not think this was an agent mistake as it was NOT.

 

Would I book HA again......not as a single "guarantee" with another related booking in the same catagory as that means NOTHING to HA. I was not even given the option of my money back and cancelling the cruise.

 

In spite of corporate policies, know that the onboard front line staff is lovely and that they will do all they can to give you a quality experience. That said, they over work the staff and stretch them too thin do consistently deliver consistently attentive, personal service.....even in a suite catagory as I was.

 

I'll just go back to the smaller lines (Silverseas, Seaborun, etc. ) that honor their bookings as booked ...... but may do HA for a cheap cruise in the future just to get away but only in a deisgnated cabin as opposed to a gurarantee.............corporate has no scruples.

 

My thanks to the onboard staff who were all supurb!

 

Thank you so much for coming back to this board with an update. Glad the cruise was good. I think what HAL did was wrong and thought they made offers to other guests to move but never knew they could do this.

 

Book a specific cabin next time.

 

Write to HAL and let us know what they say. I would want to know how this happened.

 

Guestrelations(AT) hollandamerica.com

[SirTomster]

Excellent service and good value over all. Thanks to all of you who were compassionate with our situation. My time with my mother in the same came was a lot of fun.......but a contract is a contract. We were booked in two outside cabins as singles until HA forced us into one and upgraded us to a balcony cabin, which was lovely. There was no mistake by my agent. The onboard staff confirmed that we were indeed forced to share the cabin and had NO offer of alretnate dates. Do not think this was an agent mistake as it was NOT.

 

Would I book HA again......not as a single "guarantee" with another related booking in the same catagory as that means NOTHING to HA. I was not even given the option of my money back and cancelling the cruise.

 

In spite of corporate policies, know that the onboard front line staff is lovely and that they will do all they can to give you a quality experience. That said, they over work the staff and stretch them too thin do consistently deliver consistently attentive, personal service.....even in a suite catagory as I was.

 

I'll just go back to the smaller lines (Silverseas, Seaborun, etc. ) that honor their bookings as booked ...... but may do HA for a cheap cruise in the future just to get away but only in a deisgnated cabin as opposed to a gurarantee.............corporate has no scruples.

 

My thanks to the onboard staff who were all supurb!

 

 

Hey CruiseCritic. Can you call Holland America and all the other lines and ask them their policies regarding this. Ask Holland America and when they say "Of course we would not do it" let them know that they did!

 

Would they also force two people who happen to be related but purchased separate rooms into a single room for any reason at all. And by Force, I mean force and not offer an upgrade that they do not have to accept.

 

This is fairly scary that a cruise line would do this. I am personally shocked that they would do this.

[josie724]

Thank you so much for coming back and posting the outcome. I'm glad you still were able to enjoy your cruise.

 

In this situation at least it was a mother and her son. I just wondering if it were two in-laws who were linked together with the same last name if they could have gotten away with doing it. Just makes you wonder.

[fleckle]

.......In this situation at least it was a mother and her son. I just wondering if it were two in-laws who were linked together with the same last name if they could have gotten away with doing it. Just makes you wonder.

The relationship of the people involved should not matter and is none of their business.

 

What they did was inexcusable. The OP is apparently a very easygoing and tolerant person to be so accepting.

 

It makes you wonder what HAL's counter offer would have been if they had flat out refused the "upgrade" offer in the first place and just said no.

[josie724]

The relationship of the people involved should not matter and is none of their business.

 

I wasn't condoning what they did, I was merely questioning what HAL would have done if the relationship of the passengers was more "touchy" than the relationship of the OP

 

What they did was inexcusable. The OP is apparently a very easygoing and tolerant person to be so accepting.

 

It makes you wonder what HAL's counter offer would have been if they had flat out refused the "upgrade" offer in the first place and just said no.

 

OP explains the offer in his first post.

 

 

 

What Holland "offered" was an upgrade to a balcony cabin for us to SHARE. It was not a "full refund." Rather, they want to credit us with the cruise cost alone, not the port charges or taxes, which I found out are approx. 55% of the total I paid......boy do they make the money off onboard purchases to offset the low fares. So, I said I was not interested. Holland's response was take it or leave it. They were not willing to offer an alternate date, a larger cabin, onboard credit or anything beyond what amounted to 45% of what I paid and we HAD to share the cabin.