Another Celebrity customer service whine

[Petoonya]

I'll probably get blasted for this. But want to let others know.

 

I made a reservation for the very first time online last weekend on the X site. I was charged two times for my deposit of $900. (I did not press the confirm button twice.) I got two emails saying that my credit card acct had been charged for the deposit...and looked the next day at my credit card acct...sure enough $1800 total to X.

 

I called reservations that day- agent told me that he would "take care of it". Called Captains Club the next day and they said no reservationist could possibly "take care of it"...I needed to speak with accounting. Called the next day from work and was over 45 minutes on hold waiting for accting. When I finally spoke with someone she told me she needed to out me on hold again so that she could put the refund through. Since I was at work and could not hold any longer she told me I'd have to call back later to confirm that the refund went through.

 

I just got off the phone with accting again- another 30 minute wait time. It's all taken care of- they refunded my $900.

 

But there was not a word of apology- when I said that this was a hassle, a big investment of my time to correct THEIR error, that it was not my fault and that I expected an apology for all my wasted time, what I got from the rep was- "well what do you want from us"? Hello!!! A simple apology!

 

I'll never book direct again. I will use an agent!

 

As has been noted here many times Celebrity customer service SUCKS! The rest of the cruise experience is heavenly.

[tbelian]

I'll never book direct again. I will use an agent!

 

Sorry you had this bad experience.

[Senga]

The first thing you are given on any phone call with Celebrity is the customer service reps name. Write it down. If you encounter a rude rep you just politely say, "and your name again - it WAS Celine, correct". The attitude (which I have fortunately NEVER encountered in my dealings with Celebrity) should vanish immediately. If not, you have a name to put with your complaint.

[newtocc]

Sorry to hear they suck Pet!

[hermang]

I am Curious Yellow ( as the old movie went) Why do you book directly and not with a TA - I can see booking on board and having the credit go to the TA but there is something about that personal - sit down at the desk, get some input from a travel professional that is worth the extra IF there is an extra cost. My TA has always gotten us SUPER deals be it cruises or Las Vegas trips or what ever. The Cruiseline rep has no interest in you as a person since the next time you book she may be history where as the TA will still be in business.

[Petoonya]

Thanks for the support. :)

 

You are adorable Newt! :)

 

Thanks tbelian. :)

 

I did get names of everyone I spoke too Senga. Nothing changed. I could write a letter blah blah blah, but it's too much time wasted already. And I have read much worse about customer service on this board- it's not going to change anytime soon.

 

HermanG- I would have been happy to book this with a TA. The only problem I have is that I may have a wedding to attend at the same time and I am not 100% sure that this will be a go- may have to alter dates.. I did not want to get my TA involved if I have to cancel/change until I am certain it's a go. Since the prices on Med cruises skyrocket I wanted to grab a cabin to cover my bases. I am not comfortable taking an agents time until I am certain. I can transfer this to my agent anytime.

 

I expect respect and an interest in me as a customer from Celebrity- but understand it is not the same interest my TA gives me.

 

Celebrity- there's room for improvement here!!!

[steveweese]

It could have so easy to fix Nancy. All you would of had to do was leave the extra 900.00 with them and put our names on a cabin. Simple enough?

 

Steve

[Petoonya]

Hiya Steve!!!!!

Where have you been???

We would LOVE to have you guys join us on a Med cruise.

I shoulda thought of that!

You could bring us our afternoon canapes like last time.

 

What do you and Debie have planned after HA in November???

 

And how the h are you anyway?

[ocngypz]

Ooohhh...... you were lucky... I sat on hold with HAL for 1 hr 15 minutes the other day to backcharge a credit card before I got to speak with someone who could help me.... then another 35 minutes.

Yes, it is true. Only accounting can issue the credits. ARGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH

[greydog]

Ooohhh...... you were lucky... I sat on hold with HAL for 1 hr 15 minutes the other day to backcharge a credit card before I got to speak with someone who could help me.... then another 35 minutes.

Yes, it is true. Only accounting can issue the credits. ARGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH

 

OCEAN - What Happened?? Your posting counter is at 528 - Did your odometer turn over and reset at 0 after hitting 100,000??? Its against the law to tamper, roll back your counter, ya' know.

[Petoonya]

OK this is pretty da$! amazing. Someone at Celebrity actually read my whine here.

 

I just got in and there was a message on my machine from a woman in customer service at Celebrity. She called to tell me she was aware of my difficulty in getting their error in double charging my deposit rectified. She said she wanted to extend her "apology" for my trouble, and to leave her phone number and extension in case there was anything else she might help me with.

 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

OK- that was very nice! It was great to get a personal phone call- and even more impressive that someone must be keeping their fingers on the pulse of this board. There was no other way for X to have heard that I was displeased.

 

Thanks very much Celebrity. Your acknowledgment and effort makes things a lot better. I give you A+ for trying to make things right. :) I'm a happy customer again.

 

Best wishes....Nancy

[wolfpack]

In some ways I agree and disagree with you. I was having trouble online booking an excursion, and a few folks really helped me when it seems to be a computer glitch on my end. However, the customer service desk on the ship was not good. The reps who worked these desks acted like you were interrupting their day. But all other service on the ship was grand!

[Andy]

OK this is pretty da$! amazing. Someone at Celebrity actually read my whine here.

 

I just got in and there was a message on my machine from a woman in customer service at Celebrity. She called to tell me she was aware of my difficulty in getting their error in double charging my deposit rectified. She said she wanted to extend her "apology" for my trouble, and to leave her phone number and extension in case there was anything else she might help me with.

 

OK- that was very nice! It was great to get a personal phone call- and even more impressive that someone must be keeping their fingers on the pulse of this board. There was no other way for X to have heard that I was displeased.

 

Thanks very much Celebrity. Your acknowledgment and effort makes things a lot better. I give you A+ for trying to make things right. :) I'm a happy customer again.

 

Best wishes....Nancy

 

Hi Nancy !

 

It is great to see your problem was resolved.

 

I had to chime in on your comments that you feel Celebrity is watching these boards.....

 

While I cannot promise that they are.... I do feel that folks at Celebrity are watching these boards. I have several reasons for feeling this way, (and I wont bore you with the details). I feel that it is great to see that Celebrity is watching and listening.

 

What makes it more signifcant, is when they see a problem, they ARE taking action. In my opinion, this is an awesome development.

 

Keep up the EXCELLENT work Celebrity. Well done !

[rcicruiser]

Are you sure you did not press the bottom more than once

[The Scotsman]

They DO watch the boards, although not in an official capacity. Had this confirmed from several sources whilst on board the Summit and the Millennium.

[LMKohler]

She said she didn't.

 

I'm amazed at what happened (the phone call). I think its great and am glad you got your apology.

 

I certainly hope Celebrity looks at these boards -- it certainaly is in their best interests to do so.

[TEXASMUNK]

A little dose of reality here..... Cruise lines DO NOT look at their reservatons folks as a profit center but view them as a COST CENTER...the exact same way airlines look at reservations agents.

 

The mentality is NOT to have a happy customer. The mentality is X number of phone calls per hour. Once they hit that number, THEN they look at the $$$ generated per hour.

 

This has been chronic in the travel industry for years!

 

As a cost center the number one controlling factor: Hourly wage. The mentality goes, hire cheap! Now some folks that work sheap are highly intellgent, take their jobs seriously, etc. Others view every question or problem as an obstacle to meeting their call volume requirements.

 

Anything out of the norm will almost assuredly get you put on hold (imagine the panic the agent goes through when you ask a diffuclt question).

[Desertbelle]

Just to balance things here a little. As bad as Celebrity customer care is, I think Princess is the worst. The Princess people were beyond useless and rude when we were trying to get information about our cruise last year on the Dawn Princess.

 

The ship had had engine problems for months, and was heading to dry dock to have it fixed. We were the first cruise after dry-dock. Princess refused to admit there was a problem with the ship's engine. Then they flat-out lied to me when they said that after the dry-dock the ship would be "better than new" (I have that in writing from them) and it wasn't until after final payment that they informed us that this "better than new" ship would have "operational problems" (engine breaking-in period) that would prevent it from going fast enough to make all the ports and that we would be missing two ports completely and 2 other ports would be shortened to half days.

 

Their compensation to us was $150 pp shipboard credit, which I thought was too low....it wouldn't take long to use up $150 on essentially 3 extra sea days. I know some people would be pleased with this compensation, but we booked this cruise because of the ports. It was my daughter and her family's first cruise and 6 sea days out of 10 is a lot for new cruisers with children.

 

We were NOT allowed to change ships (the Sun Princess was leaving the day before with cabins open from the same port for a 10 day itinerary, that we would have loved to change to) or rebook for a date in the future when the engine was working properly.

 

The worse part was that they continued to sell this exact same cruise for months and months, before and after the dry-docking, without informing people that the itinerary was dramatically changed.....not until after final payment did they inform people of the "operational problems"...when it was too late to cancel without penalties.

 

To me this was just plain old-fashioned greed. When I sent letters, I was referred to Customer Care and those people were ill-informed and very rude. One person asked me "Do you want them to go faster and ruin the new engine??" Huh?? No. I want Princess to compensate me better or let me on a different ship that isn't broken! Or at least give us a "good-faith, we want you back despite this problem" percentage off on a future cruise.

 

As it turned out, the ship was in very poor condition after the dry-docking (I learned my lesson about that, for sure)...workmen finishing things, plumbing not working in our cabin, laundry rooms not working (which my daughter was planning on using traveling with a toddler), a crew that was absolutely a mess for the first week (thank goodness it was a 10 day cruise so my daughter and SIL got to see at least a few days of what a crew should act like), internet (including TV programing) was down for 7 days, hot tubs out of order, swimming pool had problems, the food was horrible the first week (the waiters got tired of apologizing for the chef.....food undercooked, over cooked, and some things just gross), etc etc. I never saw a cruise with so many grumbling, unhappy people....the passengers AND the crew.

 

Thank goodness we were with family and our shore excursions (the ones we were able to do) were wonderful. Despite all the ship problems, we had a lovely cruise...though I do wish it wasn't my daughter's first. We have booked a couple of JS Aft balconies on the Grandeur of the Seas for next spring....hopefully RCI will do it's magic and let them see how great a cruise can be!

 

I can't see myself ever cruising with Princess again. I can understand a ship's engine being broken, but I can't understand them lying about it and I can't understand their actions in response to THEIR ship having a problem. And as I said in my letter to them after the cruise, I will tell people of this problem and their poor way of handling it as often as possible. Their response? No response. My SIL's letter was also never responded to.

 

I know this is a long letter, and believe me, it could have been much longer had I given all the details. :) I guess the point I wanted to make is that ALL the cruise lines need to work on thier customer care. This is an important part of cruising and there is nothing that leaves a more lasting opinion.

[hermang]

Regrettably this is true of ALL CALL CENTERS. I used to work for a Health Insurance Company. Our CSR's had to raise their hand to go to the bathroom - HONEST - everything was a numbers game. Worse still when we moved our IT group to North East Corp HQ the took our Help desk and put up Reader boards just like at the CSR's - Had to run statistics - weren't allowed more than 5 min per call before they had to dump the call in a Server team queue even if it wasn't our issue - why - we didn't have time limits. Very demoralizing and you can guess what it did to professionalism.

 

One reason I am willing to pay a bit extra to use a TA - let them fight with the company

[Longboysfan]

Just to balance things here a little. As bad as Celebrity customer care is, I think Princess is the worst. The Princess people were beyond useless and rude when we were trying to get information about our cruise last year on the Dawn Princess.

 

The ship had had engine problems for months, and was heading to dry dock to have it fixed. We were the first cruise after dry-dock. Princess refused to admit there was a problem with the ship's engine. Then they flat-out lied to me when they said that after the dry-dock the ship would be "better than new" (I have that in writing from them) and it wasn't until after final payment that they informed us that this "better than new" ship would have "operational problems" (engine breaking-in period) that would prevent it from going fast enough to make all the ports and that we would be missing two ports completely and 2 other ports would be shortened to half days.

 

Their compensation to us was $150 pp shipboard credit, which I thought was too low....it wouldn't take long to use up $150 on essentially 3 extra sea days. I know some people would be pleased with this compensation, but we booked this cruise because of the ports. It was my daughter and her family's first cruise and 6 sea days out of 10 is a lot for new cruisers with children.

 

We were NOT allowed to change ships (the Sun Princess was leaving the day before with cabins open from the same port for a 10 day itinerary, that we would have loved to change to) or rebook for a date in the future when the engine was working properly.

 

The worse part was that they continued to sell this exact same cruise for months and months, before and after the dry-docking, without informing people that the itinerary was dramatically changed.....not until after final payment did they inform people of the "operational problems"...when it was too late to cancel without penalties.

 

To me this was just plain old-fashioned greed. When I sent letters, I was referred to Customer Care and those people were ill-informed and very rude. One person asked me "Do you want them to go faster and ruin the new engine??" Huh?? No. I want Princess to compensate me better or let me on a different ship that isn't broken! Or at least give us a "good-faith, we want you back despite this problem" percentage off on a future cruise.

 

As it turned out, the ship was in very poor condition after the dry-docking (I learned my lesson about that, for sure)...workmen finishing things, plumbing not working in our cabin, laundry rooms not working (which my daughter was planning on using traveling with a toddler), a crew that was absolutely a mess for the first week (thank goodness it was a 10 day cruise so my daughter and SIL got to see at least a few days of what a crew should act like), internet (including TV programing) was down for 7 days, hot tubs out of order, swimming pool had problems, the food was horrible the first week (the waiters got tired of apologizing for the chef.....food undercooked, over cooked, and some things just gross), etc etc. I never saw a cruise with so many grumbling, unhappy people....the passengers AND the crew.

 

Thank goodness we were with family and our shore excursions (the ones we were able to do) were wonderful. Despite all the ship problems, we had a lovely cruise...though I do wish it wasn't my daughter's first. We have booked a couple of JS Aft balconies on the Grandeur of the Seas for next spring....hopefully RCI will do it's magic and let them see how great a cruise can be!

 

I can't see myself ever cruising with Princess again. I can understand a ship's engine being broken, but I can't understand them lying about it and I can't understand their actions in response to THEIR ship having a problem. And as I said in my letter to them after the cruise, I will tell people of this problem and their poor way of handling it as often as possible. Their response? No response. My SIL's letter was also never responded to.

 

I know this is a long letter, and believe me, it could have been much longer had I given all the details. :) I guess the point I wanted to make is that ALL the cruise lines need to work on thier customer care. This is an important part of cruising and there is nothing that leaves a more lasting opinion.

 

I'll agree with you on this one.

 

Dealing with the princess custoomer service...

 

I have found them to be rude and uncaring of passanger needs.

 

I also found the perfect way to avoid this in the future.

 

Don't waste my cruise $$$$ with them.

 

Don't recomment them to anyone.

[DeltaOne]

Just to balance things here a little. As bad as Celebrity customer care is, I think Princess is the worst. The Princess people were beyond useless and rude when we were trying to get information about our cruise last year on the Dawn Princess.

Just to present a balanced view, I've found both Celebrity's and Princess customer service to be courteous and helpful every time I've called.

 

We booked a cruise on Princess just this week. Our first call to Princess revealed the ship was full, we were placed on the waitlist. A few days later we found a TA with two rooms and were anxious to book one. I had never heard of this TA and wanted to be careful about booking with them. I called Princess customer service and they were quite helpful, giving me a few tips for verifying the TA.

 

Later that day, satisfied the TA was competent and really had a room, we booked the cruise. The TA then found us a great flight, and recommended travel insurance. We're delighted with her service, unless something happens to change my mind we'll be using her for future cruises too.

[25in99]

I'll add my 2-cents worth as well. Celebrity has a lot of room to grow in the Communication Dept. IMHO. My husband and I were on the May 27th sailing of the Summit out of Seward, which was shortened by 1 day due to needed repairs. In addition to being unhappy with how they handled the compensation for turning our 7-night cruise into a 6-night cruise, here are some other things that went wrong/should have been handled better:

 

1. The "Ice Princess" rep that was on board to handle questions relating to the shortened trip was very unsympathetic. And although she repeatedly told us how much she hoped we would sail with Celebrity again, she gave us very little reason to want to do so. If she had used the phrase "industry standard" one more time, I might have lost it. This was a reunion trip of women and their husbands from several states who I went to school with over 30 years ago- there was nothing "standard" about it!

 

2. My daughter very thoughtfully ordered a bottle of wine for us, but when it was brought to our table by the sommelier, there was no indication of who had sent it. He suggested perhaps that it was our travel agent and since the company had done that in the past, we thought that was probably the case. Imagine my embarassment when my daughter asked about the wine upon our return.

 

3.We prepaid for airport transfers in Vancouver because we like the convenience of having everything pre-arranged. The letter we received upon check-in at our hotel gave the name of the company that would be providing the service. One slight problem-they didn't start service until 6am and we needed to be at the airport at 4:30am. When we called them, they suggested we take a cab! So we called Celebrity, but "Jo" didn't call us back. So the next day we had to call again and were finally given taxi vouchers. I did call and complain when we returned and was given a credit and treated pleasantly by Becca- but again the issue is Communication and Customer Service.

[Desertbelle]

Just to present a balanced view, I've found both Celebrity's and Princess customer service to be courteous and helpful every time I've called.

 

Could it be Paul, that you've never had to contact customer service for a complaint or problem?

 

I have also found the reservation operators, for all the cruise lines, to be very polite and courteous. They present a calm, confidence to those people wanting information and/or reservations.

 

It's when you have a problem and they direct you to the Customer Care department...these are NOT the same people who take reservations....when the problems begin.

 

Granted, these people hear a lot of complaints and it must get old fast, but if it's not in them to be pleasant and helpful to people who are troubled then they need to find other work.

 

During one of the many calls I had to Princess the customer care person actually made me cry. She was saying the meanest things, and when I asked to speak to her supervisor she refused. Told me there weren't any supervisors in Customer Care, they were all equal. Now I know what running into a brick wall feels like!!

 

I loved it when at the end of an emotional call that gave me no satisfaction they would say in an artificially cheery voice, "Is there anything else I can do for you?" Oh my, how I wanted to make a suggestion or two!! :mad:

[AFT_LOVER]

but a good TA would have gotten a refund or a very cheap future cruise for you.

 

We had purchased the inagural of the Coral Princess 14 months in advance to get their onboard booking sale rate with $500 onboard credit. Day of inal payment my TA gets a fax that she will be moved from May to October sail date. Then final payment is moved again & I see a press release that the cruise is now December (Xmas/NYE). My DH had to keep moving his vacations & with a Govenor to answer to, it isn't pleasant. Then in Sept my TA gets another fax that the cruise is cancelled due to pod problems. So they give us $500 per stateroom credit & move us to Island Princess from next May (2 year wait). As my TA is typing the acceptance info in her fax spews out that Island is also being cancelled due to pod problems, so she gets us another $1500 for 2 cancellations & books us for May on Grand Princess sailed Meditterean. The next day I see a press release that I sent to my TA stating Grand is staying in Carib & Golden will do Med. So we had Emerald Mini Suite with wrap around balcony. When we boarded the ship the stateroom door handle was too hot to hot to touch & it seemed over 100 degree in it, so we left luggage in room. Went to Purser to have it checked out & fixed by return from dinner. Guess what? hotter than it was in fact the hardshell suitcases seemed to be melting, they were soft to the touch from the heat. Back to the Purser who tells us a technician was there & stated AC was fine. I see the paperwork & he went to 223 & we are 233 but he is off for the weekend. No other stateroom to goto, so I slept on the sofa in front of them. That got the working on our AC very fast!

 

Then I phone them for refund of $200 depsoit on future TBA cruise. They refuse. So AMEX charged them back & credited my account.

 

VERY SAD, NEVER AGAIN!

 

Then "X" treated us famously and must say I haven't had a rude person yet.

 

 

Just to balance things here a little. As bad as Celebrity customer care is, I think Princess is the worst. The Princess people were beyond useless and rude when we were trying to get information about our cruise last year on the Dawn Princess.

 

The ship had had engine problems for months, and was heading to dry dock to have it fixed. We were the first cruise after dry-dock. Princess refused to admit there was a problem with the ship's engine. Then they flat-out lied to me when they said that after the dry-dock the ship would be "better than new" (I have that in writing from them) and it wasn't until after final payment that they informed us that this "better than new" ship would have "operational problems" (engine breaking-in period) that would prevent it from going fast enough to make all the ports and that we would be missing two ports completely and 2 other ports would be shortened to half days.

 

Their compensation to us was $150 pp shipboard credit, which I thought was too low....it wouldn't take long to use up $150 on essentially 3 extra sea days. I know some people would be pleased with this compensation, but we booked this cruise because of the ports. It was my daughter and her family's first cruise and 6 sea days out of 10 is a lot for new cruisers with children.

 

We were NOT allowed to change ships (the Sun Princess was leaving the day before with cabins open from the same port for a 10 day itinerary, that we would have loved to change to) or rebook for a date in the future when the engine was working properly.

 

The worse part was that they continued to sell this exact same cruise for months and months, before and after the dry-docking, without informing people that the itinerary was dramatically changed.....not until after final payment did they inform people of the "operational problems"...when it was too late to cancel without penalties.

 

To me this was just plain old-fashioned greed. When I sent letters, I was referred to Customer Care and those people were ill-informed and very rude. One person asked me "Do you want them to go faster and ruin the new engine??" Huh?? No. I want Princess to compensate me better or let me on a different ship that isn't broken! Or at least give us a "good-faith, we want you back despite this problem" percentage off on a future cruise.

 

As it turned out, the ship was in very poor condition after the dry-docking (I learned my lesson about that, for sure)...workmen finishing things, plumbing not working in our cabin, laundry rooms not working (which my daughter was planning on using traveling with a toddler), a crew that was absolutely a mess for the first week (thank goodness it was a 10 day cruise so my daughter and SIL got to see at least a few days of what a crew should act like), internet (including TV programing) was down for 7 days, hot tubs out of order, swimming pool had problems, the food was horrible the first week (the waiters got tired of apologizing for the chef.....food undercooked, over cooked, and some things just gross), etc etc. I never saw a cruise with so many grumbling, unhappy people....the passengers AND the crew.

 

Thank goodness we were with family and our shore excursions (the ones we were able to do) were wonderful. Despite all the ship problems, we had a lovely cruise...though I do wish it wasn't my daughter's first. We have booked a couple of JS Aft balconies on the Grandeur of the Seas for next spring....hopefully RCI will do it's magic and let them see how great a cruise can be!

 

I can't see myself ever cruising with Princess again. I can understand a ship's engine being broken, but I can't understand them lying about it and I can't understand their actions in response to THEIR ship having a problem. And as I said in my letter to them after the cruise, I will tell people of this problem and their poor way of handling it as often as possible. Their response? No response. My SIL's letter was also never responded to.

 

I know this is a long letter, and believe me, it could have been much longer had I given all the details. :) I guess the point I wanted to make is that ALL the cruise lines need to work on thier customer care. This is an important part of cruising and there is nothing that leaves a more lasting opinion.

[sports10]

I have a thread about the reservation center for Celebrity on CC. But in a nutshell, it's the luck of the draw. When things go right, the cruise is perfect, but once you get on tilt, it's all downhill after that. I just changed reps at Celebrity and transfered commission because I wasn't going to put up with the bad communication. Now, we'll see if this works. We have 4 suites and 4 cc cabins on the Dec 4 Infinity ship. I have 8 RC cruises and enjoyed my last 2 on Carnival Pride. It was a super ship and I am hoping that the Infinity is a step upward. I know the cuise lines have huge staffs and lots to do, but when they forget that each of us need to enjoy our cruise and are not just one of many, it's very impersonal and only an employee of the cruise line can make it better. My business partner and I are Premier Executives with United and he will call back 5 times to reservations, to get a rep that handles his reservation right and he gets it!! Same with Hilton as Diamond Members. They upgrade and service as good as any member program that exists, but when an employee does not care, it doesn't matter what you say or do, you're dead! Shame, but it's the real world today. Big travel industry companies cannot afford to hire the best workers, so you get what you pay for. If you want consistant incredible service, try the 4 Seasons chain. They never miss. So, customer service is misnamed in most cases. It's really anything but service.

 

Sports10