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RCL Cancels Empress of Seas - Screws Up Vacation

coasttal

By coasttal,
in Royal Caribbean International

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coasttal

coasttal

Posted
Posted

We were booked on the Apr. 11 sailing of the Empress of the Seas by RCL. Last week the travel agent called and told us the cruise had been cancelled because they were not finished with refurbishment. They were supposed to be done around March 1. We were told we would bet our money back but would have to wait 5-6 weeks. Funny how I have to get my money to them in a day. Never got a message from RCL. I bought a drink package and who knows if I get my money back on that. We have had to cancel hotels, travel, etc. and RCL thinks they are doing us a favor and give us nothing for our problems.

 

We have been on 15 cruises and now RCL has dropped to the bottom of our "do not book list".

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Clarea

Clarea

Posted
Posted
We were booked on the Apr. 11 sailing of the Empress of the Seas by RCL. Last week the travel agent called and told us the cruise had been cancelled because they were not finished with refurbishment. They were supposed to be done around March 1. We were told we would bet our money back but would have to wait 5-6 weeks. Funny how I have to get my money to them in a day. Never got a message from RCL. I bought a drink package and who knows if I get my money back on that. We have had to cancel hotels, travel, etc. and RCL thinks they are doing us a favor and give us nothing for our problems.

 

We have been on 15 cruises and now RCL has dropped to the bottom of our "do not book list".

Existing thread:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2330365

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Aquahound

Aquahound

Posted
Posted (edited)
Sorry, don't want to give out wrong info, which cruises were cancelled?

 

I'm pretty sure it was the embarkation dates starting March 30 and ending with April 21....so 3 full weeks.

Edited by Aquahound
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Big_G

Big_G

Posted
Posted
We were booked on the Apr. 11 sailing of the Empress of the Seas by RCL. Last week the travel agent called and told us the cruise had been cancelled because they were not finished with refurbishment. They were supposed to be done around March 1. We were told we would bet our money back but would have to wait 5-6 weeks. Funny how I have to get my money to them in a day. Never got a message from RCL. I bought a drink package and who knows if I get my money back on that. We have had to cancel hotels, travel, etc. and RCL thinks they are doing us a favor and give us nothing for our problems.

 

We have been on 15 cruises and now RCL has dropped to the bottom of our "do not book list".

 

Your drink package will be refunded and the 5 - 6 weeks is padding the usual time for a refund which is usually less than a week. Anything can happen though. Sorry for your cancellation.

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ryano

ryano

Posted
Posted (edited)
We were booked on the Apr. 11 sailing of the Empress of the Seas by RCL. Last week the travel agent called and told us the cruise had been cancelled because they were not finished with refurbishment. They were supposed to be done around March 1. We were told we would bet our money back but would have to wait 5-6 weeks. Funny how I have to get my money to them in a day. Never got a message from RCL. I bought a drink package and who knows if I get my money back on that. We have had to cancel hotels, travel, etc. and RCL thinks they are doing us a favor and give us nothing for our problems.

 

We have been on 15 cruises and now RCL has dropped to the bottom of our "do not book list".

 

You have every right to be upset and feel the way you do. They handled this terribly IMHO. A lot of people cant just change all their plans on such short notice. Im still SMH over the 4 night Majesty replacement offer for a 5 night Empress cruise. Really??????????

Edited by ryano
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John&LaLa "Live from...." Rare

John&LaLa

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Posted
You have every right to be upset and feel the way you do. They handled this terribly IMHO. A lot of people cant just change all their plans on such short notice. Im still SMH over the 4 night Majesty replacement offer for a 5 night Empress cruise. Really??????????

 

They offered us Rhapsody passengers 13 night cruises in lieu of 16 night. Just about the same ratio

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ryano

ryano

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Posted
They offered us Rhapsody passengers 13 night cruises in lieu of 16 night. Just about the same ratio

 

Any extra OBC at all? If not, thats pretty weak in my opinion. :o 100.00 in OBC would not have even covered the extra night missed out on based on prices lately and its not like Majesty is a huge upgrade over Empress.

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Clarea

Clarea

Posted
Posted (edited)
I was cooking dinner and trying to respond. Hope it didn't come out too negative. I was multi-tasking.

No problem, I did not take it negative. I would rather be corrected quickly than give out bad info. Thank-you.

Edited by clarea
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chris1

chris1

Posted
Posted
Additional contact information

 

http://elliott.org/company-contacts/royal-caribbean/

 

 

The new CEO may be good for Wall Street but he's not so impressive on looking after paying guests in a consistent manner.

 

Thanks for posting this info, he's going to get a pointed letter detailing all the additional expenses we incurred due to our cruise's cancellation. While I don't expect to be reimbursed I'm going to ask regardless. How a customer service based business can be so unapologetic, incompetent and inflexible is truly mind boggling in this day and age. Seriously, maybe I missed it but have these guys even said "we're sorry"??? All I know for certain is that I can guarantee that anyone I know personally will never take a cruise with Royal carribean.....

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coaster

coaster

Posted
Posted (edited)

We were booked on the same sailing. I could not rebook Empress until the last published sailing in July. Rescheduling my vacation time from work and our friends who we invited in a adjoining cabin made this the only possible date. Tried to get RCI to rebook us on Brilliance out of Tampa at the same price we paid on Empress the same week in April, but was shot down. We would of gone from 5 nights to 4, but RCI said we would still need to pay the current rate on Brilliance.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Edited by coaster
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suzyluvs2cruise

suzyluvs2cruise

Posted
Posted (edited)
They offered us Rhapsody passengers 13 night cruises in lieu of 16 night. Just about the same ratio

At least the Rhapsody cruise was more than a year away. Rescheduling was not as much of a challenge as for those on the cancelled Empress sailings. $200 OBC for a Standard cabin and $400 for a Suite IMHO was a nice offer. We booked a 16 nt cruise on Vision.

 

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

Edited by suzyluvs2cruise
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Merion_Mom

Merion_Mom

Posted
Posted
We were booked on the Apr. 11 sailing of the Empress of the Seas by RCL. Last week the travel agent called and told us the cruise had been cancelled because they were not finished with refurbishment. They were supposed to be done around March 1. We were told we would bet our money back but would have to wait 5-6 weeks. Funny how I have to get my money to them in a day. Never got a message from RCL. I bought a drink package and who knows if I get my money back on that. We have had to cancel hotels, travel, etc. and RCL thinks they are doing us a favor and give us nothing for our problems.

 

We have been on 15 cruises and now RCL has dropped to the bottom of our "do not book list".

 

I am very sorry that you are one of the affected customers.

 

We have been discussing this for days. I hope that you read the thread that was posted in Post #2. First sailing was March 30, so finish date was not March 1.

 

Regardless, she is not ready and will not take on passengers until April 25.

 

There are six cancelled voyages and a delay of 26 days.

 

As already said, they are covering themselves with "4 to 6 weeks" for a refund; as LMaxwell said, it is likely to be a matter of days.

 

Your beverage package will be refunded.

 

They contacted your travel agent because that is how it works.

 

Did you consider any of their offers? I am sorry if none of them worked out for you.

 

I would have been very unhappy, too, to have my cruise cancelled a month beforehand.

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John&LaLa "Live from...." Rare

John&LaLa

Posted
Posted
Any extra OBC at all? If not, thats pretty weak in my opinion. :o 100.00 in OBC would not have even covered the extra night missed out on based on prices lately and its not like Majesty is a huge upgrade over Empress.

 

Plenty of OBC, and they gave lots of notice. Problem was losing good cabins and schedule conflicts. No love for the b2b cruisers

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LMaxwell Great Review Rare

LMaxwell

Posted
Posted
Thanks for posting this info, he's going to get a pointed letter detailing all the additional expenses we incurred due to our cruise's cancellation. While I don't expect to be reimbursed I'm going to ask regardless. How a customer service based business can be so unapologetic, incompetent and inflexible is truly mind boggling in this day and age. Seriously, maybe I missed it but have these guys even said "we're sorry"??? All I know for certain is that I can guarantee that anyone I know personally will never take a cruise with Royal carribean.....

 

You're welcome. I hope you get a satisfactory response. I love cruising and like the RCI product, but I won't defend them when there is no position to defend. Eating the cost of incidentals on 6 cruises on a 2K pax ship should be a rounding error to this company.

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