First the EZ Air mess - now a new nightmare!

[karatemom2]

We have cruised almost exclusively with Princess for 15 years - more than 30 cruises. We are about as true blue as customers can be. But I'm so very disappointed with our recent experiences.

 

We woke up this morning to an email stating that our reservation for our cruise LEAVING IN 5 DAYS had been canceled just after midnight last night. Poof! Gone! No explanation, nothing. Just a form email. This was 6:30 in the morning. We have spent the last 4 hours trying to get this fixed and make sure we not only is our booking reinstated, but that we don't lose the special cabin we specifically booked side by side with our kids. Thankfully their reservation was unaffected.

 

It took multiple calls and waiting on hold to even finally get to the person who kindly helped us via the Casino Department where we initially booked. Never were we offered any explanation of why it was canceled - only that it was caused by some glitch in their system. We spent two hours on the phone with her as she worked behind the scenes with supervisors to get our booking back, make sure we were in the same cabin, get our EZ Air flights rebooked and our seats we had paid for with Air Canada reinstated. Meanwhile, I had to cancel my work meetings this morning to deal with this and now my husband, Mr. Lobstermobster, has been on the phone for the last 40 minutes with the Medallion App support trying to get that all sorted out because it completely erased everything we had already set up through that process.

 

I'm just sort of at a loss. I know things happen, but what I would expect is at the very least profuse apologies, offers of some sort of credit or perk for our inconvenience, even just a sincere, heartfelt recognition of how terribly upsetting this is literally days before our cruise. But honestly, by and large we got a very cold and can't help you response from 90 percent of the people we tried to reach out to for help with literally one exception - the wonderful lady in the Casino Booking Department who was thoughtful and bent over backwards to get things fixed for us. She is the shining star for us in this whole debacle. By the time we got to her we had already been cut off of three previous calls!

 

I just hope that everything is now sorted out - the medallion app is still an issue but I'm confident DH will sort that out. I'm super stressed and upset and need to vent, so I came here. It feels better just typing it all out. Thanks for letting me share my frustration!

[nnzz]

13 minutes ago, karatemom2 said:

We have cruised almost exclusively with Princess for 15 years - more than 30 cruises. We are about as true blue as customers can be. But I'm so very disappointed with our recent experiences.

 

We woke up this morning to an email stating that our reservation for our cruise LEAVING IN 5 DAYS had been canceled just after midnight last night. Poof! Gone! No explanation, nothing. Just a form email. This was 6:30 in the morning. We have spent the last 4 hours trying to get this fixed and make sure we not only is our booking reinstated, but that we don't lose the special cabin we specifically booked side by side with our kids. Thankfully their reservation was unaffected.

 

It took multiple calls and waiting on hold to even finally get to the person who kindly helped us via the Casino Department where we initially booked. Never were we offered any explanation of why it was canceled - only that it was caused by some glitch in their system. We spent two hours on the phone with her as she worked behind the scenes with supervisors to get our booking back, make sure we were in the same cabin, get our EZ Air flights rebooked and our seats we had paid for with Air Canada reinstated. Meanwhile, I had to cancel my work meetings this morning to deal with this and now my husband, Mr. Lobstermobster, has been on the phone for the last 40 minutes with the Medallion App support trying to get that all sorted out because it completely erased everything we had already set up through that process.

 

I'm just sort of at a loss. I know things happen, but what I would expect is at the very least profuse apologies, offers of some sort of credit or perk for our inconvenience, even just a sincere, heartfelt recognition of how terribly upsetting this is literally days before our cruise. But honestly, by and large we got a very cold and can't help you response from 90 percent of the people we tried to reach out to for help with literally one exception - the wonderful lady in the Casino Booking Department who was thoughtful and bent over backwards to get things fixed for us. She is the shining star for us in this whole debacle. By the time we got to her we had already been cut off of three previous calls!

 

I just hope that everything is now sorted out - the medallion app is still an issue but I'm confident DH will sort that out. I'm super stressed and upset and need to vent, so I came here. It feels better just typing it all out. Thanks for letting me share my frustration!

Last month we actually arrived in San Pedro after flying from NJ and were told Sorry but we were

NOT on the manifest.  Things finally worked out but not after having that desperate feeling because they could not immediately tell we were going to be able to cruise.

 No one seemed to understand why we were upset.  No explanation, no apology - just an

oh well attitude by the staff at check in. 

 

We had been trying for almost four months to sort out the medallion having spent countless hours on the phone.  We were finally told to just go and they would be waiting for us at the terminal.

Needless to say they never did sort it out.  We did have a wonderful cruise but planning use to be half the fun and I miss the easy cruising we were always used to.  I know not all of this is the fault of Princess,  but rolling out the Medallion App when there were so many problems not worked out rests

solely on Princess.

[CruzerDeb]

Wow! How terrible for both of the previous posters! What an awful thing to happen and I’m glad it got sorted out. I grow more frightened by the day for only my second Princess cruise in June, first time cruising the Mediterranean. 

[skynight]

What a mess. Princess never should have introduced a new program app system during a shutdown when they had no income revenue and reduced staffing to handle all the massive issues. This was and remains a giant error. There is no excuse for two hours on the phone.

Princess should have paused the medallion app, retained the cruise personlizer which did not have many issues, should have delayed things like Dine My Way and the check in windows. Keep things simple instead of making them complicated and buggy, thus causing massive phone backups.

Princess could have added on ship app features without changing the entire booking system leading to issues just like the OP mentioned.

Time for new top real leadership. 

[VibeGuy]

The Casino department has been failing to pay for comp/reduced bookings and this has been the inevitable result. 

[karatemom2]

17 minutes ago, VibeGuy said:

The Casino department has been failing to pay for comp/reduced bookings and this has been the inevitable result. 

 

True - this is the second time we have gone through this issue. The first was after final payment was due and it did show an outstanding balance unpaid by Casino Dept. We similarly spent hours on the phone several weeks ago fixing that issue.

 

The one today wasn't related to that. The Casino Dept. had paid their share and our booking was shown as paid in full. Today's issue was simply some sort of computer glitch that happened overnight last night.

 

So, to make our long story even longer - you are right about the Casino payment problem and as a result we have dealt with our booking being canceled not once, but twice now for two different issues.

[Sprocket]

When mine was cancelled due to non payment by the casino I asked for 2 specialty dinners.  Oh no he said they never do that but they did.  Our casino bookings are all now marked as protected whether that means anything in their system I don’t know but I check constantly around final payment.  Happy you were able to get your booking back but if you had a vip cruise booked make sure it gets reinstated, I missed that on the new personalizer and casino dept did not have me on their list so all those perks went poof.  Still had a great time but I now know what to look for.

[azbirdmom]

So sorry this happened to you after everything else.  Fingers crossed that this is the end of the craziness and that you'll have a wonderful cruise.

[Ride-The-Waves]

This appears to be Princess SOP since restart.  Very poor management and no leadership any kind.

[jeanandjim]

On 4/27/2022 at 4:37 PM, Sprocket said:

 Our casino bookings are all now marked as protected whether that means anything in their system I don’t know but I check constantly around final payment.  

Where do you look to see that they are protected?

Thnx, Jim😎

[Sprocket]

1 hour ago, jeanandjim said:

Where do you look to see that they are protected?

Thnx, Jim😎

You have to call the casino department and ask them to do it, no way that I am aware of to do it on your own.

[pamwigs]

On 4/27/2022 at 11:00 AM, skynight said:

What a mess. Princess never should have introduced a new program app system during a shutdown when they had no income revenue and reduced staffing to handle all the massive issues. This was and remains a giant error. There is no excuse for two hours on the phone.

Princess should have paused the medallion app, retained the cruise personlizer which did not have many issues, should have delayed things like Dine My Way and the check in windows. Keep things simple instead of making them complicated and buggy, thus causing massive phone backups.

Princess could have added on ship app features without changing the entire booking system leading to issues just like the OP mentioned.

Time for new top real leadership. 

The Medallion app is not new. It is almost 3 years old. We have cruised twice with it with no issues. 

[freecruiser2]

This happened to me a few times.  On the phone the last time, she said it sometimes happen if you check the EZair fares, not even book.  Also one time they told me it had to do with transfers, which I didn't book and there's something they're supposed to click when they book it and they often don't.  The casino customer service is a roller coaster.  Luckily on the ship all is great!  But beforehand, it's pretty difficult.  I'm on hold now as I'm typing, but it's already past the time they said it would be and I have to go soon to a work meeting.  I sent an email a couple of months ago also to book a comp offer, like the message says to when you call, but they said they wouldn't honor it because it was expired. Ugh, sent me to customer service, she said send me the email, so I did.  I emailed them a few weeks later, still haven't heard back.  Funny the message just said, send an email and we will honor it, instead of waiting on hold.  Um no you won't.  Frustrating!