Royal Family Suite - Explorer

[Jtd724]

Anyone who defends or tries to smooth coat that type of service and the condtion of the room as well as eveything else, they don't know what cruising, customer service is all about. These people on these boards drive me crazy, you have legitimate complaints that are not even "expectations" IMO, they should be standard. You have no reason to sail on RCCL again, You deserve exemplary service for a suite like that.

[kbt2]

are the aft cabins w/balconies a problem w/soot? Do they all get that since aft? Not sure I'd want that..been trying to decide if I should switch hump to aft, but that has me second guessing.

[johnjen]

WOW! To the original poster to this thread - I really feel bad for you guys. 8 grand, and there's fingernails, sand, dust bunnies and ghost turds, by golly, and to add insult to injury, huge brown stains on both sides of the mattresses too....and the soot problem! The poster has every right to be upset.

 

I would hope that you would not only contact the head guy of RCI, but also the Cruise Critic folk who run the website here. They should feature your post as it is very well written.

 

Demand some of your money back; I would. What you experienced is nothing short of being grossly apalling. You paid top dollar, AND were even expected to tip at a higher rate?

 

On the other hand, we're inside cabin cruisers because we are hardly in the cabin to begin with (all we do is sleep and shower in there anyway).

 

Regardless, we always have tons of fun while cruising.

[Cruising89143]

I would have first asked the room steward to take care of the problem and if she didn't then I would have stopped by the Guest Relations desk and made the complaint. Sounds like a lazy room steward that needed some extra training.

 

As far as her not getting the beds moved around first thing, luggage is their main responsibility during the embarkation process. I could understand her not doing it right away.

[trishalee]

To the OP - they really dropped the ball on this one! I would have gone all the way to the top while still on the ship and if unable to get satisfaction there, I'd be writing to the big guns since. Your many cabin issues were outrageous! But I learned something else here, too. We're going on our 15th cruise next month, and have NEVER been asked for a bed configuration preference. I wonder why that is?:cool:

[ilionite65]

trishalee, I was wondering the same thing about being asked about the bed configuration. Going on my 12th RC cruise in Aug and have never been asked about bed arrangements.

[cruznsugs]

Ok...now i'm nervous. My parents and I have 9390 and 9392 in September and i never realized there was a soot problem.. I though this was a sought after cabin? Has anyone else gone thru this? Is this a problem with these cabins. Especially on the explorer.

[Merion_Mom]

Ok...now i'm nervous. My parents and I have 9390 and 9392 in September and i never realized there was a soot problem.. I though this was a sought after cabin? Has anyone else gone thru this? Is this a problem with these cabins. Especially on the explorer.

I've been in aft cabins (twice on Explorer: 7688 and once on Voyager: 7388) and never had a problem with soot.

[Hflors]

Thanks to all the people who have responded so positively.

 

1) yes there is a soot problem on the aft balconies. Don't let any one say there isn't. It just so happens that my brother in law (one of the sisters I was traveling with) owns a company that does work on large ships. As soon as she saw the Explorer from our hotel. She shook her head and said we would have a problem. She was right. There are two mats at the door one on the outside and one on the inside to catch as much soot as I guess it can. But one of the other bad parts is the balcony is never cleaned (at least the whole seven days we cruised and I don't believe before either the soot was covering the balcony the day we arrived.) So unless it rains I guess the soot just gets worse. What is strange is that RCCL has hangers about "SAVE the waves" trying to get you to re-use your towels yet allows all that soot to blow into the ocean!

 

2) I called housekeeping about the chair and the dirt etc under the beds. They could have cared less. Let me repeat it again. THEY COULD HAVE CARED LESS! Even after I told them about leaving the note the first time their only advisse was to leave it again!

I'm very sorry to say that most of the staff had the same attitude and that includes the Conciege (SP). Most of my sisters commented that they thought his service was useless.

 

3) I have written to Adam Goldstein - the president of Royal CAribbean if I get a reply I will come back and post.

 

This was my fourth cruise with RCCL and the first for my other three sisters. I have stayed in an outside, and a balcony cabin, but I have never encountered anything like I encountered on this trip. After this cruise my sisters don't want to go on RCCL again.

 

It's a shame my sisters wanted to try the freedom of the seas. The one sister wanted to book us into the presidential suite. But after this we all kind of agreed that they want to try a different cruise line or maybe a different girls trip.

 

It's sad we spend a lot of money for this trip, and no I don't think we got what we paid for. I will have to tell you that about tuesday afternoon I finally just gave in. I had spent Sunday, Monday and part of Tuesday on the phone and going down to see the people from customer's relation, conciege (sp), housekeeping, and maintenance. So I just kind of gave up and went with the flow otherwise I could have been at it all week. Some vacation.

 

ANyway I hope that my letter does some good. If not I will be very dissappointed.

[judy&steve]

I guess this is a little off topic, but I see you are in Federalsburg. We used to drive through Federalsburg on our way to Sharptown to visit my mom and step-dad several years back. They had a second home on the Nanticoke.

Just wanted to say "hi"

Judy

ps I once found toenail clippings in a Sky Suite on the Mercury. yucko

[Karshrimp]

It is true about the "refrigerators" being actually just a cooler that looks exactly like a refrigerator. Ours wasn't keeping drinks cold, we called Maintainence who informed us they are coolers, not refrigerators. Luckily we had a soft-sided collaspable cooler with us. The room steward just kept it filled with ice for us the whole time. That's the only way we could keep drinks cold. ;)

[Homeschoolmom69]

Anyone who defends or tries to smooth coat that type of service and the condtion of the room as well as eveything else, they don't know what cruising, customer service is all about. These people on these boards drive me crazy, you have legitimate complaints that are not even "expectations" IMO, they should be standard. You have no reason to sail on RCCL again, You deserve exemplary service for a suite like that.

 

I agree. It goes along with people accepting meals that sometimes are mediocre at best, because "at least they didn't have to cook it."

[Merion_Mom]

Thanks to all the people who have responded so positively.

 

1) yes there is a soot problem on the aft balconies. Don't let any one say there isn't. It just so happens that my brother in law (one of the sisters I was traveling with) owns a company that does work on large ships. As soon as she saw the Explorer from our hotel. She shook her head and said we would have a problem. She was right. There are two mats at the door one on the outside and one on the inside to catch as much soot as I guess it can. But one of the other bad parts is the balcony is never cleaned (at least the whole seven days we cruised and I don't believe before either the soot was covering the balcony the day we arrived.) So unless it rains I guess the soot just gets worse. What is strange is that RCCL has hangers about "SAVE the waves" trying to get you to re-use your towels yet allows all that soot to blow into the ocean!

I REALLY don't want to get into a p*ssing contest with you, but on my three aforementioned cruises in aft cabins on Explorer and Voyager, we never had soot on our balcony. So, *I* am saying that there isn't. YOU may have experienced it, but WE didn't. Fact.

[margaritasalt]

To the OP, I am horrified (seriously) that your cabin was in this sort of condition. Toenails? My stomach turned over when I read that part. I would have been as equally outraged if an inside cabin had been left in that sort of condition.

 

[sidebar: What sort of FREAK clips their toenails on a cruiseship and leaves them lying on the floor? GROSS!]

 

However, you gave your steward the chance to correct the problem and it appears she failed miserably. And since you had pre-tipped, you were denied the opportunity to lower her gratuity. Nice.

 

I absolutely adore this cruiseline, but there is no excuse for this sort of service. Bad service is bad service. I am glad you followed this problem up the "chain of command" and am looking forward to hearing whatever response you receive.

 

I hope you can convince your sisters to give RCCL another try. Whichever trip you decide upon, Bon Voyage! And good luck.

[zantedeschia]

1) the housekeeping leaves a lot to be disired. The beds in both bedrooms were were made up together. (four women were to occupy this cabin) We waited for an hour for the cabin steward to come, than finally started to separate the beds ourselves.

Last cruise I went on with my bf, the beds were made up separately. I just shoved them together and when we came back later, the steward had gotten the hint and remade them up as a single bed.