Profits more important than customer satisfaction

[BobBeaSea]

For the OP, sorry things weren't up to par for you. Not having a functioning toilet could be a pain in the rear :D. Don't know what you are looking for with respect to compensation but I wish you luck. If Celebrity uses the same almighty Cruise Contract the other lines use, they don't owe you a thing. Just the way it is, no matter how ridiculous and non functioning your cabin might be. Good luck to you....

[LovetheSea]

I think you would have been wise to choose a newer ship maybe. The Galaxy is getting pretty tired.

I love Celebrity and am an Elite member. Having said that they are not without a lot of faults at times. I had a lot of the same issuses on the Mercury (before the refurbish).

The customer service can be very spotty. My Princess and Holland cruises had much better customer service once on the ship. They can be a little snotty at times on Celebrity. And I am always nice and friendly even when I am having a problem. Like being triple charged for excursions etc. They insinuated I got extra tickets and sold them!

[satchiesmom]

I'm not a Celebrity cheerleader but I have never had a problem with a ship (I've only been on the Century, going again for the 4th time in Jan.) or the customer service. Maybe it's just been luck, or that I haven't been on any of the other ships. Every line has it's faults, and it seems like the OP ran into almost all of them on her cruise. It's a shame that she was treated this way. On the other hand, I don't think it's a good idea to condemn a whole cruiseline on a public forum because of one cruise experience, albeit a terrible one.

I hope the OP gets a positive resolution to the problem, and will try Celebrity again. Try the Century, she's great!

 

Susan

[fllady]

Whenever we have had a problem, it is usually taken care of. One of our Alaska cruises we had a CC cabin, my husband is disabled and spends a lot of time on the balcony. To make a long story short, there was a window cleaning machine right in front of our balcony. It couldn't be moved, because it had broken down. DH took a picture of it with the beautiful Alaska mountains behind it and sent it to customer service. We received a very nice refund. Now whenever or whatever cruise line we are prepared "just in case". As the saying goes " A picture is worth a thousand words"

[TampaJack]

I think it is wrong to assume any poster has an agenda, unless they are always negative or always positive.

The poster definitely had an agenda. I was just looking at the Cruisemates board. The poster not only posted a scathing review there, but he/she has been cutting & pasting it into every message board thread having to do with the Galaxy, usually including the sentence "Do NOT, repeat NOT, sail on this cruise line!".

 

Seems that he/she is doing everything possible to hurt Celebrity. I can understand being upset, but I am not a fan of calculated smear campaigns.

[chessbriar]

We had a problem with our cabin on the Galaxy back in February. We reported the problem before dinner and a message was left on our answering machine by the time we got back to our cabin just before midnight. We went to guest relations and they offered to wake the person who was handling our problem and have people help us move.

 

We didn't want to put anyone out. We went back to our cabin and slept through the night. We woke up the next morning to soggy carpets over more than half the cabin, and it was a family cabin. We headed down to straighten everything out. They had the head of house keeping there to help us move along with our cabin steward. It couldn't have been nicer.

 

Customer service in resolving the issue was wonderful. We ended up having dinner with the head of guest relations at the head table, a freak coincidence. But it was a very pleasant evening and we joked about the problem.

 

The next day we walked past our cabin to see all the furniture and carpeting ripped out. The problem was a leaking fridge that was running to cold and creating a ton of water.

 

One thing I noticed while waiting at guest relations, is how poorly people tend to treat the staff. They scream and yell wanting unreasonable things, then expect to be treated wonderfully. It's hard to been over backward when someone is treating you poorly. I'm not saying the OP did this, but the person before them may have. We'll never know.

 

I went to guest relations, told them about the problem and told them if they didn't have anymore Family cabins, I'd pay for an upgrade. I didn't get the upgrade, but I was well taken care of.

[Desertbelle]

...One thing I noticed while waiting at guest relations, is how poorly people tend to treat the staff. They scream and yell wanting unreasonable things, then expect to be treated wonderfully. It's hard to been over backward when someone is treating you poorly. I'm not saying the OP did this, but the person before them may have. We'll never know.

 

I have seen the very same thing. People becoming irate over minor little things and expect the staff to just bow down to them.

 

One couple we met from a CC roll call attached themselves to us and they were so embarrassing to be around. They complained about everything very loudly and without any respect for the staff. If we saw them coming we would run and hide...we used every excuse in the book to not be around them. The amazing part was the crew and staff were so nice to them and gave them most everything they demanded. I felt so sorry for them.

[bizi]

Don't be shy, you posted twice now...

 

 

 

 

How Much Compensation Did You Request? (This is my third request ;))

Same text on one of cruisemates.com reviews with a reference to compensation demand. You may want to take a look there.

I'd believe that there was a problem about the stateroom. I don't know if that warrants a campaign like this though:-)

[hugger]

so sorry that you experienced such problems.

 

If you haven't done so yet I would contact your Travel Agent and enlist their help with the matter.

They in turn can contact X as well as their sales rep. with the company.

 

Hopefully, you'll get some satisfaction.

[j!m]

there are other posts about the cruise the original poster is complaining about so i can see no reason to doubt the complaints about plumbing issues. further the situation is not acceptable. i think a minimum expectation is a working toilet in your cabin. having said this, demands for compensation seem all to prevalant and are not usually a way to have the matter resolved. what does the op want, money or a working toilet?

 

we sail with X frequently and have had a problem coincidentally with a non working toilet in a CS it was tended to numerous times during our trip and was most often non-operable. in any event we were annoyed. not with the service, the maintenance folks tried several times to fix the problem, we were anoyed we had this damn porcelaine that didnt work. anyway when i wrote head office about the matter and indicated that i didnt think it was quite up to their normal standards, i was very surprised to receive $5000 of future cruise credits. i had asked for nothing, just told them the situaion. we certainly did not let the problem ruin our vacation, we had a great time and simply put up with the inconvenience.

 

i really dont understand why every time there seems to be a problem on a ship, people seem to immediately want compensation? have they ever had problems with hotels, cabs,planes,trains etc?what do they do?

 

they must hava lot of time to write and voice all their complaints.

 

my experience is ,if you travel, there will ultimately be problems. have a good time and if its really annoying deal with it later. making demands and complaining just annoys people, why bother. if you want them to help you ,isnt it better to solicit their support?

[C 2 C]

We had a negative experience on the century 2-3 years ago, ....

 

18 months after our trip, the Century was completely refurbished and I'm sure it is very nice now.

 

It is. Perhaps your complaint led them to spend $55 million on refurbishment. The problem with some complainers is that they keep on hammering the same issue years after an incident even though others have been on the same ship without complaints and even praise of their experience. We live, we learn and we move on to cruise lines with fewer issues that may upset us.

[Hondu]

 

i really dont understand why every time there seems to be a problem on a ship, people seem to immediately want compensation? have they ever had problems with hotels, cabs,planes,trains etc?what do they do?

 

Do you believe that a person should get what they paid for? Why let the cruise line keep what I paid$ for and then have to walk to a public toilet every and anytime I want to use it?

 

There are minimum basics that people in first world countries expect.

 

By the way, I have had problems at hotels before and was compensated. Same with airlines. I had a box of rum broken and was paid in full. I also was given a voucher for lunch sometime in the past while stuck at the airport.

[HLN500]

I have never vilified anyone but the op refuses to answer legit questions.

We come to these boards to discuss our experiences----positive and negative.

We hope to avoid pitfalls.

Since I will be sailing on the ship the op 'hates' I wanted to know the cabins where plumbing problems occurred so that if my booked cabin were affected I could be prepared.

For those who continue to defend the op----can you explain why he won't answer my simple request. Does he not wish to help a fellow cruiser or does he feel he can be totally negative WITHOUT any evidence. This is not a flame but an observation.

I have had positive and negative experiences with X. In general any time I've had a bad experience it usually turns out ok.

I booked my Galaxy cruise while on board knowing her condition and aware that she wasn't due to dry dock until after that cruise. It's the people on board-crew and fellow pax-who can make or break a cruise for me and not whether the chrome is all new and shiny.

So op------what cabins did the plumbing not work.

[DBA PWA]

what cabins did the plumbing not work.

 

That is going to vary from cruise to cruise and from cruise ship to cruise ship based upon the age of the plumbing and the last time that it had a full maintenance procedure performed.

 

With a vacum system all it takes is for someone to put something in the toilet that they repeatedly beg you not to to completely block up the local system. This results in the all too familiar "sewage" smell which is there until they open up the ceiling, open up the pipe and remove the offending item. I can't tell you how many cruises we have been on where the offending party is near to our room. From the maintenance staff apparently the most common offending item are Depends. Imagine trying to stuff that in the toilet.

 

So fair warning to all - nothing goes in the toliet but what god intended us to put there.

[tchix]

I really feel for the OP, and maybe he does have a vendetta, but perhaps he feels that getting the word out as publicly as possible is his only recourse at this point? I mean what do you do if you had saved up and paid for a particular experience and the cruiseline totally failed to provide it? (and yes, i feel totally comfortable saying that working toilets is a reasonable expectation on a 10 day cruise - this isn't an instance of "oh they didn't have filet mignon when I wanted it"). And then you escalated your complaint through all the proper channels and no one would help you or listen to you or give you anything in return? I would feel like shouting it from the rooftops also, as large companies like RCCL/X and their customer service departments and toll-free numbers and total lack of any personal customer service can make it feel like there is nothing else you can do. They wont care if he never sails with them again. He probably comes off as a hothead because he is so adamant, but I dont necessarily think it's unreasonable in these circumstances . . .

 

I think it is so interesting when a company that charges an arm and a leg for travel services always wants to get let off the hook when they let people down (airlines, cruiselines, etc). I mean if you paid someone a huge fee to come in and replace your furnace, and your furnace only worked 90% of the time, that wouldn't be acceptable. But somehow when celebrity and other travel companies really fall down on the job (ie no functioning toilet etc), that's okay and a bunch of people think it's okay that they don't provide any refunds or even apologies.

[Host Walt]

Time out.

 

This thread is being closed for a short period while everyone catches his/her breath. Please use this interlude to refresh your recollection of the Community Guidelines. Thanks.

[Casino Player]

Do not, repeat not, sail with this cruise line. They present themselves as making customer satisfaction their number one priority. This is the opposite to the truth.

Our cruise of the Mediterranean aboard the Galaxy, leaving Rome on August 24, 2007 was a disaster. On most days we were met with non-functioning toilets in our stateroom and when they were working they were often foul-smelling. Water frequently dripped from the ceiling in the outside corridor and buckets were left for extended periods to catch that water. Complaints to Guest Relations were met with a mere "the engineering department has been called." On one occasion a staff member "helpfully" suggested that we could use the public washrooms - at a time when there was a gastrointestinal outbreak and extra sanitary steps had to be taken! Requests to speak to the manager were met with "he's not working right now" rather than an offer to get him to call when he was on duty. Is this the Cruise Line's idea of a luxury cruise ship with luxury facilities?

What's worse though is the totally non-caring attitude of the corporate office in Miami. When we complained we were told it was "corporate policy" not to provide the compensation requested. In other words they are more concerned about being sued for more money by other cabins that were equally affected than genuinely caring about their customers' well being. It is not fair to penalize us because so many people complained. That’s their problem and I should not be penalized for the fact that many complaints were received. Take responsibility Celebrity – if the ship had been sea worthy in the first place you would have had no complaints – it is your fault. Not your passengers’.

 

Dear sir: I find your story hard to believe. I've been on Celebrity Cruise Line for several cruises and have never had this experience or known anyone else with an experience similar to this. They have even gone out of their way for my wife and I to make things nicer. This sounds more like a RCCL cruise.

[dbh62ark]

Having toilets that work is not a matter of perspective or attitude. There are some entitlements on any cruise that is sold to passengers on any cruise line, and that certainly is at the top of my list.

 

It is. Perhaps your complaint led them to spend $55 million on refurbishment. The problem with some complainers is that they keep on hammering the same issue years after an incident even though others have been on the same ship without complaints and even praise of their experience. We live, we learn and we move on to cruise lines with fewer issues that may upset us.

But this is a public forum, and the people who were there and were actually negatively affected get to decide how mad they are and for how long. And as long as they meet the board guidelines, they can post their experiences even if it's uncomfortable for some board members to hear criticism against their favorite cruise line (after all, they are able to click on another thread on these boards).

 

Donna

[Hondu]

Having toilets that work is not a matter of perspective or attitude. There are some entitlements on any cruise that is sold to passengers on any cruise line, and that certainly is at the top of my list.

 

But this is a public forum, and the people who were there and were actually negatively affected get to decide how mad they are and for how long. And as long as they meet the board guidelines, they can post their experiences even if it's uncomfortable for some board members to hear criticism against their favorite cruise line (after all, they are able to click on another thread on these boards).

 

Donna

 

Couldn't have said it any better !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jasper2315]

We took the Med cruise July 12, 2007, on the Galaxy and loved it. No problems that were major. It turned out to be one of our favorite cruises and one of our favorite ships (this was our second time on the Galaxy). Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

[wolfganghowell]

Interestingly enough - there was a very similar "review" over on the RCI board for one of their ships. The OP joined in October, had one post, never came back to respond to requests for more info and presented a very angry account of the cruise that was discounted by others who had been on the same ship right before, during and after the same time period.

 

What is also of interest is that the writing style is extremely similar - even down to the poster's name. Yes the name's are different but it is also presented in the same format (curiosabouttheworld vs. cruisingallot) where all the words run together without punctuation. The biggest difference though is that the other post was in all caps in a giant font.

 

Coincidence? I wonder.............

 

I will say this to try to give the OP the benefit of the doubt. I had a customer service issue with a national furniture retailer several years ago. I hopscotched up the company ladder from the idiot salesman at the store to the store manager to the division manager finally to the corporate office and ultimately to the president of the company. It took several months - each step of the way I had to control my temper, explain the situation succintly each time, be specific in my request and state what I was willing to accept to solve the problem. The only "threat" I ever made was to coolly explain to each person that I was prepared to tell everyone I knew about my experience and that if the problem was not ultimately fixed I would make sure to share the story as often as possible. I said it matter of factly, not emotionally. I did eventually make it all the way to the top before the problem was resolved. So if you feel you deserve some compensation, be clear in your expectations and level headed in your dealings. And be patient.

 

There - I seem to have covered both sides of my brain on this one. :D

[wave master]

Interestingly enough - there was a very similar "review" over on the RCI board for one of their ships. The OP joined in October, had one post, never came back to respond to requests for more info and presented a very angry account of the cruise that was discounted by others who had been on the same ship right before, during and after the same time period.

 

What is also of interest is that the writing style is extremely similar - even down to the poster's name. Yes the name's are different but it is also presented in the same format (curiosabouttheworld vs. cruisingallot) where all the words run together without punctuation. The biggest difference though is that the other post was in all caps in a giant font.

 

Coincidence? I wonder.............

 

:D

 

I seem to miss your point. I don't know if it is the same poster or not, but if this had been a person from the Celebrity board who had a good time and shared it on the RCL board would this cause such "wonder"?

I think the poster had a genuine bad experience and has a right to voice is opinion of his/her cruise just as much as any body else would have a right to voice their opinion how great their cruise was without being impuned as to their motive. As for why curiosaboutthe world never came back I would think after reading some comments on this thread, it would not be that hard to understand.

[Drew B]

I seem to miss your point. I don't know if it is the same poster or not, but if this had been a person from the Celebrity board who had a good time and shared it on the RCL board would this cause such "wonder"?

 

 

I think the point is that the allegedly similar poster was talking on the RCL board about a different problem on an RCL ship. He/she was not talking about the same cruise on two different forums. Right? If it is the same poster (that has not been established), this may indicate a pattern. Two cruises - two horrible experiences, bad enough to launch a diatribe over... Perhaps that suggests either that this is a person who is unusually hard to please or a person who likes to exaggerate the severity of problems. On the other hand, it could just be a person who had the bad luck to be stuck with two really terrible cruises. Who knows...

[wolfganghowell]

Wave - As I tried to make clear and may indeed have failed - is that IF this is a legitimate situation, then read the second half of my response. IF this was a manufactured post (and yes they do exist) - that it seemed quite odd to see two posts very similar in nature on both the RCI and the X board within days of each other - both by new posters who only joined in October and who only posted their bad experience both saying NEVER CRUISE THIS LINE. That to me is a vendetta against a corporation and is openly trying to damage their business. It could VERY WELL be a coincidence but the similarities in the two threads - even the similarity in how the names were composed - was striking to me. They could not be related at all and both could be legitimate complaints and if so, I suggest a reasoned and patient response to get appropriate response from the cruiseline. If the response is not acceptable to the poster then they can speak with their wallet and go to the competition. Like I said, the timing just seemed a little too strange.

[C 2 C]

Wave - As I tried to make clear and may indeed have failed - is that IF this is a legitimate situation,

 

Don't tell me that there are actually people who roam the boards only posting negative comments. :eek: I can't imagine anyone wasting time on the cruise boards criticizing companies they don't like when their time could be better spent extolling the virtues of their favorite ships on their own threads. Heaven forbid. The people reading here could jump ship for the better experiences and their own cruises would become less exclusive and more expensive as a result.