Are we the only ones admin don't care about?

[Boraxwoman]

In May, I treated my husband to "Baltic Highlights" (Thomson Celebration) as his 60th birthday present. He is very interested in ships, so I thought being on a ship, going to ports with maritime museums, would be ideal for him.

 

 

As it was to be a surprise, not revealed until his birthday less than a week before departure date, I dealt with all the arrangements by myself, and couldn't download my frustration onto him. My frustration was caused by: our tickets not arriving, by Thomsons not saying whether they would arrive at all but blaming an outside company, by them not telling me where to go in Newcastle to find the ship, and by no-one helping me directly but all giving me other numbers I must ring. No-one would give me an email address at all, or let me speak to a supervisor. Eventually, in response to my desperate please to be told where to find our ship, someone from Thomson's gave me wrong information! You will see what I mean from these extracts from my letter to Thomson, which I sent afterwards. Well, actually, I wrote them an earlier letter which resulted in a standard, fob-off reply. This is from the letter I wrote in reply to that. They have of course not responded.

 

 

 

 

Extracts from my letter follow:

 

 

I thank you for your letter dated 29 May in response to my desperate appeals for tickets for our cruise.

 

You state “I note efforts were made to give you all relevant information before travel and alternative arrangements were made for collection of your tickets.” Please allow me to clarify. The efforts which were made, were all made by me.

 

I am the person who spent a whole afternoon on the phone to various bits of Thomson. Thomson staff just told me there was nothing they could do, and I should ring a different number. That’s why I had to ring about six or eight numbers in total, at goodness knows what expense to myself, and certainly at great stress. I asked for an email address (after searching hopelessly for a long time online) and was told there wasn’t one – impossible to believe in this day and age, especially when the cruises are advertised and bookable online! I see an email address at the bottom of your letter – why was I not allowed to be given it?

 

Someone told me to turn up at the Harbour Office and I would receive my tickets – when I explained that I didn’t know where the Harbour Office was because no-one has sent me tickets or information, he told me that the information would be with the tickets. I explained that I didn’t have the tickets, and he said we could pick them up from the Harbour Office. Do I have to spell it out, or can you see that this circular “helpfulness”, which went on for quite a while, was not getting us anywhere?

 

In the end, the same gentleman from Thomsons said he would look up where the Harbour Office was. He told me to go to Bell Street at the Port of Newcastle, and I looked up the address and confirmed with him that it was the right place to go to, to board our cruise.

 

Very luckily for us, we stayed in Newcastle the night before boarding, and decided to spend the next morning finding the Harbour Office, so that nothing more could go wrong. We were surprised when the Harbour Office – whose street number the Thomson’s gentleman had given us – was difficult to find. We were even more surprised to find it was a tiny office at the top of a small building, accessible by a lift which could hold only two or three people at a time, with no cruise ships in sight; but not as surprised as the staff in the Harbour Office were to see us! Fortunately, the surprised staff were also very friendly and helpful, and directed us to the proper cruise terminal, as all your Thomsons staff had singularly failed to do. This was quite a way away, and we were very glad we had not left it until boarding time to locate the ship.

 

Being sent to a completely incorrect office to find our cruise was, I believe, unforgivable carelessness, sloppiness, ignorance and unconcern for customers (anything to get me off his back and shut up). I must congratulate you on finding staff who are unable to send tickets out on time; who are unable to answer simple questions themselves about one of your prime products but must pass customers endlessly around the phone system; and who prefer to send guests to spurious, wrong locations rather than find out where they should go to. It cannot be easy to mess customers around quite so thoroughly!

 

Once we finally arrived (thanks to the helpful folk at the Harbour Office, and despite Thomson’s attempts to keep us from it) at the cruise terminal, finding we had to queue for forty-five minutes with our luggage in the car park (there was no shelter from the weather – we were glad it was dry) seemed par for the course. As Thomson’s customers, we embarked on our cruise feeling thoroughly despised and unvalued by the company we had paid a lot of money to.

 

If I were running a business and for any reason not had the tickets to send out on time, I would firstly telephone or email all affected customers to explain, (rather than leaving them in the dark to panic alone, the Thomson way,) then I would get hold of the tickets and information packs and send them all out by next day courier. But of course, unlike Thomson’s, I would care about satisfying paying customers, and about honouring commitments.

 

When I first made the booking, I decided to telephone the number on the web page because I had questions. One of the questions was whether we would need visas for Russia, as we wanted to meet up with an old friend and go to particular museums. I was told that visas would not be necessary, as Thomsons sort all that out. We were very, very disappointed to learn, too late to do anything about it, that these visas were group visas and would not enable us to visit St Petersburg independently. We couldn’t see our friend. We couldn’t go to the Maritime Museum or the Museum of Polar Exploration – these visits were to be the highlights of the cruise for us. Now, thanks to more inaccurate – no, more than inaccurate, once again it was plainly completely wrong – advice from Thomsons staff, we were unable to do the things we had most been looking forward to. Still, it enabled us to give Thomsons more money to go on your tours (one of which involved queuing for about an hour to get in to the Peterhof Palace).

 

On board, we found the serving, stewarding, waiting and bar staff to be excellent. That was a relief. The cabin was comfortable, too. We never did find out, though, why vegetarian food could not be accurately marked with a “V”. Sure, there were “V”s dotted around the menu, but they omitted to mark many vegetarian dishes, and proudly accompanied prawn toast, dishes containing gelatine, two separate soups described as made with beef stock, and “meat lasagne”. When I complained at reception about this, I received no reply at all. Again, par for the course. (The waiters told us it was a “printing problem” – I am still trying to imagine what type of printer causes “V”s to slide around on the paper.) Please can someone tell me how difficult it is to print “V” beside a vegetarian dish, and to avoid printing it beside any other dish? Please can someone tell me whether or not vegetarians are welcome on Thomson cruises?

 

I have had no compensation or explanation for the time and expense I’ve wasted telephoning you repeatedly in search of our tickets. Neither have I had an apology for the stress this caused before an important family birthday. You “acknowledge [my] disappointment of not receiving tickets in sufficient time” and are “sorry feel so let down by us”. I don’t only “feel” let down. I was let down. You have not apologised for this. You state “We will continue to work towards ensuring that all aspects of the holiday booking experience meets our customers’ needs” – my suggestion is that you have a very, very long way to go.

 

You also write “I hope you may consider us for any future travel arrangements.” While it seems our treatment is not regarded seriously by Thomsons, the answer is a definite “No” – not us, nor, probably, any of the friends and acquaintances who hear of our experiences. No, no, no.

 

Letter ends - - -

 

 

 

 

Despite all this, we had a good time - but in spite of, not because of, Thomsons. It was our first cruise. I hope we cruise again, but next time we'll pay a bit more to be treated like paying guests rather than despised, the Thomson way. The waiting, serving and cleaning staff were all excellent and couldn't do enough for us, but admin and management are a waste of space. We were very disappointed to have been lied to when booking about visas for Russia.

 

 

 

On board, the "Destinations" staff seemed to know less about the destinations than we did. The "Library" had very few books in it - what there was were mainly cast-offs of previous guests; can't Thomsons afford to buy a few books? - and anything about our ports of call was locked up and only available when we were out in the ports! The receptionists didn't bother to ensure I got a reply to my complaint about lack of vegetarian labeling. We also asked them if there was a chart of our route available - they said there wasn't, then we found one on the wall around the corner from them.

 

The jacuzzis were never working. The tiny pools were too cold. The food was good in the Meridien restaurant (when we could find out what was vegetarian) but sometimes poor and tired in the Lido buffet. It was also difficult to find a table there sometimes.

Why no tea-making facilities in or near the cabins? It was a drag to have to go to the queues in the Lido every time we wanted tea or coffee.

 

I did like the Horizon bra. And our steward, darmadi, was fantastic.

[davecttr]

Horizon bra!, crikey

 

Seriously you are not the only one to have ticketing problems with Thomsons as there have been a number of posts on various forums on this subject. Did you book the cruise direct with Thomsons or via a travel agent? I have booked via Thomsons TA for a Celebration cruise in September and am worried that the tickets won't arrive on time. The Russian visa problem sounds just like a typical lack of staff training which seems to be a problem for a lot of british companies. Luckily I discovered that cruise forums like this can prepare you for a lot of the pitfalls.

[kruzseeka]

I'm sorry to hear of your experience. There are often problems attached to tracing back communications via telephone (don't get me started on government departments, gas, BT etc., etc.!!!). Something I have found helpful when booking through TUI sites is, rather than do the online booking on the Thomson site where you don't actually speak to anyone (or pay a premium to book by phone), is to go through either Portland Direct or Cruisedeals. They both connect you to an agent who will give you their name and direct line phone number.

 

When I've had a query, I've used this number and had good service. In fact for our last trip the agent was great - even ringing us out of the blue to confirm we knew about a change of car parks and to make sure she'd alerted us to the fact that we had to ring the parking company ourselves. It doesn't help you, I know, but perhaps others who want to use online booking facilities may find it useful in the future to have a direct line to the person who booked their cruise.

[sagalout1954]

Blimey, now I'M worried, booked via Thomson website.

 

Still, if I have a problem I think I'll just camp out in the local Thomson travel agents until it's sorted..............whether they like it or not! I bet they have access to appropriate phone numbers and email addresses.

[kruzseeka]

We've booked several times via the Thomson on-line method and we haven't had any problems whatsoever so don't worry. My comments were just a possible course of action which could provide reassurance about problems re making telephone contact and at least being able to speak to the same person - and hopefully get them to take responsibility for solving any problems.

 

We've even had a booking 5 days before departure and the tickets were at check-in just as promised - also no problems regarding the parking at the port either.

 

Our ticket booklet has always arrived about 2/3 weeks before departure. On one occasion I was getting concerned with 2 weeks to go and rang up. They promised to send out a duplicate set. The next day the originals arrived, then 3 days later the second posting came.

[djmutters]

Boraxwoman,

 

I must say I read your post with much intrest as we also had cause to call Thomson before and after our cruise and we have found there custormer service to be some what lacking and on some occasions actually quite rude and speaking to us like we where idiots, it seems once they have your deposit/money the custormer service goes out the window.

 

I'm sad to learn that Thomson didn't let you know about requireing a Visa for Russia because we have just returned from a Thomson Baltics cruise and if it wasn't for cruise critic we would have never have know we needed to apply for visas (It took us 3 weeks online very easy) but Thomson prefer you to spend your hard earned cash with them rather then doing your own thing.

 

Must also agree on all your other points the staff and the service was brilliant however we couldent use the pool as it was freezing and the jacuzzis were never working maybe next year they might be working as we have booked the Fire & Ice cruise.

 

Sorry to learn of the lack of custormer service from Thomson but rest assured you are not alone.

 

Nigel & Rob

[kruzseeka]

One of the questions was whether we would need visas for Russia, as we wanted to meet up with an old friend and go to particular museums. I was told that visas would not be necessary, as Thomsons sort all that out. We were very, very disappointed to learn, too late to do anything about it, that these visas were group visas and would not enable us to visit St Petersburg independently.

Boraxwoman

Thomson employees should have been able to give you the correct information about visas required for St Petersburg since this is clearly stated in their brochure under the 'All you need to know section' on passports and visas. If any of them had checked this out the information this could have been explained to you and you would not have had any confusion over the requirements.

[djmutters]

One of the questions was whether we would need visas for Russia, as we wanted to meet up with an old friend and go to particular museums. I was told that visas would not be necessary, as Thomsons sort all that out. We were very, very disappointed to learn, too late to do anything about it, that these visas were group visas and would not enable us to visit St Petersburg independently.

Boraxwoman

 

 

Thomson employees should have been able to give you the correct information about visas required for St Petersburg since this is clearly stated in their brochure under the 'All you need to know section' on passports and visas. If any of them had checked this out the information this could have been explained to you and you would not have had any confusion over the requirements.

 

 

Totally agree with you however there where lot's of passengers on the ship who had all been told by Thomsons that visa's where not required in Russia, I can only comsider 2 things bad custormer service or Thomson trying to squeeze more money out of folk.

[sagalout1954]

Sorry, I'm going to have to say it.................even booking 'on-line' you do still have access to the 'small print'. Though I'm not trying to justify your bad experiences, you must take some responsibility for choosing not to read it and it is crystal clear what you must do if you want to disembark independently in Russia.

 

Granted, perhaps Thomson staff 'should' have known but maybe it wasn't clear that you wanted to 'go it alone' and that's why you weren't given the right answer?

 

Maybe it's just me who not only reads the 'small print', but actually rips out the booklet pages (or prints them off the web) and takes them in my hand luggage!! If anything goes wrong at any stage, I want to know exactly what the operator's procedure is supposed to be.

 

Personally, we checked all our destinations on the relevant Embassy websites. THEY definitely know the most current situation, personally I wouldn't trust advice from the tour operator/travel agent anyway.

 

Fingers crossed you get some satisfaction from Thomson.

[Alsacienne]

I too booked online for a cruise, having confirmed that my booking would be ok because I don't live in the UK and was making my own way to the port of departure.

 

I had a problem getting a brochure, because Thomsons don't send brochures to overseas addresses - the EU, not the moon - even though they accept bookings and payments from them! Finally they sent me one to a friend who sent it on.

 

I have sent several emails about specific points that were unclear from their brochure ........ and have had the good fortune to have written individual replies to each. OK so they couldn't answer most of the questions that were asked - you will have to enquire on the ship was the general response, but I appreciated the final paragraph in which they apologised for not being able to answer my question. So far, so good as regards the land service with Thomson. Now I just have to wait for my cruise!

[vwgolf]

Sorry to hear about your bad experience but I have to say it doesn't match with mine. I'm about to travel on my 4th Thomson's cruise and we've never had a problem; I really would struggle to find a bad word to say about them (no, I am not an employee!).

 

I must say I am surprised people are unaware that a visa is required in Russia. This is clearly stated in the brochure and on the website. I appreciate Thomson's employees should know better but if I were told I did not require a visa for somewhere like Russia, I would double check elsewhere.

[banjoman 1]

We have had approx.60 holidays in the past and have never had cause for complaint.However when something does go wrong clearly Thomson have no interest in addressing the problem.

The main action you can take is to not book another holiday with Thomson.( or any of your friends or relatives ):mad:

Complaining to ABTA will probably bring the response " ---we would not advise taking this particular complant further "

You could try writing to Phil White (Senior Customer Services Manager ) at TUI in Coventry but I suspect he is an expert at passing you on.

You could refer the matter to the ABTA Arbitration Scheme. This would cost you £72.85 but IF you lost you would lose this money and have to pay extra expenses.

The last resort would be your County small claims court which we are actively considering now.