Cruise.com
Reviews and Complaints

I am sorry you have had bad experiences. In my experience Cruise.com is the BEST agency out there. I have used them multiple times and have always enjoyed excellent service. The prices have also been great and I have always checked around. I will continue to use Cruise.com as my favorite and top rate cruise agency. My wife and I really have liked them. I do wish you the best in your next trip!

Cant stick up for a competitor like Cruise.com but the customer booked a Cat J Inside Guarantee
& received an Oceanview Cat F cabin so this was an upgrade!
Did Cruise.com tell the client that a Guarantee means they dont get an assignment of a specific cabin but are Guaranteed the Cat J or better.
In this case the Cat F Oceanview is a higher priced cabin though it is on the lowest deck.
Seems like this was a communication problem not a rip off
If the client wanted a cabin on a high deck they needed to book a cabin with an assignment not a Guarantee

Cruises.com is no better. We were promised refunds of the booking fees but never got it despite several requests.

terrible company. I was suppose to get back $100 from booking 4 rooms after the trip. Its been 3 months and several emails. In my last email, they stated it was approved and that it will arrive. Well im still waiting, and it seriously does not take 3 months to write a stinking check.

I too have booked with Cruise.com and they were great. Did you contact them to let them know that you did not receive gratuities? I booked a Royal Caribbean cruise and received my gratuities. You should check with them to see what the problem was.

I must say I booked my 3rd cruise through Cruise.com and did not receive any gratuities either because they offerred me a discount as an option. They were very clear to me that I can choose between either promotion. I always take the money upfront whenever the option is available. If you look on their site they clearly say the promotions are not combinable with each other. I will bet you received a discount and thus you were not eligible for both promotions.

This is a good company that does not charge the hidden travel agent fees the other guys like Cruises Only or Travelocity charge.

I recommend in the future you read the offer before making assumptions. I find reading to be essential when using any offer anywhere.

We booked a criuse for our family on cruise.com, because they offered $50 off per room and had pre-paid gratutities. After we paid our deposit, they called back the following day to say they made a mistake and couldn't offer the pre-paid gratuities because of the $50 off deal. When we pointed out that they were two different offers from different companies, they kept on saying that the agents (there were two or more that stated the same deal) had made a mistake. A supervisor named Santiago was finaaly contacted, to no avail. Cruise.com was basically a bogus deal, saved us no money and is not pleasant to deal with.

Verifying the facts would be an awesome idea especially with the 175 obc a certain person says he did not get when in fact he did. He wanted double the 175 obc because he misread and misinterpreted what was advised. Unfortunately, most complaints are from shear comprehension mistakes. And yes, the agents at Cruise.com are true Travel Agents they are not card mill employees. No one is hired without having a minimum amount of years of experience. Just because they are online does not make them less of a Travel Agency. Oh and by the way AAA has an online travel agency as well.

Cruise.com promised me $175 in room credits on a Princess cruise in May, 2012 - plus two bottles of wine. Unfortunately they did not deliver on either - nothwithstanding that the room credits were in writing on the cruise.com invoice. I also wrote a letter to Mr. Hamawy and he had one of his underlinglings call me to try and convince me that they never promised the room credits (guess their invoice showing the credits means nothing to them). In the end I decided not to use them anymore and I go out of my way to tell my fellow cruisers the story above. I have also recently cancelled a Celebrity cruise scheduled for this October that I booked through cruise.com and am rebooking a similar cruise with a competitor.

Cruise.com is one of the best cruise outfits out there. I am surprised by some of the bad reviews. In my experience Cruise.com is the BEST travel agency on the internet to book a cruise. I have always received excellent prices and I have checked around so I know what I am talking about. I have also been extremely impressed with their service. I will continue to use them.

Cruise dot com isn't a card mill, as one person (allegedly a travel agent) stated. I'm a travel agent and while they are a competitor of mine, I'm familiar with the company and have had friends who worked for them. They employ CTCs and MCCs. Please check the facts before you disparage a business.

I have had a similar complaint with CRUISES-N-MORE. They promised on board credit if I paid with my Amerian Express. The package also listed a soda card in addition to the OBC. I called the agency prior to booking to verify the offer. I was told it was correct. After the cruise was booked, I was told that I did not qualify for any of the offers. It is a classic bait and switch scam. I would not suggest booking with that company. After repeated requests for a call from a supervisor, I have yet to get a response. DO NOT USE THEM!

Offer: Pity The Procrastinator Sale -$125-$225 OBC +Free Soda Package + Lower Prices

Here is our experience...Read our email to their managing director:

Mr. Hamawy:

My name is XXXX XXXXX, a second-time customer of Cruise.com whose aggregate bookings exceed $7000 dollars thus far (within one year). My wife and I booked our one-year wedding anniversary cruise with your company; scheduled for April of this year.

Unfortunately, it’s become necessary to escalate a certain issue we’ve attempted to resolve with your Customer Service department but have been unsuccessful at achieving to this point. It’s our hope that raising our concern to your visibility can help resolve and bring closure so we may end the loop here.

In short, our issue is as follows:

By way of back-story, in December of 2008 my wife and I negotiated a favorable discount of $300 with Danielle Barron at Cruise.com (as shown in our invoice herein). What ultimately won our business among competing choices was the combination of "rate" and the "Onboard Credit" promotion, together. During this dialogue with Danielle at time of booking, she was unequivocal in bringing to conscious that our negotiated price could adjust our onboard credit to a lower tier if we reduced any further – meaning the difference between a $250 dollar onboard credit and a $100 dollar onboard credit was within a thin range of the price we settled at. When we finished our booking that evening it was to our coherent understanding we arrived at two conclusions; a favorable cruise price equilibrium and a $250 dollar onboard credit (despite the language which we learned of today around the offer not being valid in certain ways, including discounts).

In the past week my wife happened to remind me that we had not yet received information related to our "onboard credit" as expected, and so we put an inquiry into your service department to investigate. Note here that we were explained by Danielle that the nature of the onboard credit would come from Carnival, in addition to any related correspondences – claiming in detail it would be realized in the form of a credit to our onboard Carnival account. After an hour of time spent with a Cruise.com’s CSR who contacted Carnival’s customer service department for resolution, in addition to their promotions department, it turned out Carnival was not conducting such a promotion at all, but instead was a Cruise.com promo campaign.

Now at present we have been told (today) that the $300 discount is the "onboard credit" so-to-say – that Cruise.com was generous in giving us a credit which exceeded $250 dollars. Please know with certainty this is simply NOT the case. The fact is we negotiated a rate with Danielle in addition to expecting an onboard credit of $250 dollars; the very fact that solidified our purchase decision! We spent more than an hour negotiating with Danielle in total time, which included several phone call re-connects that evening. We would never have negotiated if the onboard credit was a reality given our cruise price justified same – obviously.

My dialogue with Danielle around this topic at that time was exchanged via phone, and I was saddened to learn today that our conversation was not recorded, or documented in notes, and thus can not be recalled for review. However, I would be happy to sign a sworn affidavit of my testimony here via my attorney, Adorno & Yoss in Fort Laduerdale, should it be required to do so.

As a valued customer of Cruise.com, and to retain our business going forward (which I estimate a 'cruise spend' close to $10, 000 dollars annually), we expect to receive the $250 dollar onboard credit as indicated at time of sale (form of this credit does not matter at this point).

Your acknowledgement is greatly appreciated.

As a travel agent who works in a real travel agency I am angered by these companies. I take calls from our AAA members who use these types of companies and then when problems arrive they expect us to bail them out.

These types of companies sell a franchise to anyone who will pay the fee. They teach them how to use their system but nothing about being a travel agent. They lure these people in by telling them they will get all this free travel, which they hardly ever do because these companies do not qualify to receive the IATAN cards which you need for travel perks.

I have been a real travel agent for 9 years now and I spend hours learning my craft in my off hours. I attend seminars, take classes, read, and my travel company reps come by often to teach us about new products. I know a number of people who own these on-line franchises and none of them ever take the time to learn what they need to know to be an agent.

I would suggest to anyone who is looking to book a vacation to go to a real travel agency and not someone who simply ponied up enough money to buy a franchise.

I recently called cruise.com to inquire about cabin availability on a particular cruise. The agent verified availability. I asked if the cabin could be held until I could make airline arrangements. He stated that he needed my credit card. I gave him my credit card info and he put me on hold. When he came back on the line, he stated that we were all set and that the cruise was booked. I told him that I only wanted to put it on hold. He stated that he already put through the charge and there was nothing he could do until accounting came in the next morning.

When I called to find out if it was resolved, I was informed that I was going to be charged a cancellation fee of about $1500. Countless calls to cruise.com yielded no satisfaction. When I finally spoke to a "supervisor" named Alex (Alexandra), she was no help at all, in fact she was the nastiest person I have ever dealt with... she eventually just told me too bad and hung up on me.

Bottom line is that I never authorized them to charge my credit card and they still refuse to help in any way.

BEWARE

Cruise.com offerred a MC gifcard on their site that was not combinable with other discounts. You have the choice of taking the MC offer or the discount. Either way you always get something. Both items are of the same value. Its a question of preference.
The problem is that people tend not to read and assume they can get all of the different offers combined together. Its like going to the grocery store with 2 coupons for one product...It does not work that way.

I booked celebrity cruise equinox and got premium drink package with cruises.com. celebrity ship said it was classic package . Cruises.com lied to me and they wouldn't change it to premium as i I had it in writing. Never use cruises.com. they lie to get you to use them.

YES, it happens when I checked the price on their " cruise.com ", then made the reservation and chose the cabin, prepared to pay in internet, the amount of the invoice was shown same as our checking before ~ cabin price for 2 persons and the govt. fees. However, I noted the mail fee of a $45 that I called for re-confirmation if we had to pay this amount ~ our mailing address is in MA US. A Miss Irene of the customer service hotline told me the total amount was $40 more than I saw in the website and she told me the offer was NO Longer available. I told her that I am in the page of the insurance / payment was shown clearly ~ . Then she held the line checking about 10 minutes, replied me she had called the Cruise company that the price which I saw was NOT AVAILABLE, it was also wrong amount on the payment system same moment I saw in internet ~ UNBELIEVEABLE ! I have screen-printed all the pages and asked her cancel that booking, I was afraid Cruise.com would over-charge after I provided my visa card, I will get loss. CRUISE.COM is not a reliable travel agency company. We will book the cruise by SkyMiles Cruise due to the same price but need to pay the booking fee $24.99, however, we can earn 5, 000 miles.

For future reference when you see a price on the webb and the term USD near it thats short for US dollars. Also, it clearly says throughout their site that additional mail fees apply if sending outside of the US.

I find it hard to beleive that you had such a hard time getting through being that they are open longer the the cruise lines themself...24/7.