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Royal Caribbean Cruise Line- Reprehensible customer service!
Shame on Royal Caribbean! My family has been planning our first ever cruise since May of 2008. We were all set to go on our cruise on Monday March 23rd. Unfortunately our 6 year old son who had blood clots at birth, resulting is a stroke, the loss of one arm, cerebral palsy, and epilepsy had a severe seizure the day we were to fly to Florida. Chase’s seizures have always been controlled with medication and we’ve never had any problems in the past. We ended up spending the day in Riley hospital for children. Our son’s neurologist recommended that we not take the cruise since we didn’t know what caused this seizure to be so severe and the risk of him having one at sea and having to be air lifted out was too great. She wrote us a note to give to the cruise line recommending he not take the cruise and told us she thought they'd be understanding since she'd had other patients in the same situation with other cruiselines. We of course we were all devastated that the trip we had been planning for almost a year would not happen. I called Royal Caribbean and quickly found out that we hadn’t purchased trip insurance, which obviously was a huge mistake. I explained why we couldn’t go and was transferred to Annie is the resolutions department. She offered to give us 200 a person in vouchers that would have to be used in a year. I explained to her that we didn’t think we would ever be able to take a cruise with him and even with the 200 dollars in vouchers we would still be losing 1, 500 dollars on the cruise. She told me that was all she could do and that I needed to let her know in no later than 2 days at the most so they could RESELL my rooms! Can you believe that? Why the heck would I care if they got to resell my rooms if they weren’t giving me my money back? She even asked why all four of us weren’t going on the cruise if it were just 1 child. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! Like I would leave my child home and go without him? I decided I’d wait 2 days and call back since I didn't care if they resold my rooms or not. This time I spoke to someone else and told her what Annie had said. I asked to speak to a supervisor to see if they’d be willing to give us the money instead of a voucher or consider refunding all of it. The supervisor REFUSED to even get on the phone and speak to me. She told the lady on the phone to tell me the offer was firm and it was all they would do. I can’t believe that Royal Caribbean doesn’t have better customer service than that! I've never heard of a supervisor not even taking the time to talk to someone.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
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Sorry to hear that! I won't be ever using them now! Since posting this, has anyone contacted you? I would send an email or letter to the head brass. That usually works for me. Most companies have an easy to figure out email system: first name lastname @ company.com or first initial last@ company.com, etc... Also if you look at investor information, that would be a good resource to locate names, contacts, etc.
Where do they get off thinking it is acceptable to offer miniscule vouchers, which of course would be forcing you to spend the same money all over again and have to deal with people who do not even care when it comes to the health of your child?
Would be interesting to read the cancellation policy for RC. It's possible you were dealing with a customer service rep who didn't bother contacting the supervisor at all. Write the CEO or someone higher up in the company; maybe they'll do right by you.
It's too bad you weren't able to take your cruise. Hope you're able to vacation with your son and family in a place where his health would not be in jeopardy (after all, cruise ships are out on the ocean).
Best wishes!
I'm sorry this happened to you but it happens on ALL cruiselines. You must take out the insurance or you will suffer a financial loss and this goes for all cruiselines. Pay attention to the policy you do take out to be sure trip cancellation due to illness is covered as well as medical expenses as policys can differ. Buying that insurance is the best investment you will make when taking a cruise. Just a medivac alone can cost over 25, 000 and without insurance YOU pay it. I would never book a cruise without insurance. Its a hard expensive lesson you learned but there are hundreds of people its happened to for a variety of reasons and it doesn't matter if it's a child or an adult who is sick or injured and it is very clear in all the cruiselines cancellation policies. Best wishes
My luggage is color red. The identity is RURUKADI. It has 10 to 15 kilos of weight. Clothing and shoes inside.