tepukecruisers

Just an update on this for those who are interested...and a bit of a vent after spending countless hours on hold this week.

Despite initially being told that my FCC had been applied to my cruise and deposit, it took speaking to 4 different sales reps over 3 phone calls, before finally a supervisor fixed it. In fact they refused to honor the FCC at all on the third call and it took sending them a copy of the FCC FAQs at which point they finally said they would apply it to the deposit.

Of the 4 salespeople I have spoken to this week only 1 knew about it, 1 was adamant it was not possible and the other 2 had to speak to a supervisor to find out, 1 supervisor said yes, 1 said no.

Maybe this is an issue just through the Aus/NZ call center, but as customers we have rights, so don't let them fob you off with things like :

1. We can't apply FCC, don't have access.

2. We can't send emails directly.

3. Or the old chestnut....we will call you back.

4. It takes several days for this to be done.

5. This only applies to the US market

None of these things are actually true, and ultimately it was sorted in a few minutes by a supervisor. I would think RCI would be bending over backwards to get people back on their ships!

12 minutes ago, little britain said:

Is this a global policy do you know - can we take advantage in UK?! Thanks.

I'm in New Zealand and was able to do it, so you should be ok. Give them a call, just be prepared for a bit of a rigmarole.

1 minute ago, Blizzard54 said:

They actually made a change last week allowing FCC's to be used as deposits.

There is still a lot of CSR's that do not know all the details.

 

Discovered that even the sales reps on the phones don't necessarily know....however, if you insist, eventually they go off and get some instructions on how to do it. You can't redeem the FCC through the online booking page....maybe that will change though.

How exactly do you redeem the FCC when booking? Are your experiences through TAs. It doesn't seem possible to do it via the website, maybe im missing something

Update today. After not quite 60 days since receiving email confirmation of cruise planner items, today we received our refund. I'm not sure if it's coincidence or not, but this happened 2 days after I was contacted by RCI Australia via FB requesting my cruise booking info. Quite relieved! 

Interesting experience with RCI today.

Lots of apologies, will need to escalate etc etc as  we just don't know whats happened to it...."I can see it being processed" bla bla bla. After much going around and around, was eventually told it would be forwarded to someone called Aaron, although they were unable to provide me with an email address for this person because they did not know what it was....

Then attempted to tell me that in fact the 23rd of March was less than 45 days ago....which I struggled to figure out. I wasn't about to let this go and so I pushed on this and eventually I was told they had a faulty calculator....I am not kidding....

Anyway....currently involved in a game of phone chicken while I wait to speak to a "supervisor" who may well just be one of the call center cleaners...

I see on their FB Page, RCI are stating 45 working days from cancellation for refunds, whereas their website merely states 45 days....nothing like a consistent message

Cancelled 23rd of March, then cancelled the June cruise a week later the person who did this for me over the phone said the refund for the cruise planner stuff was due 10 working days after I initially cancelled.

However I am still waiting as of today; I did ring RCI yesterday to find out what was going on and they advised due to volumes there were now delays on CP refunds and we should expect it by the end of the month. I would point out that it took aaaaaages on hold and numerous 'i'll just check' comments from the customer service rep before i got this update.

My advice to anyone waiting, be a very squeaky wheel.

9 hours ago, rte said:

Hi where did you get the information about our government not expecting to open borders this year or as long as 18 months.

Mondays press conference, and again today's.

I think cruising might resume later this year, but whether international ports are visited is incredibly unlikely. In other words if you embark in the US you will probably stay in the US.

Here in New Zealand the government has made it very clear that they do not expect to reopen borders this year and that it could be as long as 18 months,  that's the expected timeline for a covid-19 vaccine being ready and so for the foreseeable future international travel is done and dusted. 

https://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/236000-no-corona-virus-on-cruise-ship-docking-tauranga.html

This is where we live, just docked this morning.

A lot of negative, unfounded rubbish going on in NZ at the moment around the single confirmed case here. Panic buying, and the like. Craziness. You would think we were in the grips of a zombie apocalypse. Everyone needs to chill.

On 2/29/2020 at 4:17 PM, Chiliburn said:

Just checking a few online agents and the repo to Singapore can’t be booked.

I thinking it may be staying here.

I notice It's still available to book through the RCI website, so maybe that's more the online agents being cautious? 

Booked for a cruise out of Singapore in late June, so we are watching the news keenly. It's very hard to separate out fact from fiction, as most of the news outlets seem to be dead keen on stoking as much hysteria as they can.

Worth noting that we are not elderly nor do we have underlying health conditions, and so we have little fear about catching anything life threatening. What we are concerned with is ending up quarantined for several weeks, because someone sneezes in the wrong direction. If on the other hand I was older, and had health issues I would be seriously concerned, but then those sorts of general health concerns are probably something anyone travelling should take into account.

I am pragmatic about the whole thing, as there is little we can do to change the situation and unless we are told otherwise, we will be departing on our cruise as planned.

If you are looking for straight facts and figures, this is an interesting site to keep an eye on.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/