lagirlforjesus

I agree. HAL cancelled our cabana 48 hours before the cruise and this did not allow us ample time to change our plans. A family cabana was the most important aspect of our cruise especially on a completely booked Christmas cruise. We booked a lesser cabin knowing that we would have that large outdoor space. It would provide us with a private outdoor area that would fit our whole family and allow us to be together after a difficult event that took place in our family. There was no way that we could cancel our cruise or our flight plans 48 hours before the cruise and expect to be reimbursed. In addition, no one from Ship Services would get back to us before we left to help us and no one on board would get back to us or explain to us what happened. There was no help. There was no explanation. Again, I understand mistakes. It is not, however, acceptable to ignore your customers. Holland America ignored our attempts to get help for five days; this means that they didn’t care about us a customer.

Thanks Cherie. This wasn’t our first bad experience on HAL. We sailed them for the first time in Dec 2019. Right before the pandemic. Our ship never left the port as they were having engine trouble. They kept us in FL at the dock for 4 days. Then they canceled our cruise. At the time, I was patient with them as things can happen. I took it in stride. We had a major disruption in our travel and our vacation with our daughters never happened. I wasn’t willing to let that happen again. I wasn’t expecting the sun, moon and stars. Just a fair compromise for bait and switching us again. The HIA package was a no brainier to us too. So far HAL has not left us with any warm fuzzies. Oh well. On to our next adventure.

I appreciate the logic here. In the end, I understand that mistakes can happen. I would have appreciated a quick resolution from customer service instead of 5 days of back and forth communication. We thought that the “Have it All” package would have been fair compensation for giving the cabana that we reserved months ahead of time to someone else with only 48 hour cancellation notice. We even offered to pay for half of the $599 price tag for the “Have it All” package. They wouldn’t budge. They wouldn’t even let us purchase the “Have It All” package for some reason before we cruised. We had really wanted this package so we thought that was fair compensation for such a late notice on our cabana cancellation as well as the trouble they had put us through by not responding to us for five days (2 before the cruise and 3 days on the cruise). We did enjoy the rest of the cruise. I did appreciate all of the advice to put things in the past and try to make the best of things. I am human. I initially struggled with losing the amenity that was going to provide us with privacy on a completely booked Christmas cruise. I am a long-time cruiser. We have cruised Celebrity for years but I have never encountered this kind of “no” customer service on a cruise ship. Anyway, as a side note, we had booked this same family cabana last summer in Alaska on the same ship. We loved it. It was very important to us. NOTE: One of the glass panels in the family cabana that we rented last summer on the Eurodam was shattered but still in place. The butlers told us that it would be replaced. It was still shattered on this sailing 6 months later. The shattered glass blocks your view of the ocean. Just thought someone might want to know if they are booking a family cabana as it greatly reduces your ability to see the ocean. It doesn’t appear that HAL is in any rush to fix this.

Southwest also gave each of us 25,000 points (worth about $300 ea.) and they gave us A-list status. This means that we will always board in the “A” group for the rest of the year. They also refunded our flights. I think they were pretty generous in “making things right.”

Southwest paid for our rental car, our hotel and all of our meals. They cut us a check for our expenses within a week of incurring them.

I couldn’t agree more. “It’s not the mistakes, it’s how you fix them.”

Copper, thank you so much for this advice. I didn't know that this was how things should be handled. My husband followed this advice and we will do this in the future. We talked to the guest relations manager. They would not budge on offering us anything that would make up for the huge difference in our cruise experience after spending thousands of dollars to take this cruise. I'm sure many on this board take regular vacations but this was a very special vacation for us after a crushing year for our family. I am a meticulous planner and was careful to budget as I planned. I still pose the following question: How can we be assured that what we book on Holland America will actually stay booked? The answer: You can't. Second question: Will Holland America make things right? The answer: No. This leads me to my next steps. I will no longer cruise HAL. I would be saying this same statement if another cruise line did not make things right after such a huge mistake. I will also contact my local papers to see if there is any interest in the cancellations that HAL is making when someone books a family cabana. I have a few outlets for this kind of news story. I'm going to start with Clark Howard (my favorite budget podcaster). If he's not interested then I'll think of a few more outlets that report on travel specifically. I think there might be a story there if HAL has been cancelling numerous family cabanas as others have reported here. Thanks to everyone that weighed in with advice, humor, etc. It was vastly entertaining to read all of your responses. This is definitely a motley crew. LOL.

I apologize for the late response to the issue but we had internet problems on the ship and then while we were in the middle of trying to get this resolved our flights were cancelled on Southwest. Needless to say, we were in a pickle for several days. Then we were visiting family and just returned home yesterday. Holland America did not resolve our situation. They offered us dinner in the Pinnacle Grill for one night and then offered us a small cabana to use. This cabana did not fit our entire party so we did not use it. They left this offer of the Pinnacle Grill and the smaller cabana on our voicemail. My husband had gone to meet with guest relations and was finally able to sit down with the manager to tell her our predicament. She listened to our story and smiled sympathetically but offered no help to our situation. We asked them to provide us with the "Have it All" package as a solution to our predicament and they said, "no." End of story. Again, I do apologize for not coming back quickly to update but to be honest the Southwest cancellations threw our whole family for a loop. No way to get home and no help. We took it in stride and were able to reserve a car and we were thankful to be able to get home. It was a very long drive but we finally made it. I'm disappointed that Holland America did not provide us with a viable solution to the cancellation of our family cabana. The ship was packed the entire week of our cruise and we were sad not to be able to soak in the sun with our kids in privacy after a very long year. I won't go into the details regarding why the year was so long but it was a crushing year for our family and that time spent together in privacy was the major factor for booking that cabana. They gave our cabana to someone else that they thought was more important than we were and then they didn't rectify the situation. I can allow for human error but I believe a company should try to make things right when they've made a large mistake.

I just said it wasn't helpful in this situation.

My husband is headed to Guest Services again to seek resolution. This will be our 9th attempt to get the situation resolved. We still have not received any kind of explanation. We’d really like to get back to our cruise. We need HAL to take responsibility for this situation. So far, this is our 3rd cruise with HAL. Our first cruise was in December 2019 and our ship had engine trouble and we were held captive for 3 days in Fort Lauderdale. We never left FL. HAL “made good” and provided refunds to everyone along with a free credit for the future. I’m hoping they will do the right thing and “make good” in this situation. i am optimistic although I would like to get back to the business of having fun with my family. If HAL does the right thing then we will continue to cruise with them. If not, then we will be leaving the line and head somewhere else and we will tell others of our experiences. We will contact our local media outlets and tell them about the response that we received from HAL. We will utilize social media so that others are aware of the service that we received. We will give the facts of the situation.

Yes, but they are both occupied.

We booked a less expensive cabin because we were planning on using the family cabana as our outside space. We are on the cruise right now and we have contacted ship services as well as guest services onboard at least 8 times regarding the matter. They have repeatedly told us that they would get back to us at a certain time and we have been in our room to accept the call at least 4 times and we have waited and waited and waited. Then we call them again and they say that they will call us back with a solution but we have still not heard from them. Nicole, the woman that originally booked our family cabin with ship services has been out of the office; we received an “out of office” email when we tried to respond to her email about the cancellation. I agree that she should have called me directly. Both of the family cabins are occupied currently; neither one of the family cabins is out of service. It is not helpful when someone suggests that we should just accept this change and move on. We spent a tremendous amount of money and time flying to FL and planning this vacation. The family cabana was the main part of our cruise. We had one in Alaska last June and our whole family was looking forward to escaping the winter cold and enjoying our privacy on the sold out ship. I called ship services prior to booking my cabin to ensure the cabana was available and then immediately booked the cabin and called them back to secure the cabana. The ship offered us two smaller cabanas but there is a wall between the smaller cabanas and they are not at all the same as the larger family cabana. Plus, we have our minor children with us. HAL needs to honor their first come, first serve policy. We booked the cabana on October 6th. We were charged $549. On Monday, December 19th we received the emailing telling us that it was canceled by Nicole @ ship services. How can we be certain that a cabana is reserved even when we pay for it and receive a confirmation if HAL can just decide to give it to someone else or worse sell it to you when it’s already been reserved and then not give you compensation for their mistake especially when your cruise was predicated on that purchased amenity. We are still waiting a response. I’ll update when I know more.

Alberta, thank you for your message of support!

I'm writing this from the Eurodam aboard the 12/21/22 sailing. Months ago, my wife determined to book a sailing on HAL where we could get a family cabana. She found a cruise that would work for our schedule and called Ships Services at HAL. She confirmed with Nicole that a family cabana was available on the 12/21/22 Eurodam sailing. My wife immediately booked the cruise and called back Nicole to book the cabana on the same afternoon. We were confirmed and paid for the cabana. Then, on Monday of this week - 48 hours before sailing - we received a short email telling us the family cabana was not available and we were being moved to a smaller retreat cabana. This size fits 2 people instead of the 4 we had in our party. Even two smaller cabanas do not meet our need since we have minor children with us. We followed up with the line immediately trying to get answers. We were told that possibly someone on the ship had booked the cabana to a party continuing from a previous cruise. However, we cannot get a straight answer from anyone. No one has yet taken responsibilty for this. From our perspective, either one of two things happened: 1) either two other parties booked family cabanas before us and my wife was misled when she called Ships Services. In this case, she booked the cruise for the cabana and this is a lot like a bait and switch. 2) we booked the cabana earlier than either of the parties who are in the cabanas but HAL is not following their own policies that the cabanas as available on a first come basis. The mistake the cruise line made is aggravated by the timing. Within 48 hours of sailing, we had no time to change our itinerary, change flights, hotels, etc. So, we are stuck on a cruise missing the key amenity the entire booking hangs on. Plus, HAL has not taken any significant action to address their failure. I will update this thread as the situation develops.