fantasy51

Thanks Peteukmcr. I too had noticed the cultural differences in this thread. Very interesting. Thanks for your kind words.

JFontaine, thank you for your experiences. It's nice to know that the company can be generous on occasion.

I wondered if the reason they were less than generous this time was because they had already had to pay out so much due to the change of final port from Istanbul to Athens. They may not have been making their usual profits.

I do not intend this as disrespectful, but cross-posting this is excessive.

 

You did what you did, and you feel what you feel.

 

Move on. Life is too short to dwell.

Cross-posting this has been extremely interesting. I found some very helpful views on the Cunard site that I did not get on Celebrity. My first instinct was to only post on Cunard (as I feel I know and respect so many people on the Celebrity threads) but then I decided to add in Celebrity as well, as it was a Celebrity ship. I have found completely different answers on both sites, so cross-posting has given me a better cross-section of views.

Move on? I can't say it has been a big problem for me though the Celebrity posts have reacted as though it is! I decided earlier today that perhaps my problem there was being too polite and answering queries when they came up. It only seemed to prolong the situation. Oh well ...

I have written my letter to Guest Relations, suggesting what they could do in similar circumstances. I am happy in my mind to leave it there. Before that I had sent an email to the Celebrity UK agent who booked me on the cruise, someone who had laughed with me over the phone and had sent friendly emails. I thanked him for all his help and for the fantastic balcony we had and then told him what happened. Tonight I received an email back from him and he was upset at the way it was handled. He said he would pass my comments on to Customer Relations. It's good to hear that Celebrity agents also believe this was not right.

What did you ask for that the head office would not budge?

Sounds like you want a free cruise replacement and that's not going to happen.

Actually, I did not ask for anything. I just laughed at the thought of handing out bottles of red wine to someone with a drinks package, etc. (Also, what if a recipient is a recovering alcoholic?) It was the person at Reception who said she would see what she could do.

You have obviously not read this thread through completely if you think I expect a free cruise replacement. In an earlier post I mentioned 4 other things that the line could have offered, things like a free dinner at one of the specialty restaurants. Seeing these are generally not full, it would not have cost the ship much.

Why is everyone so tolerant? It is not acceptable to have a room in complete darkness no matter what length of time. Surely it is up to the cruise line to be pro active contacting the passenger assuring them it will be fixed giving them a timeline for repairs and trying to 'sweeten' the situation. Not left to the passenger to realise they should have emergency lighting - why would they?

I certainly wouldn't expect to be staying at a 4 or 5 star land based hotel for say one night and have to spend it in complete darkness and then Upon checkout charged the full amount and given a bottle of wine, whether I drank alcohol or not as acceptable compensation.

Hi Delondin. In my letter to Celebrity I suggested that they should put a policy in place so that they checked each room at some point in the event of a blackout, to make sure that emergency lighting was working.

Nachosdelux, it sounds as though you have not yet reached the age where you need to use the bathroom at night! It is certainly helpful at my age to have some light to navigate a strange room. :D

What cabin number (or even deck number) was involved? I drink merlot and never buy drink packages AND am sailing on the Equinox in December. ;)

 

Jimmybean

Hi Jimmy. Aim for Deck 10, room 1122 and perhaps you too will receive bottle after bottle of Merlot.

Diane

Letter written and posted, with a copy to both Celebrity UK and Celebrity Miami. I will report back when I get a reply. Until then, all the best.

Celebrity promotes "Modern Luxury"

 

Modern Luxury shouldn't be about asking for compensation when things go wrong. When things go wrong management should automatically deal with matters so the guest doesn't just feel as though they've come out even.

 

A few years ago we were staying at a renowned luxury hotel. One evening we came back to our room to find that after the evening turn down service our room door had been left ajar. We reported this to reception (never once mentioning compensation, although my wife was upset at the thought of someone getting into the room) and then the hotel management without prompting stepped in

- An immediate visit from Head of security to see if anything was missing

- An undertaking they would review key access and room videos and we were entitled to join them

- A large box of deluxe chocolates, flowers and wine addressed to my wife

- A visit from the Hotel Manager the following morning to report on their investigation

- An invitation to dine at the manager expense at the Hotel's best restaurant.

 

Okay this was perhaps an over the top response from the hotel management but the point is this hotel had set it stall up to offer a luxury product, you are paying for it, and the hotel prided itself on security (it's where visiting dignitaries usually stay) and none of this did we have to ask for! They screwed up, they knew it and they went the extra distance to sort it. Outcome - as a result of a mistake by the hotel we ended up having an even better stay!

What a great story! I agree, that's how it should be. Make the guest feel valued. I agree you didn't need all of these special offers but even half of them would certainly make you want to visit that hotel again.

If I screw up in my house, even on such a minor thing as providing the wrong type of milk for a friend who is staying (at no payment) in my house, I apologise and try to do better next time. I might even buy their favourite cakes to give them a treat as my apology. If we do this as hosts on an unpaid basis, shouldn't a luxury experience, who has taken our money, show an appropriate level of consideration?

I'm not sure why your travel companion didn't leave the room while you were in the shower. It seems like the polite thing to do based on your comments. Even if the problem hadn't occurred,it would have been nice for him to give you some "space" while you showered.

Nowhere have I said what we actually arranged when I showered. There have been a lot of assumptions on this thread. I have answered questions about the set-up of the room but I don't actually think it's anyone's business how we settle such things between us.

I simply pointed out that the lack of light in the bathroom presented difficulties that would not normally occur. I have not said how we solved them. My original post pointed out that I had a choice of showering by torchlight or leaving the door open. Everyone has assumed that I did the latter.

This excessive interest in my showering arrangements leaves me somewhat uneasy.

However, I will certainly let you know what Celebrity's response is.

I agree that this is the main issue and I also got the impression from the OP's original post that it was the main issue for her.

 

For the safety of the rest of us in the future this should be brought to corporate's attention.

Thank you Karen. I will certainly be writing to Celebrity about this when I can. I agree with you that it is a safety issue for all of you.

I'm sure you know what it's like when you get home from a cruise, so it may take a few days before I can do this. Add in 2 lots of visitors and debilitating health issues and I have to pace myself carefully.

If you are in the UK, you would lose that deposit completely. However, it is only $150 and often people find prices low enough that it is worth forfeiting the deposit. If your $150 is Australian, I believe you would forfeit the full deposit. However, if it is American, I have heard that you can claim the deposit back if you cancel before you need to pay the full amount. (Warning: this is anecdotal, not a check of T&C.) I don't know about other countries.

Good morning to you all.

Richstowe, thank you for your understanding response. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who feels this way. I was bemused by many of the responses I received.

The Borders, I agree completely with you about the H&S. If the ship had addressed that issue, and told me what was happening, I would have felt much happier.

Chamina, what a great response from the cruise line. It cost them virtually nothing but it turned a nasty situation into a pleasant memory. That's what a little bit of thought can do. That's where I felt Celebrity failed. I thought of several things that would have cost them nothing but would have made everyone happier.

Orator, I am only just back from the cruise and still trying to unpack suitcases and catch up with important mail. If you look back at my original post you will see that I asked people for opinions -and have certainly received them. This was so that I could make up my mind about whether or not to take it further. I think I will definitely send Celebrity a letter pointing out the Health and Safety issue involved.

For those of you who are fixating on the issue of my shower, please don't! You are reading far too much into what I said. My half a sentence has been blown out of all proportion. That was a minor part of my original post.

Yesterday, just for fun, I googled what happens if you pay for a hotel and it loses power. Evidently in most cases you are 'walked' to another hotel. In other words, this is considered serious enough for you to not be expected to stay in that room. Obviously Celebrity couldn't move all of us for the 18 hours and I would not expect them to. However, in light of what I read of that situation, I think Celebrity was less than generous to send around a bottle of wine with no thought involved. As I have said numerous times, I also think the lack of attention to Health and Safety over the matter of the emergency lighting is the most troubling issue.

Hi Molly.

Thanks for your support. I'm glad you can see what I meant by my post.

Diane

What are the emergency lights? Are they strips on the floor in your cabin leading to the door like on an airplane, or what? I've never noticed any.

 

You must have been in at least an OV or maybe a balcony to have light when you opened the bathroom door, imagine the poor people in insides! Total darkness!

 

Whether your companion was gay, straight, blue or green, it is difficult to travel with someone who is not your SO and maintain complete privacy. How did you jockey around when getting dressed? Could he not have gone for a walk/out on the balcony while you showered? Why was he staring at you through the bathroom door - THAT'S the question I'd be asking him. Just because you can see "part" of the room, he should have stayed in the other part where you can't see into the bathroom. He must like to be nauseated :).

Hi Warmwinds. Seeing we didn't have emergency lights, I'm not sure what they are. I gather they are reddish lights on the ceiling that are on another 'line' and come on permanently while the main lights are off, e.g. night and day. After everything was fixed, I discovered that there was a dim light in our bathroom that was on during the night, and was very useful. It hadn't been on before so I assume it was connected to the emergency system rather than to the lights we could control. That's a very good safety system seeing the bathroom lights are on the outside of the door. There would always be some level of light in the bathroom - but that hadn't worked at first (and we didn't know it should).

As far as I could gather from what I was told, the people in Inside rooms had working emergency lights. We didn't.

I have never said my friend stared at me through the bathroom door. I said it made for a difficult situation when all I had to light the bathroom was a wind-up torch. (Actually, that was failing and needed to be wound up every minute, so not much use when showering.)

I am just back from a Celebrity cruise and can comment on the dancing there. Basically, don't bother! We spoke to the entertainment guy who admitted that Celebrity is trying to phase out ballroom dancing as it does not want to be that type of cruise ship. I gather it thinks ballroom dancing is old-fashioned. I think there were three sessions of ballroom dancing to pre-recorded music. We went to the first one and discovered that they had forgotten to put the tracks on 'shuffle', so we had about half an hour of waltzes in a row, a couple of slow Viennese Waltzes, a few fast rumbas and then perhaps an hour of fast cha-chas. In the whole 2 hours, we managed 2 reasonable waltzes, one Tango Vals (to a slow VW track) and a fast rumba. The rest were undanceable. The music is sent from Head Office to all the ships, and obviously the person in charge knows nothing about tempo.

There are a couple of bands and some of the music is right for dancing but the marble floor is tiny and full of obstructions.

There were four dance lessons, taught by dancers from the cast who obviously knew nothing about ballroom dancing. When they taught the salsa they were counting up to 12, and taught everyone to change from the basic steps to New York steps by turning the wrong way! In other words you had to use the same foot twice. (No doubt they had learnt this as part of a show routine where they had to face the audience at the beginning of each block.) There was a real lack of dance terminology. In the cha-cha they said to go 'hip to hip' instead of 'shoulder to shoulder' and used arm movements that looked as though they were using a chest expander. The counting of steps then was so weird that I could never quite catch on to what they were doing. My friend says they were counting the musical beats instead of counting the steps. They would have been better off saying 'Rock, rock, cha-cha-cha' instead of '(silence for cha-cha step) 2-3-4 (pause for cha-cha step) 6-7-8' or something similar.

If it didn't bother you enough to tell them there was a problem at the time, why would you expect that they would have done anything more than they did? If I had to shower in the dark I most certainly would have called to report the situation. I don't know how they would be expected to know about your cabin mate situation. It seems you have been thinking about "compensation" and imagining what might have gone wrong and not what really did. I wouldn't expect delivery people to apologize. You said there was a letter with your wine, wasn't that an apology?

Actually, I DID call them at the time. I phoned them within 5 minutes of the lights going out. I assumed they understood that when I said 'no lights', that meant 'no lights'. I accepted the fact that they had an electrician working on the problem. In the morning I asked again and was told that the senior engineer had been called in.

As I have said, I gather our situation was different from that of everyone else. We had no emergency lights either. Our situation was therefore serious and should have been seen by the person who came to our room within 10 minutes of the phone call and by the cabin stewards, people who know what SHOULD happen in an emergency or a power failure.

As for imagining what might have gone wrong rather than what really did, isn't that what regulations are all about? This is why we have safety regulations, because people with vision are aware of what MIGHT happen.

You speak as though all I am thinking of is compensation. It was obvious that the staff on Celebrity were thinking of compensation and had approached Head Office. It was also obvious that the staff were not happy with the bottle of wine! What I really wanted was to know that my personal safety was taken seriously (i.e. emergency lighting) and that steps had been made to rectify the problem. That didn't happen.

An apology that does not seem sincere or thought-through can actually be worse than no apology at all.

What a pain that must have been to have no lights! I am surprised they did not offer you a flashlight or two at the beginning. Were they aware the emergency lighting in your cabin was not functioning?

 

Did you need treatment for the cut on your knee?

 

The fact that you had zero light in your cabin was a real safety hazard - it does not seem they took it seriously.

I think what really aggrieved me was that no one took it seriously that the emergency lighting had failed. I am a reasonable person and I know I would have felt differently if I had received a genuine apology and someone contacting me later as a follow-up to say that they had checked the lighting in my room and had fixed the fault. As someone pointed out, it's possible that the failure of the lighting contravened safety regulations, but they did not seem to care.

Did they know it didn't work? I didn't tell them as I didn't know there should be emergency lighting. It only came up in a conversation after it was fixed. However, when the lights first went off I phoned Guest Relations to tell them. They sent someone down. I opened the door to him so he should have been able to look in and see that the room was in total darkness. Also, the room stewards cleaned my bathroom the next morning so they should have seen that there was no light in the bathroom whereas there was a light in other rooms. That's two people who should have been able to pick it up and report it.

The cut was minor, but thanks for your concern. I mentioned it only to show the gravity of the situation and the potential for harm. It could have been a lot worse.

Thank you Teddie and Hattie. I couldn't understand why no one seemed concerned that our emergency lighting did not work. Why did our room stewards not pick it up and report it? Why was no one concerned when I mentioned it? Admittedly I didn't know we should have had emergency lighting and did not report it during the blackout, but why was no concern shown afterwards? Why did they not come to our room to check that it was working now that power had been restored? (I did notice after the problem that we had a night light in our bathroom that had not been there before, so I hoped that meant that full emergency lighting had been restored.)

I'm not all that concerned about compensation but I did feel aggrieved that it was not taken seriously, which is what prompted all of this. Sometimes companies only take things seriously when they have to pay compensation. A genuine apology at the time is often better!

you say the staff was grinning, but I bet that's not what they were thinking.

You had to have been there. I could see the laugh lines around her eyes as we talked.

I could not stop laughing myself, and laughter is always infectious. I purposely went back while I could see the funny side of it.

I'm sorry so many of you think that I acted in poor form by returning the wine. I did not see this as being a gift and it was not presented as such. There was no wording of 'Please accept this gift.' It was handed over by someone who didn't even know what it was for. He just knocked on my door and handed it to me with an envelope and I asked why I'd been given it and received a shrug and the comment that he did not know. It was obviously his job that day to hand out bottles of wine to all and sundry. Of course I thanked him and took the letter inside to read. What a pity they did not instruct him to say 'We at Celebrity are really sorry for the problem. This gift is just a small token as an apology' or words to that effect, instead of the impression I received that whenever there's a problem, large or small, they rush in with a bottle of wine and no thought.

The sexual orientation of your cabin mate contributes what to the situation?

If my cabin mate had been my partner or a female friend there would have been no problems having the bathroom door open so I could see to shower. It is impolite for me to do so in front of a gay male friend, especially considering all the (partly) joking comments he makes about how he feels nauseated when he views the naked female anatomy. :D We have a great friendship and treat each other with respect. Hence the concern about the blackout in the bathroom.

In answer to someone else's comment, I was aware that it is possible to look out from our shower, with the door open, and see part of the room. That means it must be possible for someone to look in.

Compensation is a tricky thing.

 

What would "you" feel is proper compensation?

I thought about it at the time and decided that there were many things Celebrity could have done that would have cost the line very little. I thought a bottle of wine was a gift with little thought attached and very little value. I also think it would have been good if someone had been dispatched to talk individually with us to check that everything was okay. At that point they would have realised that our emergency lighting did not work - and that we did not realise we should have had any. I understand that can't be done if it's the whole ship, but if it is only one zone then it should be possible. I'm also surprised that our cabin stewards did not pick up the fact that there was no emergency light in our room.

I came up with a range of ideas and thought how nice it would have been if we had been presented with several ideas and allowed the one that best suited us:

- an offer to dine for free for one or two nights at a specialty restaurant;

- a basic or Classic drinks package for X number of days;

- for those who already had a drinks package, an upgrade to Premium for X number of days - and that would have been good advertising for the Premium package;

- a certain amount of free internet time.

I'm struggling to see "physical danger" in this,

M-AR

Thank you for your comments. As I said, I started this thread just to see different reactions in order to help me sort out my own thoughts.

I personally think that being in a room in complete darkness is a physical danger. You don't know the obstacles when it's so close to the start of the cruise. You can walk into anything. Obviously the cruise line thinks so too, as it installs emergency lighting for just such situations. Unhappily, our emergency lighting did not operate. (I know it operated in other rooms as I was told some people complained because they could not sleep with the emergency lighting on.) We were therefore potentially in danger. I am glad I always pack a torch but imagine if I had been frail and without a torch.

On Cunard I was always called 'Miss Diane'. I have just returned from Celebrity where all the staff looked at the names on our cards and called us 'Diana' and 'David'. I don't think we had a single 'Miss' or 'Mr' on the whole cruise.

As for hugging, I have travelled on Queen Victoria so often that I generally get a few hugs from staff members. On Celebrity I got a hug from the DJ on our second cruise - very happy to see us back.

This is really a question about a Celebrity ship but I am posting this on the Cunard boards (as well as the Celebrity one) because I feel I know so many of you people who travel Cunard and I respect your opinions.

I have just returned from the Equinox. Two issues occurred. I felt I was given too much compensation for one but not enough for the other. I would be interested in the views of other people.

On our first day we went to the Sunset Bar and by our third drink our waiter pointed out that we needed to head to Guest Relations to get them to fix our seapass as it did not have our Classic Package printed on it. I suppose that took me 10 minutes maximum. The next day we received a bottle of Merlot and a letter apologising for the problem we had experienced. I found it amusing as:

- we have a drinks package so don't need a bottle of wine;

- we don't drink red wine anyway.

However, I appreciated the gesture for what had been a minor inconvenience to me, one that the bar staff had handled well. We gave the bottle to a couple who did not have a drinks package.

A day or so later the lights went out in our room at about midnight. It was pitch black. In the process of checking what was happening to lights in the corridor, I walked into the bathroom door and cut my knee slightly, resulting in a small scab that lasted 10 days. (I phoned Guest Relations, who sent someone down who confirmed that there was a problem with 2 other rooms and so they would send an electrician.) We had to get ready for bed by the light of my wind-up torch. We had to take that to the bathroom during the night. I didn't sleep very well as I kept expecting it to be fixed and for the lights to come on and wake me up!

This continued the next day, with absolutely no light in the bathroom so I had to either use a torch or leave the door open - not really good when travelling with a male gay friend who would not want to see me showering! Finally the lights came on 18 hours later and we discovered it had been a problem with quite a lot of cabins - 'one particular line related to specific voltage was failing, that affected the stateroom lighting within the Fire Zone 5'. At that point I discovered that all the other rooms had emergency lighting, but ours had failed. As far as I know, we were the only room without any lights at all.

Two days later someone arrived at our door with a letter of apology and another bottle of Merlot! I took it back to Guest Relations with a 'thanks but no thanks' and laughed as I pointed out how silly it is to give this to someone with a drinks package who does not like red wine. The lady at the desk grinned along with me. She said she would see what she could do, especially as she knew we had been without emergency lighting as well. Two days later I was phoned again to say that Head Office would not budge, despite others complaining. She offered to exchange it for white wine to take home or share with friends in our room but I could not see the point. She was very helpful and asked if she could do anything else for us. I felt she did not agree with the decision of Head Office.

I certainly did not let it spoil my holiday but I wondered if I am being unreasonable in thinking that Celebrity should have acted more generously in a situation that put me in physical danger?

Diane

I have just returned from the Equinox. Two issues occurred. I felt I was given too much compensation for one but not enough for the other. I would be interested in the views of other people.

On our first day we went to the Sunset Bar and by our third drink our waiter pointed out that we needed to head to Guest Relations to get them to fix our seapass as it did not have our Classic Package printed on it. I suppose that took me 10 minutes maximum. The next day we received a bottle of Merlot and a letter apologising for the problem we had experienced. I found it amusing as:

- we have a drinks package so don't need a bottle of wine;

- we don't drink red wine anyway.

However, I appreciated the gesture for what had been a minor inconvenience to me, one that the bar staff had handled well. We gave the bottle to a couple who did not have a drinks package.

A day or so later the lights went out in our room at about midnight. It was pitch black. In the process of checking what was happening to lights in the corridor, I walked into the bathroom door and cut my knee slightly. (I phoned Guest Relations, who sent someone down who confirmed that there was a problem with 2 other rooms and so they would send an electrician.) We had to get ready for bed by the light of my wind-up torch. We had to take that to the bathroom during the night. I didn't sleep very well as I kept expecting it to be fixed and for the lights to come on and wake me up!

This continued the next day, with absolutely no light in the bathroom so I had to either use a torch or leave the door open - not really good when travelling with a male gay friend who would not want to see me showering! Finally the lights came on 18 hours later and we discovered it had been a problem with quite a lot of cabins - 'one particular line related to specific voltage was failing, that affected the stateroom lighting within the Fire Zone 5'. At that point I discovered that all the other rooms had emergency lighting, but ours had failed. As far as I know, we were the only room without any lights at all.

Two days later someone arrived at our door with a letter of apology and another bottle of Merlot! I took it back to Guest Relations with a 'thanks but no thanks' and laughed as I pointed out how silly it is to give this to someone with a drinks package who does not like red wine. The lady at the desk grinned along with me. She said she would see what she could do, especially as she knew we had been without emergency lighting as well. Two days later I was phoned again to say that Head Office would not budge, despite others complaining. She offered to exchange it for white wine to take home or share with friends in our room but I could not see the point. She was very helpful and asked if she could do anything else for us. I felt she did not agree with the decision of Head Office.

I certainly did not let it spoil my holiday but I wondered if I am being unreasonable in thinking that Celebrity should have acted more generously in a situation that put me in physical danger?

With the booking scheme when I first started Cunard cruising, possibly 5 years ago, I would pay for a room and immediately be told it was an upgrade. However, this was only a level or two within the balcony category and I was not really sure what the difference was, not being aware enough of the levels.

Once the new system came to the UK, I book a last-minute saver fare and can only get a GTY. On a couple of occasions I booked at the lowest-level balcony (partially obstructed) on QV and was later 'upgraded' to what I consider to be the worst rooms on the ship - deck 5 (I think) right at the front, where you get an hour of terrible noise as the ship arrives in port or leaves port. It's not a good room for someone who wants to sleep late. On my last Cunard cruise I paid the extra to make sure I would not be 'upgraded' to that location.