joke of the day -Celebrity Customer Service

Having sailed on Celebrity 12 times under independent management and once under RCCL management, Celebrity customer service is now a joke.

We returned Dec 21st after spending 4 weeks on the Galaxy, I thought there were a few things that needed to be addresses and sent a letter to Dan Hanrahan on January 2. The letter listed the positve things that we enjoyed and the negative things ( like the roof sections of the balcony falling down in the middle of the night and crashing into the glass door) that we did not enjoy.

As of today's mail there has been ZERO responses to my letter, not even the courtesy of saying we received your letter and are looking into to it.

In past years I aways received a response the few times I wrote to Celebrity, a short thank you and etc., etc.

so we are looking at it this way, since Celbrity doesn't care about our business we do not care about Celebrity. We currently have a two week reservation on the Solstice in January, 09 and are now in the process of changing that to a 10 day cruise on the Queen Mary 2.

We sent a letter addressing concerns about our January 3rd cruise, and just recieved a response and phone call a few days ago.

It might happen.

Dave:eek:

willy paul, I don't blame you for growing impatient while waiting for Celebrity to respond to your letter, and I can understand that by this point you'd be considering taking your business elsewhere. Celebrity really should have made some sort of acknowledgement by now.

I hope you do hear from them in the next few days. Please keep us posted.

Celebrity customer service is a misnomer, based on our experience as well as the posters above. Could more accurately be called customer NONservice!!:(

Wow, I'm really sorry you guys have had such bad customer service. During the last couple of months I must have gotten lucky with the 9 different customer service agents I've spoken with, because all 9 of them were great and very helpful to me.

We returned Dec 21st after spending 4 weeks on the Galaxy, I thought there were a few things that needed to be addresses and sent a letter to Dan Hanrahan on January 2.

 

As of today's mail there has been ZERO responses to my letter

 

We currently have a two week reservation on the Solstice in January, 09 and are now in the process of changing that to a 10 day cruise on the Queen Mary 2.

I truly understand your impatience with Celebrity Customer Service and wouldn't argue otherwise. However, I will point out that if you have any reason to contact Customer Service before or after your QM2 cruise, please realize that at this point, you'll be dealing with nothing other than glorified Carnival reps.

Good luck to you on that endeavor!

I agree that Celebrity Customer Service is in serious need of improvement. Last November we disembarked the ship in Malaga, Spain ending our cruise before the final stop. My mother forgot some items in the safe. After 7-8 tries we finally reached the ship on the satellite phone. Roxana at the front desk on Century was superb and handled the situation perfectly. While my mother was still on the line she contacted the steward to check the safe. It was only a minute later that she informed her everything she mentioned was there and contacted my sister who was still on the cruise to pickup the items. We can't say the same thing for Celebrity in Miami. While we were having trouble connecting to the ship we decided to try customer service in Miami. Absolutely horrible. They just did not have a clue what to do. The only option they provided was writing a report. They refused to contact the ship on our behalf. About 2 weeks after we returned from our trip my mother got a call from Celebrity informing her that there was nothing in the safe.

I agree that Celebrity Customer Service is in serious need of improvement. Last November we disembarked the ship in Malaga, Spain ending our cruise before the final stop. My mother forgot some items in the safe. After 7-8 tries we finally reached the ship on the satellite phone. Roxana at the front desk on Century was superb and handled the situation perfectly. While my mother was still on the line she contacted the steward to check the safe. It was only a minute later that she informed her everything she mentioned was there and contacted my sister who was still on the cruise to pickup the items. We can't say the same thing for Celebrity in Miami. While we were having trouble connecting to the ship we decided to try customer service in Miami. Absolutely horrible. They just did not have a clue what to do. The only option they provided was writing a report. They refused to contact the ship on our behalf. About 2 weeks after we returned from our trip my mother got a call from Celebrity informing her that there was nothing in the safe.

We also had issues with CS aboard the Radiance and will be sending Richard Fain a nice letter. What RCL needs to do -and it will save them money and customers in the long run is empower CS on board to resolve issues without having to call Miami every time they have to go to the head.

Me thinks that no one wants to tell the boss there is a problem for fear of shooting the messenger. They need to learn from companies like Stew Leonards who basically empower everyone to make it right if possible with obvious dollar limits. If I have a bad piece of meat or produce - CS will credt it on the spot without having to call the store manager.

Celebrity customer service is a misnomer, based on our experience as well as the posters above. Could more accurately be called customer NONservice!!:(

I agree!

I solved my problems with Celebrity. I cancelled my Celebrity booking and booked the Queen Mary. I would have to assume that sales are so brisk on Celebrity they do not need their Elite Captains Club members any longer. As for the customer servce of Carnival someone mentioned, they were great the last time we booked. We booked directly through Carnival and received an upgrade and a call to be sure our documents had been received and a call three days before the cruise to see that all was in order. Can't ask for anything more.

My husband and I went on Celebrity's Constellation for our honeymoon in September '07. We did encounter some problems on board and at the suggestion of some other guests, we decided to write a letter to customer service. We did get a follow-up letter and phone call. Other guests in the past have received credits. We unfortunately did not. But Celebrity did respond to our complaints shortly after receiving the letter.

My husband and I went on Celebrity's Constellation for our honeymoon in September '07. We did encounter some problems on board and at the suggestion of some other guests, we decided to write a letter to customer service. We did get a follow-up letter and phone call. Other guests in the past have received credits. We unfortunately did not. But Celebrity did respond to our complaints shortly after receiving the letter.

How serious were your complaints? We had to go to Guest Relations at least 12 times in 4.5 days. Nine were because 3 people (2 diff cabins) kept getting locked out when the key cards would not work and they gave them new ones. We had to walk from one of the farthest aft cabins to the Guest Relations which is forward. We also had children moved (linked cabin) from an aft inside across from us to a forward on another deck and had to have this straightened out upon boarding (this was a cabin selected 6 months in advance, not a guarantee - and I had phoned several days prior to departure to confirm everything). These same children were given an debarkation time in another lounge over an hour after us...

That has nothing to do with Custom Air finding us air and e-mailing but missing my husband. I e-mailed imed. we would take them but needed 4 seats, not 3. When I did not hear back I called and they said my only option was same day mystery flights as no custom air a day earlier was available. So we booked on our own. I really didn't get much in the way of service.

I have more but does anyone think any of this alone should warrant a letter? Just curious.

Your complaints definitely warrant a letter. Celebrity needs to be made aware that their clients are not happy with the care they are getting. That is why we wrote a letter. In our situation, we booked our honeymoon over a year in advance and booked our air through the cruise line. We had called numerous times to request 2 seats together for our flight to London. We got the runaround from Celebrity, British Airways, etc. When we got to the airport, we found out we weren't even seated together on the 7 hour flight, and this was our honeymoon. We were livid. We had gone to guest relations immediately on the ship and they did nothing for us.

Other minor things included requesting a table for 2 (again in advance) and being put at a table for 10....why even ask what we wanted. Waiting 3 hours for tenders to a port, missing out on a half a day of exploring because Celebrity didn't hire enough tenders. We didn't expect this from Celebrity. We had heard it was such a top notch cruise line.

I just want to point out that Celebrity did arrange some nice things for us, and that our experience wasn't entirely a bad one. We did enjoy our honeymoon but we were not happy with the way it began. You should definitely voice your concerns especially since your children were involved. I would like to think they would take your concerns seriously. Please keep us posted.

I'm not sure I want to stir the pot on this but here goes. I too would be upset about some of the things that you encountered and hope someone in management can fix them quickly. We have traveled as Diamond and Elite and we have never had any problem working through leadership on the boat or over the phone to have our problems resolved, everyone has a boss I can speak too and between them and the CEO is about 10 layers of leadership and along the way some are empowered to fix the problem.

I can not understand why everyone thinks writing the CEO or emailing the President is the answer to any problems. They are running billion dollar companies and could not be successful for their Shareholders if they are personally handling guest complaints, that would be beyond micro management. It is not their job, they have people that can and will resolve problems as well as report findings to upper management frequently.

Just a thought if you haven't gotten a response maybe his admin is on vacation or is doing something else as that is about the only person complaints of this nature generally reach in a company with Hundreds of millions in revenues.

I do however hope you reach someone that can help resolve your problem.

I truly understand your impatience with Celebrity Customer Service and wouldn't argue otherwise. However, I will point out that if you have any reason to contact Customer Service before or after your QM2 cruise, please realize that at this point, you'll be dealing with nothing other than glorified Carnival reps.

Good luck to you on that endeavor!

Carnival Corp. has lines that RCI/X can't tie the shoes of...

On my first X cruise, I experienced aggravatingly contempuous indifference by staff that were "service reps" in name only. Somewhat amazingly, I cruise X again.

On my last Carnival cruise (Miracle) I experienced proactive service in the face of problems that made me think, "Whatever this line's shortcomings, the staff here WANT to make you happy!". Cabin appointment superior to X didn't hurt either. From my teak floored veranda I rather enjoyed looking down on synthetic coating of Connie's verandas piered adjacent. I suppose in comparison an X rep would simply say, "I'm sorry." (they're GOOD at THAT!)

I guess my point is... X certainly has it's good points, but Carnival bashing is misplaced and naive...

Your complaints definitely warrant a letter. Celebrity needs to be made aware that their clients are not happy with the care they are getting. That is why we wrote a letter. In our situation, we booked our honeymoon over a year in advance and booked our air through the cruise line. We had called numerous times to request 2 seats together for our flight to London. We got the runaround from Celebrity, British Airways, etc. When we got to the airport, we found out we weren't even seated together on the 7 hour flight, and this was our honeymoon. We were livid. We had gone to guest relations immediately on the ship and they did nothing for us.

 

Other minor things included requesting a table for 2 (again in advance) and being put at a table for 10....why even ask what we wanted. Waiting 3 hours for tenders to a port, missing out on a half a day of exploring because Celebrity didn't hire enough tenders. We didn't expect this from Celebrity. We had heard it was such a top notch cruise line.

 

I just want to point out that Celebrity did arrange some nice things for us, and that our experience wasn't entirely a bad one. We did enjoy our honeymoon but we were not happy with the way it began. You should definitely voice your concerns especially since your children were involved. I would like to think they would take your concerns seriously. Please keep us posted.

As far as the air I would never blame Celebrity for that as they have no control and seats get changed all the time, especially if aircraft gets changed around. On our recent cruise we had 4 flights, the first was a shuttle and seats booked at the airport, and 3 were upgrades to first class and DH and I are always give diff seats since our last names are not the same, but it was easy to switch. For an international flight I would have confirmed direct with the airline at the point where they have your names.

As far as the 2 top I would not be happy on my honeymoon. Celebrity (unlike HAL) usually will not confirm tables before you board. I assume this was resolved once your boarded? Were you able to get your seats together on the airline? Honestly, I would not blame Celebrity for that.

 

I guess my point is... X certainly has it's good points, but Carnival bashing is misplaced and naive...

Interestingly on the Century I heard 2 or 3 jokes against Carnival, but on HAL as an example I have never heard them make fun of RCCL or Celebrity (ex. Bingo board broken - some lights would not go out and Announcer states "we bought it used from Carnival')

I'm not sure I want to stir the pot on this but here goes. I too would be upset about some of the things that you encountered and hope someone in management can fix them quickly. We have traveled as Diamond and Elite and we have never had any problem working through leadership on the boat or over the phone to have our problems resolved, everyone has a boss I can speak too and between them and the CEO is about 10 layers of leadership and along the way some are empowered to fix the problem.

 

I can not understand why everyone thinks writing the CEO or emailing the President is the answer to any problems. They are running billion dollar companies and could not be successful for their Shareholders if they are personally handling guest complaints, that would be beyond micro management. It is not their job, they have people that can and will resolve problems as well as report findings to upper management frequently.

 

Just a thought if you haven't gotten a response maybe his admin is on vacation or is doing something else as that is about the only person complaints of this nature generally reach in a company with Hundreds of millions in revenues.

 

I do however hope you reach someone that can help resolve your problem.

The reason for writing the CEO or President IMHO is because Customer Circus

is not empowered to do their job. I am tired of " I have to call Miami" I guarantee ya that if I go to a Hyatt or Westin hotel and I have an issue - the Hotel Manager or his designee fixes the problem with out having to call corporate for permission. There should be no reason to write if the issue is handled on board. Sure - if i am demanding thousands in refunds - for what ever the reason that gets run up the flagpole - but something tht can be fixed with a $50 or $100 credit should be handled on board

Your complaints definitely warrant a letter. Celebrity needs to be made aware that their clients are not happy with the care they are getting. That is why we wrote a letter. In our situation, we booked our honeymoon over a year in advance and booked our air through the cruise line. We had called numerous times to request 2 seats together for our flight to London. We got the runaround from Celebrity, British Airways, etc. When we got to the airport, we found out we weren't even seated together on the 7 hour flight, and this was our honeymoon. We were livid. We had gone to guest relations immediately on the ship and they did nothing for us.

 

Other minor things included requesting a table for 2 (again in advance) and being put at a table for 10....why even ask what we wanted. Waiting 3 hours for tenders to a port, missing out on a half a day of exploring because Celebrity didn't hire enough tenders. We didn't expect this from Celebrity. We had heard it was such a top notch cruise line.

 

I just want to point out that Celebrity did arrange some nice things for us, and that our experience wasn't entirely a bad one. We did enjoy our honeymoon but we were not happy with the way it began. You should definitely voice your concerns especially since your children were involved. I would like to think they would take your concerns seriously. Please keep us posted.

Just a comment on British Air. About a year ago they started a policy of not preassigning seating in economy class until 24 hours prior to the flight. David, from the travel insider newletter, discussed his long tale of woe when he was in London and their website would not work to assign a seat, he called BA countless times and was told he had to do it online or at the airport, not phone. They were unresponsive to their website not allowing this so he ended up having to do it when he arrived at airport. Unless BA has changed his, that still is their policy for economy. Were the two seats in economy plus or higher? If this BA policy is still in effect, it is a good way to discourage customers, especially when trying to get seats on the return flight.

How can an "upscale company" justify selling transatlantic airfare to two people on their honeymoon without being able to seat them together. When we booked our cruise, they said it would not be a problem, that we were to contact the airline to make the seat request. The airline turned around and told us Celebrity was responsible for that. And since it was a group booking, seats could not be selected by the passenger. We even spoke with Custom Air through Celebrity who misinformed us. We were promised by Celebrity that there would be no problems with our seating and it would be taken care of at the airport. When we got to the airport, there were no two seats together and there was nothing we could do unless we paid for an upgrade. Thankfully, a manager from British Airways was able to help and get us seats together but not after an anxious 2 1/2 hour wait.

I still feel what happened was Celebrity's fault and they admitted in their letter to us that they dropped the ball. If we had known this was going to be a problem, we would have booked the air ourselves. On the airfare end, they definitely failed in creating a pleasant experience and combined with the 2 hour wait at Heathrow waiting for transfers (with nowhere to sit) we would NEVER book air and transfers through Celebrity again.

In response to writing Celebrity, we were told to do so by numerous staff members on the ship and over the phone as well as from other guests who have traveled on Celebrity a lot more than we have. Being the youngest couple on the boat and on our honeymoon, I think people wanted us to have the best experience possible.

I guess my point is... X certainly has it's good points, but Carnival bashing is misplaced and naive...

"Misplaced & naive" perhaps if I did not have the experience with them.

Carnival owns Princess, and I can say, IMHO, that in 3 cruises with Princess, their customer service rates far below any experience I have ever had on many more RCI & Celebrity cruises.

It is not a coincidence that the Passenger Services Manager aboard a recent Princess cruise states that things with their line have gone downhill since Carnival took over...

The reason I compare them to "glorified" Carnival reps is simply because of the ownership.

Yesterday I both emailed and snail mailed a letter to Dan Hanrahan outlining a concern I had on our recent Azamara Quest cruise. I received an email reply from him this morning - less than 12 hours have I sent the email - addressing my concern and promising to have it acted upon.

Incredible response, I think.

Yesterday I both emailed and snail mailed a letter to Dan Hanrahan outlining a concern I had on our recent Azamara Quest cruise. I received an email reply from him this morning - less than 12 hours have I sent the email - addressing my concern and promising to have it acted upon.

 

Incredible response, I think.

Well, that's because you have (or figured out) his e-mail address.

How can an "upscale company" justify selling transatlantic airfare to two people on their honeymoon without being able to seat them together. When we booked our cruise, they said it would not be a problem, that we were to contact the airline to make the seat request. The airline turned around and told us Celebrity was responsible for that. And since it was a group booking, seats could not be selected by the passenger. We even spoke with Custom Air through Celebrity who misinformed us. We were promised by Celebrity that there would be no problems with our seating and it would be taken care of at the airport. When we got to the airport, there were no two seats together and there was nothing we could do unless we paid for an upgrade. Thankfully, a manager from British Airways was able to help and get us seats together but not after an anxious 2 1/2 hour wait.

 

I still feel what happened was Celebrity's fault and they admitted in their letter to us that they dropped the ball. If we had known this was going to be a problem, we would have booked the air ourselves. On the airfare end, they definitely failed in creating a pleasant experience and combined with the 2 hour wait at Heathrow waiting for transfers (with nowhere to sit) we would NEVER book air and transfers through Celebrity again.

 

In response to writing Celebrity, we were told to do so by numerous staff members on the ship and over the phone as well as from other guests who have traveled on Celebrity a lot more than we have. Being the youngest couple on the boat and on our honeymoon, I think people wanted us to have the best experience possible.

I still am curious what class of air you had with BA. I totally agree Celebrity erorred in what they told you.

Again for economy class, they still have their customer unfriendly of only 24 hour seat assignment.

Below is from BA website:

At check in(from 24 hours before departure)

The best way to choose your seat is by checking in online as early as possible. At the time of check-in all seats on the aircraft, that have not been pre-assigned, will be available for you to choose from. The earlier you check-in, the greater the choice of seats you will have.

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/mmbseatingpolicy/public/en_us

We did have economy air....but were not allowed to choose our seats (through British Airways) because it was considered a group booking--even 24h before our flight. Our seats were to be assigned at check-in only. Celebrity could have sent a request to British Airways on our behalf ahead of time but the person we spoke to through Celebrity did not know that at the time. We found out, only after it was too late, that Celebrity could have made the request. But in the end, it did work out for us thanks to a manager at British Airways who I think felt a little sorry for us.

Again once we got on the ship we did have a lovely time and a wonderful honeymoon. Our waiter was attentive, constantly trying to please us. Ocean Liners was beautiful and they made our night there very special. We won the Newlywed game and got ourselves a free spa treatment. We were recognized by pretty much everyone on board. I guess not many Newlyweds choose a transatlantic crossing in September for their honeymoon. To change things up a bit, my husband and I are trying a short Disney cruise this December. A totally different change of pace if you ask me.