Princess responds to our complaint

[owt205]

We were on the Panama Canal repo Apr 21-May 9 FLL to Vancouver on the Coral Princess.

 

We were a group of 8, and for 6 of us, this was our first Princess Cruise. Together we have cruised about 17 cruises. We were thrilled with this ship, and with Princess in general. From embarkation to disembarkation, everything on board this cruise was top-notch. (ok, the 10 pounds we all gained was not thrilling :mad:)

 

We took all Princess excursions, and they were all wonderful, and well worth the $$$ until Huatulco....that's when it went wrong!

 

Long story short, it was a huge disappointment, especially after having 4 great tours in the days prior. When we reboarded the ship, we expressed our concerns to the Shore Excursion Manager, who was both attentive and professional. She refunded 50% of our cost of the tour within 24 hours, and then gave us the file# and recommended that we take it further with Princess HO. We did express our concerns that Princess was being "taken" as well, because there is only one tour company operating out of Huatulco, with the exception of one boat tour.

 

Also, out of the 32 folks who took this tour, 16 returned to the ship early, by taxi. (Out of their own pockets). This is an indication that this is not a tour that is up to Princess standards.

 

Upon our return, we followed up with an email, outlining our concerns, and today Princess called to respond. They were great, but said that their policy is to only refund 50% for an unsatisfactory excursion.

 

While we are disappointed, we are happy with the good customer service, and expressed to them that they don't offer this tour, at least in this form. That being said, as I was looking at the return repo in the fall, and the same repo for 2011, it is interesting to note that Huatulco is NOT on their itinerary.

 

Has anyone ever received more than 50% for a bad experience on a Princess tour???? Or, has anyone had any poor tour in Huatulco?

 

We loved this cruise so much, that we all (even the RCI die-hards) booked FCC's.:D

[Denny01]

We were on the Panama Canal repo Apr 21-May 9 FLL to Vancouver on the Coral Princess.

 

....We took all Princess excursions, and they were all wonderful, and well worth the $$$ until Huatulco....that's when it went wrong!

 

....Has anyone ever received more than 50% for a bad experience on a Princess tour???? Or, has anyone had any poor tour in Huatulco?

 

We loved this cruise so much, that we all (even the RCI die-hards) booked FCC's.:D

 

We had a bad experience in Columbia - guy ran us through Old Town and into the shops he wanted us in. I'd been in Old Town before and enjoyed it, but this was rediculous. Stopped by the Travel Desk to fill out a form. The manager stepped out, sat with us and was very attentive to our issue and suggestion(s). I think we got a 50% discount wasnt' looking for one beacause the tour wasn't that expensive. Credit back was satisfactory.

 

In Huatulco, we did the Cooking Class and loved it. no tours or anything - excellent chef and very informative. We keep looking for Cooking Classes now!

 

Denny

[owt205]

Thanks Denny

We will chalk this one up to experience...live and learn. I did check out the all inclusive for reviews on this place (tripadvisor), and they were all positive, so I guess we picked a bad day! Certainly did not ruin our great cruise with Princess.

[fathercop]

A couple of years ago, we were in Puerto Rico on a Princess excursion. The excursion was about 90% finished when the old city was shut down due a major accident that backed up traffic to a stand-still in the whole old city. We had to walk back to the ship, which was about a three or four block walk.

 

I didn't complain or ask for a refund, but Princess refunded 100% of the excursion. I was very surprised to see this when I got my final bill.

[Toto2Kansas]

I can only remember one really bad Princess excursion, and that was to a beach in Mexico. The beautiful 'secluded' beach that was described in the tour was a beach full of trash and garbage and wall to wall people. The parking lot to the beach was even so nasty with actual garbage, we hated to walk over in with our shoes on. The beach itself was so full of people (and actual garbage) that it stunk. Ewwwwwwwww

 

After returning to the ship, we submitted a complaint to the tour desk, and you guessed it, 50% only refunded. My understanding is that this is because most times Princess cut of the tour is 50% to them and 50% to the tour operator, so normally, the refund in most cases is only 50% (although I am not sure if Princess refunds their share or the tour operators). :confused:

[owt205]

Thanks Toto

Good point about the 50/50 split...never thought about that. Like I said it seemed REALLY bad, because all the other tours were wonderful, so we were jolted by the obvious rip-off.

[Seal]

We received all of our money back from the train on St. Kitts--it jumped the track--we were very lucky we had just crossed a bridge and didn't fall a great distance.

 

Another time we were given at least 60 percent back--I'm sure it had something to do with a non-running boat somewhere and some time ago.

 

It seems if there is a real problem that Princess will step up and take care of it.

 

Nancy:D

[jollyjones]

You did well! I had a tour in Cartagena with a guide who turned out to have very poor English, didn't seem to know much of Cartagena's history, and we spent a third of the tour sitting in the bus outside a supermarket whilst he took a few of the group inside to buy coffee from his friends. I filled the form in and only got a 25% refund. It wasn't an expensive tour so I wasn't really bothered; we were the first group of the season and I mainly wanted Princess to know that we, and they, were being treated poorly.

[vantec]

We were on the Panama Canal repo Apr 21-May 9 FLL to Vancouver on the Coral Princess.

 

We were a group of 8, and for 6 of us, this was our first Princess Cruise. Together we have cruised about 17 cruises. We were thrilled with this ship, and with Princess in general. From embarkation to disembarkation, everything on board this cruise was top-notch. (ok, the 10 pounds we all gained was not thrilling :mad:)

 

We took all Princess excursions, and they were all wonderful, and well worth the $$$ until Huatulco....that's when it went wrong!

 

Long story short, it was a huge disappointment, especially after having 4 great tours in the days prior. When we reboarded the ship, we expressed our concerns to the Shore Excursion Manager, who was both attentive and professional. She refunded 50% of our cost of the tour within 24 hours, and then gave us the file# and recommended that we take it further with Princess HO. We did express our concerns that Princess was being "taken" as well, because there is only one tour company operating out of Huatulco, with the exception of one boat tour.

 

Also, out of the 32 folks who took this tour, 16 returned to the ship early, by taxi. (Out of their own pockets). This is an indication that this is not a tour that is up to Princess standards.

 

Upon our return, we followed up with an email, outlining our concerns, and today Princess called to respond. They were great, but said that their policy is to only refund 50% for an unsatisfactory excursion.

 

While we are disappointed, we are happy with the good customer service, and expressed to them that they don't offer this tour, at least in this form. That being said, as I was looking at the return repo in the fall, and the same repo for 2011, it is interesting to note that Huatulco is NOT on their itinerary.

 

Has anyone ever received more than 50% for a bad experience on a Princess tour???? Or, has anyone had any poor tour in Huatulco?

 

We loved this cruise so much, that we all (even the RCI die-hards) booked FCC's.:D

 

In January of 2009, we took our 4 children on a cruise with us. In Grand Cayman we had an awful tour - we paid for a taxi back to the ship and then nicely complained. Princess refunded our money 100% for all 6 of us. I had never complained about an excursion before, and was very impressed with the response we received.

[Nymue]

Hi Rich!

 

I remember that Lovely Day.....thank heavens for Senior Frogs :D

 

Anne

 

A couple of years ago, we were in Puerto Rico on a Princess excursion. The excursion was about 90% finished when the old city was shut down due a major accident that backed up traffic to a stand-still in the whole old city. We had to walk back to the ship, which was about a three or four block walk.

 

I didn't complain or ask for a refund, but Princess refunded 100% of the excursion. I was very surprised to see this when I got my final bill.

[MszKitty]

Took a helicopter/dog sled camp excursion in Skagway. As soon as we were ready to take off on the sled...the dogs were hooked up and rarin' to go (literally, if they had waited one minute later, we would have been on our way), we were told we had to get back on the helicopter because the weather was turning so quickly, they felt if they waited, it might not be safe for flying. Princess refunded the entire cost of the trip. We didn't even have to complain, it was all taken care of by the time we got back on the ship. We would have been happy with even 50% refund because we did get a nice 1/2 hr helicopter ride.

[Blondilu]

Went on a whale watching excursion out of Santa Barbara. There were no whales. The company gave everyone who left the boat a voucher for a future trip, which is their policy when whales are not spotted. I didn't take one because I didn't think I would be back. Also, I was so sea-sick from the rough weather that I just wanted to get back to our ship and lie down. I didn't complain either, but someone must have noticed (kind of hard not to I guess since I had my head in a garbage can most of the trip) but they refunded me 100% of the cost of the trip. Just me though, not my friend. I still wonder how that all came about.

[dfields1814]

You were lucky to get 50% back.

 

We always had great excursions with Princess even though they can be overcrowded and expensive. The one exception was the excusion to the DDay beaches at Normandy. The ship arrived late. But the tour guide kept the morning schedule visiting a 3rd rate museum and spent 2 hours at lunch. When it came to the American cemetery we had 30 minutes - 15 of those minutes were used to off load the bus. We had 5 minutes at Omaha Beach. The guide said to get off the bus take picture and get back on the bus. We were not allowed to see the new visitors center at the cemetery. The guide said we did not have time to clear security (Because we spent so much time eating lunch and visiting a 3rd rate museum.) The guide tried to blame Obama because he was going to be there to make a speech and the security was heightened. Only trouble is he going to be there on DDAy, We were there in April.

 

For this I paid $400 for two of us. I complained to the tour people on board and to Princess. All I got was a letter saying they would look into the matter.

 

Other than that we never had any problem with their excursions. But that is like saying I never had an accident with my car with the exception of the head on!

 

Paul

[owt205]

How interesting to find so many different stories, although I guess each and every tour is unique in it's own way.

If we book a wildlife tour of any kind, we don't expect to get our money back if we don't see any, that is just Mother Nature. We have paid 200.00 each for an Alaskan tour, did not see a thing...our disappointment was in the fact that the tour description did not explain that the greater part of the tour involved a long boat ride, then an even longer bus trip before we got to the "viewing" part.

Thank goodness for Cruise critic so we can find out some of the "good, bad and ugly" before we book tours. So thank you all for the great info

[Pam in CA]

One tour we took to Marrakesh from Casablanca five years ago was absolutely awful. It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive through the desert to Marrakesh and the A/C on our bus broke down just as we were leaving Casablanca. That meant over 3 hours of stifling heat in the bus and even though we drank all our water, there wasn't any more on the bus. Also, the tour give gave us a "talk" which was more like a harrang about Islam, how wonderful it was and how Americans mis-understood it. We were promised that the bus would be fixed for the drive back. The first place we got to, we arrived just as they were closing it for two hours. So we wasted about 30 minutes getting to another place. The guide took us through the Casbah and told us to not stop for anything. He didn't wait or count, and lost two people. Fortunately, they were found about two hours later and caught up with us. We stocked up on bottles of water for the drive back and sure 'nuff, the A/C wasn't working. It had to be about 120 - 130 degrees in the back of the bus. Absolutely awful and potentially deadly for some people. To add insult to injury, we were stopped by the Moroccan troopers as we re-entered Casablanca who examined everyone's documents and kept us waiting another half hour in the bus before we were released. When we finally arrived at the dock, the Pursar and several officers greeted us as we were by far the last bus back, by over an hour past sailing. We didn't even have to ask for a refund. It was a very expensive tour (I think it was almost $300) and they refunded 50% saying that we did make it Marrakesh, had lunch, saw sights, etc.

[owt205]

Wow Pam, that is awful, paid a lot for a tour in a place you may never see again, how sad. Again, this is very subjective, but hopefully Princess learns from these poorly handled tours, and tries to provide a better product for the next passengers.

 

That is really what we are hoping for in complaining about our tour....we don't want other folks taking a tour that is certainly less than ideal. It is also the reason I waited to post about it, as I wanted to see what Princess was going to say.

[Umbarger]

I was on a very bad excursion once. However, it was on Princess Cays. I complained to the shore excursion office but was never offered a cent.

 

I would have been thrilled with 50% off.

[caribill]

One tour we took to Marrakesh from Casablanca five years ago was absolutely awful.

 

Maybe that is why the tour is not being offered this year per some posts on other threads.

[Cruisers from WA]

We have taken 3 different Princess tours on three different visits to Huatulco, ALL were great...the first was something like 9 bays, viewpoints, a place that had a cooking demo and food tasting, and of course shopping for the products, a visit to a beach which was famous to surfers (a few begging children, monkeys on shoulders asking for a handout for taking a picture,) and then we went to La Crucecita town square for shopping (1 hr ?)...and then the bus picked us up at a appointed time took us back to the ship,

The 2nd excursion was a catamaran sail and swim...it was really fun...it was two decked and the booze flowed freely (even though I rarely drink)....the swim part was in a bay people began just jumping off the top open deck into the water ("noodles" and lift preservers were provided if desired)...there was a medical emergency and the man was rescued, a boat picked him up, gave him first aid and took him back to the ship.

The 3rd excursion was this May 11.... it was sail and swim on the Luna Azul.....(lot less people than on the catamaran)....wonderful swim and scenery and then we went whale watching/dolphin.....we saw a whale in the distance (the spray) but we were in the middle of of many dolphins and then were surfacing right at the bow of the boat...it was great fun and I got some great pics of the dolphin up close! No one want to go back to the ship....

 

I LOVE HUATULCO!

[Cruise Raider]

We were on the Panama Canal repo Apr 21-May 9 FLL to Vancouver on the Coral Princess.

 

We were a group of 8, and for 6 of us, this was our first Princess Cruise. Together we have cruised about 17 cruises. We were thrilled with this ship, and with Princess in general. From embarkation to disembarkation, everything on board this cruise was top-notch. (ok, the 10 pounds we all gained was not thrilling :mad:)

 

We took all Princess excursions, and they were all wonderful, and well worth the $$$ until Huatulco....that's when it went wrong!

 

Long story short, it was a huge disappointment, especially after having 4 great tours in the days prior. When we reboarded the ship, we expressed our concerns to the Shore Excursion Manager, who was both attentive and professional. She refunded 50% of our cost of the tour within 24 hours, and then gave us the file# and recommended that we take it further with Princess HO. We did express our concerns that Princess was being "taken" as well, because there is only one tour company operating out of Huatulco, with the exception of one boat tour.

 

Also, out of the 32 folks who took this tour, 16 returned to the ship early, by taxi. (Out of their own pockets). This is an indication that this is not a tour that is up to Princess standards.

 

Upon our return, we followed up with an email, outlining our concerns, and today Princess called to respond. They were great, but said that their policy is to only refund 50% for an unsatisfactory excursion.

 

While we are disappointed, we are happy with the good customer service, and expressed to them that they don't offer this tour, at least in this form. That being said, as I was looking at the return repo in the fall, and the same repo for 2011, it is interesting to note that Huatulco is NOT on their itinerary.

 

Has anyone ever received more than 50% for a bad experience on a Princess tour???? Or, has anyone had any poor tour in Huatulco?

 

We loved this cruise so much, that we all (even the RCI die-hards) booked FCC's.:D

 

 

We were on the Crown Princess several years ago and were put onto the wrong tour to Old Town / New Town, whereas we originally booked the Bacardi Rum Tour. I inquired when my tickets didn't seem to be correct, but they rushed us onto the bus nevertheless saying that it did stop at the Bacardi Rum factory and then the Fort. Well, we got stuck in the very back of the bus as we were obviously asking too many questions, and the air conditioning vent kept dripping water all over us throughout the entire tour. So, then we got to old town and the driver said we had to tour it on our own due to the streets being ripped up....although we saw other busses on the same streets. No stop at the bacardi rum factory or the fort...which we soon discovered was within walking distance of where the ship was docked.

We ended up touring old town and the fort on our own....missed our friends that were booked on the Bacardi Rum tour. We went back to the ship -- quite unhappy -- as all our tour encompassed was a tour of the new section of town which could have been East LA for all we could tell. Pitiful!! We requested a refund, which after much debate, were offered 50% off. I exclaimed it wasn't bad enough that we were given the wrong tour tickets but were assured upon entering the bus, that the tour stopped at the fort, old town and the bacardi rum factory....which it did not. I noted that not only were we given the wrong tour, that it was a waste of our limited time in PR. We were told they would give us a full refund ....but had to go back to the pursers desk at least 5 more times to make sure it was credited....but it finally was....but not without persistence on our part.

 

With all that being said, we booked an all inclusive beach day in Manzanillo while sailing on Royal Caribbean. The tour guide first assured us the resort was the Barcello Karimina....which was not true. The entire tour was a disaster...no drinks, no place to sit by the pool and no loungers on the beach. No welome cocktail, nothing we could eat until 1 PM (or so we were told) but our bus was to head back to the ship at 1:30....so what is that??? Drinks not available until noon. It went on and on but needless to say...by 10:30 AM, we started a trend and took a taxi back to the ship. We immediately went to the tour desk and spoke to Pedro in guest relations. We were not only offered a full refund, which was credited to our account before we could say boo, we were also reimbursed for our cab fare back to the ship without any expectation of that level of service. One of the ladies that also returned to the ship stated, "this is RCI, not Princess". ha!

Now, I do really like Princess but think their customer service does have a long way to go to reach that of Royal Caribbean.

[WeBeGone]

On Grand Turl, my DH paid $300 for an "off shore deep sea fishing adventure" with Princess. It turned out to be a small outboard on a lake!!

We were refunded 50% immediately upon return to the ship. When we returned home I sent a letter by snail mail and by email, complete with photos of the "boat", and in about 6 weeks we received a check for the remaining 50%.

[ssbeagle]

We have had a bad Princess tour in Puerto Rico and Princess refunded half the tour cost to us. That's a lot better than nothing and they are happy to learn about a bad tour and will not use that company again most likely.

[unboringuy]

We were on the Panama Canal repo Apr 21-May 9 FLL to Vancouver on the Coral Princess.

 

We were a group of 8, and for 6 of us, this was our first Princess Cruise. Together we have cruised about 17 cruises. We were thrilled with this ship, and with Princess in general. From embarkation to disembarkation, everything on board this cruise was top-notch. (ok, the 10 pounds we all gained was not thrilling :mad:)

 

We took all Princess excursions, and they were all wonderful, and well worth the $$$ until Huatulco....that's when it went wrong!

 

Long story short, it was a huge disappointment, especially after having 4 great tours in the days prior. When we reboarded the ship, we expressed our concerns to the Shore Excursion Manager, who was both attentive and professional. She refunded 50% of our cost of the tour within 24 hours, and then gave us the file# and recommended that we take it further with Princess HO. We did express our concerns that Princess was being "taken" as well, because there is only one tour company operating out of Huatulco, with the exception of one boat tour.

 

Also, out of the 32 folks who took this tour, 16 returned to the ship early, by taxi. (Out of their own pockets). This is an indication that this is not a tour that is up to Princess standards.

 

Upon our return, we followed up with an email, outlining our concerns, and today Princess called to respond. They were great, but said that their policy is to only refund 50% for an unsatisfactory excursion.

 

While we are disappointed, we are happy with the good customer service, and expressed to them that they don't offer this tour, at least in this form. That being said, as I was looking at the return repo in the fall, and the same repo for 2011, it is interesting to note that Huatulco is NOT on their itinerary.

 

Has anyone ever received more than 50% for a bad experience on a Princess tour???? Or, has anyone had any poor tour in Huatulco?

 

We loved this cruise so much, that we all (even the RCI die-hards) booked FCC's.:D

 

I can tell you why Princess' policy is to refund 50% for an unsatisfactory shore excursion. It is my understanding that Princess receives 50% of the revenue from most excursions. It is also my understanding that tour operators do not get paid when passengers complain. Therefore, Princess still gets its compensation even when the passenger is credited back the 50%.

[owt205]

MMMMM...very interesting stories. Cruise Raider, your experience sounds very similar to ours at the all-inclusive. perhaps the cruise lines should be researching these offers a little more closely. Seems like the resorts don't really need "day pass" folks, and treat them poorly. You would think they would want to sell themselves to what may be a lot of future customers.

The Princess rep did tell us that doing refunds onboard is a fairly new policy, they used to have to issue them from Santa Clarita, which involved a lot of paperwork, and considerable time.

While we perhaps should have been more aggresive in trying to get our full refund, we are happy that a discussion is going on here, to help future cruisers make better choices

[bhopal21]

To add to this we were to take a helicopter tour of St. Thomas in 2005 and after taking off the pilot decided that the weather was deteriorating and went back to the airport.

 

We went to the purser's desk on the Golden upon return to the ship and they credited the full price of the excursion to our account with no trouble.

 

Mike:)