Any cruise complaints to share?

[tomc]

Joe...

 

I don't think we're starry-eyed, as we're willing to plunk down $$ for the experience. I think we can put the negatives in context and also separate the complainers from the critiquers.

 

Sometimes we laugh/cringe when we watch news stories, or read articles in print, which we know have overstated problems, such as NLV (the Norwalk-Like Virus, commonly known as Stomach Flu or Stomach Virus), which is found absolutely everywhere. We hear horror stories of ships caught in storms, such as the Rotterdam last year, and find out that it wasn't nearly as bad as the pax told the news media.

 

Starry-eyed we ain't. Seasoned travelers who know that "s" happens we are. It's all a matter of perspective and methinks the whiners don't have any.

[waterrats]

JoeLight - fine, there are complaints that deal with hundreds of people. Lets do some simple math. In a bad month, say 5000 ( this should be a high enough number for you to appreciate) have a bad experience due to illness or something else on the cruise. Since most new ships have passenger numbers in the 3000's I will use 3000 as my number. Lets say there are 10 ships that hold 3000 people (very low for the month). That is 30,000 people a week or 120,000 per month cruising. This is obviously low because there are more then 10 ships and I am trying to make a point.

 

120,000 people cruising

5,000 sick or other published complaint that they hate cruising

4.15% unhappy.

 

Well the % unhappy will be less then that since I underestimated the total number of cruisers per month and most likely over estimated the total unhappy passengers per month. Your barking up the wrong tree here. If the cruising industry was so horrible, why are cruiselines introducing bigger, new ships every year?

 

Why don't you look into online auctioning. That seems to rank up there pretty high with unhappy people. I don't remember the number of complaints in the cruising industry making it onto the top ten list of customer complaints.

[ILUVCRUIZN]

QUOTE=JoeLight]Happy ks,

 

The website I mentioned before lists hundreds of incidents, many involving hundreds of people. Do the math.

 

spongerob,

 

From my previous post:

 

"All of the questions I asked in my initial posting came from real experiences that people described on other discussion boards. I am simply trying to ascertain whether the problems represent larger trends or are isolated incidents."

 

The only conclusion I've drawn so far is that most cruisers are too starry-eyed to look at the industry objectively. Thank you to those of you who have provided helpful information.

 

I think all of the posters here look at cruising objectively.... The website that you mentioned before had hundreds of incidents. Do you know how many thousands of people cruise each year???

 

I guess just because I cannot find a negative in something that I do not look at things objectively. I also think that if most cruisers are starry-eyed, then maybe the cruiselines are doing something right!!!!

[spongerob]

Happy ks,

 

The website I mentioned before lists hundreds of incidents, many involving hundreds of people. Do the math.

 

Okay. Let's say about 5 million people in the US have been on at least one cruise (that's a good number, by the way). If you have a 99% satisfaction rate, you will still generate 50,000 complainers. How many service industries can claim that kind of satisfaction?

 

I choose to interpret your comment about "starry-eyed" cruisers as insulting. How can you claim to be objective when it is clear that your intent is to put together a hit-piece? Face it parther, you are participating in the real media here, and the responses you are getting come from people with far more knowledge and experience than you have. Perhaps, you should try going on a cruise, rather than getting it all second hand. Nothing is more enlightening than doing your own research. You can even expense it!

[smiley]

Hi, I'm an intern at a national magazine, and I've been asked to find people with anecdotes to share about negative experiences on cruises.

 

 

Though he probably would have stated this already if it were true he is an intern so probaly isnt given complete info. Perhaps we shouldgive this magazine credit that he is only working on one PIECE of the article. Maybe the article is about how great cruises are for the money, etc and they are going to put in a little blurb saying however not all cruisers have been 100% satisfied...

[ILUVCRUIZN]

Though he probably would have stated this already if it were true he is an intern so probaly isnt given complete info. Perhaps we shouldgive this magazine credit that he is only working on one PIECE of the article. Maybe the article is about how great cruises are for the money, etc and they are going to put in a little blurb saying however not all cruisers have been 100% satisfied...

 

 

 

GOOD POINT!!!!!

[Wennfred]

I would think that the Best way to get ur Job done is to Book a few Cruises yourself, spend some money. then come back with ur report.

[JoeLight]

spongerob & co.,

 

Many of you will be disappointed to learn that people *have* e-mailed me privately with stories similar to the ones on CruiseJunkie. Just because they don't want to subject themselves to the abuse of the majority doesn't mean your opinions are anywhere near unanimous. As for customer satisfaction, if one in every hundred people who stayed in hotels got sick because of it, I'd call that a story. And this is one, too.

 

Peace out.

[PeterPan]

Here's a question for ya...

 

Are hotels and other land based resorts required to report illnesses in the same manner as cruise lines? There could be a "story" there. The problem is, the media always seems to think something has to be negative in order to be a story. How many times has an illness been passed through your office building? Don't hear about that on the news, either.

 

Just my .02

[waterrats]

JoeLight - one in a hundred at hotels would be a 1% sickness rate. I am sure that the cruise industry is way below that number.

 

Ok, if we are starry-eyed, let's hear your idea of a great vacation. I'm sure there are a ton of us on this board that could rip holes through your favorite vacation. Would that make you starred eyed? All your doing is looking at this one way. Why not include this post in on your story? I think all of us on the board that love cruising would have tons to say about the positives about cruising.

 

Just some positives off the top of my head are:

Value

No cell phones (yes, this will suck when more ships have this feature)

for the industry, I actually spend money on cruising instead of penny pinching when i stay at hotels.

Everyone is on vacation. Not much business is done. Everyone is there the length of the cruise

See different ports and islands for future possible vacations

Family oriented (your kids can only run so far. no i don't bring mine but I do have a boat and they can't run far on our boat)

Did I mention no cell phones?

Isolation from the rest of the mainland.

Ship can go around storms and find nicer weather (Hurricane Jeanne caused itinerary changes for us last year. I loved the changes. Out at sea for 7 days. Yeah for us.

 

Some possible negatives about cruising:

Cruise line messes up your air.

Cruise delayed or canceled (this happened this week out of Texas. Cruise passengers were given the chance for a full refund. They did get a 50% refund plus a 25% discount on a future short cruise. I would have no complaints about that.

Poor service (this happens everywhere)

Poor quality food (again, this happens everywhere)

Rude people (again, this happens everywhere except Hawaii. Does that make me starry-eyed toward Hawaii?)

Unclean facilities (again, happens everywhere)

Poor Value (highly doubtful)

 

Even if I had a problem with any of the above, it would not ruin my vacation.

 

spongerob & co.,

 

Many of you will be disappointed to learn that people *have* e-mailed me privately with stories similar to the ones on CruiseJunkie. Just because they don't want to subject themselves to the abuse of the majority doesn't mean your opinions are anywhere near unanimous. As for customer satisfaction, if one in every hundred people who stayed in hotels got sick because of it, I'd call that a story. And this is one, too.

 

Peace out.

[Wennfred]

I think there is more Positive then Negatives with Cruises but you know there is always that one person no matter what you do, they are never satisfied.

[waterrats]

I do believe there is a name for them. I won't mention any because I am still a bit ticked about being called 'starry-eyed' when it comes to cruising.

 

 

 

I think there is more Positive then Negatives with Cruises but you know there is always that one person no matter what you do, they are never satisfied.

[Happy ks]

Joelight, I absolutely considered the math when I responded. After looking at your link, many of the incidents, such as illness aboard a ship, only affected a very few percent of the people onboard. If I were on a ship that had an outbreak of, say, 100 people and I were not one of them, it would not be a negative for me. News reports make it sound like a whole cruise ship came down with Norovirus, because that stimulates interest, they would never say "100 people onboard Restaurant of the Sea became ill and 3850 were fine and had a great cruise". Cancellation of ports, sure, some of the people onboard would be outraged, but you cannot say all 2500 people onboard felt negatively about it, there are some of us that know that can happen and enjoy our day in spite of the missed port. You're assuming everyone on every single ship listed was negatively impacted, there is really no way to know that unless you interviewed all the people involved. There were probably no more than, say 150 incidents per year worldwide listed in your link.

 

When you consider how many millions of people cruise every year and have a wonderful time, the complaints are in the short column. So, sure bad things can happen on a cruise or around the corner from home. Most of us are pretty much trying to tell you that yes, the negatives are fairly isolated incidents and not larger trends.

 

I'm looking forward to reading your article.

[momofmeg]

None of the things you mentioned has affected me that much in 9 cruises. I guess if they had I would not have taken NINE cruises.

 

We did have the agenda of ports slightly changed twice. Both because of storms. This past fall we still did the ports on Disney Wonder-our "sea" day was changed-so we really was not affected much. In 2001 we were on Sovereign right after a storm so we did not go to Coco Cay because of storm damage but it was no big deal.

 

Now I did hate that we had booked a cruise on Mariner of the Seas this past Sept. for Oct. 23 , 05 and we were notified in JAN. that the ports had been changed for that cruise-this made us unhappy because the new ports made it almost the same ittineary we did on Inspiration in Dec. 03 and we were looking forward to Jamacia and Labadee 2 islands we have never been to-because of the popularity of that ship-prices had went up and to change our reservation to the Oct. 9 cruise which was still scheduled to do those islands would cost us $100 MORE. I felt this was very unfair as RCCL would turn around and sell our previous reservation for more money then what we paid them-but it was like-oh well RCCL did not care-as that is really a popular ship so if we cancelled our reservation no big deal to RCCL-someone else would snap it up soon enough. For this reason I doubt we will cruise RCCL again.

 

On Our HAL cruise my daughter was disapointed that the teen club was cancelled (including the teen disco) but the reason they did this was there were only 3 teenagers on board so they felt it was not worth the trouble to have a staff member in charge of it-to me this was unfair to the THREE that were on ship. So we were unhappy with that decision.

We have always found the teen clubs a safe envirement. Also too-we never feared our daughter doing things on her own-it was safe-but she is a smart cookie and also she was required to check in with us every so often. So as far as teens getting in trouble on cruiseships-I think PARENTS need to take responcibility for that.

[momofmeg]

One other thing I want to add. Twice in my life I have got food poisioning from a local restuarant. This has never happened to me on a cruiseship. I get stomach viruses almost every year-one year this happened to me three times but this has never happened to me on a cruise.

[hogwildcruzers]

Waterrats~~~ you really nailed it, thanks from all of us that love cruising~~~ no cell phones, you got to really love that !!;)

[Nitemare]

The only conclusion I've drawn so far is that most cruisers are too starry-eyed to look at the industry objectively

If "Starry-Eyed" = Happy, then yep, you got us right.

 

Most people are happy with their cruising experiences. You seem to think this is a bad thing. I don't get it.

[momofmeg]

spongerob & co.,

 

Many of you will be disappointed to learn that people *have* e-mailed me privately with stories similar to the ones on CruiseJunkie. Just because they don't want to subject themselves to the abuse of the majority doesn't mean your opinions are anywhere near unanimous. As for customer satisfaction, if one in every hundred people who stayed in hotels got sick because of it, I'd call that a story. And this is one, too.

 

Peace out.

 

Ofcourse this happens; and I know there are cruiseline loyalists on this board who take personal offence to any negative thing said. I am not one of them-I realize things happen and no I do not consider myself "starry eyed" about cruising-at least not since my first or second cruise. We still do land vacations-in July we are spending a week in Panama City as after doing 3 cruises last year we want a little change. The reason though we keep cruising is the VALUE-it just seems whenever we do a land vacation we end up spending more unless we do like we are doing this summer at Panama City and book a camping cabin where we can cook meals-eating out is so expensive you know and really adds up.

 

No matter what vacation we take I know things are going to happen but what is great about a cruise is seeing alot of different places-no worry about getting lost in traffic or taking the wrong bus or train etc. (That always happens to us-so frustrating when you don't know your way around) and having great food instead of budgeting by eating at Mac Donalds and Pizza Hut and only eating at a couple of nice places during the week-which we end up doing to save money. I know our week in London 5 years ago cost us like twice our Alaska cruise and we did a whole lot of the Mac Donalds-Burger King thing for lunch. The cost was so high there that a Mac Donalds lunch cost us what we would pay at Olive Garden, TGI Fridays, Ruby Tuesdays,etc. at home for a meal. Ofcourse that is because the dollar is weak against the pound. We still loved our London trip-it is just we can take a nice cruise for less.

[MrsPete]

So much for truth in journalism -- could you be a little less obvious about the slant you've obviously already chosen? I teach a journalism-related class in high school, and I teach students to gather unbiased information, THEN reach their conclusions.

[jcanino]

Hi. I'm the mid-day anchor at a metropolitan radio station (for real), as well as an occasional travel writer for a newspaper, and I wonder why you came here looking only for negatives?

 

Tom, I thought the same thing when I read this message. It seems that someone is on a witch hunt. Wonder if this story will be in the National

Enquirer?

[Happy ks]

Did Mr. Light leave us? Perhaps we disappointed him with our positive attitude towards cruising. I hope he's not mad.

 

Life, at least for me, is too serious on an everyday basis, cruising is my fantasy world and I love it. There is nothing in the world quite like boarding a cruise ship, finding your cabin, jumping up and down (door closed) a champagne toast and away you go. For 3, 4, 7 days or more you are waited on, fed, taken to new places, entertained, your bed turned down with a chocolate on your pillow. It's a world so different from our everyday life, no wonder the majority who try it get hooked. Even with the occasional problem, it is a far better vacation than many other experiences. I guess that is why the cruise industry is growing and cruises are consistently sold out.

 

So, we're pretty much all in agreement that we love cruising and this is a forum for people who love to cruise. Sorry we didn't jump onto your negative bandwagon, Joe, maybe you should try a cruise!

[waterrats]

Happy (Kathy) - Yep. I think you just said it best. Joe, go take a cruise!!!

[momofmeg]

Things happen Joe-we all know that but the cruise industry would not be growing the way it is if people on the whole did not like cruising. I am sure people have negative experiences and choose not to cruise again-but as others say this is a cruise fan site so you are not going to find them here except for an occasionial person who posts because he/she wants others to know his bad experience.

 

Sure we were all starry eyed our first cruise or two-I could not believe what a wonderful experience it was and so different and better then other vacations I have taken-which often left me more stressed then before I left home instead of being relaxing which is why I take vacations-we all need that in this high stress world we live in.

 

But as I already said I continue to cruise because of the VALUE. I had this concept that only wealthy people could afford to cruise that us normal folks it was more of a once in a lifetime type thing and then I cruised and realized how affordable it was and how much better I ate and entertainment I received then I did on other vacations.

 

So even though I have had a few negative experiences I will continue to cruise because over all it has been a much better experience then othere vacations I have taken. I am also sure even if I am unfortunate enough to contact Norwalk virus on a cruise I will hate that but know it was the "luck of the draw" and could have just as easily happened from a trip to the local Walmarts. As I said before-I do get those viruses every year at least once.

 

If people would do the sensible thing-what Grandma taught us-wash their hands after going to the bathroom and BEFORE eating-this would cut down on getting those stomach viruses. I know I am the WORST to come in from buying groceries and grab a bite of something while I am unpacking things-not considering I have just been handling a nasty grocery cart handle.

 

Another thing too-if there is an outbreak on ship-stay away from the Lido and be more vigilant about the hand washing-this can prevent alot.

 

I agree too the media loves to sensationialize things and most of us have sense enough to know we cannot believe everything we read in the paper or watch on the news. My take on things when I hear of another Norwalk story is there was not enough violence in Iraq or elsewhere that day so other things had to be found for "news".

[Happy ks]

Aha!!!, I found an article for Joelight, he will love it. I can visualize the fruit throwing pax in the atrium now!

 

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/rssstory.mpl/front/3082555

 

I can honestly say, I cruised on this ship and if it would have been our first, we would never have cruised again. Still, we didn't have any of the complaints he asked about. It was just an ugly, tacky ship. Maybe if he would have listed that in his questionaire I could have responded the way he wanted.

 

A 50% refund is a pretty good deal. I've never been offered anything from dumpy hotels if I don't have a good time.

[jcruise67]

The only complaint I have is when other cc members try to kill your buzz on these boards. Some members feel an unwaranted obligation to infringe on other cc member's posts with their negativity and challenge opinions. This web site is geared for members who want advice, share and exchange cruise information, and enjoy in the excitement of fellow cc members. It disgusts me when you have a member from time to time who thinks they need to be politically correct.

 

John