A little dissapointed with an incident on our first cruise

[friedshrimp]

I know this is very long, I just figured I could vent to the good folks here at Cruisecritic to put the whole thing in perspective for me. I appreciate any thoughts or suggestions and thank you in advance.

 

Well we took the Splendor June 19-27 to the Mexican Riviera. I fully intend to write a review as there were some really great things on our cruise and I have a ton of pics to share as well for those interested.

 

I do have a question on how to handle a situation we encountered or if we are just SOL.

 

On Tuesday night Hubby and I stopped off at Guest Services to deposit $200 cash which we had pulled from the ATM earlier that day. We were on our way to the Steakhouse (amazing btw) and recounted the $200 cash which was in twenty dollar bills.

 

We handed over the money and stated "we would like to deposit $200 on our account". The Guest Services rep took the cash and then gave us the receipt to sign while answering our question of "where is the steakhouse?". My Husband picked up a pen and signed the receipt just like all the others without checking it twice.

 

An hour or so later we were enjoying our amazing dinner at the Steakhouse when he excused himself to use the restroom. I was bored so I went through my clutch and looked at the receipt from earlier. It stated we only deposited $160. When hubby returned I double checked with him and of course he then began to worry in which I calmed him down and told him we would go to Guest Services and they would fix it. We got our HUGE cheesecake to go and then went downstairs.

 

At Guest Services I explained the situation and was told that they would call back the employee who handled the transaction to check her drawer and for us to come back in an hour. When we returned in an hour we were told that her drawer was fine. We then insisted that we double checked the money before handing it over and asked what else could be done to check on the missing $40. We were told that a request would be put in to surveillance since there was a protocol in place for the cashiers to count money and that they would be able to tell the amount from the video. We were told to check back the next morning.

 

The next day we checked back with Guest Services and were told there was an issue with the time on the cameras not matching the actual time so it would take longer to go through the video. We completely understood and were told they would leave a message for us in our cabin when it was sorted out.

 

The next day there was a message for us to call Guest Services and speak with the Manager. We instead went down to see them since it had now been 3 days since the start of the ordeal and the Manager explained that that when they had watched the video there was no way to determine how much cash had been counted since the employee held it in her hand while she counted and they were sorry but nothing could be done. I explained that we were told 3 days ago there was a protocol for counting cash and the cameras would be able to see the transaction. We were told there was no protocol and once again they were sorry there was nothing they could do. Of course we were very upset but didn't want to ruin our last port day and pushed it to the back of our mind.

 

Later that night we returned to guest services and asked to speak with someone higher up than the Manager. We were told that an email would be sent to her/GSM and we would once again receive a message in our room.

 

The next day still no message so we returned to Guest Services. The GSM was in and took us into her office. She explained that there was no protocol in place for counting cash and that by compensating us in some way it would be admitting the employee had stolen which the employee would be sent home immediately. We explained that we fully understood but we were upset at the fact that even though they could not prove that what we were claiming was not true we were still out $40 and all the time wasted. We asked if there was some way to compensate us in the form of a credit and we were told no. All in all we got only "sorry for the inconvenience but there is nothing we can do". The GSM stated the situation was documented. We asked to have the prepaid tips refunded and we would tip as we saw fit. The GSM actually sat there and said we should really reconsider getting the tips refunded as the crew works very hard. I was really getting upset since we know how hard these people work and were planning on tipping more than we already had. But the fact that we had been taken for our cash with nothing other than "I"m sorry" and now being told we should think twice before asking for our prepaid tips back was a little much to hear.

 

Just to explain the prepaid tip ordeal it will take about 2-3 weeks for us to receive it back but we tipped more than what those were to begin with throughout the week and at the end of the cruise. We just wanted to have the control of who our tips went to and even though a Carnival employee was responsible for us losing $40 we weren't about to screw over the rest of the employees.

 

Anyways, I guess we should have checked every receipt every time. We just felt relaxed being on vacation and that we didn't have to worry about someone purposely trying to cheat us. Of course after that we double checked everything.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions as to who we should submit our issue to or will it be like beating a dead horse?

 

Other than that the cruise was great and we had a good time. It's too bad something like this puts doubt as to whether we should trust our business and vacation to Carnival in the future.

 

Just to add in...we don't drink. We don't overspend and we are very careful USUALLY. For some reason we didn't feel the need to be which once again I will admit IS VERY STUPID.

 

On a seperate note I keep reading over and over how we were at fault. Which I have stated over and over we should have been more careful so yes it is our fault.

 

Once again..I posted this to vent on this forum and see if there was anything else we should do or just forget about it.

 

I could see if I posted about how horrible Carnival, how crappy their customer service is blah blah blah, that I would be getting the reactions of how dumb we are, how "amature" we are or how careless we were.

 

Let me say it one more time. We had a great cruise EXCEPT for one minor thing which was this situation. We did not let it ruin our cruise. Will we cruise again? YES we will. If anything came out of our issue it is to remind people in the future to be more careful and double check your receipts.

 

Anyways I'm done posting about the issue..I got the info I needed and all points were taken.

 

Thanks again to everyone for their input and HAPPY CRUISING!

 

So why did you feel the need to ask for compensation and decided to remove your tips (out of anger and retaliation I would have to assume since there was no mention of tip removal prior to this incident) and continue to express the desire to get something back since YOU were the one to blame? Sounds to me you were looking for more of a "pity party" than anything else. :rolleyes:

[friedshrimp]

My brother once got an extra 20. (no sorry, not your cruise ;))

And guess what... surprise, surprise...

 

he kept it.:rolleyes:

 

That shows a lot of integrity. :rolleyes: