NCL selling cabins already sold on the Sun!!

[cmdchiefthom]

Earlier today, I read a thread here about the Sun out of Miami on 2/28. A couple of the posters mentioned they couldn't get their registration numbers to work online and a few called NCL, or talked to their TA's and found their cabins had been switched. :eek:

 

I got a little nervous because I've had four cabins booked on the Sun on the 1st of April since May of this year. It's obvious New Orleans won't be up and running soon enough for the Sun to sail from there this season, so I have no problem with the switch to Miami, and never considered changing the reservation. But after reading the post, I emailed my TA and asked her to reconfirm my four cabins. Sure enough, all four of my cabins, including my Penthouse Suite had be resold to other customers. My longtime TA decided to try and work on the problem with NCL, which she has been doing since last week!

 

So far, she's been able to get three of the cabins, including my suite back. However, all the cabins were located adjacent to each other. Now NCL is offering a cabin one deck down because they can't contact the customers they sold my cabin too to have them approve the switch. It may not seem like a big deal, except the cabin we can't seem to get back is the one next to my suite which will have my son, daughter-in-law and my two grand sons, aged 4 and 6, one of which is assigned to my cabin because their's only has space for 3 passengers. I guess NCL doesn't see a problem separating a 6 year old from his parents! :eek:

 

Somehow I just can't imagine an corporation as large as NCL being so inept as to sell cabins already sold.

 

If you're reading this and are booked on the revised Sun itinerary, I'd be checking with your TA or NCL pronto!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[sunshine 229]

 

Somehow I just can't imagine an corporation as large as NCL being so inept as to sell cabins already sold.

 

 

 

Seriously? Haven't you been reading this board for a while? If you had you might be less surprised by this kind of foul up. From what I've read here, NCL head office/customer relations does not have a very good track record. ( I know that some of you out there have been lucky and had good experiences dealing with NCL Guest relations office but there have been many, many stories of NCL messing up.)

 

Anyway, I'm glad you did find out about this on the board and have been able to get at least some of the rooms back. Just think how those who don't read this board will feel a couple of months from now when they find out their cruise reservation doesn't exist anymore and NCL isn't able to accomodate them.:eek: Bye bye vacation.

 

Thanks for giving others a heads up.

[House_Atreides]

We are sailing on the repo cruise 4/23/05 from Miami (now!) to San Fran and this post made me VERY nervous. So I called them up and my cabin # is the same and she assured me they wouldn't change it. We'll see..they better not!!:mad: We're in 9076 aft AC suite and I wanted that suite so badly!!!

The lady at NCL asked for the link to this thread and I gave it to her. Hopefully NCL will wake up!!!!

See ya,

Mary

[superflyjeff]

Thom,

 

Sorry to hear about the mix up. Let's hope that NCL comes through for you. We've missed you in the Floataway Lounge...we've still got a strong thread going.

 

Please stop by new all new and improved website at: http://www.jeffandjenette.com

 

We have a forum there and if you register for the site you can post on it. Plus I've added tons of new content. I've missed talking to you and hope all is well. Shoot me an email jeffcantrell@gmail.com is the one i can check from work. My best to you, waz and the rest of the family.

 

Jeff C.

[Zeno]

Earlier today, I read a thread here about the Sun out of Miami on 2/28. A couple of the posters mentioned they couldn't get their registration numbers to work online and a few called NCL, or talked to their TA's and found their cabins had been switched. :eek:

 

I got a little nervous because I've had four cabins booked on the Sun on the 1st of April since May of this year. It's obvious New Orleans won't be up and running soon enough for the Sun to sail from there this season, so I have no problem with the switch to Miami, and never considered changing the reservation. But after reading the post, I emailed my TA and asked her to reconfirm my four cabins. Sure enough, all four of my cabins, including my Penthouse Suite had be resold to other customers. My longtime TA decided to try and work on the problem with NCL, which she has been doing since last week!

 

So far, she's been able to get three of the cabins, including my suite back. However, all the cabins were located adjacent to each other. Now NCL is offering a cabin one deck down because they can't contact the customers they sold my cabin too to have them approve the switch. It may not seem like a big deal, except the cabin we can't seem to get back is the one next to my suite which will have my son, daughter-in-law and my two grand sons, aged 4 and 6, one of which is assigned to my cabin because their's only has space for 3 passengers. I guess NCL doesn't see a problem separating a 6 year old from his parents! :eek:

 

Somehow I just can't imagine an corporation as large as NCL being so inept as to sell cabins already sold.

 

If you're reading this and are booked on the revised Sun itinerary, I'd be checking with your TA or NCL pronto!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Seriously the switch to Miami and date change (from Sunday to Saturday) seems to have screwed up MANY bookings. If you read this board, you will note that a number of us had to get our TAs to deal with NCL (or in my case a wholesaler) to get our original cabins back. Time for you to put a lot of pressure on your TA and NCL to fix this. Those of us who have posted here either got our original cabins back OR were upgraded - so insist that your TA get NCL to fix it. They should be able to contact the people who got the cabin in question and offer them something to get them to relinquish it back to you. Don't give up - there are still lots of unbooked cabins that people could be moved to and I am sure with some compensation they could be convinced to move.

[miami]

they can't contact the customers they sold my cabin too to have them approve the switch.

 

Wait a minute.... It was ok to sell your cabins without your knowledge but they can't give you the original cabin back because they can't contact the other customer. What's wrong with this picture?

[newmexicoNita]

Wait a minute.... It was ok to sell your cabins without your knowledge but they can't give you the original cabin back because they can't contact the other customer. What's wrong with this picture?

I was about to ask the same thing: something is screwed up big time here. At least you did get 3 of the 4 back. I am sure lots of things got messed up with the changes that occured after Katrina. I still do not understand how they can get some back but not the last one. Keep us posted. NMNita

[cmdchiefthom]

Thanks for the replies. And hey to you Jeff.....the Bunny says hi! :cool:

 

I've been emailing and talking with my TA today, and she is the best in the business. She and I will conference call with NCL tomorrow, and demand to speak with a supervisor. According to her, this whole thing has been going on for a week, and although she was able to get three of four of the originals back, the one that was most important to me #0266 (the one with my two grandsons which adjoins to my suite #0265) is the one that they are saying they must check with the passengers they sold it to. :eek:

 

I booked and made my deposits for all of the cabins on May 5th. In my wildest dreams, I simply can't believe some numbnut is double selling these cabins. My TA also gave me the replacement cabins NCL assigned us and they were different categories and in different locations from what we booked. :confused:

 

I'll deal with NCL corporate, I just wanted anyone on the boards here who were booked out of New Orleans to follow up on their reservations to make sure they haven't lost their cabins. ;)

 

I have three more cabins to book, but I'm skeptical about booking anything on the Sun out of Miami this season.

[Tinkerbell]

My question is why didn't NCL leave the cabin assignments alone. I had put a deposit down on the room I chose never said I wasn't going in fact my TA called them and told them we were staying with the cruise and they switched my room. When I called NCL about getting my room back they were rude and asked me why I needed that room and was it "special" I said yes it's "special" I picked it and payed for it!

[cmdchiefthom]

I should also mention that one of the cabins belongs to my son Jeff who is in the Coast Guard, stationed in New Orleans. He lost everything during Katrina, car, furniture, clothes and his apartment, 4 blocks from the lake. He's been on duty in Port Security since Katrina hit and now more than ever, he will need this break. The whole point of booking the Sun was so the entire family could get together. I don't think NCL gets the picture when it comes to booking specific cabins for specific reasons. :rolleyes:

[cmdchiefthom]

I emailed Colin Veitch about this issue at 6:40 this evening and received a personal reply by 7:20PM. He states "I will have one of my senior colleagues look into it and find out what happened. I sincerely apologize for this and I trust we will be able to sort it out for you. You are correct that this redeployment has been very disruptive, but that should not mean your cabins woudl be sold to someone else".

 

I'll take that to the bank with me! You've got to trust someone in this world! ;)

[sunshine 229]

I emailed Colin Veitch about this issue at 6:40 this evening and received a personal reply by 7:20PM. He states "I will have one of my senior colleagues look into it and find out what happened. I sincerely apologize for this and I trust we will be able to sort it out for you. You are correct that this redeployment has been very disruptive, but that should not mean your cabins woudl be sold to someone else".

 

I'll take that to the bank with me! You've got to trust someone in this world! ;)

 

I hope this works for you and you get the right cabins back. As for the people who don't read cruise boards regularly or who don't have Colin Veitch's number handy I guess it will just be tough for them.

 

I'm glad the guy at the top seems to be going to do something for you however I can't help thinking that when you need to get in touch with the top guys just so you can keep cabins you have booked and deposited for some thing is not right with this company.

 

I would be more sympathetic if it was a glitch with one person's cabin, still not pleasant for them, but I could put it down to an oversight or some one entering a wrong number on their computer screen, but when a number of people have had their cabins sold or re-assigned, you've got to ask what the heck is going on:confused:

[electricron]

My question is why didn't NCL leave the cabin assignments alone.

 

If I remember correctly, NCL gave everyone until September 30 to accept the departure port change, from New Orleans to Houston or Miami, or cancel their cruise without penalty. Obviously, NCL anticipated some cruisers would cancel. That's why the Sun may or may not be overbooked.;)

[sunshine 229]

If I remember correctly, NCL gave everyone until September 30 to accept the departure port change, from New Orleans to Houston or Miami, or cancel their cruise without penalty. Obviously, NCL anticipated some cruisers would cancel. That's why the Sun may or may not be overbooked.;)

 

If they gave everybody until September 30th to decide, then shouldn't they have kept their cabins for them until Sept 30th. Is their some thing I am missing here?

 

Does "you have till September 30th to decide" really mean "you have till Sept30th, unless we decide to give your cabin to someone else in the meantime"?

 

Eveb if they expected some cancellations they couldn't have known which cabins would cancel, so how could they have promised certain cabins to new bookings? If they were confident (again not sure how) that a certain percentage would cancel, then maybe they could have sold a few guarantee bookings on this ship but, to re-book actual specific cabins, while still within the stated allowed decision period, is just wrong. IMO.

And now that there is a conflict, why are the rights of those originally booked some how secondary to the rights of those who have just booked a few days ago?

[Zeno]

I hope this works for you and you get the right cabins back. As for the people who don't read cruise boards regularly or who don't have Colin Veitch's number handy I guess it will just be tough for them.

 

I'm glad the guy at the top seems to be going to do something for you however I can't help thinking that when you need to get in touch with the top guys just so you can keep cabins you have booked and deposited for some thing is not right with this company.

 

I would be more sympathetic if it was a glitch with one person's cabin, still not pleasant for them, but I could put it down to an oversight or some one entering a wrong number on their computer screen, but when a number of people have had their cabins sold or re-assigned, you've got to ask what the heck is going on:confused:

 

Actually Sunshine, the fact that the "glitch" affected many cabins is a good indicator that this all did not happen arbitrarily or due to personal error. My suspicion is that it is computer related. MANY computer records are keyed on date + whatever (in this case probably cabin number + name (or booking number)). The NCL computer system would have had a "file" of Sun records with the following keys ship+date+cabin+name (or booking number or whatever - something to uniquely identify that cabin connect it to specific customer). For the Miami cruises the dates all CHANGED when Sunday was switched to Saturday.

E.G. I assume my original booking would have looked something like this to the computer:

NCL Sun + Jan 29 2006 + my cabin number + my booking number (or name) etc

If a cabin has not been booked the record would look something like this:

NCL Sun + Jan 29 2006 + cabin number - indicating it is still available for booking

Date gets switched to Jan 28 2006

As anyone who has worked with complex computer systems can tell you - changing a 'key' field can really mess up things.

A new file would be created:

Initially the new file would probably look something like this:

NCL Sun + Jan 28 2006 + cabin number - note no additional info

Now we have a problem - how to get the 'old' file records into the new file -

so that the "new" file has records that indicate cabins have been booked.

NCL Sun + Jan 28 2006 + cabin number + booking number etc

This is really NOT hard to do provided everyone is comunicating.

This is where it helps to have good computer people and good business people to explain to the programmers what must be 'fixed'. I think there was either a breakdown in communications between the business people and the computer programmers about what was required to move the 'old' file info to the 'new' file OR (worse yet) no communication OR possibley a fix was attempted and did not work well. As far as I am concerned where NCL fell down was not carefully checking the results of any 'fix' or file re-creation AND once they realized there was a problem not immediately contacting TAs to check their bookings. Also no-one sould have to "argue' with NCL about getting their cabin back - NCL should be taking whatever steps are necessary to get people's cabins back.

What I would have done:

1. Kept a copy of the "old" file

2. Created a "new'' file

3. Run a comparison bewteen the two which:

If the file were OK would show only a changed date on each "record''. All previously booked cabins would show up as booked (i.e. tied to a booking number). Only TRULY available cabins would not have booking numbers attached to their records - hence no problem with making new bookings.

If the new file were BAD the comparison would show many discrepancies other than date - indicating to me that there should be a freeze on new bookings until the "old" and "new" files were reconciled. You should only be doing new bookings when the files are "reconciled".

OK - so who is in favour of putting me in charge of the computerized portion of NCL's booking system ?

[sunshine 229]

Actually Sunshine, the fact that the "glitch" affected many cabins is a good indicator that this all did not happen arbitrarily or due to personal error. My suspicion is that it is computer related. MANY computer records are keyed on date + whatever (in this case probably cabin number + name (or booking number)). The NCL computer system would have had a "file" of Sun records with the following keys ship+date+cabin+name (or booking number or whatever - something to uniquely identify that cabin connect it to specific customer). For the Miami cruises the dates all CHANGED when Sunday was switched to Saturday.

E.G. I assume my original booking would have looked something like this to the computer:

NCL Sun + Jan 29 2006 + my cabin number + my booking number (or name) etc

If a cabin has not been booked the record would look something like this:

NCL Sun + Jan 29 2006 + cabin number - indicating it is still available for booking

Date gets switched to Jan 28 2006

As anyone who has worked with complex computer systems can tell you - changing a 'key' field can really mess up things.

A new file would be created:

Initially the new file would probably look something like this:

NCL Sun + Jan 28 2006 + cabin number - note no additional info

Now we have a problem - how to get the 'old' file records into the new file -

so that the "new" file has records that indicate cabins have been booked.

NCL Sun + Jan 28 2006 + cabin number + booking number etc

This is really NOT hard to do provided everyone is comunicating.

This is where it helps to have good computer people and good business people to explain to the programmers what must be 'fixed'. I think there was either a breakdown in communications between the business people and the computer programmers about what was required to move the 'old' file info to the 'new' file OR (worse yet) no communication OR possibley a fix was attempted and did not work well. As far as I am concerned where NCL fell down was not carefully checking the results of any 'fix' or file re-creation AND once they realized there was a problem not immediately contacting TAs to check their bookings. Also no-one sould have to "argue' with NCL about getting their cabin back - NCL should be taking whatever steps are necessary to get people's cabins back.

What I would have done:

1. Kept a copy of the "old" file

2. Created a "new'' file

3. Run a comparison bewteen the two which:

If the file were OK would show only a changed date on each "record''. All previously booked cabins would show up as booked (i.e. tied to a booking number). Only TRULY available cabins would not have booking numbers attached to their records - hence no problem with making new bookings.

If the new file were BAD the comparison would show many discrepancies other than date - indicating to me that there should be a freeze on new bookings until the "old" and "new" files were reconciled. You should only be doing new bookings when the files are "reconciled".

OK - so who is in favour of putting me in charge of the computerized portion of NCL's booking system ?

 

Or, they might have just decided to go ahead and sell the cabins that they could and figure that the original customers would be satisfied with whatever they could get.

 

Maybe it is all due to computer difficulties ( I do thank you for giving me more idea of how that whole system works) but, wouldn't it have been simpler to just sell low level guarantees until they could work the glitches out?

[Zeno]

Or, they might have just decided to go ahead and sell the cabins that they could and figure that the original customers would be satisfied with whatever they could get.

 

Maybe it is all due to computer difficulties ( I do thank you for giving me more idea of how that whole system works) but, wouldn't it have been simpler to just sell low level guarantees until they could work the glitches out?

 

Statement #1: Do you really believe that ? I can't think of any business that deliberately goes out of its way to annoy customers. I think that it happens through errors and poor decisions, businesses sometimes annoy customers but I have yet to be aware of any company where annoying your customers is a corporate policy.

Statement #2: No problem - shall I forward my resume to NCL ?

Yup - it would have been a lot better to do something like that.

[Len3]

and I'd make a different one the next time and book with another cruiseline.

[sunshine 229]

Statement #1: Do you really believe that ? I can't think of any business that deliberately goes out of its way to annoy customers. I think that it happens through errors and poor decisions, businesses sometimes annoy customers but I have yet to be aware of any company where annoying your customers is a corporate policy.

Statement #2: No problem - shall I forward my resume to NCL ?

Yup - it would have been a lot better to do something like that.

 

I don't think they did it purposely to annoy the customers. My thinking is that the decision went something like this.

 

'A number of passengers may cancel. Then we will be left sailing less than full so, lets just put all the cabins up for sail and book as many as we can. If the original customers do want to keep their reservations we'll move them around. Some may not like it, but so what? The closer it is to the sailing date when they find out the less options they'll have to book some other cruise and the less likely they are to cancel. That way we can sail with a full ship and make better revenue than if we just took the safe course and sold guarantees.'

Call me cynical and suspicious if you want but can you tell me why you and I can figure out a better way to handle this and NCL a large cruiseline with lots of experience doing this sort of thing couldn't?

 

I find it hard to write it all off to oversight or poor planning. If the management really is so incompetent that they couldn't think of the solutions you and I did, heaven help them!:eek:

[cmdchiefthom]

When I got into my classroom this morning and checked my emil, low and behold there was a note from my TA. NCL called her frist thing this morning, actually even before their office hours, and I have all my original cabins reconfirmed. My guess is the CEO was as good as his word and jumped in with both feet to get the problem fixed. ;)

[Polish Falcon]

Good for you!

Have a great family cruise.

Tell your son thank you for his service in the Coast Guard.

[Zeno]

I don't think they did it purposely to annoy the customers. My thinking is that the decision went something like this.

 

'A number of passengers may cancel. Then we will be left sailing less than full so, lets just put all the cabins up for sail and book as many as we can. If the original customers do want to keep their reservations we'll move them around. Some may not like it, but so what? The closer it is to the sailing date when they find out the less options they'll have to book some other cruise and the less likely they are to cancel. That way we can sail with a full ship and make better revenue than if we just took the safe course and sold guarantees.'

Call me cynical and suspicious if you want but can you tell me why you and I can figure out a better way to handle this and NCL a large cruiseline with lots of experience doing this sort of thing couldn't?

 

I find it hard to write it all off to oversight or poor planning. If the management really is so incompetent that they couldn't think of the solutions you and I did, heaven help them!:eek:

 

Uhm - Sunshine - those of us who had the cabin problems were all on later sailings (starting Jan 2006). We all also had the option of cancelling or changing our bookings until the end of September. In theory we all could have been annoyed enough to cancel. Somehow I really doubt NCL would want us to do that. Do you really think they are some sort of evil corporate entity so bloody-minded that they want to alienate customers and cause revenue loss (which a mass cancellation would surely do). Having worked at few companies who have been guilty of making poor decisions due to oversight, lack of understanding of the complexities of the problem or (most frequently) due extreme pressure to resolve things quickly, I would suspect that a quick and dirty fix caused their cabin problems. Now if the companies you have worked for been dedicated to customer alienation as a corporate guideline, I could understand why you might attribute that sort of motivation to NCL.

BTW upper corporate management frequently makes decisions that are difficult to implement both expediciously and accurately. And sometimes the decisions themselves are fine (for all we know they fully intended to do something along the lines of what I suggested) but the way the decision was communicated was flawed.

[Zeno]

When I got into my classroom this morning and checked my emil, low and behold there was a note from my TA. NCL called her frist thing this morning, actually even before their office hours, and I have all my original cabins reconfirmed. My guess is the CEO was as good as his word and jumped in with both feet to get the problem fixed. ;)

 

So glad things were fixed up for you !

[superflyjeff]

Thom,

 

You know I had a small little mix up w/ NCL during our cruise and as you know they came through like champions on the backend. I'm glad to hear that you're back to "normal" or the way you PAID for.

 

Tell Bunny I said hello and we'll miss him when we're on the Jewel on the Western Mediterranean cruise in May.

 

So where is your cruise going to depart from? New Orleans still? I'm glad your son is okay, but very sorry to hear that he lost everything in the hurricane. That's aweful.

 

Jeff

[cmdchiefthom]

Jeff,

 

Thanks for your thoughts. Enjoy the Med...its absolutely great. I lived in Crete for three years and crewed a yacht there during that time. You will enjoy. I also appreciate your comment on our son Jeff. He is right in the middle of what's going on in New Orleans and we get updates every day. I am so proud of him and what all the troops are doing along the Gulf Coast. And no, we're not going out of New Orleans, we're back in Miami on the first of April.