Beware of the upgrade fairy!

[davy jones]

Just returned home from the Breeze. I thought I would share this to see if this is common or if we were the only unlucky folks. It's a long story, but I will give the shortest version possible.

 

1. Night before cruise - received a call from CCL offering an upgrade from an OV (originally an inside) to balcony at a nice price due to a cancellation. I take the offer. Cruise docs were updated online and I was able to print them out before going to bed. Life is good!

 

2. Arrive at pier. Took over two hours to get onto the ship. Check in folks have no idea about the upgrade. Fortunately, I had the new documents and remembered the old cabin number. If I hadn't remembered the old cabin number, they would have not known of my existence. They take the original S+S card and replace it with a new one.

 

3. Board ship - Told that cabins were accessible immediately upon boarding. Go to cabin and card does not open door. Spend over an hour in line at guest services, where they issue a new card that also does not open the door. Return and spend another hour in line, where they issue a new card AND a single blue card for opening the door only if the S&S doesn't work. The new S&S card doesn't open the door either, but the blue card does.

 

Everything in the cabin was for a different couple, presumably the couple that cancelled. The items that I had ordered for the cabin were not there, presumably in the other cabin. Back to customer service. They say that they will take care of it. By now, it is over 4 hours since I arrived at the pier, and I am quite "hangry" When the cabin steward arrived, we are referred to by the other people's name.

 

4. Next morning (day 2)- try to do a little laundry and the machines will not accept my S&S card. My S&S card still doesn't open the cabin either. The ordered items still haven't arrived either. Short version - it took several card attempts until one finally worked (it was card #6, for those who were counting). I was told that there were problems with all last minute cabin changes, but that ours was worse than the others. Since boarding, we have spent over 4 hours at customer service trying to get the issues resolved. The ordered items are in the cabin when we come back at the end of the evening to go to bed. Problems over....we can vacation without these problems.

 

5. Next morning (day 3) - When they scanned our cards to disembark at Grand Turk, alarms went off saying that the cards did not match us. Security took us aside and verified our identity with our driver's license. We were able to disembark, but were told that this would happen upon our return and we should go to guest services for card #7 after reboarding. We returned to the ship early as not to hold up the boarding line. The seventh card did everything we needed it to do.

 

6. Final tidbits - Our "friends" who had cancelled the cabin were listed as cabin occupants all week. When we arrived for YTD each night and gave our cabin number, the hostess would ask, "Only 2 of you this evening?". Their names were on the cabin TV screen along with ours if you went to check the S&S balance (which never worked on the TV anyway). They even delivered S&S bills to the cabin in their name on the morning of debarkation in Miami.

 

There...I have vented. Does this happen often?

[naz022292]

Did you check your bill carefully? Hopefully they didn't charge you gratuities for the other couple...

[LaCal]

Sounds like you had a run of bad luck

 

We accepted a night before upgrade and with only exception of trading room keys once everything ran smooth as silk

 

Sorry you had that much trouble. Hope you still had a fun cruise though

[Cloud9Family]

Worst upgrade ever. That sucks, so sorry you had to deal with that all week.

[SadieN]

Think the issues were related to the timing of the upsell, not the upsell itself.

 

Two days before our last Muracle cruise DH had to cancel. Took Sis instead. All things were in DH's name. Sis had to go to guest services and get all the platinum pages reprinted.

[sparks1093]

You need a cruise to recover from your cruise.:eek:

[The4Cruisers]

That was the "upsell" fairy.

 

She's trickier than the "upgrade" fairy since she costs money!

[N2Mischief]

Ok, a little similar.

 

We arrived to sail on Splendor, we had just gotten off a week on Glory and 2 weeks on Breeze, this was our last week. We booked an inside way in the back because this was our recovery cruise...we wanted quiet and dark and I need aft because I have mobility issues and just easier to food.

 

We got to the desk and were informed we had been upgraded to a balcony, deck 8, mid ship. We said, "no thank-you" and were told, "too bad, can't change it as our old stateroom already was assigned to someone else" We ask about our luggage as it has the wrong tags. No problem, it will come to your new stateroom.

 

We get to the stateroom and it is not ready, we are Platinum so it is supposed to be ready. Find the steward and he apologizes and says he was never informed of the change. He promptly cleans and ready's our stateroom. We go to guest services to inquire about luggage, told no problem but to call housekeeping just in case. We call housekeeping, told no problem. Guess where our luggage went? To the old stateroom. Luckily we kept walking down there to check and sure enough there it was. So we (both handicapped) got our luggage back to the right stateroom.

 

Then our shower backed up every night and flooded the bathroom with sludge. EVERY night even though we were told it was taken care of.

 

We spent more time in line at guest services on that cruise.....

 

Would not have been a problem if they had just kept us in our original stateroom. I know a free upgrade sounds great, just be careful what you wish for! lol

[bigdog1958]

Just returned home from the Breeze. I thought I would share this to see if this is common or if we were the only unlucky folks. It's a long story, but I will give the shortest version possible.

 

1. Night before cruise - received a call from CCL offering an upgrade from an OV (originally an inside) to balcony at a nice price due to a cancellation. I take the offer. Cruise docs were updated online and I was able to print them out before going to bed. Life is good!

 

2. Arrive at pier. Took over two hours to get onto the ship. Check in folks have no idea about the upgrade. Fortunately, I had the new documents and remembered the old cabin number. If I hadn't remembered the old cabin number, they would have not known of my existence. They take the original S+S card and replace it with a new one.

 

3. Board ship - Told that cabins were accessible immediately upon boarding. Go to cabin and card does not open door. Spend over an hour in line at guest services, where they issue a new card that also does not open the door. Return and spend another hour in line, where they issue a new card AND a single blue card for opening the door only if the S&S doesn't work. The new S&S card doesn't open the door either, but the blue card does.

 

Everything in the cabin was for a different couple, presumably the couple that cancelled. The items that I had ordered for the cabin were not there, presumably in the other cabin. Back to customer service. They say that they will take care of it. By now, it is over 4 hours since I arrived at the pier, and I am quite "hangry" When the cabin steward arrived, we are referred to by the other people's name.

 

4. Next morning (day 2)- try to do a little laundry and the machines will not accept my S&S card. My S&S card still doesn't open the cabin either. The ordered items still haven't arrived either. Short version - it took several card attempts until one finally worked (it was card #6, for those who were counting). I was told that there were problems with all last minute cabin changes, but that ours was worse than the others. Since boarding, we have spent over 4 hours at customer service trying to get the issues resolved. The ordered items are in the cabin when we come back at the end of the evening to go to bed. Problems over....we can vacation without these problems.

 

5. Next morning (day 3) - When they scanned our cards to disembark at Grand Turk, alarms went off saying that the cards did not match us. Security took us aside and verified our identity with our driver's license. We were able to disembark, but were told that this would happen upon our return and we should go to guest services for card #7 after reboarding. We returned to the ship early as not to hold up the boarding line. The seventh card did everything we needed it to do.

 

6. Final tidbits - Our "friends" who had cancelled the cabin were listed as cabin occupants all week. When we arrived for YTD each night and gave our cabin number, the hostess would ask, "Only 2 of you this evening?". Their names were on the cabin TV screen along with ours if you went to check the S&S balance (which never worked on the TV anyway). They even delivered S&S bills to the cabin in their name on the morning of debarkation in Miami.

 

There...I have vented. Does this happen often?

 

I don't think it happens often, and good thing... I would write to Carnival Customer service outlining all that happened on this cruise. I would think Carnival should offer you some type of discount on a future cruise or maybe a dinner for two at the steakhouse on a future cruise. If they gave you the upgrade for free, you would have less to bargain with, but since they charged you for a cabin that obviously did not get put into your name, I would contact them to see if they would offer you a little something for a future cruise to make up for their mistakes.

[Who Cares?]

Ok, a little similar.

 

We arrived to sail on Splendor, we had just gotten off a week on Glory and 2 weeks on Breeze, this was our last week. We booked an inside way in the back because this was our recovery cruise...we wanted quiet and dark and I need aft because I have mobility issues and just easier to food.

 

We got to the desk and were informed we had been upgraded to a balcony, deck 8, mid ship. We said, "no thank-you" and were told, "too bad, can't change it as our old stateroom already was assigned to someone else" We ask about our luggage as it has the wrong tags. No problem, it will come to your new stateroom.

 

We get to the stateroom and it is not ready, we are Platinum so it is supposed to be ready. Find the steward and he apologizes and says he was never informed of the change. He promptly cleans and ready's our stateroom. We go to guest services to inquire about luggage, told no problem but to call housekeeping just in case. We call housekeeping, told no problem. Guess where our luggage went? To the old stateroom. Luckily we kept walking down there to check and sure enough there it was. So we (both handicapped) got our luggage back to the right stateroom.

 

Then our shower backed up every night and flooded the bathroom with sludge. EVERY night even though we were told it was taken care of.

 

We spent more time in line at guest services on that cruise.....

 

Would not have been a problem if they had just kept us in our original stateroom. I know a free upgrade sounds great, just be careful what you wish for! lol

 

You may not know this but you can have a reservation marked "No Upgrade" if you want to ensure you don't lose that cabin.

[kona_wahine]

Very legitimate complaints! Carnival should have offered you a bit of compensation.

[ATL_Miami_Cruiser]

Sorry to hear of your experience, that's not how I would want to start a cruise. It sounds like someone didn't do their job or just didn't know how to properly fix the situation the first time. If this happens again speak with the guest services manager and hotel director. They'll get everything fixed properly even if they have to speak with someone at corporate to make the adjustments in the computer.

[loxley]

I don't usually think people should be compensated for problems, but in this case I think you should have gotten something for the trouble not of your making.

 

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

[texast518]

You may not know this but you can have a reservation marked "No Upgrade" if you want to ensure you don't lose that cabin.

How can they upgrade if you do not agree to charges, unless it was free.

[tkportersat]

:eek: Yikes. I hope you were still able to have a good time on your cruise, no one wants to spend that much time at Guest Services. If I ever get the call I might consider declining after hearing about your experience.

[stevenr597]

Several years ago Carnival decided to upgrade our cabin without notifying us. We refused the upgrade when we checked in (the upgraded cabin was clarly inferior in location). At that point we were told that we must accept the upgrade. We refused, were threatened by Carnival to cancel our cruise if we did not accept. We stood our ground and got our "old" cabin back. But for the remainder to the cruise we were always listed with the other "upgraded" cabin. Our perks were not delivered to us, but rather to the other cabin. It did much to ruin our cruise, and started us on the path to Celebrity (now elite). Carnival's loss, Celebrity's gain.

[davy jones]

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I did not ask for compensation at any time and they DID eventually offer dinner at the steakhouse (at key 6). It was a fine meal and much appreciated. Jonathan at guest service was excellent, (others, not so much). I gave him a shout out on my survey today.

 

The balcony was great! Also, the rest of the cruise was quite good overall. We enjoyed the Breeze very much and would sail her again.

 

Our "friends" were gracious cabin mates. We didn't notice them at all and their S&S bill was zero at the end of the week. We will remember our week with them for a long time. :)

[PAPERBKWRITER]

I'm not big on compensation over minor issues BUT in your case dinner at the Steakhouse is hardly enough. I think you should get at least a 25% off coupon for your next cruise...(you should have insisted on meeting with the CD after key # 2 or 3)

[N2Mischief]

You may not know this but you can have a reservation marked "No Upgrade" if you want to ensure you don't lose that cabin.

 

Thank you, yes I do know that now, lol, after this cruise we were told that we could do that and we have for our next B2B we have booked.

[N2Mischief]

How can they upgrade if you do not agree to charges, unless it was free.

 

Our upgrade was free

[Sparky2]

Just returned home from the Breeze. I thought I would share this to see if this is common or if we were the only unlucky folks. It's a long story, but I will give the shortest version possible.

 

S&S bills to the cabin in their name on the morning of debarkation in Miami.

 

There...I have vented. Does this happen often?

 

Make sure you received the VIFP points for that cruise.

[Who Cares?]

How can they upgrade if you do not agree to charges, unless it was free.

 

That's true. If they want to charge you they have to have your permission. But Carnival has upgraded or moved people without charge and without permission. Putting a notice for no upgrades means they won't do that (with the possible exception of non-HC people in an HC cabin being moved against their will).

[davy jones]

Make sure you received the VIFP points for that cruise.

 

We did get bills of our own too!

 

Thanks for the tip! Will do.

[zqvol]

Just returned home from the Breeze. I thought I would share this to see if this is common or if we were the only unlucky folks. It's a long story, but I will give the shortest version possible.

 

1. Night before cruise - received a call from CCL offering an upgrade from an OV (originally an inside) to balcony at a nice price due to a cancellation. I take the offer. Cruise docs were updated online and I was able to print them out before going to bed. Life is good!

 

2. Arrive at pier. Took over two hours to get onto the ship. Check in folks have no idea about the upgrade. Fortunately, I had the new documents and remembered the old cabin number. If I hadn't remembered the old cabin number, they would have not known of my existence. They take the original S+S card and replace it with a new one.

 

3. Board ship - Told that cabins were accessible immediately upon boarding. Go to cabin and card does not open door. Spend over an hour in line at guest services, where they issue a new card that also does not open the door. Return and spend another hour in line, where they issue a new card AND a single blue card for opening the door only if the S&S doesn't work. The new S&S card doesn't open the door either, but the blue card does.

 

Everything in the cabin was for a different couple, presumably the couple that cancelled. The items that I had ordered for the cabin were not there, presumably in the other cabin. Back to customer service. They say that they will take care of it. By now, it is over 4 hours since I arrived at the pier, and I am quite "hangry" When the cabin steward arrived, we are referred to by the other people's name.

 

4. Next morning (day 2)- try to do a little laundry and the machines will not accept my S&S card. My S&S card still doesn't open the cabin either. The ordered items still haven't arrived either. Short version - it took several card attempts until one finally worked (it was card #6, for those who were counting). I was told that there were problems with all last minute cabin changes, but that ours was worse than the others. Since boarding, we have spent over 4 hours at customer service trying to get the issues resolved. The ordered items are in the cabin when we come back at the end of the evening to go to bed. Problems over....we can vacation without these problems.

 

5. Next morning (day 3) - When they scanned our cards to disembark at Grand Turk, alarms went off saying that the cards did not match us. Security took us aside and verified our identity with our driver's license. We were able to disembark, but were told that this would happen upon our return and we should go to guest services for card #7 after reboarding. We returned to the ship early as not to hold up the boarding line. The seventh card did everything we needed it to do.

 

6. Final tidbits - Our "friends" who had cancelled the cabin were listed as cabin occupants all week. When we arrived for YTD each night and gave our cabin number, the hostess would ask, "Only 2 of you this evening?". Their names were on the cabin TV screen along with ours if you went to check the S&S balance (which never worked on the TV anyway). They even delivered S&S bills to the cabin in their name on the morning of debarkation in Miami.

 

There...I have vented. Does this happen often?

 

 

Not uncommon when you take an upgrade within 24 hours of sailing. The frustrating part to me is that they couldn't get the key cards to work correctly. That is just incompetence on the staff at the service desk.

[ARcruisin2]

We had this happen on our Freedom cruise in May.

 

Upgrade...aka Upsell fairy called us literally 15min before we were going to leave the house to drive to Galveston, the day prior to the cruise.

We went from a 4G Interior (room 9209 on the Lido), to 9C Premium Vista Balcony on the Verandah deck - for $292 total for the room upgrade.

YES- that's right folks - the coveted huge wrap-around balcony room!

 

We loved the room & balcony, but boy what a headache that change was!

 

At check-in, they didn't have keys for us, asked us about the other people in our party, had to get other people to help...finally made temp cards for us to get on the ship...to go to the service desk to get official cards, then back to the kiosk to check off/on with the new cards.

 

The second night we were locked out of our room for almost 3hrs, back and forth between service desk and room, cards not working...back and forth. They called the head of hotel services to let us in room and maintenance guy to check door lock....it wasn't the lock. Finally the lady from guest services came up with yet another set of key cards...but those would not be good to get us back on the ship the next day...so we had to go to guest services the next morning before we could get off for yet more cards. It never was completely straightened out. The final bills showed the other 2 people in the room but no charges.

 

I think they have separate computer systems for everything....and none of them talk to each other...and no one seemed to know how to straighten it out. Crazy!

 

Would i do it again? For that balcony - heck yeah!