Major Passenger Service Fail - Bottled Water - Royal Princess

[ChrisInMo]

First time Princess cruiser here, just off the Royal on 12/30. I will try to write a review on that soon but I see there is another recent review that I likely won’t be able to compete with.

 

I wanted to write a post about a major fail at passenger services and get input on what went wrong and get people’s input. Please keep in mind that this was our first time on Princess so responses of “you should have known to look or do…” wouldn’t be something we would have known.

 

Booked our cruise online through a 3rd party, at the payment section I got an error saying to call in. Basically the third party rep had to call Princess and complete the booking and payment over the phone. One of the questions they asked me was whether I wanted any bottled water at $6.90 per 12/pk. I indicated I wanted 3. I received a confirmation email stating my fare was $20.70 (6.90 x 3) higher than the other passenger in the room so I assumed we were set.

 

We boarded the ship and there was no water in the room. This wasn’t a concern as on our last Carnival cruise it wasn’t delivered until mid-afternoon. However when it hadn’t arrived by sail away I stopped at passenger services to inquire. They pulled up my account and said I hadn’t ordered any water. I explained the fare difference and they indicated they couldn’t see fares paid on board. They said I would need my confirmation email to prove I paid more (I didn’t print this since my boarding passes printed). I was annoyed but decided not to push it. I returned to the room and had a voicemail from passenger services stating I had canceled the water package (I did not) and was refunded (I was not). I called the desk back and they indicated they would “email headquarters” to look into it.

 

With no response from headquarters by day 3 I found Wi-Fi in Amber Cove and took screenshots of my confirmation email and my credit card statement showing the charge and no refund. I went to passenger services armed with this info expecting a quick resolution. I showed the agent this information and she indicated I had been refunded. I pushed back saying I hadn’t been. After discussion she said we would have to call the credit card company to verify. I went back to my room to get my credit card and back to passenger services to call Chase. Chase verified to me and the agent that the only charge/refund from Princess was for my fare. I thought we would be set at this point but oh was I wrong…. She indicated she would email headquarters with this information and have to wait on a response. I requested to speak with a supervisor at this point.

 

The agent disappeared in the back for about 10 minutes before a supervisor came out. I had to explain the entire situation to him again. I indicated that not only had I spent money for this water but I was now buying bottles of water in port that I would have otherwise used from my purchased water onboard and costing me extra money. I pointed out that I was starting to feel like Princes thought I was a criminal trying to steal 36 bottles of water from them despite me providing everything they had asked for. He indicated he was not empowered to resolve the situation. Seriously your guest services supervisors can’t solve a problem for less than $21? He indicated he would email headquarters an urgent inquiry and get back with me. I pushed for updates on when I would hear back since we were into day 3 of the cruise. I will say that this supervisor did own the situation and communicated with me at the times he promised even though he couldn’t solve it.

 

There were several calls from passenger services keeping me updated (no response from headquarters) but no resolution by the time we left St Thomas on day 4. Passenger services mentioned headquarters may have to pull the audio recording from my booking conversation to prove if I purchased the water, again I felt like they thought I was trying to steal from them.

 

On the morning of day 5 I wrote a letter to the customer service director and left it at the passenger services desk demanding the situation be resolved by the time we returned from shore or that a meeting with the director be setup that evening. I talked about the information I had provided and that it wasn’t my fault headquarters wasn’t answering emails and this was not an acceptable level of customer service.

 

Upon return to my cabin I had a room service tray with 36 bottles of water and a voicemail to call a customer service manager. He said they wanted to get me the water but that the situation wasn’t resolved with headquarters (still no response after 4 days) and that they may have to charge me for the waters depending what the voice recordings showed happened with my booking. I was never charged but also never followed up to see if there ever was a response. They did offer two passes to a specialty restaurant for the trouble but were unwilling to offer $25 in OBC for the expenses we had incurred purchasing water in ports.

 

The entire experience has made it unlikely I will strongly consider Princess for future cruises. I won’t boycott them but it will have to be an amazing deal before they would get another booking from me.

 

Ok so where did I go wrong with this and how as a first time cruiser with Princess would I have known any differently given that I saw the charge on my confirmation email?

Edited December 31, 2017 by ChrisInMo

[RSF Cruiser]

You may want to repost your post without the travel agent's name. I wrote a similar post several months ago, and it was taken down since I mentioned the travel agent's name.

 

We had the same situation, except we got worse onboard customer service - they would not give us the water. No one took responsibility for the situation, and everyone onboard simply deferred to corporate. The only option we had was to purchase water onboard. What we finally learned was something got changed in the reservation, and the water order disappeared. When I checked our credit card bill, I saw there was a credit for the cost of the water order - I scan my credit card bills, but I do not "study" them, and that credit slipped by without my noticing.

[-Lew-]

Sorry to learn of your water issue...

 

First, it's a big no-no to mention the name of travel agents here or anywhere on Cruise Critic. Having said that it appears your gripe might be with your TA rather than Princess. You ordered the water during your phone call with your TA and they added it to the cost of your cruise without entering the order properly with Princess.

 

I have had issues arise during a cruise and have contacted my TA via email to get them resolved. That's what a good TA does...although I've dealt with your TA in the past and found they were good on the selling end, but not so good when it came to service. Sorry you spent an inordinate amount of time on your cruise dealing with this.

Edited December 31, 2017 by -Lew-

[ChrisInMo]

You may want to repost your post without the travel agent's name. I wrote a similar post several months ago, and it was taken down since I mentioned the travel agent's name.

 

 

 

Thanks RSF, just edited to pull the name out, hopefully it was quick enough it won't cause an issue. Sorry to hear that you had a similar situation. I heard several similar things from passenger services (I requested to cancel it, my travel agent requested to cancel it, the charge on my card was refunded, the charge to my credit card was declined). I'm wondering if this is a moe systematic problem for them now.

[waltd]

Things like this make me happy that I have an email address for my Travel Agent. I would always send an email to my Travel Agent to see if they couldn't make a few calls on my behalf and make sure the travel agent didn't some how mess things up. Looks like you did all you could on your end to resolve the issue. I know from experience that when dealing with customer service on the ship they are not very helpful or don't have much power to resolve things. Corporate seems to drag there feet. Have also found this on Cunard. If it were me by day 5 and no water I would have just asked for my money back. Not sure how long your cruise was but I would not want to lug bottles of water home with me. Hopefully you get a resolution to this.

[skynight]

Sounds like a T.A. agent failure to me. It is best on Princess cruises to order things like water yourself in the cruise personlizer. It is very easy. Just go to the Princess.com site, log on to the cruise personlizer and order what you wish. FYI we always take along hard copies of Princess documentation (not T.A. docs) for everything just in case of a problems. We have encountered very few over the years, but in at least one case the hard copy settled the issue withing hours.

Hope the rest of your cruise was good. Twenty plus dollars does not seem like enough to spoil any cruise. Would also like to point out that the ship's tap water is just as pure as any bottled water and there is ice in the cabin fridge. Next time bring along a water bottle to refill.

[Cruise Raider]

You may want to repost your post without the travel agent's name. I wrote a similar post several months ago, and it was taken down since I mentioned the travel agent's name.

 

 

Yes, it is clearly mentioned in the CC rules when you sign up that travel agencies are not to be listed by name. I would also remove the word 'boycott' even though it is obviously not your intention to start one.

 

Anyhow, with that being said ... and truly not just trying to bust your chops ....

I don't believe that this level of investigation from Princess was necessary .. especially since you provided them with the information they requested. I haven't had an issue like that before with them although had a dispute with charges that took several visits to the customer service desk to rectify. I guess I would have gotten documentation of the efforts to fix this while onboard together, enjoy the cruise and try to deal with it after the fact ... especially since you had proof of payment.

For future reference, if you decide to cruise with Princess again, even though you've booked with a travel agent, you can go into your Personalizer on Princess's website and make your purchase of water online.

It does seem odd that they would give you $50 worth of dinners at a specialty restaurant (I think you mentioned for each passenger) but not give you the benefit of the doubt for the water.

[dchip]

I am so sorry you had to deal with this issue for days!! What I find absolutely ridiculous is that on board personnel are unable to settle an issue for under $21!

 

Cheers, Denise

[RSF Cruiser]

Sounds like a T.A. agent failure to me. It is best on Princess cruises to order things like water yourself in the cruise personlizer.

When we had the same mishap, we had ordered the water ourselves through the cruise personalizer. As another poster said, I think there is an internal problem. Plus, I think the ship customer service agents need to have more autonomy for decision making. Many business "allow" employees to make independent customer service decisions under a set dollar amount. In our situation, the dollar amount was a mere $6.90! Princess risked turning off a loyal customer over a mere $6.90! and we are loyal cruisers at the elite level, but that didn't seem to matter. All that mattered was what corporate said, and corporate wouldn't give us the water we had ordered - and we, too, had the email confirmation. If we got an email confirmation when we ordered the water, why didn't we get an email when the order got mysteriously cancelled?

[ChrisInMo]

When we had the same mishap, we had ordered the water ourselves through the cruise personalizer. As another poster said, I think there is an internal problem. Plus, I think the ship customer service agents need to have more autonomy for decision making. Many business "allow" employees to make independent customer service decisions under a set dollar amount. In our situation, the dollar amount was a mere $6.90! Princess risked turning off a loyal customer over a mere $6.90! and we are loyal cruisers at the elite level, but that didn't seem to matter. All that mattered was what corporate said, and corporate wouldn't give us the water we had ordered - and we, too, had the email confirmation. If we got an email confirmation when we ordered the water, why didn't we get an email when the order got mysteriously cancelled?

 

If we sail with Princess again I will absolutely use the cruise personalizer, since this was my first sailing I didn't know that was an option when making my initial booking. It does sound like they have issues even when booked in personalizer though based on this post.

 

I'm sorry that you had the same problem that we did. I does make me feel a bit better that they had the same response to an elite cruiser though, I could never shake the feeling that it would have been handled differently if our card hard been black and not blue.

[fishywood]

I have never heard of the cost of onboard amenities--even as small as three twelve packs of water--being added to the initial cruise fare. They should always be a separate transaction with a separate charge to your credit card and a separate confirmation from Princess. Was there even anything in writing to confirm your purchase that actually specified it was for water?

 

It seems to me that your agent just added the $20.70 to your commisionable cruse fare and planned to order the water separately for you (using their points or some other form of payment besides your money) and just forgot. Or came to their senses as to this being a little hinkey and hoped that with no proof whatsoever other than your memory of your conversation at the time of booking you would just let it go.

 

The "major failure" is on the part of your agent, not Princess. Said agent is who you should never strongly consider returning to. And no matter the cruise line or method of booking, always make any pre-cruise purchases of onboard items as individual transactions for each one.

[johnmik1]

I just drink the ships water so I never get charged!

[pris993]

lesson learned buy water in port... Princess bottled water is a rip off even when you get it. Sorry you had such a bad experience.

[waltd]

lesson learned buy water in port... Princess bottled water is a rip off even when you get it. Sorry you had such a bad experience.

You can actually find bottled water in port for .59 cents a bottle? The OP is paying $6.90 per 12 pack.

[Eaches]

First time Princess cruiser here, just off the Royal on 12/30. I will try to write a review on that soon but I see there is another recent review that I likely won’t be able to compete with.

 

I wanted to write a post about a major fail at passenger services and get input on what went wrong and get people’s input. Please keep in mind that this was our first time on Princess so responses of “you should have known to look or do…” wouldn’t be something we would have known.

 

Booked our cruise online through a 3rd party, at the payment section I got an error saying to call in. Basically the third party rep had to call Princess and complete the booking and payment over the phone. One of the questions they asked me was whether I wanted any bottled water at $6.90 per 12/pk. I indicated I wanted 3. I received a confirmation email stating my fare was $20.70 (6.90 x 3) higher than the other passenger in the room so I assumed we were set.

 

We boarded the ship and there was no water in the room. This wasn’t a concern as on our last Carnival cruise it wasn’t delivered until mid-afternoon. However when it hadn’t arrived by sail away I stopped at passenger services to inquire. They pulled up my account and said I hadn’t ordered any water. I explained the fare difference and they indicated they couldn’t see fares paid on board. They said I would need my confirmation email to prove I paid more (I didn’t print this since my boarding passes printed). I was annoyed but decided not to push it. I returned to the room and had a voicemail from passenger services stating I had canceled the water package (I did not) and was refunded (I was not). I called the desk back and they indicated they would “email headquarters” to look into it.

 

With no response from headquarters by day 3 I found Wi-Fi in Amber Cove and took screenshots of my confirmation email and my credit card statement showing the charge and no refund. I went to passenger services armed with this info expecting a quick resolution. I showed the agent this information and she indicated I had been refunded. I pushed back saying I hadn’t been. After discussion she said we would have to call the credit card company to verify. I went back to my room to get my credit card and back to passenger services to call Chase. Chase verified to me and the agent that the only charge/refund from Princess was for my fare. I thought we would be set at this point but oh was I wrong…. She indicated she would email headquarters with this information and have to wait on a response. I requested to speak with a supervisor at this point.

 

The agent disappeared in the back for about 10 minutes before a supervisor came out. I had to explain the entire situation to him again. I indicated that not only had I spent money for this water but I was now buying bottles of water in port that I would have otherwise used from my purchased water onboard and costing me extra money. I pointed out that I was starting to feel like Princes thought I was a criminal trying to steal 36 bottles of water from them despite me providing everything they had asked for. He indicated he was not empowered to resolve the situation. Seriously your guest services supervisors can’t solve a problem for less than $21? He indicated he would email headquarters an urgent inquiry and get back with me. I pushed for updates on when I would hear back since we were into day 3 of the cruise. I will say that this supervisor did own the situation and communicated with me at the times he promised even though he couldn’t solve it.

 

There were several calls from passenger services keeping me updated (no response from headquarters) but no resolution by the time we left St Thomas on day 4. Passenger services mentioned headquarters may have to pull the audio recording from my booking conversation to prove if I purchased the water, again I felt like they thought I was trying to steal from them.

 

On the morning of day 5 I wrote a letter to the customer service director and left it at the passenger services desk demanding the situation be resolved by the time we returned from shore or that a meeting with the director be setup that evening. I talked about the information I had provided and that it wasn’t my fault headquarters wasn’t answering emails and this was not an acceptable level of customer service.

 

Upon return to my cabin I had a room service tray with 36 bottles of water and a voicemail to call a customer service manager. He said they wanted to get me the water but that the situation wasn’t resolved with headquarters (still no response after 4 days) and that they may have to charge me for the waters depending what the voice recordings showed happened with my booking. I was never charged but also never followed up to see if there ever was a response. They did offer two passes to a specialty restaurant for the trouble but were unwilling to offer $25 in OBC for the expenses we had incurred purchasing water in ports.

 

The entire experience has made it unlikely I will strongly consider Princess for future cruises. I won’t boycott them but it will have to be an amazing deal before they would get another booking from me.

 

Ok so where did I go wrong with this and how as a first time cruiser with Princess would I have known any differently given that I saw the charge on my confirmation email?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Host CJSKIDS]

Sounds like your TA forgot to order your water package which would be a separate charge that your cruise fare, port charges and taxes.

 

Was it a receipt email from your TA that had the extra amount built in? You can pre-order the water but that is a "gift or service" with Princess and it would have shown up in your cruise documents. It's always been a separate email from Princess to me when I've done things like that.

 

I would definitely go back to your TA and complain. They probably dropped the ball on you.

 

Hope this didn't sour you on your first cruise with Princess.

[myfuzzy]

I had the same problem two cruises ago. I purchased items on my personalizer,and received an mail confirmation for each item, which I print out and take with me. The main item was canapes (yes, I know, a lot of you hate those things)but, it was our wedding anniversary, which co-insided with formal night. So upon embarkation, we had cards noting our purchases, except for the canapes, I figured being a room service item, it would automatically be delivered. Formal night came and went, no canapes, went to our Captains Party, no canapes there either, Hmmm, so I go to the PSD to inquire, with my printout in hand, they tell me that they have no information on items pre purchased. So after I emphasized that I had paid, here is my receipt, credit my account. So I check and check and check, finally I do a print out of both of our accounts and they had credited my husbands side of the account, even though I had paid for them. So last time I booked the Balcony Dining, upon arrival in our cabin, I find no card confirming the purchase. I was immediately on the phone to the room service people to indeed verify I had made the reservation and it would be served on that date and time. Being a first time Princess customer, I would have never given a second thought to taking verification of purchases.

[-Lew-]

You can actually find bottled water in port for .59 cents a bottle? The OP is paying $6.90 per 12 pack.

IMHO...no! There are more interesting things to do in port than searching for bottled water.

[waltd]

IMHO...no! There are more interesting things to do in port than searching for bottled water.

LOL I agree :D

[Coral]

I am surprised they didn't just offer you a 12 pack while investigating.

 

I don't know where the problem lies but I am sorry they didn't just eat the $20 to make a new customer happy. It is funny they will give someone unlimited prime rib but don't have the power to give someone 3 packs of water which probably costs them $4. I just bought a 40 pack at Sam's Club and it was probably $4. I am sure the cruise line is getting even a better deal then I am.

 

The one thing I would have done was contact my travel agent (I use a real agent) and have her deal with corporate. Agents are supposed to be your advocate. Not sure if you just used a call center or what.

 

Sorry this happened. They failed IMO due to the fact that they should have just eaten the cost to resolve this issue (even if it wasn't their problem).

[1emerald1]

I have never heard of the cost of onboard amenities--even as small as three twelve packs of water--being added to the initial cruise fare. They should always be a separate transaction with a separate charge to your credit card and a separate confirmation from Princess. Was there even anything in writing to confirm your purchase that actually specified it was for water?

 

It seems to me that your agent just added the $20.70 to your commisionable cruse fare and planned to order the water separately for you (using their points or some other form of payment besides your money) and just forgot. Or came to their senses as to this being a little hinkey and hoped that with no proof whatsoever other than your memory of your conversation at the time of booking you would just let it go.

 

The "major failure" is on the part of your agent, not Princess. Said agent is who you should never strongly consider returning to. And no matter the cruise line or method of booking, always make any pre-cruise purchases of onboard items as individual transactions for each one.

That is my experience as well. I order water through my personalizer, pay for it at the time of purchase as a separate transaction.

[hm9912]

I just drink the ships water so I never get charged!

 

So do I. On the UST we were told the quality of the water exceeds the standards for bottled water and the PH is constantly monitored . The water tasted excellent.

 

Howard

[johnmik1]

So do I. On the UST we were told the quality of the water exceeds the standards for bottled water and the PH is constantly monitored . The water tasted excellent.

 

Howard

Let’s get together and start selling bottled air!

[Liz54]

So do I. On the UST we were told the quality of the water exceeds the standards for bottled water and the PH is constantly monitored . The water tasted excellent.

 

Howard

 

Good. No need to contibute to the Pacific Gyre!

 

The pacific has a plastic"Island" the size of the US. Made of plastic garbage. Your water bottle will be somewhere - there or in the dump - forgenerations. Ask yourself it you need it badly enough to leave the cleanup to your grand children.

 

Google - The PacificGyre.

[compozer]

I have only had two issues in all my cruises and I called my ta, as we were till in port and she took care of it immediately. I hate it when people say this, but you need to find a good ta. And customer service can not always solve all the issues. I definitely would not have demanded it be resolved by the time you returned from port. At that point, I think many cs people would say screw you and not try to help anymore.

 

$20 isn't worth getting all upset over especially to spoil your cruise. $50 dinner for a $20 issue is a great deal.

Again, it was caused by your ta not Princess.