Carnival charges for towels that were returned / never taken

[webzila]

Has anyone had this issue - being charged after the cruise for a towel that you supposedly took and didn't return?

That is what I saw just now - a charge for what amounts to $22 on my credit card. When leaving the ship the statement had a credit balance.

It's not a huge deal and I am sure they will remove it - especially since I don't have any of their towels. I emailed them / will call them.

 

However, how often does this occur and people get charged without even knowing about it?

Carnival towel checkout / check in system is horrible. It was all on paper with one poor worker trying to do that + 100 other tasks on the Lido deck.

With us, we only checked out 2 towels throughout entire cruise on Lido and checked them back in - again its all on paper...

All other blue towels were brought to the room without us even asking for them and if we used them they were all brought back and left there.

[Doggielover68]

9 minutes ago, webzila said:

Has anyone had this issue - being charged after the cruise for a towel that you supposedly took and didn't return?

That is what I saw just now - a charge for what amounts to $22 on my credit card. When leaving the ship the statement had a credit balance.

It's not a huge deal and I am sure they will remove it - especially since I don't have any of their towels. I emailed them / will call them.

 

However, how often does this occur and people get charged without even knowing about it?

Carnival towel checkout / check in system is horrible. It was all on paper with one poor worker trying to do that + 100 other tasks on the Lido deck.

With us, we only checked out 2 towels throughout entire cruise on Lido and checked them back in - again its all on paper...

All other blue towels were brought to the room without us even asking for them and if we used them they were all brought back and left there.

It happened once to us, I believe for a Dive in movie blanket. They removed the charge when we called. 

 

I think what happened is that they let us take 2 on one sail and sign card and we returned it as one big heap. 

[jennas_mum]

11 minutes ago, webzila said:

Has anyone had this issue - being charged after the cruise for a towel that you supposedly took and didn't return?

That is what I saw just now - a charge for what amounts to $22 on my credit card. When leaving the ship the statement had a credit balance.

It's not a huge deal and I am sure they will remove it - especially since I don't have any of their towels. I emailed them / will call them.

 

However, how often does this occur and people get charged without even knowing about it?

Carnival towel checkout / check in system is horrible. It was all on paper with one poor worker trying to do that + 100 other tasks on the Lido deck.

With us, we only checked out 2 towels throughout entire cruise on Lido and checked them back in - again its all on paper...

All other blue towels were brought to the room without us even asking for them and if we used them they were all brought back and left there.

 

It happened to us on our last cruise also. Got charged for 2 towels. I called and they did credit me for the towels. Makes you wonder how many people get charged and don't realize it. Guess this kind of thing happens, but should definitely not be the norm.

 

Donna

[evandbob]

If I get towels from serenity and they write down my room #, when I return them I make sure they write in that I returned them.  I won't just go and let them mark me down, I want to see it happen.

 

Very easy for the crew member doing the check in/out to forget or get distracted and never check them back in.

 

Always check your S&S statement during the cruise and again on the last night sailing.

 

If I ever got charged for their crappy blue beach towels, oh boy!

Edited July 4, 2019 by evandbob

[TomCruise48]

I think about this every time I checkout towels from the towel station.  In this day and age, why can't Carnival scan your S&S card, rather than relying on a team member to properly transcribe your folio number on a sheet of paper?

 

We have never had a problem with being charged for non-returned towels, but multiple times have been charged for drinks we did not order because the server wrote down the folio number incorrectly.  One time we were charged for drinks from one of the ship's bars when we were off the ship on a Carnival excursion!  That was an easy one to dispute.

[webzila]

8 minutes ago, evandbob said:

If I get towels from serenity and they write down my room #, when I return them I make sure they write in that I returned them.  I won't just go and let them mark me down, I want to see it happen.

 

Very easy for the crew member doing the check in/out to forget or get distracted and never check them back in.

 

Always check your S&S statement during the cruise and again on the last night sailing.

 

If I ever got charged for their crappy blue beach towels, oh boy!

 

Right and on the debarkation day there was no charge for towels on the final statement so makes me wonder how days later they somehow think that a towel is missing. Their system is outdated. As someone mentioned why not use scanners....or Medallions which I really liked on Princess

[ShakyBeef]

30 minutes ago, TomCruise48 said:

We have never had a problem with being charged for non-returned towels, but multiple times have been charged for drinks we did not order because the server wrote down the folio number incorrectly.  One time we were charged for drinks from one of the ship's bars when we were off the ship on a Carnival excursion!  That was an easy one to dispute.

 

This has happened to us on several of our Carnival cruises as well.

[xDisconnections]

29 minutes ago, webzila said:

 

Right and on the debarkation day there was no charge for towels on the final statement so makes me wonder how days later they somehow think that a towel is missing. Their system is outdated. As someone mentioned why not use scanners....or Medallions which I really liked on Princess

Since when does Princess not freely give away towels without a care in the world?

[webzila]

1 minute ago, xDisconnections said:

Since when does Princess not freely give away towels without a care in the world?

Never. Where did you see me say that??

I was saying how I like the medallion system where you can just wave it to pay for things or check things out / in vs scanning or pen & paper

[ALWAYS CRUZIN]

1 hour ago, webzila said:

Has anyone had this issue - being charged after the cruise for a towel that you supposedly took and didn't return?

That is what I saw just now - a charge for what amounts to $22 on my credit card. When leaving the ship the statement had a credit balance.

It's not a huge deal and I am sure they will remove it - especially since I don't have any of their towels. I emailed them / will call them.

 

However, how often does this occur and people get charged without even knowing about it?

Carnival towel checkout / check in system is horrible. It was all on paper with one poor worker trying to do that + 100 other tasks on the Lido deck.

With us, we only checked out 2 towels throughout entire cruise on Lido and checked them back in - again its all on paper...

All other blue towels were brought to the room without us even asking for them and if we used them they were all brought back and left there.

How did you email Carnival. I cannot find an email address for them?

[webzila]

3 minutes ago, twodaywonder said:

How did you email Carnival. I cannot find an email address for them?

They have the email address listed on their help page here

https://help.carnival.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3222

[xDisconnections]

10 minutes ago, webzila said:

Never. Where did you see me say that??

I was saying how I like the medallion system where you can just wave it to pay for things or check things out / in vs scanning or pen & paper

If Princess is scanning for towels, that's relatively new.

[webzila]

If Princess is scanning for towels, that's relatively new.

I never said that either [emoji10]
The only reason why I'm mentioning Princess is because I like the Medallion system and wish it would be used everywhere for things such as checking towels out and back in.

Point is that anything else would be better than writing this down by hand then manually entering it elsewhere later.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[ALWAYS CRUZIN]

23 minutes ago, webzila said:

They have the email address listed on their help page here

https://help.carnival.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3222

Thank you so very much. Already sent an email.

[webzila]

Update: Carnival guest services replied by email and processed the refund. No questions asked.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[ShakyBeef]

10 minutes ago, webzila said:

Update: Carnival guest services replied by email and processed the refund. No questions asked.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 

 

That's good news!  Thanks for the update.

[Shaded Lady]

We checked out 2 towels from Serenity on a cruise in 2014... when we went to leave Serenity, no one was at the towel desk. I wasn't about to leave them, so we brought them back to our room. We took them back the next day, but how are we supposed to get credit for returning towels if no one is there? I was worried we'd be charged since they weren't returned the same day, but somehow Carnival figured it out.

[ontheweb]

13 hours ago, webzila said:

Update: Carnival guest services replied by email and processed the refund. No questions asked.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 

That seems to say to me that this is not an infrequent occurrence and that they have no problem processing the refund. One does wonder thought how often the charge is either not caught by the passenger or is felt to be too small to bother trying to get it refunded.

[Luckiestmanonearth]

Who would want to steal a towel that other people have used a thousand times over?

 

It makes no sense

 

PS - how much money does Carnival make through people that don’t notice these charges and never call them out on it

Edited July 6, 2019 by Luckiestmanonearth

[sparks1093]

Royal has the same issue, except on Royal you have no choice but to check out a towel, they don't leave any in your cabin (we did not have any issues with this but have read of many people who have). We rarely check out towels on CCL. We use the ones in the cabin and do a one for one exchange on the pool deck or at the gangway (and there have been times when the steward left two extra towels while we were out so we had the opportunity to snag a couple of those crappy blue towels had we chose to). 

[BNBR]

1 hour ago, sparks1093 said:

Royal has the same issue, except on Royal you have no choice but to check out a towel, they don't leave any in your cabin... 

 

Nonsense. They leave tons of free towels on chairs every morning by the pools. Just grab a couple.  Many even come with complimentary towel clips. 

[sparks1093]

14 minutes ago, BNBR said:

 

Nonsense. They leave tons of free towels on chairs every morning by the pools. Just grab a couple.  Many even come with complimentary towel clips. 

They've done that on all three cruise lines we've been on actually (which of course is far different then leaving them in your cabin😉).

[hotsauce126]

On 7/4/2019 at 12:06 PM, webzila said:

 

Right and on the debarkation day there was no charge for towels on the final statement so makes me wonder how days later they somehow think that a towel is missing. Their system is outdated. As someone mentioned why not use scanners....or Medallions which I really liked on Princess

 

Because they're not charging for one checked out at the pool, they're charging for the ones that they leave in your room