Royal Customer Services - What a joke

[Garyjames220]

I thought I would share my experience in  the very poor customer service from royal we have experienced and that's putting it nicely

 

We are in the UK and royal cancelled our cruise and I asked for the full refund of £2748

 

So I got the email saying we can get a full refund or 125% credit, so I called them up and asked them if they could extend the FCC by one year as due to my wife's pregnancy, not been aloud to travel with a baby under 6 months and the fact we already have a holiday booked at the end of next year it's not possible for us to go next year. So they said that shouldn't be a problem and he was going to send the request to the admin team. A few days later I called back and it had been declined. A bit suprised as I thought they would rather keep the money and business but there choice. So I said that's fine I'll just take the refund then

 

few days later I receive a invoice with £514 on to be refunded, called up again and asked why I got this and after about a hour they said it was a mistake and said it's now all sorted 

 

I then continued to receive invoices  every single evening with the wrong amounts on, which I just ignored for about a week (thinking it was just a error again and had already been sorted)

 

Then today I received a FCC for £2234. Never even included the 25% extra. I asked why have I received this when I asked for a full refund but they said that I asked for the refund before cruise was cancelled so it's a FCC, so he said that's a mistake and told me to call the after cruise team which I done

 

So then called the after cruise team they said we don't deal with UK bookings so called back to the UK line

 

I then asked to speak to a manager and explained it to him and he said that my sailing had not even been cancelled. I said please don't tell me this, go onto your website and you will see it for yourself 

 

I then got cut off not once but twice and took ages to get back though to him. He then said the £514 is in the queue to be refunded and I need to speak to the after cruise team to cancel the FCC 

 

 so called them again and they decided to take the call this time. The women said that it was a error on there side and it should be refunded within 30 days 

 

felt like arguing the point it should be 30 days from when I asked for the refund as your error is not my fault but had no energy left

 

so far it's taken over 10 hours off calls including hold times and I still don't expect this to be the end of it

 

ill stick with Disney cruise line, this has just put me right off royal. What a carry on this has been. Just refunded it. Easy

 

 

Edited April 6, 2020 by Garyjames220

[Garyjames220]

And good luck to anyone else that has requested a refund. You will need it

Edited April 6, 2020 by Garyjames220

[ONECRUISER]

26 minutes ago, Garyjames220 said:

And good luck to anyone else that has requested a refund. You will need it

Took 4 weeks few yrs ago when Hurricane interrupted many sailings. This, 10times worse. Few on here have had some luck(2weeks), others were told directly will take longer end on April which was 6weeks out..

[JT1962]

We expect our May 27 cruise to be canceled and will be requesting a refund online. I would rather have the money and choose which cruise line and when my next cruise will be rather than being locked into one cruise line and a specific time frame. Too many unknowns at this point.

[grandpaper]

Customer Service in any industry during the pandemic is going to be uneven..   Lots of people are home sheltering in place and not working.  You will get your refunds or fcc.  Anyway where are you going in such a hurry that you need this to be done now.  Patience please with whoever you deal with for a few more weeks.

[not-enough-cruising]

1 hour ago, Garyjames220 said:

And good luck to anyone else that has requested a refund. You will need it

Don’t let the fact that there is a global event going on...........unreal!

[John&LaLa]

I had my TA request the refund, got a confirmation, and will patiently wait for it to show up. I won't freak out or invest any effort, until the end of month. Trying to be realistic

Edited April 6, 2020 by John&LaLa

[ReneeFLL]

I know refunds aren't coming in as fast as some people want, but that's crazy you had to go thru all that run around.

[Garyjames220]

23 minutes ago, not-enough-cruising said:

Don’t let the fact that there is a global event going on...........unreal!

 

Yes there is global event but that doesn't meant I should need to mess about on a phone for over 10 hours getting told wrong information and passed about everywhere just to get my refund 

[Garyjames220]

36 minutes ago, grandpaper said:

Customer Service in any industry during the pandemic is going to be uneven..   Lots of people are home sheltering in place and not working.  You will get your refunds or fcc.  Anyway where are you going in such a hurry that you need this to be done now.  Patience please with whoever you deal with for a few more weeks.

 

Well if I never called them it would never have been done. And after 10 hours on the phone over the last wee while to them, becomes stressful 

 

I am not going anywhere in a hurry but due to less income for us now we could do with the money back 

 

Not to mention they could go bankrupt 

 

 

[deliver42]

It's all about me, me, me.

[ReneeFLL]

19 minutes ago, deliver42 said:

It's all about me, me, me.

What??? The poor guy spent 10 hours on the phone. How would you feel if you had to do the same thing?

[RKHOOKER]

Royal must be in deep financial problems considering they had a 2.2 billion dollar cash injection last month.  If I was in charge of Royal, the first thing I would do is look after the current customers who have paid with their after tax dollars & have financed Royal some up to 18 months in advance, & refund their cash without delay!  Also, I would offer a 200% Future Cruise Credit, a 125% FCC won’t cover the cost of the exact same cruise next year.  Maybe by offering a 200% FCC more people will not want a cash refund, hence, Royal has extra cash.  Heads need to roll at Royal as there is absolutely no excuse not to refund the customer within 7 days.  The only excuse, the quicker we refund the customer the quicker we go bankrupt.

[firefly333]

If they wouldnt extend someone else's fcc from Dorian which ends this june, I would have bet no exceptions to extending yours.

 

That was the first mistake. If you had read more posts you would have seen no one else got a extension on fccs about to expire. 

 

Just stick to the refund from the beginning, they are busy and confuse easily.

 

I haven't had the best experiences myself, so I'm thinking they hired off the street and not properly trained. ... and I wanted to book and spend money and was beyond rcl agents capability. 

 

I guess have to keep calling to get your refund. 

[John&LaLa]

7 minutes ago, RKHOOKER said:

Royal must be in deep financial problems considering they had a 2.2 billion dollar cash injection last month.  If I was in charge of Royal, the first thing I would do is look after the current customers who have paid with their after tax dollars & have financed Royal some up to 18 months in advance, & refund their cash without delay!  Also, I would offer a 200% Future Cruise Credit, a 125% FCC won’t cover the cost of the exact same cruise next year.  Maybe by offering a 200% FCC more people will not want a cash refund, hence, Royal has extra cash.  Heads need to roll at Royal as there is absolutely no excuse not to refund the customer within 7 days.  The only excuse, the quicker we refund the customer the quicker we go bankrupt.

 

After tax dollars?

 

BTW, I was told my refund won't be processed until the original sail date. Does that seem unfair? Maybe, but I accept their terms and dont have the desire to lose sleep over it. 

 

It was a discretionary purchase for something that wasn't happening until later this month. 

[sheridan318]

Ive just got off the phone with them after having email delaying our refund till 13th april now they are saying thats just a generic email and no refund will be forthcoming till at least 60 to 90 days 

when I asked how many people have actually received a full refund he said  none ive been very loyal to royal but im afraid this fiasco is putting me off

[John&LaLa]

23 minutes ago, sheridan318 said:

Ive just got off the phone with them after having email delaying our refund till 13th april now they are saying thats just a generic email and no refund will be forthcoming till at least 60 to 90 days 

when I asked how many people have actually received a full refund he said  none ive been very loyal to royal but im afraid this fiasco is putting me off

 

When was your cancelled sailing?

[sheridan318]

They cancelled are quantum cruise early march the other one march 23rd also cancelled by them I just don't like the way they lie to you when you ring and guy at the end of phone call started whistling as if hes bored answering these phone calls, just tell the truth like when he said not one refund has been done yes I know they have thousands but they should have started refunding by now people are out of work and in need of this money now not two months down the track, it took them ten seconds to take the payments but two to three months to return it is not a good look

[John&LaLa]

Well, I guess you could be out of a job regardless of the virus, and you wouldn't be getting any money back if the cruise had not been cancelled.

 

Our cancelled trips are still 3 weeks away

[Bloodgem]

6 hours ago, Garyjames220 said:

I am not going anywhere in a hurry but due to less income for us now we could do with the money back 

 

Not to mention they could go bankrupt 

If you could do with the money why did you ask to extend the FCC by 1 year, in your OP?

 

9 hours ago, Garyjames220 said:

So I got the email saying we can get a full refund or 125% credit, so I called them up and asked them if they could extend the FCC by one year as due to my wife's pregnancy, not been aloud to travel with a baby under 6 months and the fact we already have a holiday booked at the end of next year it's not possible for us to go next year. So they said that shouldn't be a problem and he was going to send the request to the admin team. A few days later I called back and it had been declined. A bit suprised as I thought they would rather keep the money and business but there choice. So I said that's fine I'll just take the refund then

 

[Garyjames220]

1 hour ago, Bloodgem said:

If you could do with the money why did you ask to extend the FCC by 1 year, in your OP?

 

 

unfortunately things changed our end from the weeks ago I asked them that 

 

the main issue here though is the poor customer service there giving. About 10 calls to sort a refund 

[Garyjames220]

6 hours ago, firefly333 said:

If they wouldnt extend someone else's fcc from Dorian which ends this june, I would have bet no exceptions to extending yours.

 

That was the first mistake. If you had read more posts you would have seen no one else got a extension on fccs about to expire. 

 

Just stick to the refund from the beginning, they are busy and confuse easily.

 

I haven't had the best experiences myself, so I'm thinking they hired off the street and not properly trained. ... and I wanted to book and spend money and was beyond rcl agents capability. 

 

I guess have to keep calling to get your refund. 

 

Yes I agree I wish I never ever mentioned extending it. But even still shouldn't have caused all this hassle 

 

I actually called once yesterday and he couldn't find anything with my booking number even though everyone else could. He then tried by name and sail date. After 5 times of my name and 30 mins on the phone still couldn't find it. Gave up and called back 

 

I have never seen anything like what hassle I had yesterday just for a refund. Even a manager saying it's not even cancelled my sailing. Was totally stressed out 

 

I have just received another invoice from them this morning. With wrong amounts on it again. I swear they must be trying to wind me up

[Garyjames220]

5 hours ago, sheridan318 said:

They cancelled are quantum cruise early march the other one march 23rd also cancelled by them I just don't like the way they lie to you when you ring and guy at the end of phone call started whistling as if hes bored answering these phone calls, just tell the truth like when he said not one refund has been done yes I know they have thousands but they should have started refunding by now people are out of work and in need of this money now not two months down the track, it took them ten seconds to take the payments but two to three months to return it is not a good look

 

Couldnt agree more

 

10 hours of my time wasted in sorted a 10 second refund. 

 

Dont think they would wait on the line for me if it took me 10 hours to make the payment 

[DaiC01]

5 hours ago, John&LaLa said:

Well, I guess you could be out of a job regardless of the virus, and you wouldn't be getting any money back if the cruise had not been cancelled.

 

Our cancelled trips are still 3 weeks away

Really!!

[Balsam12]

I actually haven't even bothered trying to contact Royal Caribbean at this point.

Our cruise was for 27 March out of Sydney on Radiance. The cruise before ours on Radiance actually boarded and went through Muster Drill before being told it was cancelled.

I cancelled something from the Cruise Planner on 13 March, and that refund showed up in our bank account today. I cancelled everything else from the cruise planner on 15 March, so hopefully that will show up in the next day or so.

 

We have booked a replacement cruise on Ovation for December 2020. It's a longer cruise on a newer ship, so is slightly more expensive. We had to put up $400 deposit to book this, but the 125% credit from our Radiance sailing still won't totally cover the final payment. We're not worried if it takes a bit of time for the FCC to come through, as it will all go to the new booking anyway.

The only thing we're interested in now is the OBC we had for booking the Radiance sailing with Next Cruise while we were onboard a previous cruise. From what I read online, that should be reapplied to our new booking. I asked our TA, but she wasn't sure, and said she would look into it when the FCC comes through. Hopefully it works out, but at the end of the day, it was $200 USD, so in the overall cost of the cruise, it's not a huge thing.

Thankfully, our airfares for the cancelled cruise have been given back to us as credit, so we have rebooked them for the new cruise, and our accommodation both before and after the cruise has been refunded in full. Even out travel insurance company allowed us to change the dates of our policy to fit with the new cruise at no cost.

We look at this as a huge disappointment as we were really looking forward to the cruise, and a bit of an inconvenience having to rebook everything, but at the end of the day, none of the companies involved caused this to happen, and none of them wanted it to happen. Other than a bit of a wait for refunds/credit from RCI, there's nothing else any one could do.

We understand that RCI customer service is probably getting hammered by stressed and impatient people at the moment, so trying to call them unless there is a huge urgency would be a waste of time. Even emails will take longer than usual for a reply. Not worth me getting stressed sitting on hold, especially as most call centres in the Philippines have been shut down anyway.

Chill out, see how things pan out, and if they don't work out as you thought they should, contact RCI then.