Admit Your Worst Cruise Ship Rip-Off Nightmare

[livingonthebeach]

In the spirit of helping those avoid some of our "not-too-proud-of" mistakes we've made in the past, post the ways you've regrettably spent more than planned. 

Examples: 

1. Grabbing a few fruity umbrella drinks believing they are a sail away freebie then getting asked for your Sea Pass card.
2. After researching online, finding out your ship excursion was 3 to 4 times more than what it was worth.
3. Forgetting to turn off the roaming on your cell phone and getting a bill for $1000 when back on land.
4. Not buying the drink package and receiving a bar bill invoice for more than you paid for the cruise.
5. Buying the drink package if you are not a heavy drinker and paying more than the cruise for a couple of drinks a day.
6. Tipping twice on services not knowing that the tip was included -- i.e. spa and salon services.
7. Loading up your luggage with worthless trinkets and t-shirts from the shops resulting in having to pay excess luggage fees when flying back home.
8. Closing down the casino after a few too many comp drinks only to find out the next morning the house won big time.
9. After two glasses of bubbly, buying enough art at auction to redecorate your entire home.
10. Paying megabucks at the spa for a treatment to lose a few inches only to gain it all back after a few WJ rounds. 
     

Don't be shy -- let's hear them all. 

[booplesnoople]

Biggest regret I'll ever have was missing the $18 drink package last year. Early on we thought, "there's no reason, we don't drink that much." HOO BOY. 

Ended up buying it later. Full price for three was half the cost of our cruise fare. I was miffed to say the least, still kick myself for not jumping on it. 😬

[loman]

I got caught with the roaming charge , luckily I got a warning at 250.00 on the second day  , so I just shut off my phone.

It was only work emails , so I didn't really care . I didnt  realize there was a charge for incoming emails.

I texted my adult kids once and that's all. 

Next time I turned it on was when we landed at the home airport.

[Sea Dog]

1 hour ago, livingonthebeach said:

Loading up your luggage with worthless trinkets and t-shirts from the shops resulting in having to pay excess luggage fees when flying back home.

It wasn't t-shirts or trinkets for me but my bottle of Blanton's bourbon that I got at the duty free shop on board. It made my suitcase overweight and cost me $75 making it $150 bottle of bourbon.

[DaniDanielle]

Our second cruise was on Explorer.  We didn’t realize the drinks they were giving out weren’t free as Celebrity gave us free champagne on our first cruise.  We politely declined the Explorer’s offer!

[FamilyCruiserUK]

Not quite a mistake.

 

Was on anthem of the seas out of New York in Feb, ended up going to Bermuda instead of bahamas. We had Dolphin swimming booked in the bahamas but that was cancelled and daughter was sooo disappointed. RCL had a trip for dolphin swimming in Bermuda but it was just too expensive for three of us to go so had to tell the little one no dolphins. After a few days of her being so sad i went down to book it as a surprise however i managed to check online for other activities to do in bermuda and up popped dolphin swimming. It was at least half the price as the RCL trip. Once we got to bermuda i was surprised to find the dolphin experience was 5 min walk from the ship. Booked through the venue rather then through RCL. I did mention to others swimming with you paid the full RCL price and were going to file a complaint. 

 

Moral of the story is check local prices and distance from ship before booking through RCL. 

[Erik101]

St Thomas 

 

I needed to go to Walgreens for a family member. At the port, I requested a taxi and was told the Jeep taxi which holds about 30 people will take me there. So I get on one.  The Jeep went around the entire island and at the end of it, the driver told me I was on a driving tour of the island. I told him I asked the guy at the port for a taxi to go to Walgreens. He said he wasn’t going there.  I ended paying for the tour.  
 

Back at the port, I asked another port attendant that I needed a taxi to take me to Walgreens and because I was pissed at that point, I said I wasn’t getting in a Jeep.  She didn’t argue. I got a sedan that took me to the store and the driver waited for me to take me back to the port.  
 

Lesson learned: communicate with the driver on your intentions or you’ll end up paying for an unwanted excursion like I did. 

[BND]

None that I can think of.  I research everything ahead of time so I knew all the things you listed.  Even with excursions that we could do cheaper if we didn't book through RCI, those aren't rip-offs to me as we knew what we were doing with cost and the value of a ship's excursion in terms of getting left behind.  I'm big, really big on attention to detail and as a result I rarely regret anything.

[Karma5]

My husband forgot to turn off roaming.............big bill he got.........never forgot after that on other cruises........

[lenquixote66]

4 hours ago, livingonthebeach said:

In the spirit of helping those avoid some of our "not-too-proud-of" mistakes we've made in the past, post the ways you've regrettably spent more than planned. 

Examples: 

1. Grabbing a few fruity umbrella drinks believing they are a sail away freebie then getting asked for your Sea Pass card.
2. After researching online, finding out your ship excursion was 3 to 4 times more than what it was worth.
3. Forgetting to turn off the roaming on your cell phone and getting a bill for $1000 when back on land.
4. Not buying the drink package and receiving a bar bill invoice for more than you paid for the cruise.
5. Buying the drink package if you are not a heavy drinker and paying more than the cruise for a couple of drinks a day.
6. Tipping twice on services not knowing that the tip was included -- i.e. spa and salon services.
7. Loading up your luggage with worthless trinkets and t-shirts from the shops resulting in having to pay excess luggage fees when flying back home.
8. Closing down the casino after a few too many comp drinks only to find out the next morning the house won big time.
9. After two glasses of bubbly, buying enough art at auction to redecorate your entire home.
10. Paying megabucks at the spa for a treatment to lose a few inches only to gain it all back after a few WJ rounds. 
     

Don't be shy -- let's hear them all. 

Number 1 and Number 7 happened to my wife and I but not one thousand dollars.

[lenquixote66]

1 hour ago, Erik101 said:

St Thomas 

 

I needed to go to Walgreens for a family member. At the port, I requested a taxi and was told the Jeep taxi which holds about 30 people will take me there. So I get on one.  The Jeep went around the entire island and at the end of it, the driver told me I was on a driving tour of the island. I told him I asked the guy at the port for a taxi to go to Walgreens. He said he wasn’t going there.  I ended paying for the tour.  
 

Back at the port, I asked another port attendant that I needed a taxi to take me to Walgreens and because I was pissed at that point, I said I wasn’t getting in a Jeep.  She didn’t argue. I got a sedan that took me to the store and the driver waited for me to take me back to the port.  
 

Lesson learned: communicate with the driver on your intentions or you’ll end up paying for an unwanted excursion like I did. 

Not quite the same but last year we were on a cruise with a port in Curaçao .We took a taxi to the downtown area and after finishing exploring and shopping we were approached by a guy asking if we needed a taxi.We got in and told him we wanted to go to the cruise port but he took us in a totally different direction and said it was a shortcut.I replied that we have been there before and knew it was the wrong way.He finally got us back to the port and asked for $12 .Going to downtown was $5.I was so disgusted that I just paid him.

[vegas7df]

A 6 page bar bill. 

[CSHS1979]

Inoithermie, botox, cell phone mistake ($600)

[ownedbypets]

My son was very generous in the arcade with his new friends. It was long before we could check our account balance on the tv so we were shocked upon departure. 

[Tree_skier]

5 hours ago, livingonthebeach said:

In the spirit of helping those avoid some of our "not-too-proud-of" mistakes we've made in the past, post the ways you've regrettably spent more than planned. 

Examples: 

1. Grabbing a few fruity umbrella drinks believing they are a sail away freebie then getting asked for your Sea Pass card.
2. After researching online, finding out your ship excursion was 3 to 4 times more than what it was worth.
3. Forgetting to turn off the roaming on your cell phone and getting a bill for $1000 when back on land.
4. Not buying the drink package and receiving a bar bill invoice for more than you paid for the cruise.
5. Buying the drink package if you are not a heavy drinker and paying more than the cruise for a couple of drinks a day.
6. Tipping twice on services not knowing that the tip was included -- i.e. spa and salon services.
7. Loading up your luggage with worthless trinkets and t-shirts from the shops resulting in having to pay excess luggage fees when flying back home.
8. Closing down the casino after a few too many comp drinks only to find out the next morning the house won big time.
9. After two glasses of bubbly, buying enough art at auction to redecorate your entire home.
10. Paying megabucks at the spa for a treatment to lose a few inches only to gain it all back after a few WJ rounds. 
     

Don't be shy -- let's hear them all. 

I am guilty of 3 and 9

 

With 3 there was no excuse, I knew better.  I hooked my iPhone and iPad up to the ship Wifi but forgot to forgot to turn the devices to Airplane mode.  Thankfully I received a text from my provider in the middle of first night letting me know that I reached a $100 dollars of roaming on one of the devices.  If I remember correctly, between the two devices, the total was about $170.  It could have been worse.  

 

The second was buying two Thomas Kincade prints from a Parkwest auction aboard Radiance on our first cruise.  For some reason I thought we had gotten a good deal. When I priced them on land after we returned I realized I could have paid a fair bit less than I did.

 

Another mistake I made was thinking I wouldn't care if I didn't have a balcony so I just booked an inside cabin.  While this isn't a mistake for many people it was for us.  I didn't realize how much both of us love being able to see the ocean and how much bigger it makes the room feel.  

Edited July 13, 2020 by Tree_skier

[PhillyFan33579]

Biggest mistake I made was buying a massage on the first cruise I ever went on. I listened to a sales pitch from a woman when walking by a table setup on the ship and agreed to a massage later that day. It was my first full day on the ship, I had a drink in my hand, life was good and I never thought to ask about the price. When I saw the bill after the massage, it hit me that I was paying quadruple for a worse massage than I got back home.  Almost 40 cruises later I have never again paid for any service from the spa and I never will. 

[PCWalton1]

On Ovation for our port stop in Korea the ship communicated the customs was face to face and made it sound like we would not get off the ship until at least 1 pm and we had a tour that started hours before. However if we took a ship's tour we would get off the ship at 10 am.

So we cancelled our private tour and signed up for a ship's tour. Half they places we were suppose to go to were closed so we twice ended up in markets walking around looking at thinks like mushrooms, pot/pans, and luggage. Lunch was at a third floor buffet with a broken escalator. Food would have embarrassed Panda Express. We left the ship at 10:30 in the morning and didn't get back until 7:30 in the evening. 40 minutes was spent at a palace, the rest was driving around or wandering marketplaces.   

[parrotfeathers]

Never did any of that on there list.

 

But I did make the mistake last year of taking a shuttle for the 10 minute trip to the port (how much longer could it take than Uber?).   45 minutes later he was still letting people out at other terminals.  I was so angry at myself.  

 

Never again.

[FOXTROT]

Several years ago Wife' & I decided to finally get her a nice diamond ring. We went to Milano's on St. Thomas. Picked out a beautiful diamond & ring. While they set the diamond they sent us out for lunch. THEY SWITCHED EVERYTHING UP ON US. When we got home & got the ring appraised, first two appraisers said this is not the ring you bought. Long story short, they say Royal stands behind your purchase. Royal Caribbean DOES NOT stand behind the purchase. All the shops on board & shopping guides work for Royal Media not Royal Caribbean.

  We finally got RCL involved after writing Michael Bailey several emails. Thank goodness we were two cruises away from turning Pinnacle. It took RCL, credit card company & having to pay for an appraisal from a gemologist to get a refund.  

PS bought Wife' a ring locally, larger diamond, better ring & a little cheaper. Moral of story: if you like something beware before buying it. 

[Tony O]

7 hours ago, booplesnoople said:

Biggest regret I'll ever have was missing the $18 drink package last year. Early on we thought, "there's no reason, we don't drink that much." HOO BOY. 

Ended up buying it later. Full price for three was half the cost of our cruise fare. I was miffed to say the least, still kick myself for not jumping on it. 😬

We got the $18 package for 2 cruises . Both were cancelled due to Covid.

We also caught  another glitch for Oddsey Inaugural  sailing.It was no charge to specialty restaurants.( lasted very shorty ) Well that cruise got cancelled  also.

[lovemylab]

Few mistakes we made on the first two cruises:

1. Didn't pack OTC medication and got stuck paying the inflated price at the gift shop.

2. Having no idea how price drops worked.  We assumed the price you booked at is what you paid.

3. Not realizing that you could order the drink of the day without the souvenir cup (and save a few dollars).  On the last night of the cruise we'd be struggling to find luggage space for them.  Once home they sat in a cupboard for ten years only to get thrown out when we moved.

4. DH forgetting to pack his suit.  Thinking we needed one for formal night we then rented a tuxedo.

[Casino Comp Chick]

I am glad I take photos, lots of them. I took out a credit card from Columbian Emeralds and if you spent over X amount of dollars they advertised zero interest. I made sure to pay the higher then minimum to make sure the balance would be cleared before the allotted time. Lo & Behold they tack on hundreds in interest at the end. I emailed and sent a certified piece of mail to the credit card company showing the 3 signs in the store showing the advertisement. 
The interest was removed but had I not had those photos I would have been on the hook for it.

Caveat emptor.

Edited July 13, 2020 by Casino Comp Chick

[The Grumpus]

GoSmile. 

[Baron Barracuda]

Came down with the flu aboard ship.  Went to medical where they gave me tamiflu, z-pack and a few rounds on a nebulizer.  Fully recovered in a couple of days.  Then got the $1200 bill.  That's the last time we sailed without travel insurance.

[Iamcruzin]

In the early days of cruising we purchased hundreds of dollars worth of cruise photos plus ones we took ourselves. Almost 30yrs later I couldn't tell you where any of them are. I guess we will find them when we adventurually move. Now we take pictures with our smartphones and save them in the cloud.