Princess calls me just one day after emailing execs.

[CineGraphic]

When you email a company with a concern or complaint it's always nice to know that your concerns are taken seriously and addressed in a timely manner, so imagine my surprise when I received a call from Princess corporate just one day after emailing them earlier this week.

One could easily assume that the content of the email concerned them quite a bit to garner such a quick response.

 

Were they upset that I was served an appetizer that came off of another table in Sabbatini's, or concerned that passengers were screaming F-Bombs in the middle of the piazza? Of course not.

When I emailed these same folks about those concerns from our last cruise in April, it took Princess over 8 weeks to respond, so what was it that Princess felt was more important than addressing their current sub-par product?

 

Here's what Princess felt was important enough to address right away:

Just thought the executive offices should see some of the current thread titles on Cruise Critic’s boards. 

If you’re not concerned, you should be. 

 

Princess let me down badly 

 

Poor Communication and Treatment related to COVID+ Test on Alaska Cruise 

 

Does one HAVE to use the Medallion? 

 

Here's a scarey headline for CCL stockholders: Carnival Stock Could Fall to $0 in a Worst Case Scenario 

 

We're planning on comparing John Padgett's way of thinking with Richard Branson's

 

Which pier in New York? When do they tell us? 

 

I Sure Hope Princess Contracts With Starlink! 

 

4 hours of being put on hold to resolve missing $50 referral obc ($25 for each person) 

 

Emailed to Jan Swartz and Collin Steinke, how soon will I get any replies

 

Cashing out your bank at the casino- am I being skimmed? 

 

Change of pace, Whos's sticking with Princess? 

 

We’ve always sailed Princess but we are intrigued by Virgin! '

 

 

The rep who called me stated that out of all of the thread titles the one that bothered her the most concerned waiting on hold for 4 hours.

I told her how folks were posting screen shots of their current hold times, as if it's now some kind of competitive sport.

 

The rep blamed all of the problems on Covid, stating that crew is constantly getting sick and needs to be replaced.

When I stated that none of this should be a surprise to them, that they've been operating for almost a year now, she agreed that they should have a better grasp on things by now. They are clearly struggling.

 

I don't know about you, but it bothers me that thread titles on Cruise Critic seem to be more important to them than providing the product as advertised.

 

 

 

[ebeluga]

Yes, it is an image problem that they are mostly concern with.  SURPRISE, not!!

[ldubs]

41 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

I don't know about you, but it bothers me that thread titles on Cruise Critic seem to be more important to them than providing the product as advertised.

 

 

Seems like the same thing to me.  If they were doing a good job the negative thread titles wouldn't be there.  

 

Handing off an appetizer that was from another table seems off the chart to me.  I'm curious how that happened.  Delivering it to the wrong table then bringing it to you is different from giving you a leftover from another table.  

[dog]

Call Princess as soon as they start in the morning. This has been working for me.

 

Solve  dining issues while on board the ship.

so they can apologize & maybe compensate.

 

Don’t sweat the small stuff.

[PacnGoNow]

The wait time has greatly improved.  Well, at least my last few calls.  I’ve gotten right through within minutes and the Chat line has been fast.

[skynight]

My opinion is that Princess placed too much money and faith on the app and its supposed great features, while cutting back on customer service during a difficult re-start. In the vacation business pre-cruise and on board personal service is most important. The pre-cruise app features cost them lots of $$$ and delivered them bad reports, jammed customer service lines and headaches for both their customers and themselves.  I don't know if they really understand. 

[Caribensun]

I just called the regular line and got someone right away. Princess Casino number I think maybe spoofed, or at least from my phone, didn’t act like a normal Princess Rep answering.  Very concerning that is all they cared about,  Appreciate your taking time to mention other concerns.

[CineGraphic]

1 hour ago, dog said:

Solve  dining issues while on board the ship.

so they can apologize & maybe compensate

 

Dining supervisors and managers seemingly spend most of their time apologizing after-the-fact which keeps them from making sure everything is going the way it should. They were comping meals and handing out free bottles of wine like it was candy on Halloween.

We were assured while on board that some of the things that I brought up during our two weeks on the Ruby would not happen again, yet they did, over & over again.

When I was much younger, I worked in the hospitality industry for many years including private clubs, hotels, popular nightclubs, and even an embassy.

We ended up cancelling the remainder of our specialty dining reservations, and when I did so I suggested to the manager that the best thing he could do would be to not fill the now vacant time slot with another reservation since they were "in the weeds". My words fell on deaf ears. Getting those cover charges into the bank account is more important than quality food & service.

[CineGraphic]

1 hour ago, ldubs said:

Handing off an appetizer that was from another table seems off the chart to me.  I'm curious how that happened.  Delivering it to the wrong table then bringing it to you is different from giving you a leftover from another table.

 

Our table was in the back, near a bussing station. It may have come from there.

It was the typical app from Sabatini's, which is supposed to have 4 pieces of warm fried bread, a dipping sauce and some prosciutto. Our app only had 1 piece of cold bread, with some meat missing and the dipping sauce had clearly been dipped in. The manager looked on in disbelief when I pointed it out.

[geoherb]

How did they respond to your complaint about the appetizer and the F-bombs? I'm still waiting for a response to my complaint that I mailed in January and followed up in May. My complaint was about disappearing OBC when switching my booking from an inside to a balcony. The emailed confirmation I received from a rep included the OBC. The final confirmation did not have the same amount. My complaint also was about having to deal with nine different reps to get somewhat of a satisfactory solution to my rebooking problem (other than the OBC). It's been seven weeks since my follow-up contact and 24 weeks since when Princess should have received my letter.

[PacnGoNow]

47 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

Our table was in the back, near a bussing station. It may have come from there.

It was the typical app from Sabatini's, which is supposed to have 4 pieces of warm fried bread, a dipping sauce and some prosciutto. Our app only had 1 piece of cold bread, with some meat missing and the dipping sauce had clearly been dipped in. The manager looked on in disbelief when I pointed it out.

Gross!

[CineGraphic]

10 minutes ago, geoherb said:

How did they respond to your complaint about the appetizer and the F-bombs?

 

My initial email listed about 10 problems including those two. Another major problem was the constant smell of weed in our hallway. Everyone knew which cabin it was coming from, but nothing was done. So much for their "no tolerance" policy.

 

We were given a small amount of FCC and told that our letter would be placed on top of an already large pile of similar complaints.  She assured us that they would all eventually be read by someone.

Everything was blamed on Covid, no surprise there.

[ldubs]

1 hour ago, CineGraphic said:

 

Our table was in the back, near a bussing station. It may have come from there.

It was the typical app from Sabatini's, which is supposed to have 4 pieces of warm fried bread, a dipping sauce and some prosciutto. Our app only had 1 piece of cold bread, with some meat missing and the dipping sauce had clearly been dipped in. The manager looked on in disbelief when I pointed it out.

 

Oh man, that is even worse that I would imagine.  Definitely a head shaker.

 

Look on the bright side.  At least it wasn't missing a bite. 😀  

[dog]

3 hours ago, CineGraphic said:

 

Dining supervisors and managers seemingly spend most of their time apologizing after-the-fact which keeps them from making sure everything is going the way it should. They were comping meals and handing out free bottles of wine like it was candy on Halloween.

We were assured while on board that some of the things that I brought up during our two weeks on the Ruby would not happen again, yet they did, over & over again.

When I was much younger, I worked in the hospitality industry for many years including private clubs, hotels, popular nightclubs, and even an embassy.

We ended up cancelling the remainder of our specialty dining reservations, and when I did so I suggested to the manager that the best thing he could do would be to not fill the now vacant time slot with another reservation since they were "in the weeds". My words fell on deaf ears. Getting those cover charges into the bank account is more important than quality food & service.

Change cruise line.

 

I have never had such issues in my 35+ cruises re: dining.

 

everywhere staffing issues seem to be a big problem..

 

did any of this happen pre pandemic?

[CineGraphic]

5 minutes ago, dog said:

Change cruise line. We cancelled our October Princess cruise, and replaced it with 9 days on Virgin Voyages. We have one more booking with Princess for next February. It could very well be our last.

 

I have never had such issues in my 35+ cruises re: dining.  If that's supposed to mean anything to me, it doesn't.

 

everywhere staffing issues seem to be a big problem.. Yes, salaries don't cover living costs in many places in the world.

 

did any of this happen pre pandemic?  Bad service did exist, just not to this extent.

The pandemic is nothing new. Princess has been sailing for almost a year, and it's clear that there are problems. When something doesn't work, you try to fix it until it does. Princess could easily sail with less ships since it's so hard to keep the current fleet staffed, but the bean-counters are more important than customers. 

Virgin is sailing with 2 ships, and I'm not hearing of any problems. They delayed the launch of a 3rd ship because they wanted to keep their service standards up.

 

[alibabacruisers]

Thank you for telling us all about your letter and response to Princess as well as your experiences.

[dog]

18 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

Let us know how that goes.

[Coral]

I had an issue in February. It probably took 12 hours of waiting on hold and I got the wrong answer from the vast majority of the people I spoke to at Princess. I barely could get anyone to help. I emailed Princess about this and never got an answer. Pretty pathetic. 

[Pizzasteve]

Well, from my perspective, the whole travel world is in a shambles right now with similar problems.  Our neighbor just returned from a non cruise trip and their bags took 10 days to arrive home.  Another friend took 2 days to get from Boston to SF, by air. Wait times approaching 4 hours to pass security in London.

 

These are just stories from friends.

 

Us cruise passengers are rightfully spoiled and a bit entitled, too, to be honest.  

 

I read the thread about some service issues with a medical issue onboard, then remembered a conversation with a Cambodian, who explained they have no doctors at all, ever.  Their MDs per capita is 1 in 16,000.  Yet we have doctors saving lives on a ship with under 2000 people.

 

We are very lucky to get the services we enjoy and perhaps some understanding of the difficulty of an almost bankrupt company doing their best to keep thousands employed and thousands more entertained and fed.

 

Perhaps some empathy for the company and its employees is a good thought to ponder.  I certainly would not want the CEOs responsibilities today, having advised CEOs in the past I understand it is indeed a hot seat, with many worries.

[CineGraphic]

22 minutes ago, Pizzasteve said:

Perhaps some empathy for the company and its employees is a good thought to ponder.  I certainly would not want the CEOs responsibilities today, having advised CEOs in the past I understand it is indeed a hot seat, with many worries.

 

Shouldn't faithful customers see some sort of empathy from the company when paying full price for a sub-par product?

CEOs command lofty salaries to deal with such problems. Some succeed, others fail.

 

In the hospitality business, I would much rather deal with a company that limits the number of customers they have in order to provide the proper service.

Princess has chosen the opposite, choosing to cut-back on services instead.

[Steelers36]

7 hours ago, dog said:

Call Princess as soon as they start in the morning. This has been working for me.

 

Solve  dining issues while on board the ship.

so they can apologize & maybe compensate.

 

Don’t sweat the small stuff.

I think most of the regulars on here realize by now that calling PCL early is a good way to beat the long hold times. 

 

Yes, of course address any dining/food/drink issues on board.  And @CineGraphic did so.  I am sure it was an exception mistake as I have not heard of this before.  On its own, it could be seen as a "small stuff", but seems to be just another in a line of issues that were off-base from prior cruising experiences with PCL for @CineGraphic. 

 

I do notice at times, you seem to be more apologetic for Princess.  We have liked Princess as well for a long time and I am very saddened and disappointed in the Princess of 2021 and 2022 (thus far). 

 

The following are not "small stuff" things:

 

• Not meeting marketing hype over the MedallionClass App and DineMyWay.  
• Saying one thing and it not at all being the case on the ships.
• Leaving many people up in the air with no access to cruise registration for months on end until releasing a web version of part of MedallionClass App.
• Endless System and data integrity errors and still some persist over a year after launch.
• Inability to staff and train to meet renewed cruise demand (granted this is an industry-wide issue, but PCL is particularly hampered by all kinds of issue calls due to their failed systems implementations).
• Lack of documentation and clear publishing of policies and procedures around things like MedallionNet, Dining reservations, OBC as refundable or not.

 

I could probably go on, but all of the above have been addressed in innumerable threads on the Princess board here on CC.  Not to mention thousands of posts on DMW and MedallionClass App.

 

Don't get me wrong completely here.  I am also a CCL shareholder and I want PCL to succeed.  I fear they are going to bleed customers.  IDK how many.  It does seem that recent voyages are going off not badly, so there is some hope.  I still think we need to see what happens after we regular long-time customers have exhausted our Covid-19 FCC's. 

 

 

Edited July 17, 2022 by Steelers36

[dog]

9 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

I think most of the regulars on here realize by now that calling PCL early is a good way to beat the long hold times. 

 

Yes, of course address any dining/food/drink issues on board.  And @CineGraphic did so.  I am sure it was an exception mistake as I have not heard of this before.  On its own, it could be seen as a "small stuff", but seems to be just another in a line of issues that were off-base from prior cruising experiences with PCL for @CineGraphic. 

 

I do notice at times, you seem to be more apologetic for Princess.  We have liked Princess as well for a long time and I am very saddened and disappointed in the Princess of 2021 and 2022 (thus far). 

 

The following are not "small stuff" things:

 

• Not meeting marketing hype over the MedallionClass App and DineMyWay.  
• Saying one thing and it not at all being the case on the ships.
• Leaving many people up in the air with no access to cruise registration for months on end until releasing a web version of part of MedallionClass App.
• Endless System and data integrity errors and still some persist over a year after launch.
• Inability to staff and train to meet renewed cruise demand (granted this is an industry-wide issue, but PCL is particularly hampered by all kinds of issue calls due to their failed systems implementations).
• Lack of documentation and clear publishing of policies and procedures around things like MedallionNet, Dining reservations, OBC as refundable or not.

 

I could probably go on, but all of the above have been addressed in innumerable threads on the Princess board here on CC.  Not to mention thousands of posts on DMW and MedallionClass App.

 

Don't get me wrong completely here.  I am also a CCL shareholder and I want PCL to succeed.  I fear they are going to bleed customers.  IDK how many.  It does seem that recent voyages are going off not badly, so there is some hope.  I still think we need to see what happens after we regular long-time customers have exhausted our Covid-19 FCC's. 

 

 

Delete

[dog]

I am Not a Princess cheerleader. I apologize for no one else.

 

listen folks, I’ve reached my limit and   
will move on from this forum.

 

Edited July 17, 2022 by dog

[milogurd]

19 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Saying one thing and it not at all being the case on the ships.

Princess...Consistently Inconsistent.

[HogTide]

On 7/16/2022 at 6:47 PM, CineGraphic said:

 

Shouldn't faithful customers see some sort of empathy from the company when paying full price for a sub-par product?

CEOs command lofty salaries to deal with such problems. Some succeed, others fail.

 

In the hospitality business, I would much rather deal with a company that limits the number of customers they have in order to provide the proper service.

Princess has chosen the opposite, choosing to cut-back on services instead.

Great and appropriate response!!