? Having to move cabin on Azura email today

[LLOM]

We got an email this afternoon asking us to check all our checking details were correct, I then noticed that they had indeed changed our cabin , on checking were it was, it is in an area I would not have chosen as it is in shaded area, we do like to spend quite some time on the balcony and that is why we pay the extra to pick a specific cabin, I rang to say I was not happy about the cabin position and was informed that nothing could be done as the ship was full,  I asked if we cancelled could we have a full refund, the reply was no we were not entitled to a refund, should we want to we could complain to customer service, I then said it was pointless paying extra to pick a cabin number, which there was no reply accept to reiterate contacting customer service. The grade of cabin is the same as the one we picked but not in the area we wanted to be, to say we are bitterly disappointed with the attitude to customers has put a downer on the cruise is an understatement but our hands are tied , accept or loose the money is unfortunately their attitude. 

[Camberley]

4 minutes ago, LLOM said:

We got an email this afternoon asking us to check all our checking details were correct, I then noticed that they had indeed changed our cabin , on checking were it was, it is in an area I would not have chosen as it is in shaded area, we do like to spend quite some time on the balcony and that is why we pay the extra to pick a specific cabin, I rang to say I was not happy about the cabin position and was informed that nothing could be done as the ship was full,  I asked if we cancelled could we have a full refund, the reply was no we were not entitled to a refund, should we want to we could complain to customer service, I then said it was pointless paying extra to pick a cabin number, which there was no reply accept to reiterate contacting customer service. The grade of cabin is the same as the one we picked but not in the area we wanted to be, to say we are bitterly disappointed with the attitude to customers has put a downer on the cruise is an understatement but our hands are tied , accept or loose the money is unfortunately their attitude. 

I am so sorry P&O have once again been so dreadful. There is a total lack of empathy from them with this appalling customer service and to be honest I don’t blame you if you never use them again: with their attitude like this they certainly deserve no loyalty. Yes, it really makes a mockery of the paying extra to make your selection of the cabin. Presumably they’re not even giving you that extra money back?

 

If you go I am sure you will have a good time nonetheless. But what a real sour point at the moment.

[LLOM]

Thank you Camberley for your kind thoughts but I did mention the extra we paid to choose the cabin would they recompense this, their reply was you have to take it up with customer service. We have cruised a lot with p&o and are at Baltic level, this is the first time we have found ourselves having to complain and I found their tone quite flippant in their attitude . I am sure they left it this late to inform us of the change knowing there was not a lot we could do. It has left us with a very sour taste before we even get on the ship.

[Presto2]

Reading this makes me twitch !

Sorry if this is off topic but where were the quarantine areas on Britannia?

We cancelled a cruise on Ventura as we knew our cabin was being used.

As someone has said, we thought the days of Covid being like the Black Death Plague were over .....

[Sunlog]

This happened to us in 2021 on Iona. We booked 2 years in advance chose our cabin. 3 weeks before departure P&O emailed to say ‘due to health ….’ We’ve had to move you from mid ship Deluxe Balcony but have upgraded you to a Junior Suite even though you chose not to upgrade. You’ve guessed it the junior suite was on deck 8 - promenade towards the front of the ship. We phoned and complained they told us the ship was full to either take the upgrade or cancel for full refund. We chose to cancel as we wanted privacy and sea views. About 45 mins later I receive a call from P&O saying they have a mid ship deluxe balcony on a slightly higher deck would we like it? They said that they found some cabins hadn’t been allocated and when they enquired with higher up management we’re told they were being held for ‘upgrades’

 

So in other words the ship was not full, they were holding back cabins to upgrade other passengers and were willing for us to cancel our holiday. We were fuming but in the end we took the higher floor mid deluxe cabin, the balcony was not as big as the one we had chosen but at least it was high mid ship and not on the promenade.

[tesni]

That's awful. I choose a particular cabin for a reason and would hate it to be changed last minute like that 😨

[Selbourne]

57 minutes ago, LLOM said:

Thank you Camberley for your kind thoughts but I did mention the extra we paid to choose the cabin would they recompense this, their reply was you have to take it up with customer service. We have cruised a lot with p&o and are at Baltic level, this is the first time we have found ourselves having to complain and I found their tone quite flippant in their attitude . I am sure they left it this late to inform us of the change knowing there was not a lot we could do. It has left us with a very sour taste before we even get on the ship.

Absolutely appalling. As I have said many times, when taking bookings the P&O shoreside staff are lovely, but when you have a compliant or a problem they are beyond useless and as well as lacking empathy they don’t have the first clue about customer service or problem resolution.
 

Like others, I am now very anxious about our next P&O cruise and the fact that @molecrochip has not provided any clarity regarding what this is all about is making me very suspicious. 

[LLOM]

We were told we would not get a full refund if we cancelled, and that the ship was full so they could not offer us any other cabin, but after reading sunlog statement I will ring again tomorrow and see if I get a more sympathetic advisor, we are so annoyed as we were only informed a few days ago and then advised this afternoon of the new cabin, you would think they would be guilty of not fulfilling their contract and could claim a refund but it would appear their T/C  cover this. Really not happy with P&O

[tring]

1 hour ago, LLOM said:

Thank you Camberley for your kind thoughts but I did mention the extra we paid to choose the cabin would they recompense this, their reply was you have to take it up with customer service. We have cruised a lot with p&o and are at Baltic level, this is the first time we have found ourselves having to complain and I found their tone quite flippant in their attitude . I am sure they left it this late to inform us of the change knowing there was not a lot we could do. It has left us with a very sour taste before we even get on the ship.

 

We would also be very annoyed, though it is reasonable that the member of staff you spoke to said you should take it up with customer service and it is their job to deal with this, not just the messenger who you spoke with previously.  You need to really press your case with customer service to see if you can get some sort of movement on what basically is only their first position. 

 

If there are cabins of a higher grade available, you may well have paid equivalent to the guarantee fare for that grade, which is perhaps what you are getting if there is no choice of actual cabin, for instance. 

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by tring

[tring]

5 minutes ago, LLOM said:

We were told we would not get a full refund if we cancelled, and that the ship was full so they could not offer us any other cabin, but after reading sunlog statement I will ring again tomorrow and see if I get a more sympathetic advisor, we are so annoyed as we were only informed a few days ago and then advised this afternoon of the new cabin, you would think they would be guilty of not fulfilling their contract and could claim a refund but it would appear their T/C  cover this. Really not happy with P&O

 

Another point is that a better positioned cabin may become vacant before you travel, or even on embarkation, as there are always "no shows".  So some sort of undertaking to look at moving you to a better cabin in that situation, is the very least I would expect.

 

[LLOM]

Thank you Tring, the advisor told us to email customer service , we would get a reply but not before we set sail and when I asked what good that would be she said that’s all she could offer, I asked about upgrades and she said again the ship was full and no upgrades were available, we just feel that they have us over a barrel and that it does not seem right, we paid and choose the cabin we wanted and at this late date there appears we can do nothing other than loose our money or go, obviously we will go and I think they know that which makes it harder to accept ! 

[tring]

14 minutes ago, LLOM said:

Thank you Tring, the advisor told us to email customer service , we would get a reply but not before we set sail and when I asked what good that would be she said that’s all she could offer, I asked about upgrades and she said again the ship was full and no upgrades were available, we just feel that they have us over a barrel and that it does not seem right, we paid and choose the cabin we wanted and at this late date there appears we can do nothing other than loose our money or go, obviously we will go and I think they know that which makes it harder to accept ! 

 

I would certainly formulate an email, asap but I would still be hankering to speak with someone as well.  The advantage of email though, is that you will have a record of that correspondence.  Even after you sail, it is worth pursuing imo, but do not ruin your cruise on account of it, obviously.

 

 

 

 

[Yorkypete]

45 minutes ago, tring said:

 

I would certainly formulate an email, asap but I would still be hankering to speak with someone as well.  The advantage of email though, is that you will have a record of that correspondence.  Even after you sail, it is worth pursuing imo, but do not ruin your cruise on account of it, obviously.

 

 

 

 

It is about  time P&O were taken to court over these issues.We have cancelled our future cruises with this company and would not touch them with a bargepole as the old saying goes.

 

[Son of Anarchy]

A couple of months ago we had an issue which the shoreside booking staff told us could only be resolved by e-mailing the Customer Support staff.

 

After getting the usual generic automated reply, I gave them a week, and then emailed: executive.correspondence@carnivalukgroup.com, FAO Paul Ludlow.

 

Needless to say, did not get a response from Mr Ludlow.  However, the matter was satisfactorily resolved in about two weeks.  The issue was not connected with cabin changes, but a mis-application of FCC on a booking where the balance is not due for another three months.  Maybe give that email address a go as well.  

[molecrochip]

Completely correct that call centre can’t process complaints.

 

Also worth noting that if a department has blocked cabins for some reason, the call centre just sees no availability as I understand - they don’t see them as blocked. They can check the status of individual cabins but that’s it.

 

@Selbourne I’ve not managed to find out about these specific cruises but don’t believe there is a carte blanche quarantine cabin policy. I suspect it’s a specific country/port being picky.

[carlanthony24]

21 minutes ago, molecrochip said:

Completely correct that call centre can’t process complaints.

 

Also worth noting that if a department has blocked cabins for some reason, the call centre just sees no availability as I understand - they don’t see them as blocked. They can check the status of individual cabins but that’s it.

 

@Selbourne I’ve not managed to find out about these specific cruises but don’t believe there is a carte blanche quarantine cabin policy. I suspect it’s a specific country/port being picky.

I think Italy are still being picky. When we called in to Cagliari deputy captain did say he was told masks do not need to be warn and they were only told when docked.

[Selbourne]

7 hours ago, molecrochip said:

 

@Selbourne I’ve not managed to find out about these specific cruises but don’t believe there is a carte blanche quarantine cabin policy. I suspect it’s a specific country/port being picky.

Thank you. Am I safe to assume that Norway is not one of those countries and therefore we are not at risk of a last minute problem with our August cruise on Iona?
 

As mentioned previously, I have booked a block of 3 adjacent Deluxe Balcony cabins and subsequently found out that these were in the previous quarantine zone. As ours is an accessible cabin, our cruise would have to be cancelled, as there is only one other accessible cabin that is of an equal or higher grade, and that’s the sole accessible suite which will be booked (and we didn’t want anyway). 

[Angel57]

As it is so often - it is the way this sort of issue is being dealt with.
If certain countries are enforcing the need for quarantine cabins to be available then that is out of P&Os control and they cannot be blamed.

However at the very least all affected cabins (and especially if quite a lot of extra money has been paid for a specific cabin) should be offered the option to cancel or given a decent chunk of OBC. They may not be legally obliged to recompense but morally……. 

 

[Harry Peterson]

19 minutes ago, Angel57 said:

As it is so often - it is the way this sort of issue is being dealt with.
If certain countries are enforcing the need for quarantine cabins to be available then that is out of P&Os control and they cannot be blamed.

However at the very least all affected cabins (and especially if quite a lot of extra money has been paid for a specific cabin) should be offered the option to cancel or given a decent chunk of OBC. They may not be legally obliged to recompense but morally……. 

 

I wholeheartedly agree.

 

And there might even be a legal obligation under the unfair terms legislation:

 

www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/unfair-terms-in-consumer-contracts-regulations-1999-aStUy9R7ArXw

[zap99]

10 hours ago, molecrochip said:

Completely correct that call centre can’t process complaints.

 

Also worth noting that if a department has blocked cabins for some reason, the call centre just sees no availability as I understand - they don’t see them as blocked. They can check the status of individual cabins but that’s it.

 

@Selbourne I’ve not managed to find out about these specific cruises but don’t believe there is a carte blanche quarantine cabin policy. I suspect it’s a specific country/port being picky.

Sounds a bit like mushroom management. Keep them in the dark and...............!. It's not actually a customer complaining is it ?. It's the folk who pay the wage bill trying to find out information...If you make things difficult, the may go away...Is that plan B ?. Plan A being ' Operational reasons '.

[Britboys]

54 minutes ago, Angel57 said:

As it is so often - it is the way this sort of issue is being dealt with.
If certain countries are enforcing the need for quarantine cabins to be available then that is out of P&Os control and they cannot be blamed.

However at the very least all affected cabins (and especially if quite a lot of extra money has been paid for a specific cabin) should be offered the option to cancel or given a decent chunk of OBC. They may not be legally obliged to recompense but morally……. 

 

And as ever with P&O, if they were more open in their communication, explaining exactly why the move is necessary it would help...

[Son of Anarchy]

18 minutes ago, zap99 said:

Sounds a bit like mushroom management. Keep them in the dark and...............!. It's not actually a customer complaining is it ?. It's the folk who pay the wage bill trying to find out information...If you make things difficult, the may go away...Is that plan B ?. Plan A being ' Operational reasons '.

That's the way I felt with our recent issue regarding mis-application of FCC.

 

We cancelled and then re-booked the same cruise at a significantly lower price. The original booking had over £2000 of FCC towards it.  The new booking only showed just over £1000 FCC.  We lost our original deposit (£100 as booked on board), not an issue.

 

I pointed out that the T & Cs re FCC where that the FCC is refunded less the deposit, was met with the response that an investigation had to be entered in to.  Into what I asked? How to deduct £100 from £2000?  As I have an O level in maths I did the sums for them and asked that they discuss the matter with on their of their bosses to manually adjust the booking to reflect the correct.  No can't do that, has to be investigated.

 

Which led me to emailing the executive correspondence mailbox.  Two weeks later, satisfactorily resolved, and the £100 loss of deposit waived as a gesture of goodwill, which was appreciated as I never queried the loss of deposit.

 

The way the call centre staff dealt with my issue lost the company £100.

[zap99]

5 minutes ago, Son of Anarchy said:

That's the way I felt with our recent issue regarding mis-application of FCC.

 

We cancelled and then re-booked the same cruise at a significantly lower price. The original booking had over £2000 of FCC towards it.  The new booking only showed just over £1000 FCC.  We lost our original deposit (£100 as booked on board), not an issue.

 

I pointed out that the T & Cs re FCC where that the FCC is refunded less the deposit, was met with the response that an investigation had to be entered in to.  Into what I asked? How to deduct £100 from £2000?  As I have an O level in maths I did the sums for them and asked that they discuss the matter with on their of their bosses to manually adjust the booking to reflect the correct.  No can't do that, has to be investigated.

 

Which led me to emailing the executive correspondence mailbox.  Two weeks later, satisfactorily resolved, and the £100 loss of deposit waived as a gesture of goodwill, which was appreciated as I never queried the loss of deposit.

 

The way the call centre staff dealt with my issue lost the company £100.

The thing that really hacks me off is ' you will need to speak to customer services '  NO. They should have the power to sort it, or they can speak to customer services '.  Sorry Sir, I can't deal with your query, I will transfer you to customer services,   or. I will speak to customer services and get somebody to phone you back..Here is their Direct line in case you need to speak to them........sorry mate, you will need to speak to customer services...no I can't tell you their direct number...join the queue again.😡

 

[LLOM]

After reading some of the posts here I again rang and explained that they would probably see all the cabins as taken could they then check with other departments if there were any availability from cabins that may show up as  blocked, I at least got someone who did show an interest in trying to resolve the matter but again came back with no availability, all they could offer was to speak to customer services when we get on board. As regards any compensation we have to go through customer service complaints department should we wish to pursue it.

[Britboys]

44 minutes ago, zap99 said:

The thing that really hacks me off is ' you will need to speak to customer services '  NO. They should have the power to sort it, or they can speak to customer services '.  Sorry Sir, I can't deal with your query, I will transfer you to customer services,   or. I will speak to customer services and get somebody to phone you back..Here is their Direct line in case you need to speak to them........sorry mate, you will need to speak to customer services...no I can't tell you their direct number...join the queue again.😡

 

Absolutely. I do understand why they cannot deal with it as they are really only there to sell cruises BUT they should be able to put you straight through to Customer Service to make a complaint.