Complaning to RR after wedding is over?

[JPerry]

Now that the wedding is over there are a few things i am upset about. I was wondering if anyone had complained to RR and if it did any good?

Overall our wedding was wonderful but much of it was because we were so on top of things. If we wouldnt have had every e mail printed out, and everything we wanted written down, im afraid of what may have happened.

First of all if you have read any of my other posts about our wedding, the lady that married us completely messed up all the wording, it was very obvious and most of our guests commented about it and how the lady really screwed up the wording. (usually you would hope only you would notice the mistakes)

 

Second when the toast came around the best man was supposed to give it, and they introduced my brother and gave him the microphone, he was not supposed to do the toast and he was totally unprepared.

 

Third we paid $350 an hour (2 hours) for the D.J., he did a good job but we had to pay an extra $150 for a "sound and light technitian" that was not there. There were no lights on in the reception room, only light coming in the windows from outside. Many of our pictures came out very dark because there were no lights on the dance floor. (but we paid for that)

 

Sorry I needed to rant, i have been upset about this but i didnt know if it would do any good to complain to RR.

 

Those of you who havent gotten married yet dont let this distract you, like i said overall it was very nice, but stay on top of things....dont expect RR or the wedding coordinators to have their act together. It is amazing how little your wedding coordinators will know about what you want done.

We had 2 wedding coordinators and they told the best man that our wedding was the smoothest that they had ever done,and there were quite a few things that were not right, and i know that was only because we had everything we wanted written down and put in a folder that we took with us. I would hate to see what would have happened if we didnt.

[ShedQueen77]

It might not do any good in the way of getting a refund or anything like that. But....it may do YOU good to shoot them off a letter of complaint. It might make you feel a little better about the mistakes made and give you a little peace of mind.

 

CC the letter to Royal Caribbean's customer service department as well just to document your issues to them as well. One can cross their fingers and hope that if the cruiselines get enough complaints about the terrible service they are subcontracting, maybe they'll find another company to use or make some desperately needed improvements.

 

If you want to take a more drastic approach, read diannaallen's post about her crusade against TWE and see if that is something you might want to do.

 

The whole point to a cruise wedding and hiring a coordinator is to not HAVE to chase down every detail yourself and make sure everything goes smoothly. You shouldn't have to keep every little letter, email, and phone call documented to get what you paid for. If it comes to that, you should just be paying yourself to do the coordinator's job for them. :rolleyes:

 

I can't say how sorry I am that your wedding didn't turn out like you hoped. If you need to rant, feel free to do so anytime. I understand! :)

[sas80]

I emailed a letter to Royal Romance and CC'd web_cruise_comments@rccl.com

 

I received a partial refund from them.

 

I would say to also email dianna allen and see what she has going on there.

 

I agree with luvmytbear. The whole point to doing a cruise wedding is to be able to relax and have every detail taken care of without giving it a second thought. This only happens for a handful of people. It didn't happen for me either. The things RR assured me the coordinators would handle were actually handled by MY wedding party and family because the coordinators were clueless.

 

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

[fegan01970]

I would also cc the Attorney General's office. This may seem to be extreme, but trust me when I say, RR will take notice and act!

[Jeano222]

People have come to this board and asked about TWE and RR and people have warned about the very things you have mentioned and more. If people choose to disregard other people's warnings, and use them anyway and then come back to the boards complaining, then I think that's pretty sad. They will toss your letter in a pile with all the rest of them, you won't get anything back, although you'll feel better that you got it off your chest, which is worth something.

[NurseBeth]

People have come to this board and asked about TWE and RR and people have warned about the very things you have mentioned and more. If people choose to disregard other people's warnings, and use them anyway and then come back to the boards complaining, then I think that's pretty sad.

 

Well I think that's pretty harsh.....no one deserves to have disappointments on their wedding day when they have paid money for services. For some people a cruise wedding is all they can afford, for others it's their dream wedding and they want it more than anything, and for others they just want something simple & "stress-free". Every person has a different situation, and chooses to have a cruise ship wedding for different reasons. Your "they get what they deserve" attitude is pretty cold IMO, but that's what a public message board is all about...different opinions.

 

JPerry....I think you should send out SEVERAL letters of complaint. You have nothing to lose at this point. Good luck & keep us posted!

[Jeano222]

Yes, I'm sure it does sound harsh, but the reason for the boards is to give feedback good or bad. I am simply stating the truth, people do have the right to make a choice about whether they want to do something, and if it doesn't go well and knowing the track record of the wedding service from reading these boards then a certain amount of blame must go to the person who decided to do it anyway. Weddings are too special to not want things to go well. I made the decision not to go with RR from what I read here and personal experience with trying to communicate with them. I could have gone ahead and put up with their lack of service, and suffer the consequences, of not getting things that I had planned and paid for but I chose to do a destination wedding with a private wedding planner and it was the best choice I could have ever made at half the price of RR. I am sure there have been wonderful weddings done through cruise ships and I am so happy for those people, but there has been enough bad press about RR/TWE to make people sit up and take notice whether they can accept what comes their way, if it isn't what they had hoped for.

[momofsamandeden]

As a second time bride I can say that all weddings have things that do not go your way no matter how you plan it. We had lobster at my first wedding yet I did not have any nor did my close family because people who said no on the response showed up.

I say write the letter about the light show. I doubt they would care about the messed up wording but you may be able to get the light show refunded.

[AlabamaWorley]

People have come to this board and asked about TWE and RR and people have warned about the very things you have mentioned and more. If people choose to disregard other people's warnings, and use them anyway and then come back to the boards complaining, then I think that's pretty sad. They will toss your letter in a pile with all the rest of them, you won't get anything back, although you'll feel better that you got it off your chest, which is worth something.

 

If you want to get married on a ship, at sea, then you have no choice but deal with them so it isn't fair to put others down for sticking with the type of wedding we want.

[JPerry]

Well I will go ahead and send them an e mail as you have all mentioned, it cant hurt and if anything maybe it will help future brides.

 

As for not listening to the advice on these boards about RR, i would have to say that i did listen to alot of the information, that is why every document was saved and taken with us. I had a feeling that things would go wrong, but i was trying to prevent as much as i could....and it sounds like i may have, since the coordinators said it was the smoothest wedding so far. I know that no wedding is ever perfect, but paying for things we didnt get isnt right. I was wanting a less stressful wedding planning period, and we loved the cruise wedding idea so we went with it.

[flhokie]

If you want to get married on a ship, at sea, then you have no choice but deal with them so it isn't fair to put others down for sticking with the type of wedding we want.

 

Well said!! We want a wedding at sea so we are dealing with TWE. Yes there has been much debate on TWE on this board, but we are going to have the wedding we want. From reading of the issues people have had I make sure to conduct as much of the communication in writing as possible (and will take it with me). I'm also prepared for the fact that things may (and probably will)go wrong on our wedding day (as someone else said things go wrong with weddings all the time).

 

I know this has been mentioned before, but it seems to be very hit or miss with TWE. Those with Princess and Carnival seem to have a better time than those with RCCL and Norwegian, and different coordinators seem to better than others.

[ShedQueen77]

People have come to this board and asked about TWE and RR and people have warned about the very things you have mentioned and more. If people choose to disregard other people's warnings, and use them anyway and then come back to the boards complaining, then I think that's pretty sad. They will toss your letter in a pile with all the rest of them, you won't get anything back, although you'll feel better that you got it off your chest, which is worth something.

 

You will find that I am most definitely not a TWE cheerleader. But in all fairness, you can't really 100% base any decision off of reviews alone. If that were the case, all the cruise ships in the world would be empty! Every single ship that has been reviewed by members here at CC has a lot of negative things to say about it.

 

What is sad is that TWE is still the coordinator of choice for pretty much all of the cruiselines. The only way I think it will stop is for people to start speaking with their money and taking their business elsewhere. I think some of the reason that it seems like no one in the cruiseline's customer service departments takes the customer complaints seriously is that people are still booking their weddings with TWE and the bottom line, they're still making money.

 

Yes, I know if you have a shipboard wedding you do not have a choice. I wish that could change somehow. But if people like JPerry and others stop making their complaints loudly and publicly then how is anything supposed to change, especially for those who are "forced" to use TWE?

[Jeano222]

luvmytbear, you hit the nail on the head with your remarks. I wonder how many cruise brides there are that never knew there were message boards that talk about weddings through ships. I know that when I started I thought that doing a wedding through the ship would be the cheapest and simplest way to do it. I am so upset for all the brides that are having trouble or may have trouble with RR/TWE. As long as people keep booking weddings with them, it won't change. None of us consider ourselves Bridezillas, but come on, these brides have paid good money to get bad service and in many cases, paying for things they never got.

[diannaallen72@verizon.net]

I feel for each and every one of you that have to go through this again and again. Heres the problem, we being women (and if there are men out there, I appologize for forgeting you), want to make sure every detail is taken care of. That is why we research and research to either get the best deal or to make sure we get what we paid for. Its very sad to see that people are still having major issues and might I just say they are the same issues with everyone. But lets go one step further, we read these blogs and emails and say "well I will make sure I CYA" (cover your a _ _ ), we print everything and instead of phone calls we email to make sure we get it in writing. Now, everyone is doing this and still having the same problem, broken contractual agreements. I have sent many emails to the appropriate people ie. NCL executives, TWE, atty general etc. and have received a gesture, 400.00 back from TWE and a small amount of credit from NCL for a cruise that needs to be taken in 1 year. I did thank NCL for their gesture but TWE gesture was an insult. We paid close to 8,000.00 for our wedding with upgrades and the wedding was a complete mess. These are not the memories I want to remember but still do. There is absalutly no reason why a bride should go above and beyond what she should be doing for her wedding, that is what you pay them for. But yet again, and even after printing and documenting everything, the RR/TWE etc. still comes back and says they did not say that or deny they did anything wrong. They seem to forget that you documented everything and took extra extra time to do this to make sure they come through with what they promised and they still screw up and blame you. Unacceptable!! As always, my goal is to make sure this does not continue to happen, I am currently in the process of contacting an atty in florida for some advice and at which point I plan to contact the florida atty general to see if he will coordinate a class action against the company. I feel that everyone has gone way past what they should be doing especially when you paid someone else to do it and we are still have major problem with what most people say is one of the most important days of their lives. Lets see if the atty general can curve their lack of compassion and broken agreements. Dianna (diannaallen72@verizon.net)

[StlGal]

Yes, I'm sure it does sound harsh, but the reason for the boards is to give feedback good or bad. I am simply stating the truth, people do have the right to make a choice about whether they want to do something, and if it doesn't go well and knowing the track record of the wedding service from reading these boards then a certain amount of blame must go to the person who decided to do it anyway. Weddings are too special to not want things to go well. I made the decision not to go with RR from what I read here and personal experience with trying to communicate with them. I could have gone ahead and put up with their lack of service, and suffer the consequences, of not getting things that I had planned and paid for but I chose to do a destination wedding with a private wedding planner and it was the best choice I could have ever made at half the price of RR. I am sure there have been wonderful weddings done through cruise ships and I am so happy for those people, but there has been enough bad press about RR/TWE to make people sit up and take notice whether they can accept what comes their way, if it isn't what they had hoped for.

 

Bravo Jeano222!!! I couldn't agree with you more! This is exactly what boards are for!

[sas80]

I still have all my emails and correspondence if you need it/want to review it or want me to organize it for you.

 

I don't know if I can join in the action because I took their monetary offer, but I can sure provide another scenario for whomever to prove tht this isnt an isolated incident!

[diannaallen72@verizon.net]

Thanks, feel free to send me an email with a brief outline of your complaints, just because you took there gesture does not mean it did not happen and I am positive the powers that be will be very interested in knowing how many people this happens to and how often. Unless people speak out, there is no way of the correct people ie. NCL RCCL etc. to know what is continously happening. It's just too bad that people are being treated like garbage.

[JPerry]

Well it was very ironic that the day after i posted this thread, I got a call from RR wanting to know how are wedding experiance was. I was at work when i got the message so i could not call them back. That night my husband and i wrote down all of our complaints. He called them back the next day, I had him make the phone call because for one he is a police officer so he is very good at tallking to people without getting upset, he usually gets his point across very well, when all i would do is get upset and probably get nothing acomplished. He talked to the lady that left me the message on my phone. He told her about us paying $150.00 for a sound and light technitian that was not there, and that are pictures came out dark because there were no lights on at all, just the outside light coming in the windows, he also told her about the officiant totally messing up the ceremony, and how we were very upset about that. There were some other things that he complined about too.

Anyway she tried to lay on the "no wedding is ever perfect" crap.

After all was said and done, she refunded us our sound & light technitian fee of $150.00. She also refunded $100.00 for the officiant fee.

So i guess that was fair, i didnt even expect to get that.:rolleyes:

[KC_fn]

I understand that brides get starry-eyed over the romance of a wedding at sea. But I can't even imagine handing my big day over to a one-stop shop like RR or TWE.

 

You're dealing with people you won't even meet until wedding day. If you don't like, say, the photographer -- too bad, you're stuck. Everything about these weddings is mass-produced, so you can't have any expectation that they'll do anything special for you. If you're dissatisfied with any aspect, it's a crapshoot whether you'll get any kind of satisfaction afterwards (neither the cruiselines nor the wedding shops are exactly known for stellar customer service). I don't know about RR/TWE, but there's another thread about AWFY, an outfit which won't even give you a written contract; it's unbelievable to me that anyone would allow a vendor to handle something as important as a wedding without getting every detail in writing.

 

Personally, I'd get married in the comfort of my hometown, with vendors who are established and reputable, and who know I can find them after the wedding if they don't do a good job for me. A cruise would make a great honeymoon.

[Prinycesa07]

I understand that brides get starry-eyed over the romance of a wedding at sea. But I can't even imagine handing my big day over to a one-stop shop like RR or TWE.

 

You're dealing with people you won't even meet until wedding day. If you don't like, say, the photographer -- too bad, you're stuck. Everything about these weddings is mass-produced, so you can't have any expectation that they'll do anything special for you. If you're dissatisfied with any aspect, it's a crapshoot whether you'll get any kind of satisfaction afterwards (neither the cruiselines nor the wedding shops are exactly known for stellar customer service). I don't know about RR/TWE, but there's another thread about AWFY, an outfit which won't even give you a written contract; it's unbelievable to me that anyone would allow a vendor to handle something as important as a wedding without getting every detail in writing.

 

Personally, I'd get married in the comfort of my hometown, with vendors who are established and reputable, and who know I can find them after the wedding if they don't do a good job for me. A cruise would make a great honeymoon.

 

 

And I can't imagine getting married at home! BLAH! Too traditional and boring for me. I would die if i had to stress over every detail. To each their own!

[J's Gal]

And I can't imagine getting married at home! BLAH! Too traditional and boring for me. I would die if i had to stress over every detail. To each their own!

 

Couldn't have said it better myself! ;)

[NurseBeth]

 

Personally, I'd get married in the comfort of my hometown, with vendors who are established and reputable, and who know I can find them after the wedding if they don't do a good job for me. A cruise would make a great honeymoon.

 

 

We can't AFFORD a wedding in our hometown....which was part of my point earlier. People choose cruise weddings for different reasons. Our main reasons for choosing a shipboard wedding was the reasonable cost, along with the ability for family members who can't cruise to still attend the wedding. I would love to go with an island planner, but then there would be several much-loved family members absent at our ceremony. So the shipboard wedding was the best solution for us.

 

I have come to this board to try to prepare myself as much as possible for our wedding; however, I don't think that I "get what I deserve" when it comes to choosing TWE. It's the only choice I have for the type of wedding that works for us. That's all I was trying to say earlier. ;) We aren't flying in the face of reason by booking despite what we have read....for some brides it's the best choice. For some brides it's the only choice.

[sas80]

I understand that brides get starry-eyed over the romance of a wedding at sea. But I can't even imagine handing my big day over to a one-stop shop like RR or TWE.

 

You're dealing with people you won't even meet until wedding day. If you don't like, say, the photographer -- too bad, you're stuck. Everything about these weddings is mass-produced, so you can't have any expectation that they'll do anything special for you. If you're dissatisfied with any aspect, it's a crapshoot whether you'll get any kind of satisfaction afterwards (neither the cruiselines nor the wedding shops are exactly known for stellar customer service). I don't know about RR/TWE, but there's another thread about AWFY, an outfit which won't even give you a written contract; it's unbelievable to me that anyone would allow a vendor to handle something as important as a wedding without getting every detail in writing.

 

Personally, I'd get married in the comfort of my hometown, with vendors who are established and reputable, and who know I can find them after the wedding if they don't do a good job for me. A cruise would make a great honeymoon.

 

Just curious...

 

If you couldn't/wouldn't turn your wedding over to an on board coordinator, like RR/TWE, and are going to get married in the comfort of your own home town.....

What brings you to these boards? :confused:

[NurseBeth]

Just curious...

 

If you couldn't/wouldn't turn your wedding over to an on board coordinator, like RR/TWE, and are going to get married in the comfort of your own home town.....

What brings you to these boards? :confused:

 

LOL sas! I was wondering the same thing! ;)

[Tara818]

Yeah and she posted it twice on two different threads... and at 2am... weird... :confused: lol