Cruises-N-More

I am so furious and angry at Cruises-N-More for screwing me over twice and making the start of my cruise horrible. This has been my worst experience with an agency and I would never recommend them to anyone. I booked my cruise through Steven who seemed nice, but I do not know if he is a liar or poorly trained in cruise policies. But seriously, if you work for a cruise agency, I expect you to know rebooking policies for a huge cruise line, Royal Caribbean. I asked if the cruise became cheaper, would I be able to adjust the price. He says, “Yes, all we need to do is cancel and rebook it.” This sounded good so far, but here is the story of horrible customer service and lack of knowledge, and the inability to own to their mistakes.

The cruise became cheaper and I called my agent, but he was on off for several days. So I decide to call the general number and end up talking to Dana. She seemed so disinterested in helping me. I had to request that she call the cruise line to see if anything can be done. She tells me I cannot get the cheaper price because I paid my final payment. Well of course I had to since the cruise was like 1-2 months away and I asked Steven about putting a deposit, but he said that is only allowed for advance booking. So that did not make any sense because I had to pay the full amount. She offered nothing else and ended the conversation. I finally got a hold of Steven when he returned and I tried again to adjust the price. Well this time, the cruise is now sold out and I asked him why Dana could not adjust it for me. He tells me some BS about Royal has a new policy (april or may) that they do not rebook but merely upgrade you to whatever is equivalent to what you paid. Then I told him that he told me I could adjust and he seemed so dumbfounded and had no answer. I was pissed that Dana did not even offer an upgrade and called the supervisor for a clear-up. No help, just the normal supervisor answer about educating her agents and yada. So I get screwed in a nicer room and money.

I decided this issue until I found out that the agent/cruise switched one of my two rooms without letting me know. I paid an extra 20 bucks per person to have my rooms together as the original configuration had them on different floors. I had to adjust the reservations to remove someone from a room but they decided to move one of the rooms far away. Wasn’t the whole point of me paying extra was to be next to one another? The thing that angered me is that they never notified me of the change when I did it over the phone. A, “we had to change your room, ” would have worked fine for me. My account is tied to the other room and he knew I had 2 rooms and I paid for them to be together. It is simply unacceptable from an agent. I called to complain and their simple answer, sorry can’t do anything, enjoy your cruise. I left a message to the supervisor to call me and give me a resolution or explanation, and guess what, no call. Stay away from their lies and crappy customer service, even though the prices are attractive, book through someone else. They will just screw you over like they did to me, twice.

Seven of us in our family have been cruising on a regular basis, averaging about one cruise a year. This is the first and last time we will book a cruise with Cruises-N- More. This trip was booked to celebrate several important family events. At this point my Carol is so upset that she is not looking forward to the trip. Carol had to negotiate time off in order to take this cruise. The time we have spent trying to deal with Cruises-N-More has been a considerable nuisance and very stressful. Both of us have very demanding jobs.

It is our understanding that Tifni is the daughter of the owner of the company. Tifni’s management of Cruises-N-More needs to improve. She is operating a service industry company that provides a very poor quality of service. She is responsible for supervising the actions of her staff as well as her own actions.

I do not understand how our quote this has now translated into my parents paying so much more money. They were billed for over $7, 000 instead of $4, 500 (approx). Invoices attached.

CC: Not responsive to phone or e-mail messages – I’ve left messages a number of times that were not returned. I had to continue to call in and “luck” into getting someone to answer. On a recent call I didn’t bother to leave a message for Tiffany because her voice mail said she was 48 hrs behind in returning messages. I am not sure what level of service this implies - poor in my opinion. Instead of leaving a message for Tiffany, I redialed and tried Evelyn’s number but as usual got a voice mail recording. I left a message. I called back minutes later and selected the ‘pay bill option’ from the menu and Evelyn answered. She said she was the only person in the office and that’s why she hadn’t responded to my call. However Ann called in just after my call and talked to Steven so there apparently was someone else in the office.

AT: I spoke with Stephen who was very unhelpful and rude, asking me why I was trying to make changes a month before the trip – I replied we had been trying to communicate with Cruises-n-More staff for a year with minimal success and the staff there was responsible for a number of egregious errors that were still causing us problems. I was very offended by his disrespectful tone and by his lack of customer service. I realize this is a discount travel agency, but his tone and lack of service was frustrating and unhelpful. This is a hospitality industry. We have not received any degree of hospitality from Cruises-N-More.

ACT: When I made the reservations, I mentioned that I have MS and my father is ill so that it would be nice if our family could be close together – I realize this could not be guaranteed but since my sister and I were signed up for the same type of cabin we were told by Esther it was quite likely to work out that we could at least be on the same deck.

CC: Original information for our cruise was incorrectly entered into the Princess Cruises system by Esther so I was unable to access our reservations. After months of trying to reach Cruises and More (no response to my voice mails from Esther or anyone else), I got through to Tifni who said Esther had been fired because she was incompetent. I found out that my husband and his mother’s last name (which are the same) had been entered differently.- one There were also other errors including incorrect mailing address.

CC: Fees for our parent’s balcony rooms are much higher than ours for a larger mini suite. Unknown reason for upgrade for Theis but not for Chambers/Noble. Princess can’t explain it. Cruises N More says Princess did this.

CC: When I called to talk with Tiffany about the difference in cost between our mini-suite (a larger room) and our parents’ balcony suite (a smaller room; for Jay and Elizabeth Chambers), Tifni was very defensive (and unhelpful) about why their smaller room was so much higher priced than our mini suites. Our parents are on a limited budget. They would not have knowingly chosen a higher priced option.

ACT: And, based on the initial quote, they didn’t.

ACT: The staff at Princess has been very helpful when I’ve called to request clarification about some of these issues. The customer service level at Princess is one that Cruises-N-More drastically fails but one that they should try to emulate.