FIRST OF A SERIES
It doesn’t happen all that often industry-wide. For the most part, cruise vacations are a care-free option for traveling with wide general appeal. When guests are matched with the right line and ship by an engaged travel professional all usually goes well. Where we come into problems, other than occasional flukes that happen in any business, is often when passengers somehow book the wrong ship… for them.
With hundreds to choose from and more being launched every year, it’s sometimes difficult to know which ship will be a good fit. Recent branding efforts by cruise lines to distinguish themselves from other lines make that choice all the more difficult. Individual ship branding further complicates the decision. But even with the best guidance, guests sometimes shoot themselves in the foot by booking the “cheapest” ship they can find, believing the only variable worth consideration is price or by clicking their way to a “great deal” without considering the onboard experience they might have.
That’s when the door gets opened for all sorts of bad things to come creeping in.
For example, the “Fun Ships” of Carnival Cruise Line should indeed be “Fun” for everyone sailing. Still, I get mail from sailed guests complaining about the level of service they receive from time to time. Others write “it was the best cruise ever” and are rabidly loyal to the line. The trick becomes trying to determine if the cruise line dropped the ball or if the guests expectations were unrealistic.
Cruise lines addressing reported problems try to determine if there was a “service failure” on their part or not. Here are two examples
- NO SERVICE FAILURE- In the case of a recent fight that broke out in a public venue on the new Carnival Dream, live video showed the cruise line clearly not at fault. One reader complained “They should have had more security people on duty to stop that faster”. Another thought Carnival should “watch how much alcohol they serve guests“. Perhaps some good observations but nothing we saw would indicate that the cruise line was really responsible for the fight occuring. Good food for thought but no real decision to be made other than to throw those rowdy guests off the ship and they did. Other situations may not be as clearly defined and require the cruise line to make a judgement call. Historically, if it’s a close call, cruise lines would rule in favor of guests as a gesture of good will. As the industry matures though, we are seeing more cases where situations that would have been ruled in favor of the guest in the past are not.
- SERVICE FAILURE- A family of 16 guests was on a Carnival ship early last Summer. When group space is available, the group leader can earn a credit against their fare equal to one free berth with as few as 8 cabins on a sailing. Carnival had a long-standing rule that if group space were not available, while the group would not enjoy other group benefits, they would be able to get that credit after sailing. Based on this knowledge, the group leader booked this Summer sailing, priced higher due to being in peak travel season, but comforted with the knowledge that a check would be in the mail after sailing to offset the higher cost. Weeks after sailing instead of a check they got “we changed our policy and that is no longer available” after calling the cruise line. The new “rule” went into effect January 1, 2010. The group was booked in November of 2009. In the past, this group would have received the credit. Now they get nothing.
As this series continues, we will visit and explore more individual cases, cruise line policies, and related issues. We want you to be able to do business with organizations that are, without exception:
- Pleasant
- Responsive and
- Accurate
Stay tuned
