Caution: Sloppy Airline Check-In by Disney Fantasy

[jane01jp]

I have travelled on DCL 11 times now, twice on the Fantasy.

We just returned from the December 12 Western Caribbean cruise. It was great, but DCL once again messed up with our boarding passes.

My son and I have the same name (he is a junior). DCL printed two boarding passes for me, and none for my son. For some reason, it did not strike them as odd that they delivered two boarding passes with the exact same name and seat number to us.

They were able to fix the error, but it was a good thing that I checked.

Also, there was a third person in our group who was traveling under the same flight reservation as my son and me. Since I am platinum with American Airlines, anyone traveling under my airline reservation gets one free piece of checked luggage. Unfortunately, the third person in our group was charged a luggage fee by Disney. I saw where a luggage fee charge had been reversed, but upon further inspection, found that there were two charges, and only one reversal. It will not be worth my time to try to get that fixed.

On our previous trip on Fantasy (March 7, 2015), we received the proper boarding passes, but our luggage tags were marked for delivery to the wrong city. The luggage tags were marked for Phoenix, and I was going to Charlotte. The explanation I received was that the previous person for whom they had printed luggage tags was going to Phoenix, so they inadvertently printed my luggage tags for Phoenix as well.

The overarching theme to this post is that DCL - at least Fantasy - has been sloppy with my flight/luggage arrangements, and I would urge caution.

 

[bumbershoot]

It will not be worth my time to try to get that fixed.

I think it is. If you don't tell them, how will they know?

The explanation I received was that the previous person for whom they had printed luggage tags was going to Phoenix, so they inadvertently printed my luggage tags for Phoenix as well.

That's just bizarre.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

I have travelled on DCL 11 times now, twice on the Fantasy.

We just returned from the December 12 Western Caribbean cruise. It was great, but DCL once again messed up with our boarding passes.

My son and I have the same name (he is a junior). DCL printed two boarding passes for me, and none for my son. For some reason, it did not strike them as odd that they delivered two boarding passes with the exact same name and seat number to us.

They were able to fix the error, but it was a good thing that I checked.

Also, there was a third person in our group who was traveling under the same flight reservation as my son and me. Since I am platinum with American Airlines, anyone traveling under my airline reservation gets one free piece of checked luggage. Unfortunately, the third person in our group was charged a luggage fee by Disney. I saw where a luggage fee charge had been reversed, but upon further inspection, found that there were two charges, and only one reversal. It will not be worth my time to try to get that fixed.

On our previous trip on Fantasy (March 7, 2015), we received the proper boarding passes, but our luggage tags were marked for delivery to the wrong city. The luggage tags were marked for Phoenix, and I was going to Charlotte. The explanation I received was that the previous person for whom they had printed luggage tags was going to Phoenix, so they inadvertently printed my luggage tags for Phoenix as well.

The overarching theme to this post is that DCL - at least Fantasy - has been sloppy with my flight/luggage arrangements, and I would urge caution.

So this is not the fantasy, and they have nothing to do with it. The boarding passes and tags are done by an automated software and just distributed to the ships for printing.

There are several problems here. The first one is your boarding pass vs your sons. The problem is a bigger, more inherent problem with the way Airline Reservation systems work. There is no good way in an airline DCS to distinguish between two people with the same name and the same PNL - even if there is a Junior / Senior tag on it. This is not a Disney or a DCL problem. it's a problem with the way the industry works, and there is little that Disney can do about it.

Problem 2 - the baggage fee. Again, this is a little bit of an odd scenario. Disney does not assess the baggage fees. They just submit the information to the airline, and the airline deals with the fees. So in this case, the problem was something in American Airlines reservation system.

Problem 3 - Bags checked to PHX. I have no idea what happened here, but the person simply gave you the wrong information. They do not ever check in a bag to a city unless they manually process it (as in you went to their desk and asked them to change it). The software prints out the baggage tag from the check in information. It could be they gave you the wrong tag for your baggage. That is probably more likely. For example if the person before you requested 3 bag tags, and only had 2 bags, they may have given 2 to them and then been off and given the third to you.

In any case, none of this has anything to do with DCL, disney or the Fantasy.

 

[sambycat]

Side note - we did levered that when checking through Disney, luggage charges go under shipboard charges and thus my Amex wouldn't reimburse us for it. Went round and round with CC company and DCL but gave up in the end.

 

[tup1830]

Had similar experience.

DCL always charged me the baggage fee....ALWAYS...on my shipboard account (almost always as soon as i left the guest services desk..AHHH)

I had to always go back to them in the morning to have the fee reversed because we are entitled to one luggage bag checked in for free.

It was a long hard fight too with guest services, i had to actually pull up my information on the phone. It wasn't the airline either, because i did online checkin on my phone and it said first bag was free. Not sure how the DCL system works.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

Not sure how the DCL system works.

It doesn't work well when the ship is at sea. If you are pre-registered, it tells the Airline to check you in with 2 bags, and the airline tells them it will be $50.

At sea, it can't get a direct connection to the airline, so the agents guess. However Airline baggage rules are incredibly complex which is why the system doesn't assess the baggage fees and they come from the airline.

I know exactly how it works. I wrote part of it.

 

[jahber]

It doesn't work well when the ship is at sea. If you are pre-registered, it tells the Airline to check you in with 2 bags, and the airline tells them it will be $50.

At sea, it can't get a direct connection to the airline, so the agents guess. However Airline baggage rules are incredibly complex which is why the system doesn't assess the baggage fees and they come from the airline.

I know exactly how it works. I wrote part of it.

Well, then if DCL can't reliably connect with the airlines, it IS a DCL problem. As in, they shouldn't be offering this service if they can't actually provide it correctly. "Guessing" and charging a fee they think should be assessed is not acceptable to me. That would amount to at least $100 for me. $100 I don't owe anyone and which shouldn't be taken from my account under any circumstances. And which I would then have to waste my time recovering. So yeah, definitely a DCL problem. And fwiw, they don't have a satellite connection at all times? If I can purchase wi fi to check in, why can't they access an airline's database to see if someone's bag is free? They can do it to verify that someone has a flight to check in to. That seems odd.

 

[mmouse37]

I always bring my airline credit card that gives me free bags down to Guest Services mid-cruise to show them and have it noted on my file that my bags are free. Never had a problem that way.

MJ

 

[TiggerBouncy]

Well, then if DCL can't reliably connect with the airlines, it IS a DCL problem. As in, they shouldn't be offering this service if they can't actually provide it correctly. "Guessing" and charging a fee they think should be assessed is not acceptable to me. That would amount to at least $100 for me. $100 I don't owe anyone and which shouldn't be taken from my account under any circumstances. And which I would then have to waste my time recovering. So yeah, definitely a DCL problem. And fwiw, they don't have a satellite connection at all times? If I can purchase wi fi to check in, why can't they access an airline's database to see if someone's bag is free? They can do it to verify that someone has a flight to check in to. That seems odd.

It's an Airline problem. All of the cruise ships work that way.

The airlines have closed systems with very controlled access, and the ships internet is spotty at the best of times. If you are changing the number of bags at sea, it has to do a "store and forward" to home base.

If you predict and tell DCL the correct number of bags you are going to be bringing back, all of it is handled from shore side and you should never have a problem.

 

[Pens Fan]

We have always had to show DH's Delta Skymiles card at guest services to keep from being charged the baggage fees. But as long as we do that, it's never been an issue. We usually go down a day or two prior to disembarkation and they have always been able to take care of it.

 

[dclpluto]

Do not blame Disney for this