sweet angel said:
You don't say which RCI ship you were on, the itinerary, length, time of year, etc. All those variables can conceivably contribute to the atmosphere on ANY cruise line. I'm quite surprised that if you stayed in an Owners Suite (presumably the "highest level of accomodation") your complaints would go unresolved, since we (in a lowly balcony cabin) had wonderful service at all times. However, I'm not questioning you. I'll admit that I'm curious as to what your complaints are. Every email that I've sent to RCI so far has been answered promtply.
We were on the
RCCL Mariner. We were in the Royal Suite--double the size of an OS. The
DCL crusie was the first week of September, RCCL second week of October--so weather was the same for both, I have no complaints about weather which isn't controlled by the cruiselines anyhow. We cruised out of PC for both--Disney's terminal is MUCH MUCH nicer and better organized, especially luggage handling on debarkation. Many "perks" offered in their written literature when we booked never materialized--no priority debarkation or tendering, no fresh flowers in room, no alcohol in room, and we weren't allowed to have meals delivered from the diningroom, only the very limited room service menu. We had maintenance issues in the cabin--burned lightbulbs--they were unable to replace some as they were out of that type, the bathroom door was warped and wouldn't close, slippers only in mens size--they were out of ladies, TV in bedroom broken, etc. Had it been one thing it could have been overlooked, but there were a lot of issues, and the attitude wasn't , We're sorry" it was "Yeah, so?".
We liked the concierge and our steward, but the servers in the dining room were pushy about the guest service card to the point that it was bad show. The first night when we declined to order teh wine package, the bar server walked off in a huff and we didn't see him again the other three nights we ate in the main dining room.
We had a VERY humiliating experience with the Captain, caused by his administrative assistent's mix up, (I have proof in writing of this) and not only did we get a bunch of excuses and no apology, when they tried to fix it they created an even worse situation. Again, the attitude was a lot of excuses and no apology.
You're more than entitled to you opinion. As a matter of fact, if you don't sail RCI again, that's one less person I have to stand in line behind to board the beautiful ships.
I never said the ships weren't beautiful, although I prefered the decor and set up of DCL. But I wouldn't take that away from RCCL, mmy biggest beef with the actual ship was the art auction all over the place and the smoke that poured out of all the bars and into the open public spaces. I also thought the noise level was simply atrocious, as did many that I cruised with. The pushing of alcohol was ridiculous, I walked six steps out of my room and there would be a bar server by the elevators hawking drinks of teh day.
And, for clarification, we loved our DCL cruise last year but the Navigator experience totally blew it away and gave us a lot more bang for the buck. You won't see me on DCL again -- unless I hit the lottery. I recently compared the DCL cruise we had booked with the RCI cruise I replaced it with. DCL was $2K more for an interior room than what my RCI balcony room will cost.
I paid $1000 more for my room on RCCL (I had a cat 3 on DCL). Yes, the RCCL Royal Suite is larger, but so much of the space is just this wasted entryway/piano area, that it didn't feel larger. We much prefered the master bedroom layout on DCL as well. The level of amenities and service that we received from DCL was far superior to what we got on RCCL, where service was a lot of empty promises and excuses. This describes RCCL perfectly--their idea of cheese and crakers is a couple cubes of swiss, a couple cubes of cheddar, six grapes and two plastic wrapped packages of Saltines.
Anne
