SundayGirl
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2012
- Messages
- 27
This post is more for cathartic release than anything else – I don’t expect anything to change and you’ll see why as you read on.
I’ve been organizing a cruise for a group of 16 consisting of family and friends and have booked 7 staterooms in total for the September 10th Eastern Caribbean sailing on the Disney Fantasy next month (yay).
We decided to go through a TA for onboard credit perks and decided to go with Dreams Unlimited having been a long time lurker on this board since planning our last cruise in 2012 (also on the Fantasy but on the Western Itinerary) and having read many positive accounts about the attentive and knowledgeable TAs.
Anyhow, my family and I booked 7 staterooms with oversized verandahs via a TA from DU around last October. However, we were told by our TA at the time that unfortunately we wouldn’t be able to have all 7 staterooms in a row as 2 had already been booked out – so there’d be 2 staterooms sandwiched in the middle of the ones booked by us. Naturally, we were a bit disappointed, but I asked her to please keep an eye out should they free up at any point in time – to which she assured me that she would.
Really, I didn’t hold out much hope of them freeing up, but at the very least I had hoped she would let us know once in a while along the lines of “Sorry, I have been checking, but nothing so far”. Not only was there no mention whatsoever since that initial assurance, but I realized early on that our TA was simply just not as communicative nor reliable as others have experienced on this board.
I’m based in the UK and I ended up having to call up DCL multiple times myself for things like dinner seating, confirming names in each of the 7 staterooms, linking reservations, and requesting a particular dining rotation. Eventually, I managed to speak with my TA over the phone and she let me know that she had been dealing with some family issues – which I completely sympathized with, so I stopped toying with the idea of requesting a change of agent from DU when we only had a few months to go until sailing.
Naturally around our pay in full date, I made extra effort to chase her up on those sandwiched staterooms in the hope that they’d become available – I heard nothing. In the weeks since our pay in full date, I sent her multiple emails asking for an update – anything – if just a confirmation that, sorry, she’d tried, but those rooms are not available. No response as of yet.
I’m not a control freak cruiseplanning-zilla. If I were, I certainly wouldn’t be going through a TA whatever the onboard credit. However, I do expect the basic courtesy of a reply. It’s not difficult. To be honest, we wouldn’t even know if she had been checking all this time, but the issue is that somewhere along the line, she’s just stopped responding to us altogether. I'd been feeling neglected before, but now I'm being completely ignored.
I certainly don’t expect that anything will change at this late stage, nor at any earlier stage even because obviously the people in those 2 sandwiched staterooms would’ve had to cancel for those rooms to free up. I’m just very very disappointed with my first experience of going through DU and will probably go back to booking ourselves in future. Bottom line - I have had to do everything myself when I wanted something doing with regards to our cruise and that is not what I expected at all when I first made contact with DU.
I’ve been organizing a cruise for a group of 16 consisting of family and friends and have booked 7 staterooms in total for the September 10th Eastern Caribbean sailing on the Disney Fantasy next month (yay).
We decided to go through a TA for onboard credit perks and decided to go with Dreams Unlimited having been a long time lurker on this board since planning our last cruise in 2012 (also on the Fantasy but on the Western Itinerary) and having read many positive accounts about the attentive and knowledgeable TAs.
Anyhow, my family and I booked 7 staterooms with oversized verandahs via a TA from DU around last October. However, we were told by our TA at the time that unfortunately we wouldn’t be able to have all 7 staterooms in a row as 2 had already been booked out – so there’d be 2 staterooms sandwiched in the middle of the ones booked by us. Naturally, we were a bit disappointed, but I asked her to please keep an eye out should they free up at any point in time – to which she assured me that she would.
Really, I didn’t hold out much hope of them freeing up, but at the very least I had hoped she would let us know once in a while along the lines of “Sorry, I have been checking, but nothing so far”. Not only was there no mention whatsoever since that initial assurance, but I realized early on that our TA was simply just not as communicative nor reliable as others have experienced on this board.
I’m based in the UK and I ended up having to call up DCL multiple times myself for things like dinner seating, confirming names in each of the 7 staterooms, linking reservations, and requesting a particular dining rotation. Eventually, I managed to speak with my TA over the phone and she let me know that she had been dealing with some family issues – which I completely sympathized with, so I stopped toying with the idea of requesting a change of agent from DU when we only had a few months to go until sailing.
Naturally around our pay in full date, I made extra effort to chase her up on those sandwiched staterooms in the hope that they’d become available – I heard nothing. In the weeks since our pay in full date, I sent her multiple emails asking for an update – anything – if just a confirmation that, sorry, she’d tried, but those rooms are not available. No response as of yet.
I’m not a control freak cruiseplanning-zilla. If I were, I certainly wouldn’t be going through a TA whatever the onboard credit. However, I do expect the basic courtesy of a reply. It’s not difficult. To be honest, we wouldn’t even know if she had been checking all this time, but the issue is that somewhere along the line, she’s just stopped responding to us altogether. I'd been feeling neglected before, but now I'm being completely ignored.
I certainly don’t expect that anything will change at this late stage, nor at any earlier stage even because obviously the people in those 2 sandwiched staterooms would’ve had to cancel for those rooms to free up. I’m just very very disappointed with my first experience of going through DU and will probably go back to booking ourselves in future. Bottom line - I have had to do everything myself when I wanted something doing with regards to our cruise and that is not what I expected at all when I first made contact with DU.
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This is a HUGE booking that the two Disney TAs I know would have loved to have! They are 100 percent dedicated to their clients. Please don't lose hope in using a TA because there are agents out there who would do an amazing job for you. I am very sorry your TA is ignoring you and doesn't value you at all.
I totally get not wanting to get someone in trouble, likely she will just get a reminder about how important it is to be on the ball and hopefully that is the end of it. If not, well then John needs to know that! This goes for ANY TA btw, not just DU. If you are unhappy please be your own advocate!
