WARNING re: booking shore excursions on the phone

[schrei]

Just a bit of info. We sailed 2/7 Eastern.
We booked our shore excursions via telephone while still at home. When we arrived we received our tickets, ( of course didn't check them.) When we showed up to leave the ship the morning of the excursion we found that the castmember booked us incorrectly. We had been on 2 previous PERFECT cruises so why think to check our ressies? It was not something that needed to be done, we thought why should #3 be different? Needless to say Andrea of the cruise staff felt bad, & our 8 year old DD left in tears as the rest of the folks went to swim with dolphins- our DD would NOT to be able to swim with dolphins on this cruise. We were comped by DCL and the last evening given a note and a bottle of wine. The cruise staff did their best to do right by us. Our excursion consisted of a trip to Orient beach instead. We saw quite a few naked and topless folks. NOT DISNEY LIKE AT ALL!! Call us prudes but it was my DD that knew she shouldn't be looking at those kinds of things. The beach was a beauty, but the nudity was to much!

To make a long story short...please check your documents when you book/get confirmation and when you get on the ship. Don't let our mistake be yours!

Good Luck & Happy Sailing

 

[CRSNDSNY]

Sorry this happened to you. I'm glad Disney tried to mend the mistake.


BTW -- We don't have kids, but love Orient Bay. I guess to each's own.

 

[dthogue]

I have not yet cruised, but I thought when you call to reserve the excursion that they fax you a confirmation? I can't imagine not receiving and/or checking the confirmation to make sure everything is correct, especially for the amount of money the DCL excursions cost.

Thanks,
Tammy

 

[Verandah Man]

We got a confirmation letter in the mail about a week after I e-mailed in our excursion choices. I also checked the tickets once we got in our cabin, of course this was our first cruise, so I thought it was best to check everything over. I guess with this lesson, it will be good to check each and every time!!!

 

[WDWLVR]

We've always gotten a confirmation and checked tickets when we got to the room. Human errors happen so whether it was our first cruise or our fifth I still check.

Sorry to hear yours got messed up.

 

[lotsofboys]

Carla - I'm so sorry to hear that happened to you. I am like you, I would have no reason to believe that everything would not go smoothly and wouldn't have checked either. In fact, two days before the cruise I happened to pick up the docs and realized they had my sister's address down for my mother. I had visions of them denying her passage because the address didn't match her identification. Fortunately, that wasn't the case. One more reason to book that next cruise though, right?

Take care,

Michelle

 

[Disneefun]

We booked over the phone and didn't get a confirmation in the mail, but the CM read everything back to me at the time after she entered it and then gave me the confirmation number (which I made sure to pack in case). I checked our tix the moment we got to our room because I'm just that way. Errors do happen and I'm sorry it happened to you.

 

[makaylee]

schrei, Sorry to hear about your mix up. That had to really of been hard on your DD. The cm faxed us a confirmation after I made the ressies over the phone. You can never be too sure everything will go as planned.

 

[heart]

That kind of thing can happen so easily! In all the many details, some things are bound to get misplaced/forgotten/left behind or unchecked.

Thanks for sharing your experience--it'll will remind me (and others, I'm sure) to check again!

 

[Nysie]

I'm sorry to hear about your excursion! We plan to swim with the dolphins too! I don't know if I will book through Disney or on my own, but in either case I will be sure to check and re-check! Thanks for the warning!

 

[strawberryblonde]

Thanks for the warning. I feel so badly for your DD

 

[disney6]

It does happen. The same thing happened to us and, like you, we didn't check our tickets. I DID call and reconfirm the excursions a few days after we booked and they were correct. The confirmation letter did not have enough room for the times so that was not in writing. We did go on the excursion but at a later time which of course messed up the rest of the days' plans. Next time I will definately check the tickets when we get in the cabin also!

 

[kcashner]

We were on the 2/7 cruise, and got a written confirmation of our telephone ressies...about a week later in the mail.

Unfortunately, the lesson is to check the confirmation and also the tickets in the room....of course, the dolphin excursion is so popular that even a week later, it might not have been available.

 

[schrei]

Originally posted by dthogue
I have not yet cruised, but I thought when you call to reserve the excursion that they fax you a confirmation? I can't imagine not receiving and/or checking the confirmation to make sure everything is correct, especially for the amount of money the DCL excursions cost.

Thanks,
Tammy

We checked this reservation when it was faxed, but it didn't say we were booked for "observing" dolphins. Our mistake was when we got on the ship when we received our tickets they said "observer" and we should of caught it then and we didn't check this part.

 

[swclark]

We also found that the email address they give isn't really looked at. I emailed them our requests and followed up for a confirmtion.. nothing.. so we called the # and there was nothing noted on our reservation for the excusions. But, we did it then over the phone and received the confirmation in the mail.

 

[Padre Disney]

Carla,
I thought that Dh and I were the only ones that didn't like the idea of seeing naked people on a beach.

Our ds just got back from a December cruise with his girlfriend and her family. It was the RCCL Mariner eastern over xmas. He came back with LOTS of stories about the beaches and the nude people they saw. He was not very happy about it and we have decided NOT to visit any of the beaches that warn about nude people when we cruise in March. NO WAY!

 

[jrabbit]

On our last vacation, our TA screwed up a lot of things and all of the excursions were included in the screw ups. We gave the TA the Name of the excursion and the NUMBER of it too! At least we checked the confirmations before leaving on the cruise. We contacted DCL directly and got the "you must go through your TA, blah, blah, blah" Somehow DW was able to have DCL change them before we left without getting TA involved.

When you do it yourself, you gotta double check. When you have a TA book your vacations for you you gotta tripple check and then still deal with issues once you arrive on site. And not all TA's are bad, we have had the best one for a long time, but a few years ago he made a carreer change.

 

[mmouse37]

I certainly don't enjoy seeing people walk around naked on the beach, but it won't keep me from enjoying Orient Beach. The nudist camp is pretty far away down the beach and very few of them walk the beach. We all have to realize that in other countries topless/nudity on beaches is the norm. I am not saying when in Rome or that is right or wrong......but I do understand other cultures have different ways and we are visting another country so I just try and not let it bother me. My teens have been several times and the novelty of seeing wrinkled old naked people wears off pretty quick. Each family must make their own decision on what they want their kids exposed to but I don't want people to think there are tons of naked people walking around Orient Beach...it is a very, very small percentage.

MJ

 

[Padre Disney]

It would need to be 0% for our family to visit a beach. Are there any beaches on the Eastern cruise that there won't be any nude people?
My son and his girlfriend (both almost 17) said there is no way that they want to return that area.

It must have just been the xmas cruise that my son and his girlfriends family was on. I have talked to her parents and they cruise often. They took their 8 year old daughter to the part of the beach that was not suppose to have any nude people and had BOTH men & women walking around more then they liked so the returned to the ship.
I am not willing to take that chance and will wait for the family beach at CC.

I am glad that DCL does warn about the chance of nude people on certain beaches. Good enough for us to stay away.


In our neck of the woods we just don't see nude people walking around much.

 

[schrei]

the beach that was not suppose to have any nude people and had BOTH men & women were walking around

I am glad that DCL does warn about the chance of nude people on certain beaches. Good enough for us to stay away.


In our neck of the woods we just don't see nude people walking around much. [/B]

When we told Andrea (a DCL cast member) she had told us that she knew there was nudity and unfortunately had heard it was happening more than in the past. She neglected to tell us when we took this excursion as a consolation prize (since our dolphin swim was a loss for the day). I just wanted to let folks know to be open minded, I agree it is a different country, but my DD (8) was a bit taken back and knew she shouldn't see that kind of thing and that it is not appropriate.