My first cruising experience was a 10 night Australia and Barrier Reef cruise in an Owner's Suite on Rhapsody of the Seas in 2010 and I was so impressed I wanted to do another cruise. I was planning to organise a cruise on one of RC's mega ships and thought I would have to travel to Florida. I became very excited when in May 2011 I received an e mail from RC advising Voyager of the Seas was coming to Australia in 2012. On offer was a Christmas/New Year cruise to NZ. My husband and I decided that would also be a great way to celebrate my 60th birthday and our 25th wedding anniversary. I contacted RC direct and booked for 28 family and friends. My husband and I took the Royal Suite. We also booked for the rest of our group a grand suite, 5 junior suites, a disabled room all on deck 10 and a balcony room and 2 adjoining inside cabins overlooking the promenade on deck 7. I dealt directly with RC. All deposits were paid in July 2011 and balances were paid in September 2012. In October 2012 one of the bookings was changed from a quad room to 2 inside adjoining rooms and as the adjoining rooms were cheaper a refund was deposited to the credit card used to pay for the original deposits. Unbeknown to me the four deposits of $1600 were also credited to that credit card. In November The 3rd person in the Grand suite had to cancel. I notified RC and for no apparent reason RC deposited a large amount of money into his mothers credit card, then contacted me for the credit card details of the mother to take it back. They had the card number to deposit but not to reverse it. I got the card details and approval and gave it to my contact in groups at RC. They immediately took the money back bu then it took 6 weeks to give back the correct refund. Just a week prior to departure I was then told someone underpaid and someone overpaid. This was not correct as all money had been paid in September and all documents issued. So more waste of time and stress, I sent a complete list of payments due and paid and no one in our group owed any money nor was anyone owed any money from RC except the cancellation from the GS. I was correct. I was then told that the group owed $1600. After many e mails I was told RC had automatically refunded $1600 in October and that unless it was refunded to RC this would effect our boarding. I then realised what RC had done and was able to again give the credit card details for RC to take back the $1600 they mistakenly deposited to one of the credit cards used to pay for the cruise. I was shocked that RC accounting can make so many errors and they expected me to sort out their mistakes or our boarding would be effected. And only days before departure still no refund for the cancelled booking. So as you can imagine I was upset prior to departure and struggling to get into holiday mode.

I decided to put all that stress and disappointment behind and started to look forward to the cruise with my family and friends.

I was then uplifted when I received an e mail from Yang Qi who introduced herself and was to be our concierge. Read more