I’ve sailed with Princess on different ships many times. I enjoyed every cruise on Princess. Thought I would give Royal Caribbean a try for a change. I sailed on it once years ago on a short trip on their Radiance of The Seas. Was not very impressed with that one, but thought it was a short cruise and the ship was smaller. This Canada and New England cruise is on Liberty of The Seas for 9 days, so I was expecting it to be a much better experience than the Radiance of The Seas, and hoping it would be comparable to all the Princess cruises I have been on. Wrong!

Things already started out wrong before the sailing. I booked this cruise for September 24 sailing back in January this year. The itinerary listed 5 ports of call with 3 sea days. I didn’t think anything about the itinerary until 2 weeks before the cruise when I printed out all the paperwork to get ready to go. The itinerary only showed 4 ports with 4 sea days. The port of St. John New Brunswick was deleted and replaced with another sea day. Called RCCL and unable to get a straight answer of why the port has been canceled and why I wasn’t notified at all. The RCCL customer rep said it was canceled in March, and he could not find any record of sending out any email notification to me. I did not pay the balance until July. If I had known about this cancellation, I could have changed to another sailing with St. John on the itinerary, or find another cruise line to sail altogether. Nobody would prefer another sea day over a port visit. I paid for 5 ports when I booked, but only ended up with 4 ports.

I emailed RCCL’s corporate guest relations to complain about the problem, but only received a generic reply from this “resolution specialist” that they have the right to cancel port, and if there is any overcharge on port charges, it would be credited to the ship expense account. Of course I didn’t get any credit at all. While on the ship, even talked to the ship’s business liaison person. Got the same run around as before. She said the land office should take care of these credits and she can’t do anything on the ship! I understand they have in fine print that they have the right to cancel a port any time. I know the port charges may be minimal, but that’s the least Royal Caribbean can do to pacify the customers for canceling out a port without notice. It is the principle of doing the right thing that counts. Read more