originally booked this cruise with my girlfriend but had to amend the booking in favour of my son. They charged £280 for the name change. A lot of money, but I had no choice. However they then wanted to charge a further £1300 + to take off the original passenger, which I was not told about until I had first changed the flight particulars. After remonstrating; this fee was dropped. I had paid for 2 Ultimate drinks packages, but when the confirmation came, my son's was a soda pack only. This was explained as being due to him being under 21 and the ship being American, although in European waters!!!!. Again this was addressed and he was given an alcohol package but only beer and wine. He drinks neither. I was told, that despite the £280 extra to do a name change ( Hardly a difficult exercise) It did not cover the Ultimate drinks package. Again I doubted this, but I had no choice, they had me over a barrel. They had my money and all the cards.. Not a nice position to be in as a customer!
We decided to leave the boat at Naples to travel to Rome for an overnight stay and re join the ship at civitavecchia port, as my son had never been to Rome and doing this would give us more time in the great city. Well the balloon went up.. I told them of our intentions, as I thought this the right thing to do and we were met with resistance and disapproval to put it mildly. Security saying we would not be allowed back on then ship the following day and that they would have to inform the authorities etc. I stated that this was in fact "Our holiday" and we are EU citizens.
We decided to go ahead with our plans but it resulted in stressing me out and making me feel anxious, due to the threat. On returning to the ship, there was no big deal made of it at all; except they had informed my emergency contacts of our absence, despite them knowing our intentions. This obviously caused them concern and unnecessary stress. Furthermore they confiscated our passports, to ensure we would not do it gain. Not that we would have. That said surely that would be our prerogative and our responsibility to get back to the relevant port on time?
Cabin was adequate for the 2 of us. Clean and tidy.