Freedom of the Seas Review

Worst Experience in 20 Years of Cruising Royal

Review for the Southern Caribbean Cruise on Freedom of the Seas
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ash_u78
10+ Cruises • Age 30s

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Sail Date: Sep 2019

I could write a novel about my complaints on this cruise, but I will say that all the ports we went to were beautiful and well worth it. That being said, I have never seen customer service this bad in my 20 years of cruising! The food at the Windjammer was inedible, and the dinning room was barely average. After the 3rd night they no longer sat us at our table. We were told to go in to our table, and grab a menu on the way. Our waiter got increasingly slower, and on the last night, we were in the dinning room for an hour and 45 minutes and still waiting on our dessert before we gave up and left because we wanted to make the show. Our room attendant walked in on us without knocking the first day there. Also our sheets had a stain on them when we got there, and they were not changed the entire week. My husband got sick on the 3rd day and when I went to ask the medical staff a question, she very rudely told me that she could not give me any information, and he would have to see the nurse (obviously a nickel and dime tactic so they could charge us a medical fee). We did not see the nurse because he wasn’t that sick.

This was the worst accounting I’ve ever seen on a ship. We were double charged for massages, charged for towels we didn't take (why would I want to seal the rags they were passing off as towels?) and when we tried to adjust the gratuity (because of the abysmal service we received) instead of adjusting it down to $140, they added $140 on top of the $203 we were originally paying. Over the course of the week we were charged over $500 in incorrect charges. There were 2 people in front of us in the Guest Relations line that got charged for 75 pool towels which totaled over $3,000. We went to the customer service desk 5 times, 3 of which had to do with gratuity, and were assured that everything was fine and they would adjust the price on the final bill. Of course that didn't happen. I was at the front desk at 6am trying to get it corrected because we had a flight at 8:45am, again I was told that everything was fine. At 7am when we were trying to exit the ship, they wouldn't let us disembark because of account issues! We were livid! We ended up running through the airport barely making the flight. Vacations (cruises especially) are supposed to be stress free, but this was more stressful than being at home. Why in the world is the default tip more than 21% of the TOTAL COST of the cruise when you get this level of crappy service, and you are even charged for room service now? What in the world am I tipping for when I wasn't even given the bare minimum of service? Everyone I dealt with made it clear they could care less about the customers' experience, and see them as a hassle. Based on this experience, and everyone we've talked to since, I will never cruise Royal again. I turned Emerald on this cruise, but you can guarantee I will not be making it to diamond.

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