Innovation or Ruination!

I am a huge fan of Royal Caribbean and have been for many years. I will always sing their praises to customers and friends and have enjoyed many great cruises with them but having recently returned from a short cruise on Anthem of the seas I can honestly say I was very disappointed.

This trip was a treat for my son who turns 18 this weekend. We took 2 of his friends with us as well so that he could get the most out of the facilities on board. I had as you may know already spend a couple of nights on this ship prior to launch so was excited to show this to the rest of the family.

I booked it well over a year ago and checked at the time if I needed any paperwork for the boys as they were not our children.  I was told no I didn’t so did not look into it any further.  On arrival at Southampton we first found out that the all singing and dancing electronic check in was not working so we had to queue firstly to get our passport details checked where staff were sat with huge piles of paper and manually checking off each cabin and passenger with their passport details.  The staff member asked if the boys were ours and I explained to then be asked where are your forms? What forms? She said not to worry and got a supervisor to escort us to security and I thought that was that but no.  After security she advised us to go to the port services desk and explain the issue. We did this are were then asked to take a seat in the waiting area. 20 minutes later a lady came over to us and explained we needed to photograph and send a form to each of the boy’s parents. They then needed to hand write what was on the form and sign it and text it to her along with a copy of their passport or drivers licence as proof of signature.  The boys were panicking as they were struggling to contact their parents and one set of parents had gone out for the day so ended up having to abandon their plans and return home to get the documents.  It took approximately an hour and a half to sort out and I have no idea what the outcome would have been if we could not get hold of the parents.  All this could have been avoided if Royal Caribbean had given me the correct information in the first place.

Prior to the trip I had dutifully completed the online check-in and added the photos etc but I had experienced issues with regard to pre-booking things as the system would not let me reserve shows, dining or the internet package and drinks packages.  I had again called Royal Caribbean but they also had been unable to do this for me. I was advised that I would need to reserve things when I boarded.

We collected our cards from the cabin and headed to guest services. We firstly sorted the drinks packages in the promenade and this was all ok although two of the cards were not working so we had to go to guest services to get them activated. We then asked if we could add the internet package which had been showing on the personaliser at £39 for all 5 of us. We were then quoted $240 which approx. £160. I explained that I could not book this on line and had been told it would be available on board and the response I got was it will just be the exchange rate? Really!!! Do I look stupid?

I then wanted to book the shows as the app was not working. We were told there was one showing only of  ‘We Will Rock You’ available so we booked this and then we were told that’s the ‘Spectre’s Cabaret’ was full all trip.  We were told we would have to go and queue at one of the performances and if people did not turn up we may get in. We tried this on the second night but the queue had over 70 people in it and as the room was already nearly full so we had no chance.  On previous Royal Caribbean ships for example with the ice shows you could go collect tickets at a desk and everyone had an opportunity to see every show.  After all this is part and parcel of what you are paying for isn’t it?

We could not book time slots for the North Star either, as we were told this should have been done online beforehand which I could not do due to their system error.  Again we were told you will have to turn up and queue.

Next the restaurants. We were booked on dynamic dining which as I understood meant you are not tied to specific dining times but you can pre-book if you want. Much like the anytime dining offered on other ships.  We turned up on the first night to be told all the restaurants were full and this was at 8.30. They said we could not wait as there were no slots for the rest of the evening so we had to eat in the buffet which closed at 9pm.

We tried to book the next morning for that evening and were told the same thing. In fact we were told they were full for the whole 3 days.  How is this allowing people to eat flexibly as they want on the dynamic dining? Or was it just because it was a short cruise? Not that this should effect the service.  This was very disappointing as I love to have waiter service and whilst the buffet is fine for breakfast and lunch it is not my idea of fine dining for your evening meal.

On the first day we docked in Zeebrugge and planned to go into Bruges however Royal Caribbean were not running a shuttle. There was a local shuttle to Blankenburg Rail Station and then a train to Bruges and a bus to the town centre at the other end but it is such a lot of messing around for what is a relatively short journey. Other than that we would have had to book on the Bruges on your own excursion! So in other words just a bus! Which was $56 per person! Extortion to say the least, so we opted to stay on board instead.

On top of this you have the wrist bands so you don’t have to carry your sea pass everywhere with you but on numerous occasions on this trip the readers were not working so people had to produce their cards anyway and a few times they were resorting to manually recording purchases.

As you can see these things individually may have been seen as an inconvenience but together they come to form a pretty disappointing show from Royal Caribbean, something which I never thought I would say.

Have they lost sight of what is important as they strive to bring out new ships which are larger and more innovative?

Remember innovation is only good if it works and from what I have seen in practice the innovation is falling far short of expectations.

Maybe it is time to rethink this before Ovation of the Seas and Harmony of the Seas are launched? Read some of the reviews on our site or others like cruise critic! I am not the only one feeling this way and soon customers and going to start voting with their feet and trying out new Cruise lines.

So who will lose out then?

You need to pull your socks up Royal Caribbean and find a solution to these issue if you want to restore my faith in you and put the smile back on my face!

Have you been on-board a Royal Caribbean ship lately? What do you think?

I would love to hear your comments.