We are seasoned cruisers having travelled with RC many times (I’m an Emerald member of their cruise club), and we have watched the cruise market change so much’from personal excellent care, to the now; let’s just make money out of you approach!! This review is hot off the press because we are on board now on the Allure on the 2nd day of the vacation.
This little story is quite bad and will (and should) impact on Royal Caribbean! We booked with Bolsover (Poppy, what a star!) and being responsible parents we checked what was available for our 8m old Son.
We were told they would supply a crib for him in the room and a bottle sterilizer would be available.
Big disappointment right from the off….our Son paid full fare price (€1500 for a week round the med) but his crib was a cheap travel one which was not even made up, just lay in pieces on the first day, we made it up ourselves.
No mattress, just the travel cot bottom, which any mum will tell you is about 2mm thick and you would not let your dog sleep on it.
We asked for a mattress but they do not have any! We were advised to use some extra towels!! Worse though, NO sterilizers on board despite being promised otherwise…told to wash his bottles in the toilet sink…nice! You cannot even get 2m around a RCC ship without staff reminding you to alcohol gel yourself from head to toe! Customer service mangers resolve was simply to look absolutely shocked – no not at our issues or distress, but shocked why we thought it was unacceptable to wash his bottles in the bog sink and then not being able to sterilizer them…he did however understand when I used the analogy about washing his own dinner plate in our bog sink !! You will love this….when I asked if we could sterilize the bottles in their own steamer in their kitchens he said absolutely no because this would be a cross infection risk!! His first resolve with the crib was to simply “do what other parents have done in the past” (thus proving this was not a new complaint to him lol) and just turn the sofa around to face the wall and use that for baby’s crib! Stroke of genius…but worthy of his €1500 ticket?…
methinks not.
But this is the killer punch, when we asked was it fair to charge full fare price but then deny that passenger of basic amenities, he simply said ‘ ‘well that’s not true, your Son paid full fare adult price and he does have access to all the adult amenities, it’s not our fault he cannot use them”….ageist?? Damn right Royal Caribbean…would they say that about a disabled adult?? All in all quite disgusted really…We don’t mind paying full fare price and then having to pay for his food separate, we don’t mind having to pay for his baby club, we don’t even mind them treating him differently because of his age’.but compromising his basic needs’..it’s for you lot to decide next time you’re thinking of booking with RC.
In fairness to RC the final solution which we will use now over the following week is: a cooking pot/pan is now available for our exclusive use in the room so we can use it to wash the bottles and then we can fill the same pan with boiling water to at least give some effort to keeping his bottles clean.
They have dismantled a full size crib from the nursery and they plan to erect that this afternoon in our cabin.
Happy days!