A Goldstein Letter

We had reservations on the April 16th sailing of Navigator of the Seas (Reservation IDs 8148780, 8145493). We had specifically chosen this sailing because 1) It was to the Western Caribbean; we had been to the ports of call on the eastern Caribbean numerous times in previous years; 2) It set sail on my birthday, April 16th so our plan was to go to dinner at Chops that night and celebrate with what we were told are the best steaks on any cruise ship; and 3) It returned in time for my son and daughter's Opening Day Little League baseball game on April 23.

Because we had heard horror stories about people trying to arrange their own air transportation we booked a combination air/cruise package through you. I had an additional complication that I was meeting my family in Miami on the 16th after a business meeting in Omaha. In arranging all of this through our travel agent and through your Flight Desk organization, we were assured that everything was booked and there would be no issues. We received all our documentation with luggage tags, etc., and were (we thought) good to go.

Following the instructions in the Guest Vacation documents my wife called to confirm her and the children's flights on April 15th, the day before travel. To her surprise she was told that Jet Blue had no record of our reservation. She immediately called the travel agent, who in turn called your flight desk. Again, the RCCI Flight Desk was very reassuring, saying there was nothing to worry about, we were on the manifest, we simply were talking to someone at JetBlue who didn't have the right information. The advice was to go to the airport and not be concerned, and to call a specific 800 number to get connected to the Flight Desk team if there were any problem whatsoever.

They followed this recommendation, rising at 5 a.m. the next morning to travel to the airport and board their flight.

Upon arrival at the JetBlue check-in desk, the horrors of the trip our children now call The Vacation From Hell; began to unfold. They were not, in fact, on the manifest. The 800 number provided by RCCI was only open Monday-Friday (this was a Saturday sailing). Our travel agent worked valiantly to get the thing resolved. Finally, after the plane departed, RCCI determined they had left someone else's reservation in place and someone forgot to put my family's names in instead.

The RCCI representative said to my wife, I'm sorry for the inconvenience. You are a busy person with a business to run, as am I. My wife is a director at a division of XXXXX Technologies; it is always difficult to organize time off. If this happened to you after you had arranged everything, you would probably consider it more than an inconvenience.

Since this was the first day of the Massachusetts schools Spring Vacation, there were no other flights that would get them to Miami in time to catch the ship. We seriously considered canceling the whole trip at that point, but our children were so excited about the prospect of a cruise that we accepted the offer of a different cruise departing Sunday. This was a tough decision for the kids because it meant missing Opening Day, which is a big event in our little town.

RCCI then booked them on a connecting flight (the original flight was direct) that got them to Florida at midnight on the 16th. So we 1) Missed the birthday; 2) Were exhausted for the first 2 days of the cruise after spending most of the first 24 hours traveling; 3) Were on a ship that did not have a steak restaurant, even though we were told it was identical in every way; to the Navigator. I won't bore you further with details of the shore excursion; which was a thinly veiled Bacardi commercial; the non-smoking room which was true until we opened the door to the balcony; and the fact that on our return trip home I almost got bumped from our flight because once again, the Flight Desk had neglected to properly transfer my ticket from the original return flight and I had a frantic series of phone calls while trying to keep the attendants from closing the flight.