Couple Banned From Royal Caribbean Cruise Line

Website, MSNBC.com has this week published a story about a couple banned from travelling with Royal Caribbean Cruises. Brenda and Gerald Moran from Cleveland, USA, are experienced cruisers and loved the line – averaging at two cruises every year in the past three years, even buying the line’s stock.  

Despite their love of the line, the couple did experience certain problems each time they went on a cruise – from being locked out of their own cabins to plumbing issues, which they itemised and detailed to Royal Caribbean, who then offered them discounts and onboard credits.  However, the story took a new twist in November when the line told the couple that they were no longer welcome on any RCI cruise ship – including the line’s subsidiaries Azamara and Celebrity Cruises.                                              

Over the three years of sailing with Celebrity and Royal Caribbean, Brenda Moran had documented all the problems on her cruises – including her birthday greeting being delivered in the wrong stateroom and her husband being locked out on the balcony for three hours due to a door-latch jam. In September 2007 on an Alaskan and Northwest cruise, their room ended up with sewage all over the bathroom and carpet from a plumbing problem, and were told they couldn’t be moved because the ship was too full. “We had to keep the balcony door open in 40-degree weather the entire cruise just so we could breathe and not smell the horrible odours,” said Brenda. 

On the last night of that cruise, the couple got a letter from the cruise ship’s hotel director – apologising for the problems and offering a 20% discount on their next cruise, which they thought was fair and thus booked their next cruise with Royal Caribbean. When Brenda got home she wrote her usual review on Cruise Critic, which sparked a lot of feedback from other cruisers. The couple soon received a phone call from Bill Weeks, executive assistant in customer service at RCI, offering them $500 on top of their 20% discount, which, of course, they accepted and posted this experience on the Cruise Critic forum.  

However, some forum members were beginning to express their discontent at the way the couple had complained their way to an unfair discount and posting their experiences – possibly teaching others cruisers how to ‘scam’ the line. Some even contacted the line’s president and chief executive, Adam Goldstein to complain about the Morans getting any compensation at all. Following this, the couple then received a phone call from Bill Weeks’ boss who was unhappy about the negative review posted on the forum, asking Brenda to take down the review immediately. Brenda refused.  

This was followed by another call the following day, informing the Morans that they were banned for life from the cruise line – which they did not believe was true until they received an official letter confirming the ban. 

Michael Sheehan, Royal Caribbean’s associate vice president of corporate communications said that since 2004 the couple had sailed six cruises on two of the company’s lines. “On all but one of those sailing the Morans felt there were a variety of service failures they experienced,” he said. “In a small number of cases we agreed and compensated them appropriately. In most cases, however, we disagreed. Having concluded that we are unable to meet the expectations of the Morans, we have told them that they would be best served by sailing with another company.” 

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