Thread: Cruise Line's Response to Lost Baggage Disappoints Passenger

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The Fascination is supposed to be 70,000 tons of fun, but Frank and Loretta Bennett, who have been on eight cruises before, describe their recent experience on the cruise ship as horrible.

"I will tell all my friends," said a tearful Loretta Bennett.

It was a five-day cruise from Jacksonville to the Bahamas to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. Bennett said before they could hit the high seas she was told her luggage never set sail.

"Once we gave it to them, boarding the ship, I haven't seen it since," she said.

Read more: Cruise Line's Response to Lost Baggage Disappoints Passenger | firstcoastnews.com

This really sucks! But I'm not surprised by the reaction of the cruise line. I feel for these people and definitely understand their frustration and anger.

However, this is another reason why you need travel insurance. I can only hope they have some type of homeowners insurance that could possibly help them.

Did I say this really sucks?

I always think the chance to cement a faithful cruiser for life is so readily available in moments of trip disaster like this. Treat these people with service exceeding their expectations - only slightly - and you'll have them for life - even if you did lose their luggage.

Humans muck things up though - a customer can be slightly unpleasant and catch a staff member on a busy day and they may not receive outstanding service. It's a shame more of these "lemonade out of lemons" moments aren't seized by companies - cruise lines included.

I agree, Tim!

Lee Iaccoca wrote in his book that it takes a long time to gain the trust of a customer and only seconds to lose it. He firmly believed in the adage they used in commercials, "Quality is job 1". But it wasn't just the physical quality of the product, but also the quality of everything to do with the product including sales and service. He was the first to teach about total quality management, which gave everyone the authority to do what was necessary to satisfy the customer. Yes, sometimes the customer took advantage of the situation, but most of the time they didn't. These people were rewarded with the outcome they required, which resulted in a very satisfied customer. As he said, a satisfied customer will tell 4 or 5 people about their positive experiences, but a dissatisfied customer will tell 10 or 12 people about their negative experiences. So he felt it was worth it to keep all customers satisfied no matter the cost. Of course, in today's electronic world, a dissatisfied customer can easily tell thousands of people, as in the case of this story. Such negative experiences can influence people in their decisions to do business with a particular company and this can result in big monetary losses. So while a company may consider an issue like this as something minor and not a big deal, it can end up costing them in the long run and they need to consider the overall consequences when making their decisions on how to handle an unhappy customer.

As the woman said, all it would have taken is a couple of outfits. A minor price to pay to keep her as a very satisfied customer, but now they've lost her business and that of many others because of the lack of respect shown her.

Pete

Originally Posted by Cruise Planner

This really sucks! But I'm not surprised by the reaction of the cruise line. I feel for these people and definitely understand their frustration and anger.

However, this is another reason why you need travel insurance. I can only hope they have some type of homeowners insurance that could possibly help them.

Did I say this really sucks?

Yeah, you did say this really sucks.

Originally Posted by timwilloughby

I always think the chance to cement a faithful cruiser for life is so readily available in moments of trip disaster like this. Treat these people with service exceeding their expectations - only slightly - and you'll have them for life - even if you did lose their luggage.

Humans muck things up though - a customer can be slightly unpleasant and catch a staff member on a busy day and they may not receive outstanding service. It's a shame more of these "lemonade out of lemons" moments aren't seized by companies - cruise lines included.

I agree, Tim.

Originally Posted by Cruise Planner

I agree, Tim!

Lee Iaccoca wrote in his book that it takes a long time to gain the trust of a customer and only seconds to lose it. He firmly believed in the adage they used in commercials, "Quality is job 1". But it wasn't just the physical quality of the product, but also the quality of everything to do with the product including sales and service. He was the first to teach about total quality management, which gave everyone the authority to do what was necessary to satisfy the customer. Yes, sometimes the customer took advantage of the situation, but most of the time they didn't. These people were rewarded with the outcome they required, which resulted in a very satisfied customer. As he said, a satisfied customer will tell 4 or 5 people about their positive experiences, but a dissatisfied customer will tell 10 or 12 people about their negative experiences. So he felt it was worth it to keep all customers satisfied no matter the cost. Of course, in today's electronic world, a dissatisfied customer can easily tell thousands of people, as in the case of this story. Such negative experiences can influence people in their decisions to do business with a particular company and this can result in big monetary losses. So while a company may consider an issue like this as something minor and not a big deal, it can end up costing them in the long run and they need to consider the overall consequences when making their decisions on how to handle an unhappy customer.

As the woman said, all it would have taken is a couple of outfits. A minor price to pay to keep her as a very satisfied customer, but now they've lost her business and that of many others because of the lack of respect shown her.

Pete

Very true, Pete. The cruiseline should have handled this much differently since they lost their luggage and they were cruising for their 50th wedding anniversary.

For a couple of hundred dollars, the cruise line could have personally had one of the crew staff rush the couple to a shopping mall at their first port, treated them to a whole wardrobe for the cruise and gained a customer for life. It would have made the news and shown Carnival to be a really wonderful cruise line. The publicity would have been priceless and worth far more than it would have cost the cruiseline.

Instead, someone decided to go along with the letter of the law as was their right. They also gained so much negative publicity that it is going to cost them $$$ to make it up.

Was it worth it?

BTW, it is Holland America, a company under the CCL umbrella that gave me such a hard time during my "cruise to hell". I know I have given Holland America more bad press than they are ever going to get back in the money that they "saved" by not treating me fairly.

Actually I think the Cruise Line did more than I would have expected. You have to realize that a couple of outfits could cost more than the fare of a five night cruise to the Bahamas on Carnival.

Also I would have thought that their friends would have lent them some clothes.

On Our 11/4 Spirit Cruise we kept getting flyers in our cabin asking for us to look for someones missing bag, with a complete description of the bag and a picture of the type of bag. Not sure if they ever found the bags, but definately a good reason to get insurance.

Last year one of our bags got damaged beyond repair by the luggage handlers when boarding the Mariner in L.A. Royal Caribbean did take the suit case to see if it could be repaired, but when it could not, they gave it back to me with a report to give to my insurance company. There was no offer to replace it or give me anything to put my clothes in, and I did not expect it. I was glad I had insurance.

It's also a good lesson for not packing everything into one suit case. Mix it up, put a few things in your carry on, if you and your spouse are each taking a bag, then mix the clothes so if one bag is lost, one person is not left without anything.

Excellent advice. We always have at least one outfit in our carryons -each and mix everything in the other suitcases. That way if any one gets lost, we have a backup.