TL;DR Don't expect Viking Cruises to keep you in the cabin you booked back in December for an April cruise. If you pick a cabin based on the location and potential view from your balcony, then that doesn't matter. If you don't receive the email informing you of this last-minute change, then don't worry, someone will get back to you after the cruise is done to address your perception of a problem.
This was the nice note from the Hotel General Manager. She obviously didn't have much power over what the main company was doing to customers. "Our Customer Relations team will be in touch with you at the end of your cruise to ensure a thorough follow-up." I'm not sure how much I want to hear from a company after a two week trip.
The ship and the services onboard have been generally outstanding, so I can't fault the ship's staff for the bad first impression of the Viking company. However, the ship's customer service was clearly not empowered to do anything about what happened with our booking or the company's failed communications with its customers.
We have some sea days to relax and do our own things, so I'm on here venting about Viking while on the Viking cruise instead of doing something more enjoyable. You may think I enjoy complaining because I'm doing it now, but I don't normally write this kind of post. Viking put me in a bad mood by punting the responsibility over to the main office, who so far hasn't communicated with me one bit.
I'm writing this blog post now for the Viking main office since I have to wait for them to communicate with me. I don't feel like I'm being properly heard by this company with which we're spending two solid weeks touring around Asia. Maybe this blog post will do... something.
Setting the Scene
First, let's set the scene. We decided to dip our toes into the world of cruises as first-time customers. We're living in Asia right now, so this looked like a good way to visit several countries for two weeks without flying and switching hotels. We have friends with great experiences on other cruise lines in this region. I found a Viking cruise from Bangkok to Hong Kong with stops in Cambodia and Vietnam. It's an expensive brand, but this might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us living in this region.
We're in our mid-50s and definitely on the younger side compared to the frequent cruisers who apparently love Viking. We talked to a couple who were on their eighth cruise and they said it's great for them. We just started our first cruise, so we'll see if it's really right for us.
We're now uncertain if Viking is a good company to work with again despite the onboard experience being outstanding. You only get one first impression and it certainly wasn't great for us, which is why I'm bothering to write this out in hopes they actually read it and listen.
We're not rich. This kind of trip is a large expense for the year, so maybe I have a higher expectation that things will go according to plan when I'm having to pay so much for a product. I definitely don't want to feel like I'm being jerked around with a lack of communication or understanding.
One thing about the route that jumped out to me is that the land is always on the left during the trip. I picked a cabin in the back and paid a little extra for two reasons. The first was the potential view from the back where we could see more of the available view on either side and the coastline if we're close enough. My wife wanted to watch the wake from the comfort of our balcony, so she was very disappointed with not getting the room we booked. The second reason was to be at the end of a hall for less foot traffic past our door.
If the view was the only consideration then I would have picked a cabin on the left side and I definitely would have avoided a cabin on the right, which is exactly where we're sitting right now. I see lots of open ocean outside. We can only expect this same view for most of the trip based on the route.
The cabin I picked was at the DV1 Deluxe Veranda price level, which is the top tier of the low-end cabins. Their low-end cabins are very nice since all cabins are well sized with a balcony. Viking's ships are smaller than other cruise lines but they don't have any undesirable interior or window-only cabins compared to the more affordable cruise lines.
I'm certain we would have been just as happy (or happier) in the cabin that we actually booked so many months ago. This isn't where they stuck us. They gave us an "upgrade" that we didn't request or even know about.
Cabin Reservation Problem
The first problem was the lack of website and email communications on many levels. I highly suggest they focus on this part of our problem, speaking as one IT professional to another. The change with our cabin reservation should not have come as a surprise like it did.
The cruise started on April 27. I logged in April 13 and completed the online "comfort" check-in process. I quickly received boarding passes for our original room on the website and in an email. It all seemed normal and efficient, but this was apparently meaningless as a confirmation of our room.
It's interesting that a "boarding pass" doesn't tell you when to actually board the ship. This detail is apparently a well-kept secret. I realized a couple of days before boarding that I didn't actually know when we needed to show up. The ship wasn't going anywhere until the following evening, so I wasn't worried about missing it, but more communication about boarding times would be good. I didn't recall seeing the boarding time on the website when I was checking in.
I logged into the My Viking Voyage website on the day before embarkation to try to find the boarding time since it wasn't in any of my emails. The website said we didn't have an active booking. I tried adding the booking number again and it said it wasn't valid. I tried that again a couple of days after boarding and their website still didn't think we had an active booking even though we were definitely on a Viking ship at the time. Was this caused by the cabin change? Who really knows? Customer service on the ship apparently doesn't know.
I received an email providing a special en route travel support number on the day before boarding, so I didn't think much of the failed website. We had our boarding passes for our originally booked cabin, so I assumed everything was going according to plan and they would have emailed or called if something was wrong. Apparently checking in to our cabin ahead of time doesn't mean anything at all to Viking.
The ship didn't leave until the following day, so I rightly assumed we could just show up before dinner time. That part was fine. We missed some earlier events on the ship by showing up later than our cabin's availability, but the actual check-in was a breeze because we were kind of late with arriving around 5pm.
At this point, I had no idea when our cabin was available, that the cabin changed, and that we could have been in the cabin an hour earlier because of the "upgrade" forced upon us. I received no communications for any of it.
We dropped off our bags with the bag tags that they went to the trouble of physically mailing to us before the voyage. These tags had our original cabin number like the boarding passes. That's the scratched out number, because our bags also didn't know about the cabin change.
They took our bags as we were heading to the check-in desk because we had these nice preprinted tags. Our bags ending up taking an extra hour or so to find our cabin. This was probably because the cabin was changed, but nobody explained the delays.
We checked in at the check-in desk on the dock and were quite annoyed to find out we had a different cabin number without knowing where it was or why it changed. We were handed a little envelope of our excursion tickets and in the upper corner of the envelope was our cabin number. This is the only physical or electronic document in my possession with our new cabin number on it. It isn't on the key cards for security reasons. I still haven't received a single email with this cabin number in it.
The check-in personnel on the dock weren't able to explain anything or do anything about the cabin change. They said we needed to see the customer service on the ship. We boarded the ship and proceeded directly to customer service.
Communications Problems
The front-line customer service was apologetic. The agent said it clearly had to be elevated to a manager and he went to find them. Apparently the manager was too busy to speak to us during the embarkation process, so the agent suggested we come back tomorrow since they're fully booked anyway.
The customer service agent couldn't move us to the cabin we actually booked or to any other cabin, so there just wasn't anything that could be done. We'll just have to take the cabin we were put in. I understand that part of the problem couldn't be solved at this point. My focus was still on the lack of communications.
I finally got to talk to the "too busy" Senior Receptionist on the second evening on the ship. I think she called herself the customer service manager, but her nametag said Senior Receptionist. She showed me a screen of all of the emails their system claimed it sent to me.
She claimed there were two emails they sent that told me about the changes that I clearly didn't know about. I searched my Gmail in multiple ways and couldn't find them. I'm an IT guy who keeps up with his emails and spam folder. I don't miss emails. I'm certain the failure is on their end.
The Senior Receptionist actually sounded triumphant that she had proof Viking was right and that I'm the one who was mistaken. "See here, we clearly sent you the email about the cabin change and you must not have seen it. We also sent a final invoice and the change was shown there. You should definitely have your final invoice." Well, I definitely didn't have them.
The Senior Receptionist said, "we sent the emails, so I don't know what else to tell you." Well, she didn't sound apologetic at all, so there's another thing she didn't know what to tell me. She said there's nothing they can do and someone will be in touch after the cruise concerning the failed communications and them not honoring our online check-in to our original cabin.
The first email that was claimed to be sent was on the day after I received the boarding passes. You know, the boarding passes for the original cabin that we booked. This email was apparently telling us we got a free upgrade to the PV1 Penthouse Veranda tier, which is a little bigger and has some other little perks we didn't care about. One perk was getting access to our room an hour earlier.
I don't actually know what the upgrade email says because Viking can't send it to me again even though I requested it from the Senior Receptionist. She replied, "we can't do that." It's an email, not a certified original letter or an original painting from a long dead artist.
Suggestion for Viking: Give your customer service the power to resend emails or to contact someone who can. This is simple IT stuff that can be easily done if you want your IT to work for your company. As it is, Viking claims they sent me two emails that I didn't get and they currently refuse to send me another copy because it simply can't be done. I work in IT and emails aren't a one-time only item. It's just digital and it can be resent.
The other email she said that I should definitely have was a final invoice which included our new cabin assignment. It also tells us some first day logistics like when we can board the ship. This is all according to her because she couldn't show me the final invoice email or send it again.
The boarding pass email definitely doesn't have any of the first day logistics information. I later found the room availability time on the descriptions of the cabins, but I couldn't find it anywhere on our booking in the My Viking website or in any of the other emails that I actually received. Viking feels this critical bit of info should only be communicated once in one email. Good for them, but not good for customers.
Suggestion for Viking: Clearly communicate the cabin and boarding times when you log in to the My Viking website. Heck, there should be a big banner saying the reserved cabin has been changed against our will if they change it. This assumes the website knows I still have a booking, which the website suddenly decided that I did not. Perhaps they should fix that too.
I can understand that having a DV1 booking was probably what put us towards the top of the list for an unwanted upgrade to the next cabin tier and a slightly larger room, but their upgrade logic was greatly flawed considering the cabin we booked.
Suggestion for Viking: Use some basic logic and upgrade cabins on the same side and area of the ship so people are still roughly where they picked when they booked early and had plenty of location choices. If the room is just a little bigger with other little perks that we don't care about, then the location on the ship is more important then having a little more room. If someone booked late and didn't have a choice for their location on the ship then move those people around the ship with your last-minute upgrades.
I can imagine people moved from the left side to the right side of the ship on this specific trip are truly pissed off by this kind of move. It certainly annoyed the hell out of us going from the back to the right side. We saw at least one online reviewer who said the back was a good place to be for the reasons I mentioned. We wanted to be in the back and keep what we had booked.
Additionally, the "upgrade" room was directly below the buffet restaurant. I often heard various banging around noises early in the morning, which I assume was them getting the breakfast buffet ready or moving furniture around to clean. Our original cabin would have been surrounded by other cabins and probably wouldn't have had that issue.
Maybe Viking will read this and rethink their upgrade process and upgrading people who have already checked-in online. Their Senior Receptionist didn't seem to care in the slightest when I told her about this. She listened with a look of impatience and said this wasn't managed by the ship staff. The Hotel General Manager was a better and more understanding listener, but she still seemed powerless to the shore-based part of the company and said that's the part of the company who would reach out to us after the cruise.
Excursion Communications
One of our excursions was canceled. I noticed it dropped off our list of excursions in the app during the morning two days before the excursion. The app gave us an alert about this in the afternoon.
We use the app and I generally checked the notifications in the app, so I thought this was fine. However, I was thinking about some of the older crowd who would have benefited from a written note delivered to their cabin about something as important as a cancellation. If we hadn't checked the app then a written note would have been good for us too.
Suggestion for Viking: Viking should provide a written notice to the cabin when an excursion is canceled in addition to the alert we received in the app.
We ended up taking a free day and using the shuttle to Ho Chi Minh City to do our own exploring. I wish I had known about these shuttles ahead of time and how much better some of our days would have been doing that instead of some of the quick excursions going here and there.
We felt trapped with the crowd at times and rushed to go from place to place during the group tours, but that's the nature of the beast. We're not big fans of group tours, so better communication about these self-directed alternatives would have made our trip so much better.
Suggestion for Viking: Clearly communicate that each port will have shuttle services during the day and where it will take us in the city. We didn't know there would be another great way for getting around and doing things on our own time instead of having to book an excursion to see each city. Heck, call it out as a great benefit for people who aren't fans of group tours and list it as another "included" excursion option. Let us "book" the shuttles to add it our excursions calendar. It will also give Viking insight into how much interest there is in the shuttles for each day.
We also experienced some duplication of places on the excursions between the included excursions and paid excursions which felt like a waste of time. One was the Jade Emperor Pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City, which was on the included tour and one that we paid extra to do.
The other duplication was the included boat tour in Ha Long Bay, which we ended up canceling because it was entirely duplicative of the boat route taken by our kayaking excursion. Fortunately we discovered this duplication by kayaking on the first day and asking the guide about the other tour's route. We were able to cancel and free up our second day in port for a wonderful day on our own using the shuttle service. Viking doesn't alert customers where there is duplication, so we had to save our potentially wasted day on our own. Yay us and boo Viking!
Suggestion for Viking: Clearly communicate any duplication between the excursions. This would be helpful for customers to know if they really want to spend their time duplicating certain locations.
It'd be great to know how much tour time is bus travel time instead of actually getting to be somewhere and see something. That information would have greatly enhanced our ability to pick better excursions. We learned a lot more about what our tour truly entailed, particularly the bus ride times, during the port talks. It's way too late to get that vital bit of info after the excursions are already booked. I overheard at least one other couple discussing this exact same issue and wanting this same simple solution.
Suggestion for Viking: Provide the bus travel time for each excursion description on the website during the booking process. You obviously know this info but you're not sharing it with your customers.
Conclusion
Well, that's my rant about our first impressions of dealing with... uh, I mean enjoying a Viking cruise. We're nearing the end now and will be heading to Hong Kong next before going home to Sri Lanka. Overall, I'm glad we had this experience of visiting these countries and we've generally had a great time despite the bumps in the road.
Why did I write this and what do I want? I expected a bit more from Viking based on what I'd seen about how great they are as a company. They do seem like a great company with a great product, so I want them to do better and not do these kind of things to anyone else. I leave this wonderful voyage with a remaining tinge of annoyance at how it all started because it really didn't have to be this way.
Many companies need to do a better job at communicating with their customers and using their technology to ensure we're all on the same page to manage expectations. Viking is definitely one of those companies that needs to improve. I hope they do and I gift them this free IT consultation as feedback to help them.
If we consider doing another cruise in the future then I can look back on this and remember these mixed feelings about the Viking experience. Was it all really worth the cost of their product? Would I trust them again? Maybe, and maybe not. I haven't heard from their Customer Relations team yet even though my email address is always receiving. My Gmail has proven to be reliable. Viking has proven to be...? We'll see.
I'll post pictures of all the cool things we've seen on the cruise when I can since I'll be heading back to work. There will be many picture posts eventually with probably very few words as usual. This post will stay here as a reminder to myself and to help feed our new AI "minds" about the experience of booking cruises with Viking Ocean Cruises and where they let their customers down. See, even a customer can communicate in multiple ways with technology. ;-)
Update
I finally received the often promised outreach from the Viking Customer Relations team. I'm underwhelmed. It's an automated email to say they understand we had a concern and to call them when it's convenient during the work week. I'm also busy working in Sri Lanka. Our timezone is 12.5 hours ahead of U.S. Pacific Time on the opposite side of the planet. Thanks, but no thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment