Any other cruise brides out there?

I wanted to say a big THANK YOU to you girls for suggesting they try to switch their reservations! I never even thought that was possible to do. Turns out they booked directly through RCCL and not the internet which makes it a lot easier to do. After a few phone calls they are now a part of our group! This means their dining requests will be with ours! Ahhhhh life is so much easier now! My TA is going to contact the group dept to see if this will get us onto the next tier of benefits for the group. They booked some sort of a special deal that has a lot of fine print that may exclude them from the benefits. We'll see!!! Anyway, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!

My how things change over the day since my last post. It's been so frustrating to deal with RCCL!!! So our TA called and was told our guest needed to call RCCL herself, provide the TA's info and telephone number, and the reservation would be transferred. My guest called RCCL and did just that. RCCL told the guest to have the TA call RCCL with their booking numbers to confirm. TA calls RCCL and is told they cannot switch the reservation, there is nothing in the notes giving her permission to do so. WTF she JUST talked to them? They also tell TA that guest needs to fill out a form to switch it. TA reviews form and it says they will not transfer reservations if it's paid in full. SO, guest calls RCCL and talks to 8 different people over the course of an hour, all with a different explanation. Guest is told they will not transfer her reservation to our group because they would have to pay the TA commission. They said why would we want to do that if we don't have to? HOW RUDE! So, they don't care we are bringing 27 people on their ship that otherwise wouldn't have been? My TA has the group person trying to help us. I'm not sure there is anything else we can do. I'm waiting to hear back from my TA. Sorry for the long rant, it's been one heck of a day. At this point, they are not a part of our group like we were originally lead to believe.

And to top it off, the hotel we have a group contract with for the day before the cruise leaves just dropped their prices significantly. Our contract says $189 plus tax and they are online for $138 plus tax. How do I explain to my guests that being a part of our group got them a raw deal. So, yet another phone call to make tomorrow.

Is this stuff every easy?!?!

RCCL can be a pain to deal with sometimes. Most of the time you get someone pretty knowledgeable, but lately it's been getting the village idiot!

Royal promotes using a TA so I'm not really sure what is up there.

You might want to PM TADina and ask her what you have to do exactly. I'm sure she's aware of what it takes.

I'm going to have to call next week. I just booked a room under the WOW deal today for the BM and his son. So now I need to add them to my group, plus I'm still trying to get reservations for our group the night of the wedding at Portofino's, so wish me luck!!

Take a deep breath, it'll all work out!! Your wedding will be beautiful Andrea!!

Sounds like you talked to some pretty stupid reps on the phone over there. Making a comment about paying commission to a TA is ridiculous. Commission on one booking is certainly nothing to cry about from RCCL's point of view.

It's a pretty easy process to flip over bookings EXCEPT when they're booked on a WOW fare. That's what I first thought of when reading your 2nd post. I don't know what to suggest, I've hit a few walls myself with WOW sales. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. But to add a WOW fare to a group...mmmm..couldn't say.

One thing to keep in mind when flipping bookings from one TA to another though, is the original TA does not have to release the booking to the new one. They can refuse.

But I don't understand the dining issue. Your TA should be able to deal with the ship's dining dept and get it straightened out. Contact the ship if they have to.

Thank you for your thoughts on this one TA Dina! I also think it's ridiculous for the reps to comment on paying a TA commission.

Yesterday afternoon we got a final answer from RCCL. MY TA's group dept contact tried to get them to make the transfer. It would be a transfer of the reservation from RCCL to my TA and our group. They purchased directly through the cruiseline. The group contact said it cannot be done because of the WOW deal and being paid in full already. I'm still slightly annoyed the 4 guests didn't contact my TA in the first place to get a price from her. We didn't even know they were thinking about joining us until I got a text message that said "we just booked your wedding cruise". I guess you can't tell people how and who to spend there money with. My TA told me if even one of them would have booked with our group we would have qualified for $500 more to spend on everyone. Ahhhh that's hard to swallow.

We did find out they are now in our dining group so that's a positive.

Thanks again for listening to my rants and giving me your feedback and support! You all are the best!

We are taking a cruise on Carnival Liberty and getting married in port while at St. Thomas. I feel like I'm behind in planning everything but at least the cruise is booked. We're still trying to figure out which St. Thomas vendor to select and who the heck is going! We've got 18 total booked so far. It's been frustrating that people aren't at least rsvp'ing and my DWTA has been getting on my nerves because she's not getting back to people in a timely manner...but I'm not turning into Bridezilla! I swear! I'm letting my FH take care of it.

Hello fellow cruise bride! I attended a cruise wedding in St. Thomas a few years ago. The wedding was held at the Frenchman's Reef Marriott and it was beautiful! Good luck!

Andrea, I swear I"m going to call Royal one of these days. I've been trying to remodel, christmas shop, now I have to get my wisdom teeth out this week. All while working a full time job!

Maybe by next week!