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TRAVEL INSIDER : How Cruise Lines Cope With QEII-Size Problems : Ships: Industry spends bundles to rectify passenger complaints. But some problems still need bailing out.

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TIMES TRAVEL WRITER

It was a calm and unremarkable night, but three Fridays ago the Queen Elizabeth II gently ran aground. No one was hurt, but 1,850 itineraries were thrown into limbo. And in the wee hours of a weekend night, the top officials of the Cunard Line, operator of the ship, had to confront a recurrent riddle that tests every cruise line now and again:

What price do you put on a customer’s discomfort?

For the record:

12:00 a.m. Sept. 20, 1992 For the Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday September 20, 1992 Home Edition Travel Part L Page 2 Column 5 Travel Desk 1 inches; 15 words Type of Material: Correction
Cunard ship--In the Aug. 23 Travel Insider column, the cruise ship QE2 was incorrectly referred to as QEII.

Every year, thousands of cruise passengers come home with a staggering variety of complaints, usually on matters of food, service and cabin rattle, but occasionally on such matters as air connections, or the quality of the view from their portholes, or an equipment failure --or running aground.

This doesn’t necessarily mean the cruise business is a mess. In fact, cruise lines are healthier than hotels and airlines these days, with bookings rising almost 10% a year and customer service departments reporting complaints from fewer than 1% of passengers. When an industry carries more than 4 million passengers a year, providing bed, breakfast, lunch, dinner, shuffleboard, aerobics and entertainment in between, a few thousand things are bound to go wrong. And occasionally, those things happen on a grand scale.

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It was about 11 p.m. when the QEII lurched. The ship, on the fourth day of a five-day cruise to Nova Scotia, had struck an underwater obstruction near Buzzards Bay, Mass. The 1,850 passengers, each of whom had paid at least $1,040 for the cruise, had to complete the journey back to New York City by ferry, bus and train.

By Saturday afternoon, Cunard officials said, senior vice president Ron Santangelo had sent down instructions on how to compensate customers:

Cunard stocked the passengers’ New York-bound railroad cars with open bars. It offered every passenger a $500 credit toward another Cunard cruise. It covered hotel and meal costs for passengers who missed connections out of New York. It contacted ticketholders for the two transatlantic QEII cruises scheduled in August that the line would have to cancel and offered those customers a choice: They could have a full refund plus a round-trip airline ticket to London for their trouble, or they could book another transatlantic QEII cruise later this year and get $1,000 Cunard credit to be used this year or next.

When something that dramatic goes wrong, cruise companies usually move quickly and publicly to demonstrate good faith.

In May, 1989, a Holland America ship suffered an engine problem off San Francisco and had to scrub an itinerary that was to conclude in Vancouver, B.C. The cruise line put up 1,200 passengers in local hotels, paid for their meals, arranged free city tours for them, bought airline tickets to their hometowns or to Vancouver, offered future travel credits and prorated refunds. At a conservative estimate of $150 in added costs per passenger, repairs aside, the bill would have been $180,000. Public relations director Rich Skinner declined to disclose the specific amount but said the number was higher than that.

In early July of this year, an engine malfunction forced Carnival Cruise Line to cancel a three-day cruise from Port Canaveral, Fla., to the Bahamas. The affected customers, Carnival spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz said, were offered full refunds and either a $100 discount on a three- to four-day voyage or a $200 discount on a seven-day voyage.

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Los Angeles-based Crystal Cruises, a 2-year-old, luxury-oriented company with a single ship (the Crystal Harmony), learned early about the challenge of crisis management. In September, 1990, the company’s third month of operations, a fire flared in the Crystal Harmony’s engine room. No passengers were hurt, but on the fifth day of the 10-day cruise, passengers had to be flown from Panama back to the United States. The cruise line dispatched employees bearing full refund checks to meet the returning passengers. In addition, the company offered each passenger a $500 credit toward future cruises.

Crystal Cruises faced a more subtle test last October, when fog fouled up return flights for many Crystal passengers returning from a 17-day New York-to-Acapulco cruise. The cruise itself went without a hitch, recalled Darlene Papalini, Crystal’s director of public relations and guest relations, but many fogbound passengers had to endure hours on airport Tarmacs in Burbank or Las Vegas before finally returning to LAX to go through customs. Though it bore no responsibility for the weather, airline schedules or customs requirements, the company covered many of its passengers’ hotel costs and later also covered claims for further expenses, such as charges for limousine services kept waiting.

“If they’re not happy, then we’re sunk,” said Papalini, who fields letters from passengers for the company. (Such service comes at a price: Crystal is among the costliest cruise lines, often charging more than $400 per day, excluding air fares.)

Most cruise ship complaints, however, cover less dramatic issues and are not so likely to command immediate attention.

Officials at the Cruise Line Industry Assn., a group that represents 31 U.S.-based cruise lines, say there are no industrywide policies on customer complaints. But officials at major cruise companies agree on several pieces of advice for passengers.

* Before your trip begins, read the literature and question your travel agent or a cruise-line representative closely so that you know what to expect. Look at a ship map to see where your cabin is. Will you mind if a lifeboat impedes the view from your cabin?

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* Consider travelers’ insurance. It will be an added expense, but a policy can offer protection if you have to pull out of a cruise at the last minute or if you become ill aboard ship.

* If something on board is bothering you, said Carnival Cruise Line’s de la Cruz, “the thing to do is not to stew about it and complain to your travel agent when you get home. Try to address it on the ship. Give us the opportunity to fix it while the cruise is under way. Then if it’s not resolved, go to the passenger service department when you get back.” (Keep in mind that most cruise ships keep a few cabins empty specifically so they can move people with legitimate complaints about their quarters.)

* Take names, dates and details. The more information you can supply with your complaint, the easier it will be for the company officials to confirm what happened.

* If you want to complain after a cruise is complete, put it in writing. Only rarely will any cruise line agree to a refund or future travel credit on the basis of a phone call. Send a letter to the company’s customer relations department, and keep a copy for yourself.

* Be patient but persistent. Most cruise companies say they try to respond within six weeks; some send out acknowledgment notes, then may not communicate with you again for a month or more while they investigate your complaint. If you get no response and you’re sure your cause is worth the trouble, write again.

* Be calm and direct. A shrill complaint can undercut your credibility. (Cases are won regularly. Though cruise-company officials said they couldn’t say what percentage of complaints prompt refunds or discount offers, two different cruise-line spokespersons estimated that three of every four complaint letters seem legitimate.)

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* Don’t count on a cash refund. Cruise lines say they investigate complaints case by case, but, like most businesses, they prefer to offer credit toward future services. In the event of canceled or aborted trips, your odds of getting cash back, rather than a future discount, are much better.

* Recognize that your options are limited. If you remain determined and can’t get satisfaction from the cruise company, legal action may be the only next step.

* Don’t expect any easy money. Of several cruise lines I called in connection with this column, only Crystal Cruises said it might offer a discount or refund, even if the cruise line was clearly not at fault. The rest had responses similar to that of Holland America’s Skinner.

“So many people have learned to abuse the system,” Skinner said. “We just can’t afford to (placate them) anymore.”

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