Category: travel

Stalking potential customers isn’t really a good idea

I love going on cruises. I’ve been hooked ever since my parents and I went on a three-day Caribbean cruise on Norwegian Cruise Line’s old Leeward back in 1996. Since then, I’ve taken NCL’s Norwegian Wind to Alaska and done a transatlantic crossing on Cunard’s Queen Mary 2. There’s something wonderful about life onboard a ship, and I enjoy being able to visit several different places in the course of a single vacation.

It’s been a while since I set sail, and I’m itching to get my sea legs back. In preparation for a possible trip next year, I’ve been poking around the web and ordering brochures. For nostalgia’s sake, I ordered a brochure from NCL, but I’m starting to wonder if that wasn’t a mistake. I requested the material on Saturday, July 30 and on Tuesday, August 2, I got a voicemail message from a “personal cruise consultant” at NCL offering to help me plan my vacation. He also sent me an email, complete with a smarmy postscript reminding me to tell my friends about him when they ask about my cruise. Since he didn’t hear back from me, he called again today.

I really don’t like this approach. For starters, I haven’t received my brochure yet, so I don’t know whether or not they have anything I’m interested in. And being nagged like this doesn’t make me want to open up my wallet to them. There’s a fine line between being solicitous and being obnoxious, and NCL has crossed it. I have half a mind to respond to their email by saying that each unwanted communication will lower my chance of booking with them by 20%!

Oh, the joys of Amtrak

Amtrak has once again demonstrated its unsurpassed skill at being irritating.  I have an unused ticket that’s still good for travel, so I thought I’d apply it to the cost of my Christmas trip home.  Everything went along swimmingly until customer service said that, because I was applying the balance from an unused ticket, I would have to surrender the old ticket before they would confirm the new reservation, and they would only hold the reservation for three days.  I pointed out that I live three hours away from the train station, but they were unmoved.  I even offered to mail them the ticket.  That won’t work either, apparently.  They suggested I wait until three days prior to my intended departure before making my reservation, but that’s a disaster waiting to happen.  Not only will the ticket be much more expensive, but there’s no guarantee I’d even be able to get a seat.

After I hung up, I muttered some choice epithets and then set about booking my tickets.  Although my departing ticket is outrageously expensive, I was relieved to see that the return ticket was reasonably priced.  So reasonably priced, in fact, that I decided to upgrade to business class since it’s only $12 extra.  But, when I got my ticket confirmation, my eyes almost popped out of my skull and plopped onto the keyboard.  A ticket that should have been $43 was now $85 because of a change in the base fare.  There was no way I was going to pay $85 for an Amtrak business class ticket, so I had to go back and downgrade to coach.  Happily, the base fare didn’t increase for the coach ticket.   That would’ve caused me to mutter yet more choice epithets.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother with Amtrak when I go home.  The trains are always late, the coaches are slightly seedy, and it takes forever and a day to get anywhere.  Then I remember that it would cost me $500 (at least) to fly, and I shut up.