Send Me A Letter

So I mentioned this trip cancellation . . . er . . . postponement . . .  ah . . .  big fuck-up that cost us a lot of money.  We threw ourselves on the mercy of the cruise company as they would have been within their rights to have taken the money with a shrug, leaving us shit out of luck.  They did not do this. They did not give all of it back but that seemed fair to us, and the amount seemed like a compromise on both of our parts.  SuperK and I take pride in the fact that we were persistent but kind and understanding and never, never angry.  If you'd like to see me do something stupid get me riled up.  Anyway, this is the letter I sent to their executive department:

Good day to the guest relations team.

SuperK and I wanted to make sure how grateful and pleased we were to receive this generous consideration.  We would have loved, of course, a full refund of the cost of the cruise but certainly understand that our last minute cancellation came at a cost to your company.  We also understand that we were outside of clearly stated terms that meant we could have been left incurring the entire cost.  To hear you intimate that we might receive a 75% refund (which we hoped for) or a 50% refund (which we would have gratefully accepted) was a great relief to us, and receiving an amount somewhere in between was a nice compromise for the best of us.  

We have been traveling independently to international destinations for 30 years and have just recently begun taking advantage of the convenience of cruise holidays (alas, age is slowly catching up with us).  So we're at the start of our cruising years, we think.  So far we have taken a couple of voyages with a competitor and three with you, and have settled on your company as our preferred choice.  Hopefully this shows our commitment to future business for you . . . which makes your generosity both appreciated on our end and good business sense on yours.  We're actively looking at Antarctica, the South Seas, and the eastern Mediterranean in the next few years (love the new expedition ships - wow!).

And as a general observation we are so impressed with the quality of your employees.  From the captain and hotel manager to the wonderful restaurant staff to our cabin attendants to the expedition guides (too many to note) to the staff who took our initial calls and got us to the assistant who took the most amazingly accurate notes of our conversation (which meant she was really listening).   SuperK and I both worked in technical sales and we understand that - as a job requirement - there's a certain amount of patience and tolerance involved in dealing with the public.  We also have a keen radar for when the patience and tolerance - and affection - is real  and when it's forced, and this was real.

We are in communication with our travel advisor and will provide feedback in the near future about these efforts.