On January 2nd, we sent an email to Costa Cruise Lines after discovering that they had written DIRECTLY on the fabric of garments we sent for laundering, just prior to leaving the ship.
It has now been a week and the only response we have received so far was an email on January 3rd (probably automated) stating:
Dear Mrs. Wells,
We have received your email concerning your cruise holiday. Rest assured our Guest Relations Department is reviewing the situation you presented and will respond to you as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
The Guest Relations Department
Email sent to Costa on January 2, 2017
This is the exact email we sent to Costa, along with all of the photos of the clothing.
We were guests on the Costa Deliziosa cruise – December 21-28, 2016. Our Costa Card numbers for this cruise were – Geoffrey Wells – ********* and Victoria Wells – *********.
Just before leaving the cruise we decided to take advantage of your $29.99 laundry offer.
As we received the laundered items back in our cabin the evening before disembarking, we just packed them into our luggage.
After arriving at our hotel in Miami on the day we disembarked (Dec. 28, 2016), we discovered that our clothes had been marked, using black magic marker, DIRECTLY ON the clothing itself or on a size tag on the clothing. The mark on the size tag on the formal shirt was already rubbing off onto the shirt itself.
Some articles of clothing (the dark ones) had a label stapled to them. Not an optimal solution, but certainly a more acceptable way of marking the clothes than having our laundry number (Number 44) written DIRECTLY ON the clothing.
As far as we are concerned, these items are now ruined. The worst one was Victoria’s white shorts. The number 44 was written directly on the fabric on the inside of the FRONT of the shorts, but because they are white shorts, it was also visible from the outside.
Geoffrey’s Clothing
1 pair navy pants – value $50
1 blue shirt “Bay to Breakers” – an irreplaceable souvenir item only available to participants of the event – value $30
1 pair beige shorts – value $25
1 formal shirt (worn with tux) – value $70
1 white shirt (Mexican style) – value $40
1 blue floral shirt – value $35
1 black casual shirt with floral band – value $40
1 grey t-shirt (T-Rex) – value $30
Victoria’s Clothing
1 green plaid shirt – value $30
1 pair white shorts – value $20
1 pair orange shorts – value $20
1 pair green shorts – value $20
1 blue sweater tank top – value $35
Total value for all items – $445
We have been on many other cruise lines before and have availed ourselves of their laundry services. Usually there is a fabric tag that is easily removable. NEVER before has anything been written DIRECTLY on the garment itself.
We have attached several pictures to illustrate our concern.
This is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE and we await your reply on how you intend to rectify this situation.
Sent This Complaint to Several People at Costa
We sent this email to their customer care email address on their website – [email protected]
We also sent copies to:
Andrea Cortese, International Marketing Communication Director at Costa Crociere – [email protected] – this email address – taken from their website – This email address BOUNCED
Paul Soulsby, Senior Vice President – [email protected]
Michael Thamm, CEO – [email protected]
NOT Happy
We were not happy with Costa Cruise Lines at all (food, service, etc.) and this was just the last nail in the coffin. The other reasons for being unhappy will be shared in other blog posts. However, we wanted to get this out there to see if anyone else has experienced this kind of thing with Costa Cruise Lines.
We’d be happy to hear from you, if you have.
Pictures of the Ruined Clothes
Here are the copies of the pictures we sent them with the complaint email. It’s pretty clear that they marked either the fabric directly or one of the tags on each piece of clothing, with the number 44.
Please Share
Please feel free to share this post with anyone you know that may be interested or that may have experienced poor service from Costa Cruise Lines.
Update When Response Received
We will update this post when we receive a response from Costa.
Update – January 11, 2017
We received a response (sort of) from Costa today. It read:Dear Ms. Wells,
Your claim has been sent to our Risk Management Department for review. As soon as they provide a response, we will be in touch with you.
Sincerely,
The Guest Relations Department
Our first email to them was on January 2, 2017 – this seems a long time to wait just to be told we still have to wait for a response – with no indication of how long that wait might be. NOT happy.
Update – January 30, 2017
We forgot to record when we got the next correspondence from Costa, but the Risk Management Department asked for our banking details.
We were a little hesitant to give them such sensitive information, but we did.
And … on January 30th … a deposit appear in our bank for the COMPLETE AMOUNT of our claim – $445.00!
While it’s unlikely that we will sail with Costa again, they certainly stepped up and made things right.