Trip was good, booking agent United vacations was terrible

Thanks for the review. 

I was sorry to read that all these mishaps ruined your cruise.  Worde of all, they don't respond to your complaints.  It sounds like very poor customer service.

Hi - Thank you for posting your review.  

I agree with CruisinTim's comment pertaining to guaranteed cabins.  It is odd that happened because when we cruise B2B, our United rep got us the same cabin for each leg of the trip... but we booked a specific stateroom, not a guaranteed cabin. While a guarantee may save you a few bucks, the risk is that you do not know what cabin you are staying in.

I suggest not giving up on United entirely because of one bad apple. Although we also work with a TA, we use United because of the frequent flyer points and bonuses received.  I am a Mileage Plus member and the miles come in very handy when we have to fly to our departure port. This literally saved us thousands of dollars on airfares to/from Europe and US destinations. We worked with one particular person until a less-than-satisfactory interaction caused us to switch to another agent. We have worked with her ever since. 

That said, we booked with a TA for the last couple trips because they were more complex (land-sea combination, B2B cruises).  Our TA is superior to United in that she monitors cruise pricing and moves our booking to better deals when they arise.  With United, we have to monitor on our own and contact them with a request to adjust the fare.  Our TA also seems to get us better OBC deals. United has never been great about the "extras".

Hope your next cruise goes better for you.

As an avid cruiser as you indicate you are with 7+ cruises behind you, I would think you would know to research the three cabins to assure they were close prior to booking. I usually do this when on the phone booking the cruise. That is unless you booked guarantee in which case there are NO guarantee the cabins would be together, only that they would be in the same booking category you purchased. Heck, with guarantee booking you would be lucky if the 3 cabins were on the same deck!! When I am promised On-Board credit, one of the first things I do go to customer service and confirm the credit is on my account. I also bring paper proof from the booking agent of the proposed credit. As for the food, as a Chef myself I understand how difficult it is to feed multiples of people at one time but there is no excuse for the poor presentation of the plates that show in your pictures. I was always told "if you wouldn't eat it looking like that, don't send it out". And I sure would not eat this stuff with the way it looks.