Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, Balmoral, Northern Europe Review

Balmoral, Northern Europe

Booked a five night cruise on Balmoral. Allocated cabin 5228, so I looked it up on the deck plan. Looked fine. Final documentation arrived confirming cabin 5228. Luggage labels arrived for cabin 5228. So far so good. On arrival at Rosyth we were selected for random covid test so had to wait an extra 20 minutes. I thought we would get priority check in after this but we were sent to the back of the queue for another thirty minute wait to check in. Eventually at check in I gave my cabin number 5228 only to be told, quite abruptly, that I was wrong and I was in 5128A. We were given our cards and boarded, we found our cabin, which was nice enough.
This was when the problems started.
We went to the marquee bar for a drink before sailing away, but were told there was a problem with our card and they couldn't find cabin 5128A in the system. After about twenty minutes and three attempts they found my name and my all inclusive account. I thought it was just a glitch but it happened every time we tried to buy anything. Quite annoying. Then we went to the muster station only to be told again that our cabin wasn't in the system and our names weren't on the passenger list. Now the problem changed from annoying to distressing, if something happened we wouldn't show as missing. Dangerous error.
The next day we spoke to guest services and, luckily we were met by Sophia. She could see how worried we were and apologised. I asked for another cabin and Sophia arranged this immediately, changed our cards to show the new cabin number 5075 and issued new luggage labels and contacted all the other departments to make sure we were not questioned again. The new cabin was exactly the same grade and I had hoped for an upgrade due to the inconvenience of having to move. I mentioned this to Sophia and she arranged for a complementary bottle of champagne and chocolates to be delivered to the cabin. She even phoned me the next day to see if everything was to our satisfaction. Sophia really saved our cruise as we didn't have any more problem. She is a credit to Fred Olsen.
I believe that the test of good customer service is how a company reacts when something goes wrong and this was an example of how it should be done.

The rest of the cruise went without a glitch, we've been on Balmoral before and the staff were all excellent, the food was good and the Norwegian fjords are stunning.

So, I would have given five stars if we had been upgraded and if the check in had been better. My only warning to anyone else who gets given 5228 is call them immediately and get a move as it is a phantom cabin and you'll have the same problem.