There are typos, minor technicalities, accidental overcharges, and then there’s this.
In the type of billing error the fancy brochures don’t highlight, a passenger on Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas was charged nearly $100,000 for one meal at the specialty restaurant.
Now it was a mistake the cruise line quickly fessed up to and fixed, but wow, that might have you reaching for the antacids if it happened to you.
Alex and his wife Alicia enjoyed a fine dining experience at Jaimie’s Italian. Calamari, garlic bread, and then the main course of penne Pomodoro, arugula, and parmesan salad were capped off by lemon meringue cheesecake for dessert.
As for the bill? That came to $98,638.93, which was charged to the couple’s incidental account on the ship.
They enjoyed the meal thoroughly, with Alex being quoted by Cruise Hive as saying, “That Lemon Meringue Cheesecake is probably my favorite restaurant dessert of any restaurant on land or boat.”
Even after it costs you $20,000?
As for why this error occurred, it was because an ID number got put into the gratuity box instead of the dollar amount.
Kudos to Royal Caribbean for fixing the blunder quickly, but it wreaked a little havoc on their AmEx card, with that large charge putting the plastic out of commission the rest of the cruise.
Here’s another quote in Cruise Hive from Alex.
“I have been pretty frustrated because although Royal Caribbean reversed the charge, the authorization on my card remains. This has been pretty stressful to deal with while on vacation. We had our card declined while off the boat on an island, presumably because this authorization was locking up the available credit on the card.”
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