Bad experiences on charges with royal Caribbean.

I went on the Star of the Sea last month for an amazing 7 nights cruise (the trip itself was great). However, the before and after experience was horrible! I am wondering if this is normal for royal cruisers.

My parents booked 3 rooms for the cruise, hence, she's the head or leader (not sure what the term is) and her credit card was on file. We booked from Canada with Canadian agency paid in Canadian dollars (related for post cruise complaint)

My wife and I bought a refreshment package pre cruise without own credit card. Then we read that we cancel pre cruise and book again if we see better deal.

The package went down in price and we cancelled and book the package again at lower price. I did the same with internet deal.

2 weeks went by.. my wife didn't get her money back on the first purchase but I got mine within a week.

After many calls, at first they ask us to wait.. then they admit that they sent the refunds to my mom's credit card on file. We asked why since royal Caribbean website and phone system (when you wait) it states they strictly return money to credit card that paid for it. Then the agent said the system just randomly choose a credit card and refund. That sounds like a red flag on anti money laundering issue (not serious but still is) since they are giving money to random people within the same booking.

In order to fix it, they said they need to take money from my mom's credit card first via a recall then another 2 weeks for money to get back to us.. so at least a month longer. We just said we will deal with it.. but asked for on board credit for our trouble.

2nd complaint

Everytime we return rental towels, we always ask if the return entered the system and the staff will say "yes".

After we left the cruise, we saw a $175 USD charge on my mom's USD credit card. And we disputed it then they quickly said they will do the refund. Sounds like they are used to it.. they charged this to two rooms.

2 weeks later. We realized the refund was in $175 CAD.

I called for a reason why they would do that .. and they said since it was a Canadian booking paid in cad, therefore refunds are done in CAD.. but since the charge was from the ship.. it will be USD.. same dollar value, but different currency.

That sounds like a scam... What if I'm Vietnamese .. 1 usd equals to 26,350 VND . Does that means they will refund 175 VND?!?

So after threatened to escalate for what appears to be outright scam.. the call center staff offered to refund the market exchange rate equals to the $51 usd on the bill in CAD.. but I rejected again since it won't be $51 by the time credit card company take their cut too.

Only at the end.. they would give me $55 usd converted to CAD.

A few points.

- royal Caribbean have very bad customer service as it seems like their call center doesn't know what they are doing

- RC have very bad AML protocol.

- RC like to charge customer with towel charges hoping they won't bother.

- the refund policy is stupid... Why can't they at least give me refund of $175USD converted to CAD... At least I'm only short like 2-3% instead of 40% .

Is this a common issue with you guys?