Odyssey

My husband and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary here in June.  We had a great time and we were able to use our groupon with no issues at all. The food was outstanding. It was way better than even I expected. I have told others to go on this for a special date night.

GROUPON USERS BEWARE: NOT GROUPON FRIENDLY!

So my boyfriend decided to be impulsive and get us a Groupon for a nice dinner cruise on the Odyssey as a nice, dress-up kind of date. When we finally figured out good dates to book the cruise/redeem the Groupon, we called and asked to see if there were any spots open for certain days (well within the dates and requirements of the Groupon) because I had moved out of state and it would require me booking airfare and taking vacation off of work to go on said cruise.

The booking agent/customer service rep told us that YES, the dates we asked about were open............ BUT when my boyfriend continued on to tell the rep that we had a Groupon, he was told that no, sorry, there are only a certain amount of Groupon users they would let on to a cruise per night........ and those dates that were open were suddenly not available to us because we're Groupon users.

You know, if you do not want a lot of Groupon users, why put an offer on Groupon at all? Do you not know how many people use Groupon? Anyway, we conceded and said we would just work around it. So they book us out two weeks later than desired and got started on planning the date. I was super excited! I had yet to see the city lights from the lake side and especially not for a dressier affair.

THE WEEK OF the planned dinner cruise date, they email to tell us that the Odyssey was not booked up enough so they were going to bump us down onto the SPIRIT CRUISE instead. Spirit is their sister cruise/ship but it is not quite as classy as the Odyssey (also they do not have as great reviews as the Odyssey, the prices are different, AND the meals are set up completely differently).

Now our hands are tied because airfare has already been bought, vacation days have been changed and rescheduled already once for the less-than-desired date, the Groupon code (although not the actual cruise itself) had already been redeemed and THEN THEY TELL ME I CANT HAVE THE CRUISE I PAID FOR.

I did NOT pay for a crappier cruise. If I wanted to go on a crappier cruise I would have bought a groupon for that instead.

If this is how they treat Groupon users I suggest this business refrains from offering a Groupon discount in the future. We are going to go on this date anyway because at this point we cannot get a refund from Groupon but if this is how they treat their customers I am NOT going to bother with this cruise line nor its sister lines again after this Groupon has finally been redeemed and this nasty fiasco has been put behind us.

And you bet I am going to take this up with Groupon and complain to their customer service reps. I do NOT at all suggest this business to ANYONE especially not out of towners who actually like to plan ahead!

If you do not want to be treated like a SECOND RATE CUSTOMER don't buy a Groupon for this cruise! If you're an out of towner, I wouldn't suggest paying for a cruise you might never take on the actual cruise ship itself. I had looked into a nice dinner cruise on the Odyssey for NYE or our anniversary but after this fiasco and terrible service BEFORE we even take the cruise, I'll take my JUST-AS-GOOD money elsewhere-- GROUPON OR NOT!

We just recently went on the dinner cruise on a Wednesday night. We had a great time. While we got the tickets at a discount, I'm not sure the experience was worth the regular price ($300+ for two people). Tip: If you go on a weekday, there's a greater chance you can win something in the raffle since so few people go. We won a free brunch cruise, so our experience was worth it I think.

Pros:
Live band to dance
Fantastic food - we definitely didn't leave hungry!
Gorgeous city views

Cons:
The band wasn't that supurb at picking music choices and reading the dance floor...
Very expensive - lots of "fees" associated with the tickets

I was surprised that the cost of drinks on the ship weren't too bad (not included in the price of your ticket though). Unless you need your premium cocktail, I wouldn't bother buying drink tickets ahead of time.