My Not So Cool Experience With Oceanjet
Oceanjet's balik promo for Cebu-Tagbilaran route IMHO, is an advantage for passengers like me. In fact I had posted about it here with my Oceanjet’s Balik Promo post. But I just had my not so cool experience with their service last Sunday, May 8, 2011 upon going back to Cebu. As I did mention in my former blog post, I availed the promo three days before the travel date. I scheduled my trip to Tagbilaran on Wednesday, May 4, 2011 and to Cebu today Sunday, May 8, 2011.
It was an unfortunate experience and as much as possible, I don't want to go through the same process again in the future. So here's what had happened, I bought our tickets at Cebu Pier 1 Monday, May 2 and informed the officer about the tickets I am buying. I instructed her our return date is fixed and it will be on Sunday. She repeated what I said and in addition, she also stated the date which was supposedly May 8. I was too confident about the dates that I didn't bother to review the tickets before leaving the office.
Cebu to Tagbilaran trip was perfect! I never had any problems at all. I just had the not cool experience by the time we went back to Cebu yesterday. We reached Tagbilaran city at 3:44pm, we directly went to the port at 4:00pm. James and I went for a photo walk for awhile since our trip will still be at 5:30pm. When we reached the check-in area, a long line has already been formed and we stepped at the end of it.
It was an unfortunate experience and as much as possible, I don't want to go through the same process again in the future. So here's what had happened, I bought our tickets at Cebu Pier 1 Monday, May 2 and informed the officer about the tickets I am buying. I instructed her our return date is fixed and it will be on Sunday. She repeated what I said and in addition, she also stated the date which was supposedly May 8. I was too confident about the dates that I didn't bother to review the tickets before leaving the office.
Cebu to Tagbilaran trip was perfect! I never had any problems at all. I just had the not cool experience by the time we went back to Cebu yesterday. We reached Tagbilaran city at 3:44pm, we directly went to the port at 4:00pm. James and I went for a photo walk for awhile since our trip will still be at 5:30pm. When we reached the check-in area, a long line has already been formed and we stepped at the end of it.
We waited for almost an hour, 50 minutes to be exact to reach the check-in table. Now the biggest revelation came in, the printed date on our tickets was May 7 instead of May 8. I felt blood rushing through my spines and I was like burning that time, I was thinking, "What to do? What am I gonna do now?"
But instead of panicking and crying which I usually do, James stood up and told me to approach and talk to the officer about it. Due to my nervousness, instead of going to the Oceanjet’s window, I went to the terminal fee window. I would still laugh upon remembering this! The lady at the terminal fee was so kind that she took time to check the ticket's date and said "Bitaw noh?, hala..." then finally said "Adtoa lang sa Oceanjet office ma'am". O-oh! Bloopers! I was in a wrong window. I thanked the lady and went straight to the correct window which was just adjacent to the former.
So after explaining what happened, the officer told me I can still avail of the ticket if there will be back out passengers. That means, I need to wait until the end of the boarding process and check on their computerized system if there is still slots available. It was already 5:30pm then. The ship was 20 minutes late also, I don't know if I have to be happy or sad about the case. But then, even if it was almost six, there were still passengers coming in the check-in area. Some of them say the ship should be called Ocean-late because it has been known to be always not on time. We patiently waited; I was holding priority number 10 and was still skeptical if we can get back to Cebu taking into consideration that I have to work at 11pm.
At 6:25pm, praise God at last the officer in the check-in area gave us our tickets, we have to pay additional Php 50 per ticket for the process, I found it just okay as long as I can get back to Cebu. At 6:30pm, we were already on board but not yet seating because our seats had been already occupied. The guys filling up the seats didn't know the seats have numbers, lols... They were forced to get up and look for their own seat number. Hehe.
Another disappointment was that we reached Cebu almost nine in the evening and I needed to work at 11 in the evening without sleep yet. Well, thank God we were still able to get to Cebu safe and sound.
But instead of panicking and crying which I usually do, James stood up and told me to approach and talk to the officer about it. Due to my nervousness, instead of going to the Oceanjet’s window, I went to the terminal fee window. I would still laugh upon remembering this! The lady at the terminal fee was so kind that she took time to check the ticket's date and said "Bitaw noh?, hala..." then finally said "Adtoa lang sa Oceanjet office ma'am". O-oh! Bloopers! I was in a wrong window. I thanked the lady and went straight to the correct window which was just adjacent to the former.
So after explaining what happened, the officer told me I can still avail of the ticket if there will be back out passengers. That means, I need to wait until the end of the boarding process and check on their computerized system if there is still slots available. It was already 5:30pm then. The ship was 20 minutes late also, I don't know if I have to be happy or sad about the case. But then, even if it was almost six, there were still passengers coming in the check-in area. Some of them say the ship should be called Ocean-late because it has been known to be always not on time. We patiently waited; I was holding priority number 10 and was still skeptical if we can get back to Cebu taking into consideration that I have to work at 11pm.
At 6:25pm, praise God at last the officer in the check-in area gave us our tickets, we have to pay additional Php 50 per ticket for the process, I found it just okay as long as I can get back to Cebu. At 6:30pm, we were already on board but not yet seating because our seats had been already occupied. The guys filling up the seats didn't know the seats have numbers, lols... They were forced to get up and look for their own seat number. Hehe.
Another disappointment was that we reached Cebu almost nine in the evening and I needed to work at 11 in the evening without sleep yet. Well, thank God we were still able to get to Cebu safe and sound.
"AAL IZZ WELL"
I had learned one great lesson with this experience:
This will forever stay in mind and heart! I swear!
"Always check, I repeat, always check the date.”
This will forever stay in mind and heart! I swear!
xoxo,
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Hi Jean! Ocean-LATE it is!! I'm Claire from Bhl & I've always been travelling w/ Ocean-LATE since high school even until now that im working already coz not only that it's the nearest port but they also have the cheapest fare & CHEAP in everything that is! I have COUNTLESS of bad experiences w/ Ocean-LATE coz I go home to Bhl EVERY weekend so book my tickets month prior.. the current nightmare I have w/ them is they did not allow me to rebook my ticket they wanted me to buy another ticket! & for the many years i've float w/ them this is the FIRST time they didnt allow me to rebook.. my return trip cbu-tagb was scheduled May 27, 2012 & went to Pier 1 to rebook last May 26 but to my surprise the woman at the ticketing booth said I cant rebook & move my travel date so I told the woman that Ive been rebooking tickets a million times! & so i texted their Operation Mangr, GENARO,also known as GENE who was in Dmgte that time & he let JACKY from their cust servc dpt call me & & worst she sounded as if she doubted what i said she even said she has been working w/ Ocean-LATE for a year already, well, hello jacky! Ive been riding their vessel since the 90's so i told her i'm going to look for all the tickets i have & she said sarcastically "yes maam mas maayo pa para makita nato.. just txt us the tket #s tagaan lang tka ako #.." but even until now she never txted back! & who the hell would keep all the tickets after using it, right? so last Sunday i tried to look for the tickets & i only have 8 tickets so i txtd their OM, Gene, to verify how they will know if it's a rebook ticket if they're going to get the original but Gene NEVER replied as he ALWAYS does! The last time i also had problem w/ them wch was last month (APril 2012)Gene assured us that he'll give us a refund for the return trip & when I reminded him last Saturday (May 26, 2012)about the last issue we had he said i told him i didnt want a refund! so i got more upset coz after he promised I even kept on reminding him but he wont reply & now he's twisting the story so I offered to meet up & let him read all his msgs to prove him wrong & i even offered to have my Smart bill printed for the msgs that he sent me & he didnt reply since then! so ive no choice but to buy another ticket but definitely NOT w/ Ocean-LATE ever again! Im fed up! && the UNTRAINED crews are the worst ever! they are VERY rude & they sleep at the back of the vessel & if you ask them for assistnce they will point w/ their mouth & gesture for you to just go to the counter they RARELY assist their pax! && I ALWAYS take the 5:30 pm trip from Bhl going to Cbu & NOT even once that this trip is on time there were times that it's 2 HOURS DELAYED!!! & you have no choice co once uv checked in ur ticket they will not refund.
@Claire: how should I say this? I can certainly relate to how you are feeling about the experience and I too can sense the frustration to their customer service that even though you are their customer for years, they never tried to give you any consideration but the damage has been done and what we can do right now is to at least avoid certain events.
for my case, as what i said on my post, will try to check always the date printed before leaving the counter...
I know it wasn't your fault in the first place, we'll just hope they could give more consideration in the future.