Gulet Charter Complaints or Reclamations. Now matter how you call it – it happens

The ship does not have lots of space to move and if you get into a fight you do not have so much place to run away. And the fact is that even the best friends can get into a huge fight during a 7 days cruise together.

A couple of years ago we have received a complaint. It was for a gulet where we booked lots of weeks before and everything was always perfect. So we were quite shocked the clients were not happy.

The complaint went a little bit like this (I will just SUM IT UP):

• The food was not good. We had soup EVERY SINGLE DAY!
• The route was not good. Every day we were on anchor..while we wanted to go out of the gulet more and explore the towns.
• During the cruise there was heavy rain. We had to move all the sun mattresses inside of the gulet by our self. 
• The cabins were not cleaned every day.
• I missed more fish for food. We had heavy meat every day.

When I received the complaint I was of course very unhappy and also very surprised. And I, of course, visited the owner and we went through every single point. Also, the owner was shocked we got this complaint as nobody told him anything during the cruise. 

So the owner explained to me this:

• First of all the group had bad luck with the weather. And this, of course, means usually that clients get cranky (I would also if it would be raining half of my holidays).
• The second thing – the group was a mixture of 2 nationalities. Imagine you put together loud party-oriented Australians and shy and easy-going older French people. Something similar happened here. I will not say which nationalities they were but they were friends with 100% different mentalities. And on a boat…this can be a problem.
• Regarding the soup…They served with the first day…and half of the group liked it so much that they requested from the owner..if they can have soup every day?! It was a strange request but owner followed it…and they truly had SOUP EVERY SINGLE DAY.
• Regarding the route. At the start, they agreed on a route which had to change because of weather. The group leader did all the talking with the captain and he requested that the gulet is most of the times on anchor. Nobody protested so again the captain thought he is making a group a huge favor.
• When the rain started to fall the clients wanted the sun mattresses to go inside. The owner explained that these mattresses are made from a special material and that no matter how heavy rain there is when the sun gets back up they will be dry in 1 hour. The clients insisted and the crew said that it is no problem that they will carry this inside…and again half of the group said they will help them…and they did it together…And again nobody complained.
• They cleaned the cabins every single day for first 3 days…and then the group leader again stated to captain they do not wish the crew to go inside the cabins…and they had to stop cleaning..again he thought this is a joined decision…and it looks like it wasn’t..and again nobody complained during the cruise.
• The chef always has 1 meal as a fish meal and 1 meal as a meat meal. The leader requested ALL MEALS to be meat meals…?!? 

So this is a very good example of how things can go bad if the group is not organized.

We had an example when the owner called me and ask me what to do. That half of the group wishes to see Hvar while the other group wishes to go to Brač. And that they have a serious fight. I suggested they should gamble…the once that wins to get to decide.

In 20 minutes captain called me again and told me he is not sure what to do. He told me like this: “They did the lottery and 1 person lost. So we are going to Hvar….And now the other person that wanted to go to Brač is crying!?! What do I do?” I instructed the captain to just leave him alone and hope for the best…and set sails to Hvar.