Wes and his girlfriend took a Royal Caribbean Cruise for their anniversary, but the experience was more stressful than blissful. Apparently, according to the cruise line, an appropriate stateroom for a couple is an L-shaped room with twin beds. Where the beds are bolted to opposite walls. While appropriate for a ’50s sitcom, this was not what Wes had in mind for a romantic vacation.

According to customer service, Royal Caribbean can assign you and your significant other a room with twin beds even though the website specifically says your room will be a queen.

I purchased a room for my anniversary on royalcaribbean.com with the assumption my girlfriend and I would not be sleeping on opposite sides of the room. The site clearly states that my room will have twin beds that can become a queen. However, upon check-in I find out that my specific room is L-shaped and the beds cannot be pushed together.

Rather that remedy the situation by offering a room upgrade (there were unused rooms on the ship of comparable quality), both of the customer service reps I spoke to were unapologetic, refusing to admit any mistakes and asserting that Royal Caribbean could assign me any room on the ship that met the grade of quality (H) I had paid for.

I know cruise lines have been hit by some rough economic times, but I expected more from a service industry. I have no doubt a Holiday Inn would have provided me a better room if I were unsatisfied.

Customer service refused to budge an inch and I was so angry after hearing their circular arguments for several hours that I disputed the full charge with my credit card company. Is there anything else I can do to help resolve my issue?

A full chargeback might be a bit extreme for this situation, but we understand his anger at employees not budging when there were vacant rooms.

Should Wes and his girlfriend have accepted their accommodations and settled in for a week of extreme closeness? Or was the chargeback the right call? Any other advice from seasoned cruisers? Is this normal?

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.