Royal Bahama Cruise Line Disorganized and almost certainly dishonest "State of Florida" Florida

Royal Bahama Cruise Lines asks you to pay first and receive confirmation of your travel specifics 48 hours later. 

These specifics include confirmation of availability, confirmation of reserved dates, cabin specifications, hotel confirmations and rental car details. In other words: everything. For comparison, please imagine that you contact an airline to book a trip and are told you must pay now and wait two days to receive confirmation that a seat will be available on the day you wish to fly. And that even if a seat is unavailable on that date, the ticket you've purchased will still be good for 18 months. 

In my case, I wanted to have some form of communication  from the Royal Bahama Cruise Lines, at or before the time of payment, stating that the dates we wished to book were available and would be reserved for us. I was unable to secure such a statement.

Why is there a 48-hour period between payment and registration? I was told "it takes that long to get it into the computer", "you aren't here to sign the credit card charge, so they need to be sure the payment has gone through"; and "I don't know." (See: Expedia, Amazon, ebay and an endless list of other commercial sites for contradiction).

Here is how my conversation with Royal Bahama Cruise Lines finally resolved itself earlier this afternoon:

• The third-to-last person with whom I spoke was the director of customer services (the "big boss," according to my agent) who assured me that the sales agent WOULD, in fact, and contrary to all I had previously been told, be able to provide me with an email document complete with "all the trip's specifics as you've requested, and it'll have all the costs detailed, too."

• The second-to-last person with whom I spoke was an assistant director of customer service who told me that such a document would NOT be forthcoming, and that only Reservations could provide it. Will they provide it at the time I pay?  I don't know, she answered. When asked why her boss had told me that such a written summary of my intended purchase would be sent to me, she said that she couldn't speak for her boss because she "wasn't on that phone call." Nevertheless, she told me that they presently showed quite an ample availability for the dates I had requested and that if I booked today I would certainly get the cruise when I wanted it.

• The last person with whom I spoke was the agent herself, with whom I had spoken originally and several times already. She told me that the director of customer service (the same) had just assured her that if I booked today and called back in 48 hours, the spots would definitely be available. No offer was made to provide me with that assurance in writing. I asked what would happen if I paid and the dates WEREN'T available. "It's good for 18 months," she said. Will I be able to have my payment refunded?  She put me on hold to find out "if we can do that," the implication being that this was an unusual question. (Incidentally, I had already been told at various times that "I've never been asked that before," regarding the question of pay-first-and-find-out-later.)  The agent returned several minutes later to say that upon checking, she now saw that the entire week in question had suddenly been booked solid. "We should have done it last Saturday," she said.

There are clearly three possibilities here: (1) Some of us are buying tickets for sold-out cruises and we will then be told by Royal Bahama Cruise Lines, "Sorry, you have 18 months during which to choose another date." (2) Royal Bahama Cruise Lines' sales office got tired of fielding my request for written confirmation at or prior to time of payment and simply lied about the sudden solid booking in order to be rid of me. (3) Both of the above.

None are trustworthy.