Royal Moving and Storage

Just completed a move with Royal movers. If I could give them 10 stars I would. Adam was the lead man on the move. They picked up in South Carolina and delivered to Florida. Everything they did was completely professional and courteous. Adam especially went way above and beyond to make sure everything went without a hitch. he is a great guy. If you call Royal movers, and you should, make sure you ask for Adam to do your move. I can't tell you how happy I am for the service I received. You'll never find a better place to do your moves. And I will absolutely call them again, ifI have a need

Angel, Angel, & Telic.... Y'all did it again. Thank you for courteous, professional, & great attention to detail. Moved to 10 by 30 storage to 3 Bd 2.5 ba two home in less than 4 hrs.... I still can't believe it! I appreciate you for getting me started in my first home. You will always hear my praise of these gentlemen....my angels 😇 x 3.

They were wonderful and I really like them as well. All the employees were great and nothing negative to say. They were just good people and fantastic.

They did a great job! They showed up in time and handled everything with care, I have used other movers before and these guys are definitely with the money

It went horrible! I used them before and assumed they would be just as great as they were the first time. But they were not! They lollygaged and took 20 mins to get 2 miles. They didn’t use any of those blue blankets to wrap my furniture they used shrink wrap. When I asked about blankets they said they have the brown ones that are $5 each! They scratched and dented my bedroom set. And what’s even more messed up is I helped the entire time!! I didn’t stop at all and it still took 6 hours!! They made me pay before they unloaded the truck. So I did but then of course they were moving a lot faster and they finished 30 mins early. I got no money back. I called the office and left a message to be called back and I never received a phone call. It’s unacceptable but I can’t do anything about it except tell everyone how horrible they were and not to use them so nothing like this happens to anyone I know.

26 January, 2021 Dear Sonny, Following our telephone conversation prior to the holidays, I had hoped to hear from you after New Year’s regarding the several missing pieces of art and other items, as well as damages to furniture done during our mid-October move. I understood from your and my December conversation that you were going to check your storage warehouse to see if some of our things had mistakenly found their way into another storage bay. Given the large number and variety of missing things, this seemed likely, so I was eager to hear back from you. But the first month of the New Year have come and gone without word from Royal and a good deal of time has passed since our mid-October move, so I am making this final open letter appeal to try to recover our missing things and to arrange for the repair of damaged furniture, before I take the next step of reporting missing art to the police as stolen and seeking legal help to resolve the rest. Fortunately, one of the buyers of our home is a St Johns County Sherriff with whom I spoke this morning. Because you were not on the team handling our move and have voiced some views about how the days went, I will start there. As I mentioned during our latest call, I am a veteran of many moves—20 including yours, 1 international, 8 interstate and 11 local—so I have experienced good and bad and understand what is reasonable and unreasonable to expect in terms of breakage and damages. The move entrusted to Royal was the move of our lives: last kid off to college, downsizing, and a family breakup. Sadly, for reasons I am about to detail, it was by far the most stressful and destructive move in all of my experience. Knowing this move would be complicated, I was deliberate in the process that led to the choice of Royal over second-place Suddath. Both of you had excellent online reviews and each of you checked out with top marks at BBB. Honestly, it was your partner Shawn who most influenced our decision to choose Royal. His certainty about cost and logistics, together with his assurances regarding the complexity of our move and about handling our art, china and other valuables inspired our confidence. On the business side, you were also easy, effortless and enjoyable to deal with. When moving day came, however, our comfort and high expectations were crushed and replaced by levels of stress and confusion unlike any I had gone through in my prior 19 moves. While I believe that most of the crew you assigned were experienced top hands, what could have been an easy two-day packing and moving process came quickly off the rails due I believe to a plan of organization that Shawn refused to reconsider. Specifically, Jackie and I had separated and organized our things to be packed and moved sequentially, her things first and mine second. Her move was time sensitive; mine was going to storage for two weeks. If our move had followed this sequence, I believe things would have gone smoothly and I wouldn’t be posting this letter. Jackie and I would have stayed with your crew of 4 and the six of us would have moved quickly from room to room to answer any questions that might have arisen about what was going where as they packed and loaded. At the end of that first day, she would have been in her place by a reasonable hour, and only my things would have remained to be packed and moved to storage on the second day. All confusion would have been avoided. Instead, the crew informed us that two men had been assigned to each of us to pack our separate things simultaneously. Because I knew this would lead to chaos and confusion, I was relieved to see Shawn on the morning of day one, but my appeal to pack and move Jackie to her home that day and me into storage the following fell on deaf ears. “Trust me,” he said, “It will work better this way.” As we now know, it didn’t. After Shawn left, Jackie and I huddled with the moving crew to appeal to them. They said they agreed that packing and loading all of Jackie’s things first made good sense, but they had to do as they were told. Okay, we asked, where in the house did they wish to begin? We expected to at least be able to walk through room by room with all four men to avoid confusion and prevent things being packed and marked for shipment to the wrong place. Astonishingly, the lead said, “We want you to walk through the entire house and tell us what goes where.” It’s a 4000 square foot 12-room house, so this approach quickly turned into madness and frustration for the crew and non-stop stress for us. It was too much to expect each of our crews of two to remember which possessions (even though they were separated by destination) were whose and to keep things organized for loading and delivery to the right destinations. This approach also required Jackie and me to stay on a knife’s edge the entire two days as we circulated through the house in what turned out to be a vain effort to ensure that the right things were being packed and marked for the right destination. As each pair began their work, it quickly became clear that they didn’t remember whose things were whose, confusion that would have been avoided if the move had been organized sequentially or if we had at least moved from room to room one at a time with all four men. Jackie and I tried frantically to keep up, to catch things mistakenly packed for the wrong destination. The task was made even more difficult because none of the boxes was marked with its contents (see pictures). We ended up with a dozen dish packs just marked “Fragile” and a couple of dozen art and mirror packs marked only “Art Fragile.” When your weary crew showed up in the morning of day 2, I asked them to do two things they hadn’t done on day 1: 1) Mark boxes with contents, for example “white dishes,” “sailboat,” “abstract art.” 2) Wear masks as you and Shawn had promised. I am retired and in an age category that tends to die from Covid. They did neither these things. I heard your objection during our conversation that things should have been stacked by destination to await packing. While there wasn’t enough counter space in the house to have held everything contained in the cabinets and closets, before the crew arrived we organized each cabinet and closet into his and hers. We did the same with the art and furniture. Again, because the crew asked us to walk through the entire house to designate possessions and their destinations, it was too much to expect them to recall as they moved through and packed. As a result, there was needless unpacking and repacking. As their frustration mounted and the hour grew late, the crew left many things behind; items were loaded onto the wrong trucks including things your crew had packed, as well as those we had packed with clearly designated destinations. As a result, your man had to return to the house on a weekend to finish packing all that had been left behind. And transfers of items that had been loaded on the wrong truck had to be made between Jackie’s house and mine, in both directions. Since Royal provided no manifests, no packing lists and no contents marked on the boxes, this was all very difficult to sort. You indicated that any insurance claim had to be made at the time of delivery. Because Jackie’s things were delivered at 2:00 a.m. and because neither of us had any way of knowing the contents of the dozens of boxes we received, we would have had to open each box in order to know what was missing or damaged. In my 20 prior moves, up to 6 months’ time was allowed for claims. Finally, I want to clear up three things that I heard from you in our December call: 1) Jackie’s and my parting was amicable, not the War of the Roses as seems believed. I don’t believe there is any possibility that she stole the missing pieces of art as you speculated. There were paintings and prints destined for each of our homes that we both miss. 2) I heard you say that the lead accused me of “nickeling and diming” you in connection with claims. First, know that the missing art and other belongings amount to thousands of dollars, not nickels and dimes. Moreover, if we were nickel and dime people, we would have asked Royal to pay for the packing tape of mine that the crew used when they ran out; replacement of the door latch one of the crew broke at 240 N Bridge Creek; we would have asked for reimbursement of the cost to repair the doorway molding the crew shattered moving a couch into Jackie’s house; I would have requested compensation for the delay moving into my place, because the crew couldn’t find the hardware to assemble my bed. We haven’t asked to be paid for any of these things or for any of the many lesser damages. We just want our art, mirror, and other missing items returned and the furniture damages repaired. 3) You observed that we tipped the crew hundreds of dollars. True. Why in the face of such a disastrous experience? Three reasons: The disaster was not their fault. Our belongings were going to be in their care for moving and unloading. Finally, the lead explained that none of the thousands paid to Royal would go to the crew. “We count on tips to feed our families,” was the plea made. “Who does get the thousands paid to Royal?” I asked. “The guys up front who go home early and drive the nice cars,” was the answer. We’re generous people, so we tipped generously, bad experience notwithstanding. You also explained that the move exceeded the estimate because the contract specifies a fuel surcharge. It does. Although charging hundreds of dollars for local moves of 16 miles and 35 miles seems a bit high. My ask is simple. Just give us back our things and repair damages done to our furniture. Very truly yours, TK Gilliam

They were professional and prompt. Was very pleased with their service and price.

I used Royal to move my furniture and concert grand piano from Pennsylvania to J'ville in 2017. They promised me that they were 100% professional piano movers and moved pianos such as mine everyday. The piano was a huge priority for me because it would cost 100k to replace it. The piano was properly mounted onto a heavy moving board for support and safely wrapped and protected. It got to Florida safely and I was satisfied. This past March when I was moving to Michigan I called on Royal again to make the move. Again they bragged of their expertise moving pianos. I was not watching when they prepared and loaded the piano. Unknown to me they decided not to mount the piano on a board (which is an absolute requirement) and instead let the piano sit on its side directly on the floor of the truck. They did this because the driver of the truck was only driving one way, would be flying back to Jacksonville, and it would be inconvenient to fly the board back home with him. Had I known this was happening I would not have approved it and found another way to move the piano. Royal hired some local piano movers to help move the piano from the truck to inside my new home in Michigan. When they saw how the piano had been treated they were in shock. Sure enough when it was unwrapped there was serious damage to the side of the piano that had been sitting directly on the floor. In addition there was damage to the dining room table because the movers had placed another heavy piece of furniture directly on top of it. The table cannot be repaired. Royal refuses to pay for the repairs to the piano or the table. They say that they are below the deductible for damages. But here's the problem: they chose to cut corners and that is what caused the damage. They took a risk on damaging a 100k dollar piano in order to not have the inconvenience of flying the necessary moving equipment home. If the piano had been mounted on the board as required, there would not have been any damage. So I am greatly disappointed with Royal. If you have anything of value to move, I would advise you to stay away.

Positives: The guys were pleasant and fast paced. None of my stuff was damaged or missing as far as I can tell. They worked hard. I also liked that they still accommodated me even though my phone was accidentally disconnected and they couldn't reach me. (I told AT&T to only disconnect my internet service since I was moving. They disconnected my internet and phone.) I was able to get a message to them and they came and didn't give me a hassle about it. Negatives: There was a small chip on the door way. They wrapped some things. I thought it was included in the price but I got a separate charge for it. I didn't like that the couch wasn't properly wrapped. The sides of my couch was in contact with the floor. Lucky for me that the couch is a bit old, so I plan on replacing it soon anyway. Also it is leather, which makes it easy to clean. So I'm afraid to trust them with a nicer couch. They were good overall but I wouldn't hire again because I'm so particular about my stuff, even if it is older.

If I could give them 0 stars I think I would. Not only was my moving experience awful, but then I emailed (my form of communication every time I have spoken with this company) regarding the awful experience they didn't even bother to contact me to discuss. I hired this company based off the reviews they have on Yelp as well as Google which I am now convinced the good one must be fake. I have moved 10+ times and hired moving companies in Jacksonville for the last 5 of those moves. Some have been great and some have been terrible. This company was by far the worse out of the now 6 moving companies I have used in the Jacksonville area. They broke SEVERAL of my personal belongings during this move including destroying my dresser but rubbing it on it's side across the concrete instead of carrying it like they should have. They broke the two legs off my couch instead of taking them off. They ignore glass and fragile written on boxes and stacked several boxes on top of the glass filled boxes on a dolly crushing those boxes. Their "crew leader" Wayne was screaming childish obnoxious things outside not only my old house but my new house as well. Was smoking inside the truck with my belongings, WHILE unloading my belongings and all the way up to my open front door where he would drop his cigarettes to enter my house. He left said cigarettes in my driveways and I graciously paid him while he took 15+ cigarette breaks, and even more resting breaks in general causing a 3.5 hour moving job into almost 5.5 hour moving job. I dismantled all furniture myself before their arrival, placed all items as close to the exits to the house as possible making their loading process quick and simple. I only asked them to place the furniture in the proper rooms everything else they unloaded into the garage (most shouldn't be in there) and in the dining room. Unloading a truck usually takes 1/2 the time as loading the truck. Not with this crew it took almost as long to unload as it did to load. Their crew leader Wayne continuously fought with the other mover Travis (who did most of the work himself) most of the time they were at both my houses constantly calling him a "F*cking ******" which is beyond unprofessional. I would've hope that the company would care enough about the complaint and the unprofessional behavior and all around terrible service their company provided to me since they have been servicing the Jacksonville area since 1985 with A+ rating (HA), but since they have yet to reach out to me even when I provided some pictures of the damage done they do NOT care at all that your stuff gets broken, their employees are unprofessional and you are paying for amateur movers at experience (more than experienced) movers rate. I will be contacting the BBB to complain if they are even still listed with them as well as filing a dispute with my credit card company to at least attempt to recover some of the damages since I was charge more from this company for the worst service than any other movers I have ever used. DO NOT USE THESE MOVERS~!!!! YOUR STUFF WILL NOT MAKE IT TO YOUR NEW PLACE IN ONE PIECE. They lied on google review and stated not only that I was spoke with but they compensated me for the employees mistakes. This is not true at all they did contact me the day I wrote the reviews on different platforms and filed a complaint with the BBB and stated they would look into and get back with them. I still have not heard back from them and they have not reimbursed anything for the damages nor have they discussed compensation. This is not a good company and there are many other reviews with people stating they were overcharged and items have been damaged.

Terrence and Daniel were fantastic!! Professional, fast yet careful, and very polite!!! Thank you, Terrence and Daniel!! ☺

Royal Moving is fantastic. We've hired them 3 times: 2 in-office furniture rearrangements and 1 office move. We keep using them because they do an amazing job and I would definitely recommend them.

Excellent I had two great guys who were very professional and pleasant they really took their time and handled items as if they were their own ask for Terrance and Daniel great

Outstanding job. Very clean, professional and prompt. They never stopped moving from the time they got here until the last piece of furniture was moved in to the new place. Would highly recommend this company.

Excellent and fast service!! My movers Don and Brian were on time and got right to work. They were efficient and careful about my items. Very satisfied customer. Thank you Royal Movers!

My move went smooth and easy, these guys are awesome and friendly, they made sure all my stuffs are packed correctly especially no damage.

Excellent! I can’t praise the Royal Moving team enough. Frank, AJ and Adam as well as Sonny were most helpful from start to finish. The expertise, positive support and more importantly their care of all my possessions was fantastic! I especially found the team of Frank and AJ delivering everything to my new home outstanding. There was one small “hiccup” (internally) that was rectified immediately. Overall, a very professional company that cares about their customers. I give them a 10 Star rating!

Very professional, punctual and efficient.

What I liked was the communication to start with. When I arranged for the service the gentleman was professional and asked all the right questions. I was satisfied with the upfront cost of every detail. They even emailed in advance of the date and got a call from him morning of the move, so I was confident we wouldn't be forgotten about etc... ( as we only had one day to make this happen). Right on time our 3 helpers showed up. Mike Robert & Danny. These guys were the A TEAM ... no nonsense, hard working, could barely slow them down to eat some lunch we'd bought. They enjoyed each other / worked well together and really took good care with the whole packing/unpacking -even putting together the beds etc... Great job you guys and keep up the good work!

Horrible. Move was not completed per contract. Two out of three workers were drinking on the job. After confronting the workers and contacting the Corporate Office about this behavior, the worker's attitudes/behavior became hostile and in order to protect my belongings, I had to endure threats and continued hostile attitudes/behavior from the workers. After 8 hours of labor at $125 per hour plus truck charges of $125 and an additional 12% gasoline surcharge to move 1500 square feet of furniture, none of the beds were put together and boxes were not carried to the proper location in the new house but just dropped in the room closest to the front door.

I would rate Royal employees Carlos and Danny at 10 stars if I could. The whole experience went smoothly from estimate, to scheduling, to arrival. I had way more stuff than even I thought I did and they did a miraculous job of making it fit into the truck perfectly. Because I had SO much stuff, it took a lot longer to load than I thought so the time was extended without hassle. This is the third professional moving team I have used in the last 5 years and while all have been good, this team is outstanding. Just can't praise them highly enough.

They were an excellent price. They packed beautifully. Later on, and I did not contact them about this because I didn't have time and I wasn't going to ask for any money back or anything like that. Some of the furniture was scratched, but I will say this, it's a difficult house to move anything into and all the beds were going upstairs.

No issues - movers were professional and on time.

It took longer than we thought. I wish we would have insisted on the 3rd mover. That's on us. Carlos and Danny were AMAZING! I would request them if I was moving again & highly recommend that "team". My son also used Royal Movers and was very pleased

Royal sent the awesome team of Carlos, Danny, and Earnest to our house to move our furniture to our new home. They called me when they were on their way and arrived when they said they would. Their large moving truck's cargo area was spotless. These guys really took care of our furniture, wrapping each piece in clean, almost new looking moving blankets, and offered additional stretch wrapping for only 25 more bucks which we readily accepted. Although we have some really heavy pieces, they moved them with ease, never once bumping into a door frame or wall. This crew really worked well together and seemed to enjoy their work. They moved at a continuous pace - not slow, and not too fast as to cause damage. After the truck was loaded to capacity, I mentioned to my wife that I was hungry, and if I were hungry, these guys must be starving, so we bought them lunch from Subway. While unloading, they put the furniture and boxes where we asked them to be put. We knew all fees up front, and they accepted our credit card. I told my realtor to put this company on their service provider list - I was that impressed. If you want a no-stress move, ask for these guys!