BUMPED by a CHARTER

[cruisinaddiction]

Just learned that the 11/08/09 Western Caribbean cruise that we booked as the second 7 days of a 14 day B2B has become a charter - we have been bumped. We were suspicious when we didn't see any reference to the cruise on HAL's website yesterday. Then today we saw a post on the Roll Call board that the cruise might be a Jazz Cruise Charter. Called HAL and our suspicions have been confirmed, it is a charter.

Does anyone have experience with being bumped for a charter? What can we expect from HAL as far as consideration for this?

[PathfinderEss]

Been there, done that. They will probably offer you the cruise in front of your b2b for a reduced price and some nice ship board credit. Hal will try to keep you happy if they can.

[dchip]

We are on the B2B from 10/25 thru 11/08. You will be with us our second week.

I am so sorry to hear you have been bumped from your second week. Did you book as a 14 day cruise? That is what we did.

Denise

[hammybee]

The sticky at the top has shown the 11/8 sailing as a charter since early December. Did you book your cruise through a travel agency or direct with HAL?

[kryos]

Does anyone have experience with being bumped for a charter? What can we expect from HAL as far as consideration for this?Since this cruise is still a ways off, don't expect a really great deal. They'll offer you some options for other cruises, as well as an OBC, the amount of which will depend upon your accommodations. I got just such an offer for a cancellation of a cruise I booked for early 2010. Not a whole lot, but certainly generous enough. I think the OBC was something like $75 on my inside cabin. Not a bad deal since I was planning to cancel that cruise anyway. :)

Blue skies ...

--rita

[Typhoon1]

Can't blame HAL. Charters are big money makers for the company.

[cruisinaddiction]

The sticky at the top has shown the 11/8 sailing as a charter since early December. Did you book your cruise through a travel agency or direct with HAL?

Booked directly with HAL personal cruise consultant in Jan 09 - no indication that it might be a charter!!

[iflyrc5]

Happened to us last summer for a Feb 09 Cruise - half of a B2B was cancelled. They could not book us on anything that worked as a B2B so looked for a 14 day - we booked the Maasdam for Feb 27th 14 day - HAL gave us a $50 OBC - no price break on the new cruise as best I can tell. From what I have read on CC HAL charters quite a few 7 day cruises. So - from now on only booking 14 day or longer.

[cruisinaddiction]

Can't blame HAL. Charters are big money makers for the company.

I don't blame HAL for trying to cash-in on "big money maker", but I do blame them for bad judgement. I'm sure the possibility of making this cruise a charter has been in the works for quite some time. Seems to me that they wouldn't offer the cruise to the general public until they knew it would be available.

[Sunshine91]

I don't blame HAL for trying to cash-in on "big money maker", but I do blame them for bad judgement. I'm sure the possibility of making this cruise a charter has been in the works for quite some time. Seems to me that they wouldn't offer the cruise to the general public until they knew it would be available.


Sorry, can't agree w/your logic. Don't know when that cruise officially became a charter, but seems to me that from a business standpoint, the company is going to sell cabins as a regular cruise until the charter becomes a done deal. Itineraries open & HAL starts taking bookings 18-24 months prior to sailing. Folks DO make plans that far in advance.

From what I've read on these boards, charters seem to finalize dates about a year in advance. It's a whole lot easier to re-book those already on the "chartered" ship than to guess which ships will be chartered & then try to sell them out in a year's time.

Hope you can find something that works for you. John & I like the 10-12 days. We haven't been bumped yet for a charter. :)

['The Bear']

I went through the same issue last year !!

I had booked a B2B on the Maasdam, through my TA, and had the first half of the B2B cancelled due to a Jazz Sea Cruise charter.

I was quite annoyed at the lack of notification by HAL !! I had to piece this together from info gleaned here on the CC boards; then I asked my TA to investigate, and she confirmed what I suspected.

However, she and the Jazz Sea Cruise TA, were able to have me join the charter group and not interrupt my B2B. You might want to consider that possibility ---- although I knew nothing about jazz, I had a great time !!

I'm sorry to hear about your problem, and I hope things work out well for you.

[Ontario Cruiser]

I believe there is a website that lists all the charters for the cruise lines but I don't know it. Does anyone have it?
Ontario Cruiser

[rjcoon]

I received an email from Jack Stack BBQ saying that they are on the 11/8/08 cruise. Their website indicates that other passengers will be on the cruise so I don't think this is an actual charter- I guess there could be another one. Anyway, here's the website for Jack Stack with all the info. http://www.jackstackbbq.com/jack-stack-cruise/i/92/

I posted this message once and it never showed up so, if I now have two posts that say the same thing, sorry. Good BBQ by the way.

[curiouscruiser]

They have terriffic barbeque!!!

[richwmn]

The web site for the Jazz Cruise (http://thejazzcruise.com/Home/tabid/1281/Default.aspx)lists it as being a full ship charter, and has for a while.
Jack Stack BBQ also lists this cruise (http://www.jackstackbbq.com/info.asp?ii=92&bhcd2=1234198460)

It is no longer being listed for general sale, but I don't know when it was removed.

I was told a while back that many charters start out as group bookings that become popular enough to take over the whole ship. When this happens, those who booked independently are "bumped" and given consideration on other cruises. The group that charters the ship is then responsible for payment to HAL regardless of how many people show up.

Rich

[kryos]

I was told a while back that many charters start out as group bookings that become popular enough to take over the whole ship. When this happens, those who booked independently are "bumped" and given consideration on other cruises. The group that charters the ship is then responsible for payment to HAL regardless of how many people show up.

That's exactly how it works. Chartering a ship is very, very expensive and requires a substantial financial commitment. Unless the concept for the charter is a proven thing, no one is gonna take a ship as a charter out of the gate. Instead, they will book a large block of group cabins and see how sales go. If demand is really hot, then they will convert the group sailing to a full ship charter. So, HAL has to protect themselves and continue to offer the sailing to the general public, up until such a time that the group morphs into a charter by making the financial commitment to take over the ship.

Of course, all groups would rather just charter the ship. Doing so gives them a lot more flexibility to customize the cruise to their liking. When you charter, you have control over a lot of things that you don't control when booking a large group. Yes, the group gets priority for certain things, and that is exactly why most of us don't like sailing with large groups. The groups will be allowed to take over certain venues at certain times for their private functions (especially if they are large groups) and they may get priority for dining assignments and cabin selection. But a charter can go so much farther. They can have their own entertainers performing in the main show lounge in the evenings. They can also do things like declare all casual nights for the chartered sailing. On a regular cruise, you can't do that. Other passengers onboard may want the traditional HAL formal and casual nights.

A charter company can also "theme" the whole cruise based on the group's purpose, and to some extent they can even customize the itinerary a bit. For example, maybe a Christian charter wants to stay overnight in one of the Caribbean ports so that they can do some mission work. They can arrange to do that by dropping another port that would normally be visited on that itinerary. On a charter you can do that. On a group sailing you can't. There are other people on the ship who maybe want to stop at the second port and would not be happy about it being dropped.

Charters are big business for the cruise lines and they are happy to have them. The charter company likes taking over the ship because it gives them the flexibility to price their cruise as they see fit, and to customize it according to their liking. The rest of the passengers bumped by the charter are compensated to some extent by HAL, in the form of OBC or credit vouchers for another sailing. If they really had their hearts set on that particular sailing, they could always look into rebooking with the chartering organization.

So, you're always going to have charters, especially on shorter itineraries, and I think you will find this a bit more common on HAL than on many other lines because of the ideal size of HAL's ships. It would be very difficult, I would imagine, to charter one of RCI's gigantic ships because of the number of passengers you would need signed up for your charter. With HAL, it is a very doable prospect to book the entire ship.

My advice to anyone "bumped" by a charter is to count your blessings. You might very well be much better off selecting another sailing than to be sailing with a very large group whose needs are gonna take priority over your's in just about every aspect of the sailing. It's no fun being "second class" passengers.

Blue skies ...

--rita

[hammybee]

The 11/8/09 sailing is this organizer's 6th charter with HAL. This organizer brings on their own production company and top name talent. They are not going to do group space on an otherwise public cruise.

This same organizer has been promoting it's 1/17/10 charter for several months and claims they are 85% sold out and yet, this cruise continues to be sold by HAL to the general public.

The way charters have traditionally worked is that the organizer has an option to charter. By some agreed upon date, the organizer has to have financing arranged. Banks insist on seeing evidence of substantial bookings before they will commit.

Speculation on my part here, cruise lines are probably self financing charters, when the organizer has a solid track record of selling out and have deposits for the majority of cabins.

Cruise lines continue to sell cabin space to the general public until they have a lock with the charter organizer. This is happening with all cruise lines. No doubt this practice disappoints those who get bumped. No doubt, those who buy into the charter love HAL and the experience and come back again and again.

[gotmilk]

Were bumped twice last year on the Westerdam. We got $300 for the first bump and $400 for the second bump. But somewhere along the way they lost our future cruise credit and the $50pp shipboard credit. So I have been going back and forth with them( trying to use it on our April 09 cruise) and they say it has already been used. I have all my M/C statements and my final onboard statement to prove it had not been credited but got a real hard head rep from HA that has her mind set in stone. So I guess I lost $300 of the future cruise benefits.

[newmexicoNita]

Just learned that the 11/08/09 Western Caribbean cruise that we booked as the second 7 days of a 14 day B2B has become a charter - we have been bumped. We were suspicious when we didn't see any reference to the cruise on HAL's website yesterday. Then today we saw a post on the Roll Call board that the cruise might be a Jazz Cruise Charter. Called HAL and our suspicions have been confirmed, it is a charter.

Does anyone have experience with being bumped for a charter? What can we expect from HAL as far as consideration for this?

this far in advance it is hard to say what they will do, but these bumps do happen. My feeling if someone or a group wants to charter a ship they should have to book this 1 year in advance, but who listens to me? Not even my hubby..LOL

Nita

[momofmeg]

Were bumped twice last year on the Westerdam. We got $300 for the first bump and $400 for the second bump. But somewhere along the way they lost our future cruise credit and the $50pp shipboard credit. So I have been going back and forth with them( trying to use it on our April 09 cruise) and they say it has already been used. I have all my M/C statements and my final onboard statement to prove it had not been credited but got a real hard head rep from HA that has her mind set in stone. So I guess I lost $300 of the future cruise benefits.

go over her head and speak to her supervisor.

[sodomojo]

.

The way charters have traditionally worked is that the organizer has an option to charter. By some agreed upon date, the organizer has to have financing arranged. Banks insist on seeing evidence of substantial bookings before they will commit.

Speculation on my part here, cruise lines are probably self financing charters, when the organizer has a solid track record of selling out and have deposits for the majority of cabins.

.

Nope - by the time the charter agreement is signed a letter of credit has to be in place.

[hammybee]

Nope - by the time the charter agreement is signed a letter of credit has to be in place.

Thank you. That's good news to my ears.

[gotmilk]

go over her head and speak to her supervisor.

I will do that next time I contact them..Just need to de-stress before I make the call. I dug up my visa bill in case they want more proof. I just don't understand how my certificate # just disappeared from their records but my DH's didn't and they were on the same sheet of paper.