Ever change ships after final payment?

[pm]

We are booked on the Presidents Day three night cruise. Now we have time off of work between Christmas and New Years. Our cruise is paid for in full for the December 2nd departure. Think would they let us change to a 7 or 8 night cruise without penalty?

[ColoradoJuli]

Might depend on if your final payment due date has been reached. If the final date has not been reached, then you should be able to change although you might have to go through them crediting your credit card and then you making the reservation or if you have the money available make the payment first.

If the final payment date has already past then you might be charged the cancellation charge. I would check with you TA and see what they have to say. I am sure that they have experience with this.

[sail7seas]

I think you would incur a penalty if you have made final payment.


The only time we have changed ships /cruises after making our final payment was when it was HAL's request we do so. Seems they really wanted our "S" for a transatlantic cruise we had booked and they were willing to offer all sorts of things for us to 'sell it back to them'. Under those circumstances, of course there was no penalty....there were generous benefits.

[travellady]

I can't speak for HAL but can tell you I talked to Carnival about this very issue. We were booked for the 4-day 2/21 Paradise because there's a possiblity, however slim, we won't be able to cruise the weekend before or after so decided a 4 day was better than no cruise. We'll know for sure the last week of January whether or not we can sail on a 7 day. My choice would have been to switch to the Carnival Pride to the Mexican Riviera. I talked to several reps at Carnival about potentially switching from the Paradise to the Pride 3 weeks before sailing date who told me that they have switched people from one cruise to another under 3 conditions:

1. The cruise we want to switch to has availability
2. The cruise we want to switch to is more expensive than the one we are switching from
3. The Carnival supervisor approves the switch

All of the reps told me they've seen this happen but could not make guarantees. That said, we decided to not sail Carnival after all since we are sailing the Inspiration during Xmas and wanted to have a different experience. We went ahead and booked a 7 day Diamond Princess sailing during the week of Feb 20 and purchased the Princess Travel Care Gold plan allowing us to cancel for any reason and get a 90% credit for a future sailing. If we have to go this route (I'm sure hoping we don't have to cancel) we can apply that money to our already booked June 2005 Sapphire Alaska sailing.

Holland America also offers the same type of "cancel for any reason" plan with a 90% refund. I looked very closely at the Oosterdam departing San Diego 2/19 but since I already had another Princess cruise booked, I thought transferring credits if need be would be a good plan. And, there weren't as many kids booked on the Oosterdam as there was on the Princess and since I have an 11 year old son, I felt he'd do better with more social activity with kids his own age.

And, if I do have to cancel due to us needing to be here one of the two weekends we should be sailing, I'll try to get back on the Paradise or RCCL's Monarch of the Seas and do the mini-Mexico trip instead.

[Roadwork]

My Sister in Law did this once about 10 years ago. On her first attempt she was told no, but the TA pursed it through a supervisor and they allowed it. She was changing to a longer cruise.
Things change but it is worth a try. Good Luck.:)

[KAKcruiser]

I did a change about 5 years ago on the old Westerdam. I moved the cruise a week earlier. The fare was the same on both cruises. At the time they told me they could do it for an earlier cruise but not a later one.