Summit Cancellation 1/28/05 Cruise

We have been advised that Celebrity has cancelled their 1/28/05 cruise. What they have offered is not at all what we want and they do not seem willing to go beyond a shipboard credit. Is this typical? We wanted to travel in Jan. or Feb. and they are offering March with the same itinerary or Feb. with the itinerary we took last year. We are so disappointed and cannot believe they can do this. Any suggestions out there?

JodyLee , I was also booked on the 1/28 and find the alternatives not as appealing as the original sailing. And I am also looking for suggestions.

My problem is that though I am willing to take one of the other options, the cabin/category I originally booked is no longer available. All there is available is a 3 cat downgrade.

Customer Service will not credit me the difference in effect at the time I booked and since prices have gone up quite a bit, I come out with just the $200 on board credit.

The funny thing is that if I go to some of the majot web travel sites, they still have some of the lower prices for the downgraded cabin cat on the same sailing. Celebrity says I can cancel and rebook with them but then I lose my $200 onboard credit.

Is this a no win situation?

until our () Summit cruise

Is it a no win situation? I try to look at as, as long as I'm taking a cruise at some point, it works out. But no, it's not a win-win situation anyway.

We booked on Zenith anyway, which for you JodyLee shouldn't be a bad deal since embarkation is practically local. But then it's not a newer ship, and its (her? sorry, can't get into the whole female ship lingo thing) refurbishment prior to the 30-Jan sailing is still a question mark. That's a 14-day sailing, and does have some very good ports.

I agree that X customer service should refund the difference if there's a downgrade involved. A week into this process and they don't seem to be moving any on their offer.

Hope it works out for you!

Thanks to both of you for your input. Last year was our first cruise and we loved it so much that we booked a specific cabin for the 28th while we were on board. Of course, now we cannot get that cabin. We are protected in the same category but not as happy with the room location. So, I guess I should be grateful that at least we are in the same category. In order to get the most for our money we pretty much have to stay with what they offered. But, it seems to me they are really not going out of their way in the customer service area. The Zenith is handy for us, but we so enjoyed the balcony, which is why we chose the Summit. Maybe I'll check it out.

People have been telling me to check out other cruise lines but we were so happy with what we had and I sort of hate to start over. Well, we have time to decide if we want to cancel the whole thing and get our money back (I'm told December - I hope that's right).

I'm sure there are many more frustrated cruisers out there and, to be honest, I'm surprised at Celebrity based on the level of service we received last year. I don't see an announcement on the Cruise Critic home page - I wonder why. Ah, well, such is life.

Will check in to see if others respond and what they might have to say.

Jody

Sometimes, things open up when it's time to pay for the cruise. People who thought that they would be able to come with the money back out leaving cabins open. Maybe you could waitlist your preference?

Judy

Summit, Alaska - 7/22/05 -

Constellation, Southern Caribbean - 2/19/05 -

Infinity, Alaska - 7/25/04 -

2/21/04 - Constellation, Southern Caribbean - Another incredibly wonderful cruise

2/22/03 - Constellation (Just a wonderful, wonderful cruise)

2/22/99 - Mercury

Monarch of the Sea

I found that Celebrity would not budge on their decissions. I love the Summit and wanted to sail her again for the 3rd time but March was too late in the year for us to said (business conflict). I wrote and spoke to everone. I only wanted them to let us change to the Feb 18 sailing, but no go. We just booked the Tahitian Princess instead. Celebrity has lost a few bookings as we are sailing with friends. They just dont care. I am sure that Tahiti will be a wonderful experience, but my heart was to do the Summit again next year....maybe 2006?

Der

RCCI Song of Norway 1982

RCCI Viking 1991

Princess Crown 12/93

Galaxy 11/98

Princess Crown 12/00

Summit 1/03

Summit 1/04

Tahitian Princess 1/22/05

We were also bumped from this cruise. We rebooked a FV cabin back in February after having to cancel (and lose 50% of our money) due to emergency surgery. My travel agent states that there are no more FV cabins on the dates offered by Celebrity so our only real choice is to downgrade. Celebrity has $2000 of our money and we still haven't cruised or are likely to.

Were any of you offered the Summit March 21, 05 sailing??

Thanks

Yes, Options offered were:

Feb 28 11 day Summit

Mar 11 10 day Summit

Jan 30 14 day Zenith

Jan 30 Millenium (7 day with a 25% credit)

$200 cabin credit

until our () cruise

Judy,

Thanks for your idea to waitlist for the cabin we wanted. By the looks of your posting, you are the cruise maven!

Der, I was on the Summit with you last January and was so happy to have this next cruise to look forward to. The lack of concern on Celebrity's part surprises me. We are now a little skittish about booking with Celebrity again based on this experience. We were hoping to do a Panama Canal cruise in 2006 but now.......just not sure.

Poyzin,

That really is bad. You should not have to downgrade your cabin - in my opinion, if anything, they should upgrade all of us ! :-)

Rompar98,

What are you going to do? It's hard to pass up the shipboard credit but you, too, should not have to take a downgraded cabin. Since I'm new to cruising I wonder if this is how all the cruise lines treat their customers....very frustrating!

Jody

jodylee -- We were also booked on the Summit 1-28-05 cruise. We found out about the cancellation on these boards. We then discovered that Celebrity Customer Service was of no help. We are a group of 8, and we made several calls to customer service and got different answers every time. When we finally found out the ship was cancelled, the options they offered did not work for some in our party. We had already booked airfare, so decided to go with the 10-day Sun Princess that also sails on 1-28. We have sailed Celebrity 7 times and were on the Summit 2 years ago. We have never sailed Princess, but decided to give it a try. FYI -- they are offering a cabin credit at this time, so you may want to consider this option. We love the Celebrit on-board experience, but their service off ship leaves a lot to be desired. We booked this cruise in February because we knew what cabins we wanted. We also discovered that if we took any of the options they offered, we wouldn't get the cabins we wanted. Hopefully, we will enjoy Princess. Good luck.

The Sun Princess itinerary was also our second choice until yesterday when our cruise finally came back on the system (Summit, 3/21/05). We got tired of wondering what would be available if Celebrity DID cancel our cruise, and we booked the Sun Princess as our back up.

I'm glad we get to do Summit, but we would have been happy with Sun Princess too!

Have a GREAT Cruise!

Jaime

Until We're on the Summit!!

Well, I sent 2 emails with no response yet. So I called the Celebrity Executive offices. I explained the situation and the emails I had sent. They said the response time to emails was 22 days.

Once again they were very short with me in discussing my situation. They said the policy had been established. My response was that I felt they needed a new policy for downgrades! But yet again I get snippy answers. I am not being a bxtch on the phone. I am speaking calmly but they love to cut me off. I am getting frustrated. I have yet to speak with anyone there who speaks in a nice or helpful manner.

They have not offered my options but if I keep asking them I find there are some alternatives. I found I could be waitlisted for a FV cabin. Not sure why they do not do that automaticallyor tell me when I first called. I know there is no guarantee I will get a FV but it is worth a try. I am still kinda new to the cruising biz so I wonder if they do find me a FV cabin, will they charge me the difference between my downgraded cabin and today's rate?

I am still trying to be realistic. We loved the Constellation this past January and were looking forward to the Summit. I am not hung up on a FV but I can't justify losing $1000. I will use the Sun Princess as a back up. They are offering pretty much the same deal at the better rate.

until our () cruise

Jodylee,

Don't know if all cruise lines treat their customers like this but Norwegian does.

I had a Norwegian cruise cancelled this spring and their customer service was appalling I swore I'd never cruise with Norwegian again.

Now I'm booked on a fall Century cruise and am not happy reading this board.

I've been following the reports of the recent Diamond Princess problems and it seems on the surface that they have done a bit more for their customers. I'll keep watching that and if the reports from those affected at Princess are good maybe we will all be sailing Princess in the future.

I couldn't agree with you more about the pathetic customer service from Celebrity. They cancelled our March cruise two weeks ahead of sailing and never notified us. They gave a refund and a free cruise. Now I booked the "free" cruise and they cancelled it twice and won't tell me why. We already have airfares to San Juan and have no idea if the reservation will be reinstated. Even if it is, I'll have to continually check to see if it's cancelled because they just do it and don't tell me or our TA. It is very frustrating and I can't understand their policies of treating customers so poorly.

I know how you feel about emails not answered from Celebrity. I have had that happen several times. When our Summit cruise was cancelled, and we couldn't get any answers, my brother got the email and phone number for the office of Jack Williams, Pres of Celebrity. He talked his assitant, Victoria, and it was only through his persistence with her that we got any information. It was very frustrating. Their customer service is terrible, and I have told them so. The customer service people are either ill-informed or choose not to give out the information. We will miss sailing with Celebrity this year, but are thinking positive thoughts about the Sun Princess. We were on the Constellation in January and Summit 2 years ago and love the ships and the Celebrity on-board experience.

We too were bumped from the March 28th sailing on the Millenium. I came over here to see what other's experiences were with future cruise certificates. From what I'm hearing not good at all. We were able to rebook the March 28 sailing with another cruise line and don't really want to the caribbean next year. We would like to do a longer cruise, 11 days to the Mexican Riveria on the Mercury. Celebrity's so called customer service has informed that if we use the cruise certificates for the Mexico cruise they'll only apply half the value we'd paid for the March cruise. Their reasoning for this is something I can't explain because I just don't understand it. They use some mysterious formula to work out a per diem and our per diem came out to $66 per day. We originally paid $800 per person but apparently that's not what the cruise is worth. At this point I'm completely done with "Customer Dis-service and I'd like to know what the experience of other's has been.

Thanks