I was surprised about Dec 22 2017 Veendam itinerary change

We were looking forward to spending Christmas and New Year on the Veendam. We are new to HAL only having sailed once before on the Maasdam to Alaska. My wife was browsing the HAL website looking for shore excursions and saw that our itinerary had changed. We had not been notified so naturally we were surprised to find out that we would be going to Cuba and not the Southern Caribbean Holiday cruise we had booked.

I realize the cruise lines can and do make changes for various reasons. But I was puzzled because we had not been notified in advance of the change and given an option to either stick with the new itinerary or change to something else.

Long story short, we rescheduled to a different cruise and are completely satisfied with HAL for helping us make the switch, and yes we will cruise on HAL again in the future.

I think there may be others out there who have not yet noticed the change in their itinerary. I realize many will be happy about going to Cuba, but there may be others like us who would rather have the original itinerary that we booked.

Anyone else disappointed or surprised with the change of itinerary? Or are you looking forward to going to Cuba?

There was a thread about this a while ago:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2503088&highlight=Cuba

Our travel agent notified us of the change immediately. We were disappointed because we loved the original itinerary, so have cancelled. Also, I discovered that our Alaska cruise will have a very large charter group on board. Ah, well . . . We still appreciate the cruise line, but will probably check for charter groups in future.

There was a thread about this a while ago:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2503088&highlight=Cuba

Thanks I didn't see that one.

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Our travel agent notified us of the change immediately. We were disappointed because we loved the original itinerary, so have cancelled. Also, I discovered that our Alaska cruise will have a very large charter group on board. Ah, well . . . We still appreciate the cruise line, but will probably check for charter groups in future.

Our travel agent didn't know about it until I called him. We rescheduled to the week before (Dec 8th). The itinerary isn't quite as good but we will see many islands that we haven't visited previously. It's too bad about your Alaska cruise. Maybe you can reschedule it to a different date.

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. Also, I discovered that our Alaska cruise will have a very large charter group on board. Ah, well . . . We still appreciate the cruise line, but will probably check for charter groups in future.

We were extremely disappointed and canceled. We have interest in Cuba but not over Christmas and not at that price when other cruise lines are offering bargain deals to get there. Hi ho hi ho it's back to Princess we go!

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Our travel agent didn't know about it until I called him. We rescheduled to the week before (Dec 8th). The itinerary isn't quite as good but we will see many islands that we haven't visited previously. It's too bad about your Alaska cruise. Maybe you can reschedule it to a different date.

 

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Unable to reschedule, but will make the best of it. A cruise is a cruise is a cruise:)

Unable to reschedule, but will make the best of it. A cruise is a cruise is a cruise:)

That's a great attitude. Happy Travels!

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Thanks for the best wishes. I just read that the President will make an announcement this week about a change in our country's policy regarding travel to Cuba. It will be interesting to see if any change affects Holland America's decision to alter the Veendam's December 22 itinerary.