We were scheduled on the May 18th, 2022 river cruise with Scenic on the Rhine Highlights itinerary and just received notice yesterday that Scenic has cancelled the sailing due to an "unexpected" and short-term shortage of crew members. We were supposed to fly to Basel, Switzerland on May 14th. Our travel agent has been working on a refund, since receiving the notice, but so far Scenic has only offered to reschedule us on the June 22nd sailing.
To say we are disappointed is an understatement. Due to work and family commitments, May is the only time that works for us. In addition, we have a lot of money invested in airfare and hotels. Even if we could go on the June 22nd sailing, the cost of airfare and changing hotel reservations, makes it extremely cost prohibitive. Our airfare would double, for example.
It is hard to imagine that Scenic just assumes we can easily change all of our plans and absorb the added costs, which are huge, and switch to the June 22nd cruise. When our travel agent pushed for a refund that said it may be "possible" but would take up to 180 days?? How can they cancel and entire cruise and not automatically offer a refund? Interestingly enough, they let us upgrade our stateroom to a higher category just last week. Surely, they knew about the staffing issues at that time, as they claim the staff members are having difficulty obtaining Visas.
Our travel agent spent a good amount of time on the phone with Scenic yesterday and again all morning today. I have requested that Scenic put in writing that they will refund our entire fare and confirm the length of time it will take to do so. How can they take your payment in one day, but take 180 days to process a refund?
Our travel agent has found to other sailings that will work for us with the dates/airfare/hotels we have now. (one on Tauk and one on AmaWaterways). However, we don't want to book until we know for certain Scenic will refund.
We certainly will not be dealing with Scenic again. Does anyone have anything they can share regarding Scenic cancelling cruises and not offering a refund? Thank you!