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San Juan Fascination 11/12/17 - Options for canceling or changing cruise


WorriedinGA
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As I stated previously in response to another thread, I feel for the people of San Juan and all of Puerto Rico and hope that they can quickly recover from the hurricane damage, but Carnival needs to be realistic about the situation. Looting, violence and even rioting will more than likely occur when residents reach their boiling point for being without basic human necessities for life. I for one do not want to spend a vacation in a place that I would be afraid to walk down the street. Reservations for two nights prior to the sailing and one night after - and don't even know if the hotels will be accepting anyone other than recovery personnel. Cruise is paid in full and Southwest tickets are paid for. Does anyone have any suggestions for canceling this cruise or changing to another cruise? (I bought travel insurance through Carnival)

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Since Carnival's insurance is not a "cancel for any reason" insurance, your only option is to cancel and accept any penalties that come with it. This will apply to the hotel, air, etc.

 

I will say that if things are as bad as you anticipate them to be I can't imagine Carnival will be sailing. If people have to fear for their safety, and hotels are not available to house people, they should most certainly take this into consideration.

 

If you are going to loose a bunch of money, the call is to "eat it" now if you are that concerned, or to just wait it out and see if they have to cancel and you get your money back.

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Southwest is refundable. Your hotel may be as well if you call them.

 

Southwest is not refundable unless you purchased a fully-refundable fare. We always book the cheaper, Wanna Get Away fares -- those are NOT refundable. In our case (we were booked on one of the canceled Fascination sailings) they gave us future travel credits that have to be used within 1 year of booking date. Oh, and we completely lost the extra "early bird check in" purchased ($60 for 2 of us both ways :(.

 

 

Our hotels were cancelled without penalty.

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Southwest is not refundable unless you purchased a fully-refundable fare. We always book the cheaper, Wanna Get Away fares -- those are NOT refundable. In our case (we were booked on one of the canceled Fascination sailings) they gave us future travel credits that have to be used within 1 year of booking date. Oh, and we completely lost the extra "early bird check in" purchased ($60 for 2 of us both ways :(.

 

 

Our hotels were cancelled without penalty.

 

Call Southwest and tell them that your cruise was cancelled. The person I spoke to said they can submit for an exception to the airfare credit and she felt they would probably do a refund because the cruise was cancelled. She did say they were backed up because of the hurricanes but it should take 7-10 days for them to process the paperwork. She did unfortunately say that I wouldn't receive an e-mail with an answer. I'll either get a refund or maintain my credit. Fingers crossed.

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The airlines are being very cooperative, even Spirit. They understand the gravity of the situation and they are refunding fares to islands which are uninhabitable. The hotel on San Juan probably has no communication, hopefully they have a building. To the OP be patient, Carnival will reschedule and the airlines will work with you. Everyone keep positive and pray for the people of the Virgin Islands and P.R.

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As I stated previously in response to another thread, I feel for the people of San Juan and all of Puerto Rico and hope that they can quickly recover from the hurricane damage, but Carnival needs to be realistic about the situation. Looting, violence and even rioting will more than likely occur when residents reach their boiling point for being without basic human necessities for life. I for one do not want to spend a vacation in a place that I would be afraid to walk down the street. Reservations for two nights prior to the sailing and one night after - and don't even know if the hotels will be accepting anyone other than recovery personnel. Cruise is paid in full and Southwest tickets are paid for. Does anyone have any suggestions for canceling this cruise or changing to another cruise? (I bought travel insurance through Carnival)

You are anticipating an awful lot of negative stuff.

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You are anticipating an awful lot of negative stuff.

 

Just because they're anticipating it, doesn't make it inaccurate unfortunately.

 

Best thing for the OP to do is contact Carnival and get an idea as to what the cruise line is going to do. The fact of the matter is, however, until the airport is completely open, there's not much anyone can do. So no matter what Carnival or any other cruise line wants to do, they're beholden upon that.

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Call Southwest and tell them that your cruise was cancelled. The person I spoke to said they can submit for an exception to the airfare credit and she felt they would probably do a refund because the cruise was cancelled. She did say they were backed up because of the hurricanes but it should take 7-10 days for them to process the paperwork. She did unfortunately say that I wouldn't receive an e-mail with an answer. I'll either get a refund or maintain my credit. Fingers crossed.

 

So lie to them? :rolleyes:

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The airlines are being very cooperative, even Spirit. They understand the gravity of the situation and they are refunding fares to islands which are uninhabitable. The hotel on San Juan probably has no communication, hopefully they have a building. To the OP be patient, Carnival will reschedule and the airlines will work with you. Everyone keep positive and pray for the people of the Virgin Islands and P.R.

I have not found American to be that cooperative, but I am going to try calling them again. I had a 2 hour wait on a call back so maybe they have become more cooperative.

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I'm on this sailing too along with 3 friends. We booked this ( and paid in full but always buy our own insurance) literally days before both hurricanes. We were researching plane tickets but had not bought yet.

 

We are just watching and waiting to see what happens. Prayers and fingers crossed for all of the people on these islands to get back to some level of normalcy sooner rather than later.

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So lie to them? :rolleyes:

 

I did not in any way imply for the poster I responded to, to lie to the airline. The poster that I quoted had her cruise cancelled and was in the same situation I was in with Southwest. Not every poster is trying to scam or get one over on the cruise lines and airlines. Thank you for implying that I was.

 

For lovefuninthesun (the poster that I suggested call Southwest, not the original poster): I received an e-mail from Southwest today stating that my refund has been denied and I will only receive the credit for a future flight within 12 months. So, pointless for you to call I guess. My boyfriend and I were debating rebooking this intinerary but this makes the decision for us. We'll never use that much airline credit in a year without flying to PR.

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Southwest is currently given waivers for flights to San Juan for travel dates through October 15.

 

"In order to assist our Customers who may have been impacted by Hurricane Maria we are offering flexible accommodations for those Customers holding reservations for San Juan (SJU) from Monday, September 18, through Sunday, October 15, and want to alter their travel plans. Flights may be rebooked in the original class of service or Customers may travel standby (within 14 days of their original date of travel between the original city-pairs and in accordance with our accommodation procedures) without paying any additional charge."

 

It is possible that they extend the October 15 date, but it will be based on when they think they can get flights up and running on normal schedules. In the meantime, there is nothing you can do but either 1 - wait for the date to be extended to cover your travel dates, or 2 - obtain flight credit for a different flight.

 

The same situation applies to Carnival. As it gets closer to your travel date, they will decide what modifications need to be done for your sailing.

 

Unfortunately, for both companies, there are 1000's of travelers WHO ARE SCHEDULED TO TRAVEL WELL BEFORE YOU that need to be assisted. The corresponding staffing concerns is one of the reasons why airlines and cruiselines do not put out extended waivers over a month in advance immediately following an event that results in irregular operations.

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Delta's travel advisory for San Juan is through April. Just a hint for what they think the situation is like. We are on the 11/19 NCL Dawn sailing out of SJ so I am always checking out what Carnival is doing to get a hint about NCL. We are supposed to know changes/cancellation by 10/3...anxiously waiting.

 

https://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/traveling-with-us/advisories/hurricane-irma.html

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