Should we just cancel?

[gofish]

We are on ECLIPSE in June. Our final payment is made. We are more than 30 days from sailing.

RCL has said if you bought cruise only, show up or lose out.

Celebrity doesn't specifically spell it out as well as RCL. They say if air and cruise from them you lose nothing if you cant get there. But they fail to say what happens if cruise only.

At this point we can simply cancel and only lose deposit amount.

If we take a chance that there is a way to get to Southampton and fail to get there we are out the full amount of the cruise.

Our group has 7 rooms booked and none are with air.

I am inclined to simply cancel and take the small loss versus chancing the ash closing down England in June and losing it all.

What are others doing ?

 

And please don't hijack this into an insurance discussion there are enough of those already.

[Sparkle 123]

Hi Gofish

Here is the link to the statement on Celebrities website about flight disruptions:

http://www.celebritycruises.co.uk/uk-airport-disruption-19-04-1

 

Right now it looks like the airports will have further closures as the ash cloud is expected to come back over the Uk in the next few days. Just hope and pray that by June things will have improved.

[gofish]

Also is anyone booked in July making their final payments or just canceling?

[gofish]

Celebrity spells it out in UK.

"For cruise only guests, we will be adhering to our normal terms and conditions. Therefore regrettably, if guests have booked flights independently and are unable to travel, then we will charge our standard cancellation charges for their cruise element."

But they did not put that sentence on the US website.

[swigso]

Hi,

What about the cost of your air travel,

I woulod imagine that this has already been paid and is non refundable so

you will be travelling if possible,

I think that by June flights will be back to normal as there is too much

money being lost at the moment by the airlines. They cannot let this situation go on for much longer, even if it means diverting flights, look at your carrier where are you flying into??

[Moeve]

No one is going to be able to give you any advise on this because there are just no garantees.

[tally10]

We fly out 2 weeks from today for our May 7th (trip of a lifetime for our daughter) Baltic on the Eclipse and we are really worried, too. We have Cruise Care also but just for the cruise only. We were told by Cruise Care that 75% of the cruise cost would be covered, but who knows? Not to mention air and prepaid hotels. What a mess! At least we aren't stranded over there. Who would have thought of a volcano issue?

[DirkHK]

Assuming your air ticket is not flexible you could cancel the cruise and re-book it once you know that the flights are going. You then loose your deposit now, but wont loose the entire cruise. And I doubt that the prices go up much...

Alternativey, just keep everything as it is. There will always be a way to get to Europe, even if it's to Spain or Italy.

 

3rd chance: Keep it as it is and eventually sell the cruise on ebay if you know you cant make it.

[uktog]

I am not sure I would cancel and hope I could rebook later. There was a small piece in a UK newspaper yesterday that travel agents are seeing a big surge in enquiries about non flight reliant holidays from the UK - either drive yourself to France or, youve guessed it cruises. Given that Eclipse is involved in "rescuing" so many people this week and will get such a PR spin from that I would not be too sure that you would be able to rebook and if you can, the prices are going up and up

[katiebeth]

I would find it hard to believe that Celebrity would not try to work something out with its passengers who are stranded due to the Volcano and subsequent cancelled flights. We are booked on the June 1st Canary Island cruise and are scheduled to fly to London Gatwick on May 29th from Atlanta. We have purchased Cruise Only insurance thru Celebrity. We are a party of six and have used a combination of Award Tickets and purchased tickets thru Delta for our trip.

 

Surely, if there is no way humanly possible to get to your cruise because of cancelled flights, from a customer service and public relations standpoint, I would hope that Celebrity would try to be accommodating, even if it means no refund, but credit for a future cruise.

 

As an elite member and loyal Celebrity/RCCL, and Azamara cruisers, I would be beyond disappointed if Celebrity did not attempt to do the right thing in regards to this situation.

 

The odd thing is that my Cruise Care contract saws that if you have to cancel for any of the covered reasons that they cover airfare booked independently as well as the cruise.

 

Who could have anticipated any of this? Just when you think you have all your bases covered .....we always fly in at least 2 days early when we have a European cruise to allow

for delays, cancellations, etc. Didn't know I should also consider and exploding volcano LOL

 

So sorry for all those impacted by this situation.

 

Hoping that things will clear soon!

 

Nancy

[TRadle]

I read on UPI this morning that flights are resuming. You are talking about travel in over one month.

 

I'd wait it out or take the Queen Mary to New York. ;)

[Cruise Junky]

I'm flying in in June and definitely not cancelling at this point. We have until around the end of May before we're past the cancel point on our rentals so will make a final decision then. If you're already past final payment, I'd hold off.

[emms]

My son is doing volcanoes in geography (gcse) the last time this volcano erupted was in 1832 and it went on for 18 months ( apparently) Who knows how long this time? at the moment in the UK the government are working with other European countries and trying to use Spain as a flight hub and move people from there ,either by road, train or ship from one of the ports. Its been going on long enough now something has to be done.

Good luck eveyone travelling soon hope you make your holiday.

[Smartcookie]

I read on UPI this morning that flights are resuming.

 

No they're not, they're starting to cancel those flights that they planned on resuming.

 

It's erupting again, when it erupted in the 1800's it went on for 2 years.

 

I would look into seeing if you can switch flights to land in Rome or south of there than book train travel to England, and no, I'm not kidding. We have flights to Pisa in July leaving from Rome and I'm going to see if we can switch the Pisa leg to Rome, the farther south the better.

 

Waiting to see if this volcano will stop erupting is very, very risky, especially if you go by past history.

[Smartcookie]

We fly out 2 weeks from today for our May 7th (trip of a lifetime for our daughter) Baltic on the Eclipse and we are really worried, too. We have Cruise Care also but just for the cruise only. We were told by Cruise Care that 75% of the cruise cost would be covered, but who knows? Not to mention air and prepaid hotels. What a mess! At least we aren't stranded over there. Who would have thought of a volcano issue?

 

Where are you flying into?

 

If it's an airport that's still open, you're probably okay, but if it's closed now you should look into seeing if you can get on a flight further south then take a train to your port.

 

BTW, trains are filling up FAST.

[ellbon]

from what i have been reading you can fly to Spain or Rome now.. what about trying to book a train from there or drive. i read that people are doing that. the hard part is getting seats on the train

[uktog]

Surely, if there is no way humanly possible to get to your cruise because of cancelled flights, from a customer service and public relations standpoint, I would hope that Celebrity would try to be accommodating, even if it means no refund, but credit for a future cruise.

 

As an elite member and loyal Celebrity/RCCL, and Azamara cruisers, I would be beyond disappointed if Celebrity did not attempt to do the right thing in regards to this situation.!

 

Nancy

 

I can see where you are coming from, but the position is as of now, no they are not and there are several posters who have not made cruises they booked as cruise only in the last few weeks who are having to rely on their other insurance - many are elites who did not make it to the transatlantic Equinox trip. Those who booked their airfare are covered, but otherwise, there is no credit for a future cruise nothing. But that is commercial reality and even for us who are Elite, there is a limit to what they can do - they are not out of line as far as I can see with other lines and they do say you should have adequate cancellation insurance

[Starry Nights]

I can see where you are coming from, but the position is as of now, no they are not and there are several posters who have not made cruises they booked as cruise only in the last few weeks who are having to rely on their other insurance - many are elites who did not make it to the transatlantic Equinox trip. Those who booked their airfare are covered, but otherwise, there is no credit for a future cruise nothing. But that is commercial reality and even for us who are Elite, there is a limit to what they can do - they are not out of line as far as I can see with other lines and they do say you should have adequate cancellation insurance

 

UKtog, I think you are perfectly right.

 

I hope your son is doing well. Are they managing to find accommodation? Americans are tremendously generous people. If the media had the story, I know someone would step up to help out.

[cruie4ever]

I would be very concerned with trying to land in a far away airport & trying to get trains into England . The trains are booked solid & rental car agencies are sold out . Another thing is to flty into Europe & get stuck there & no way back . Even taking the Queen Mary 2 ,if possible would be very pricy . Not every one is multi millionaires . Thus ,if it were my decision I would bite the bullet & cancel .If it is past final payment you must weigh the consequences of getting stuck in some off beat airport. JMVHO

 

We are very sorry for all those who are impacted by this challenge of nature

[80sramfan]

We are on ECLIPSE in June. Our final payment is made. We are more than 30 days from sailing.

RCL has said if you bought cruise only, show up or lose out.

Celebrity doesn't specifically spell it out as well as RCL. They say if air and cruise from them you lose nothing if you cant get there. But they fail to say what happens if cruise only.

At this point we can simply cancel and only lose deposit amount.

If we take a chance that there is a way to get to Southampton and fail to get there we are out the full amount of the cruise.

Our group has 7 rooms booked and none are with air.

I am inclined to simply cancel and take the small loss versus chancing the ash closing down England in June and losing it all.

What are others doing ?

 

And please don't hijack this into an insurance discussion there are enough of those already.

Lol Yes definately cancel. That will leave more room for me and my family.

[80sramfan]

No they're not, they're starting to cancel those flights that they planned on resuming.

 

It's erupting again, when it erupted in the 1800's it went on for 2 years.

 

I would look into seeing if you can switch flights to land in Rome or south of there than book train travel to England, and no, I'm not kidding. We have flights to Pisa in July leaving from Rome and I'm going to see if we can switch the Pisa leg to Rome, the farther south the better.

 

Waiting to see if this volcano will stop erupting is very, very risky, especially if you go by past history.

 

As usual more incorrect imormation being posted on this topic. The volcano could erupt for years and it will have little or no impact on flying. What is causing the issues right now is the glacier melt pouring into the crater not the eruption itself. The part of the glacier that is doing this is now 2/3 melted so we are only a few days away from when this should no longer be an issue.

[Smartcookie]

As usual more incorrect imormation being posted on this topic. The volcano could erupt for years and it will have little or no impact on flying. What is causing the issues right now is the glacier melt pouring into the crater not the eruption itself. The part of the glacier that is doing this is now 2/3 melted so we are only a few days away from when this should no longer be an issue.

 

 

Pardon me, you obviously are much more knowledgeable than the expert they had on CNN this morning who said this could disrupt air travel for years.

 

If only CNN had consulted with you first, so many of us would not be suffering from unwanted angst.

[katiebeth]

Dear Uktog,

Hi Uktog,

 

Are you saying that even if I purchased Cruise Care Insurance thru Celebrity (which I did)for the cruise only portion, I am totally out of luck for cost of the cruise if I can't get there because my flight is cancelled due to the Volcano? We have a Penthouse and AQ Spa Stateroom booked and paid close to $1500.00 for Cruise Care Insurance for both of these staterooms. We have saved for a very long time and are going to celebrate my father's 80 birthday. I can understand if I didn't purchase insurance at all, but I purchased it specifically thru Celebrity, thinking it was the better choice in case I need to make a claim. As I said, we are flying in two days early so I could allow enough time in case of delays, cancellations, etc. However, who could plan for a total shut down of airspace for days?

 

So sorry about your son's situation here in the United States. We fly Delta exclusively because it is the major carrier available to us in Tallahassee, Florida. I find their customer service extremely lacking, to say the least.

 

Nancy

[80sramfan]

Pardon me, you obviously are much more knowledgeable than the expert they had on CNN this morning who said this could disrupt air travel for years.

 

If only CNN had consulted with you first, so many of us would not be suffering from unwanted angst.

 

 

Yeah cause the press is never sensational in it's reporting. Do you own research don't depend on the near lowest rated cable news network for valid information

[Andym]

The ash cloud is now hitting Canada and spreading.