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Is this a change in excursion cancellation policy?


WriterOnDeck

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Just booked some shore excursions for Oct. cruise and see that if you don't cancel 3 days before the cruise starts, you will lose 10%. I seem to recall from checking earlier this summer that as long as you cancelled with 72 hours (or maybe 48) on board the ship, you got a total refund.

 

I did some searching and saw earlier posts that indicated you could get a full refund of pre-booked excursions once on the ship if you met the standard shipboard cancellation deadline. If that was true, it looks like it has changed.

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Just booked some shore excursions for Oct. cruise and see that if you don't cancel 3 days before the cruise starts, you will lose 10%. I seem to recall from checking earlier this summer that as long as you cancelled with 72 hours (or maybe 48) on board the ship, you got a total refund.

 

I did some searching and saw earlier posts that indicated you could get a full refund of pre-booked excursions once on the ship if you met the standard shipboard cancellation deadline. If that was true, it looks like it has changed.

We cancelled two prebooked shore excursions while onboard the Nieuw Amsterdam in April. We received full refund for both. Both times we cancelled before the cancellation deadline printed on the onboard brochure. We were told that if we had booked onboard we would have had to pay the 10% penalty.

I don't know if this varies from ship to ship because it is the first time we have cancelled shore excursions onboard. I know I was pleasantly surprised as I was prepared to pay the penalty.

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We cancelled two prebooked shore excursions while onboard the Nieuw Amsterdam in April. We received full refund for both. Both times we cancelled before the cancellation deadline printed on the onboard brochure. We were told that if we had booked onboard we would have had to pay the 10% penalty.

I don't know if this varies from ship to ship because it is the first time we have cancelled shore excursions onboard. I know I was pleasantly surprised as I was prepared to pay the penalty.

 

Perhaps the full refund policy was in effect when you booked them, but not when you sailed. Thanks.

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On all the cruises that we have been on -- once on the ship you could cancel an excursion ONLY on embarkation day and get a full refund.

 

After that anything cancelled there was a 10% penality no matter whether you prebooked the excursion or bought it on the ship.

I have found that policies on most things with regard to HAL vary from ship to ship and from person to person. However we dealt with two different people on two different days with regard to the refund. It was over 20 days into the 27 day cruise.

I would not be surprised in the least to find that if a similar situation were to arise on a future cruise, we would be charged a 10% penalty. We just got lucky on the NA. It was one of the oddities of dealing with HAL.

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My guess is that on short seven day cruises they adhere to the policy, but on long cruises there is more flexibility. Remember HAL does not operate the excursions, they simply act as middlemen to the vendors. On long cruises they have plenty of time to resell the excursion and often there may be a wait list.

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I have found that policies on most things with regard to HAL vary from ship to ship and from person to person.
And sometimes week to week on the same ship ... but maybe that's because of the 'person to person' aspect.
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On all the cruises that we have been on -- once on the ship you could cancel an excursion ONLY on embarkation day and get a full refund.

 

After that anything cancelled there was a 10% penality no matter whether you prebooked the excursion or bought it on the ship.

 

Once we discussed an excursion with the shore excursion desk, were given additional information and told to think it over for a couple of days. On the third day we decided the excursion was to difficult for us and cancelled getting the full refund. Don't know if the fact I was using a walker had anything to do with it or not.

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