Is there anything I need to do?

[Layla and Beaux]

For our upcoming cruise, we have three rooms booked, with three people in each room. All rooms are paid in full. We found out that one person will not be able to go on the cruise now. Is there anything in particular that I need to do or be aware of? Do we just show up and let them know at the check in?

[isaiahsnana]

If you are passed the time to get any sort of refund for the person not going, it is best to have them be a no show. If you let them know, the remaining guests in that room will be charged as only two in the cabin and the third person will get no refund so it penalizes the remaining folks!

[k2excursion]

Darn! If only you knew a few days ago. If this is for your Nov 22nd sailing, then by my count, you are now 74 days away from sailing. This means that the final payment date was either yesterday or the day before. If you were able to cancel the person before final payment, you would get less of a penalty. With many rates, there would have been $0 penalty. Early Saver would have been a $50 penalty & the remainder of the deposit held for a future cruise, then a refund of the amount of above that.

 

Since you are passed final payment (if this is the Nov 22nd sailing), then the penalty will be the amount of the deposit. Anything above that for the 3rd person on the sailing will be refunded. Go ahead and cancel. Do not do a no-show. The penalty would be the entire cruise fare. If you were talking about a 2-person room being reduced to a 1-person room, then a no-show would be the way to go. But since this is a 3-person room going down to 2, then you have no worries. 2 people in a 3-person room only pay for 2 people, not 3. The only problem would be that with this being a high-demand Thanksgiving sailing, the chances are higher that you would be moved to a 2-person room after canceling. You would not be downgraded; they would just move you to a double to free up the triple for a party of 3. That may not happen, but it's a much higher likelihood on these high demand sailings. You could be proactive and move yourself to a 2-person room of your choosing.

 

If the possibility of being moved is too bad of a thing, then you might consider the no-show & just taking the greater penalty. The 3rd person pays far less than the 1st/2nd person, so the amount to be refunded might not be a lot. Here's a simple hypothetical example:

 

1st/2nd person: $600 each

3rd: $300

Total: $1500.

 

Carnival will present this as $500 each, because that is the average. But when you cancel the 3rd person, you will not be refunded $500 minus penalty. You will be refunded $300 minus penalty. And since the deposit for a 7-day cruise is $250, that means that your refund would be only $50 in this hypothetical example. If you love your room location and you cannot find an available 2-person room that works for you, it might be worth not receiving a small refund by doing the no-show, in order to keep your room.

Edited September 9, 2015 by k2excursion

[D4]

Does the person have trip insurance? And if they do, are they canceling for a covered reason? Or does their policy have cancel for any reason coverage? If it might be covered by insurance, they need to actually cancel the cruise in order to get reimbursement from their trip insurance.