anyone have a cruise cancelled? what did celebrity do?

[seashell]

Havery you had a cruise cancelled due to a charter or something else? How did Celebrity handle it? Did they help you rebook or just say Sorry? If they helped you did you still get your OBC or any other benefits. I would appreciate your sharing your experiences. Also how much notice did you get?

[cruiselover57]

Havery you had a cruise cancelled due to a charter or something else? How did Celebrity handle it? Did they help you rebook or just say Sorry? If they helped you did you still get your OBC or any other benefits. I would appreciate your sharing your experiences. Also how much notice did you get?

 

Hi there,

 

We were originally booked this past September on a 14-day Canada/Alaska cruise on the Infinity. Probably about 6 months ago, I was looking at my reservation on-line to fill in some missing info and I noticed the cruise had been changed to a 9-day coastal round trip from SF - I was never informed of this change nor my TA so we were a bit flustered as you can only imagine. She checked it out and found out the ship had been chartered for 5 days and they cancelled our cruise. They could've at least told us why it had been cancelled but they never did. So, we decided to go with a 12-day cruise about 2 weeks prior and they never even lowered the pricing. The only thing they did was give us an additional $200 OBC (which, in my opinion, was never enough to make up for those lost days). It's a good thing I hadn't paid for my airfare yet - who would've paid for those plane changes right? It could've been a bigger mess if you ask me. We still had a nice time but from what I heard, that charter was a nightmare. They made the people actually pay for their meals - they should've just had this sales conference at a hotel (why they didn't, is beyond me). Anyway, I hope to never experience something like this again.

[CILCIANRQTS]

I, too, am on the soon-to-be-cancelled January 2017 Summit Southern Caribbean trip. It amazes me that we have a contract and X feels they can cancel it in order to maximize revenue by booking a charter on those dates instead. It's at the very least lousy public relations/ customer service. They should book charters on trips not yet sold to the public. Do they really expect any loyalty when this is the way they treat their customers??

[cruzeluver]

I, too, am on the soon-to-be-cancelled January 2017 Summit Southern Caribbean trip. It amazes me that we have a contract and X feels they can cancel it in order to maximize revenue by booking a charter on those dates instead. It's at the very least lousy public relations/ customer service. They should book charters on trips not yet sold to the public. Do they really expect any loyalty when this is the way they treat their customers??

 

Understand your frustration, but this is not at all unique to X, so it should not impact your loyalty to them. All the big cruise lines accept charters, and for trips that were already sold to the general public. Just the way it is.

[CILCIANRQTS]

Understand your frustration, but this is not at all unique to X, so it should not impact your loyalty to them. All the big cruise lines accept charters, and for trips that were already sold to the general public. Just the way it is.

 

Thank you, Sir.

May I please have another?!

"Just the way it is." Interesting philosophy.

[Jobeth66]

There's no way to do that, as nice as it would be - a charter needs to sell a certain number of rooms or it will cancel. If Celebrity (or any other cruise line) blocks the ship before the charter sells its requisite number of berths, then they have no backup and would have to scramble for an itinerary and passengers at, effectively, the last minute.

 

Much easier to plan an itinerary and start bookings, and then if the proposed charter doesn't come through, they're covered from a revenue perspective. It sucks when a ship is chartered out from underneath you, but it makes the most business sense to do it the way they do it.

 

I know if it was me, I'd probably be pissed. But as someone who has booked a charter, I'm glad that the cruise lines give us the opportunity to "take over" a ship full of like-minded people, because without the charter, I'd never be able to cruise like I want to.

[seashell]

Cilcianrqts

what are you going to do? Wait for celebrity or rebook another cruise?

 

Cruiselover57 - your experience is not encouraging. I was hoping to hear someone else's experience. Thank you for sharing.

[bigbenboys]

We have a cruise booked for Sept 2016 Amsterdam to Rome. BA had a great 2 day sale on business class seats, Seattle to London. I grabbed 2 seats booked us a 4 day window on each side of the cruise. If the cruise goes south we will have a great 20 land trip.

[spearmint]

Several years ago, we booked Celebrity from Hawaii to Vancouver and it was cancelled for whatever reason. :( However, Celebrity offered us a $400 OBC to use for another cruise (I imagine there was a timeline to use it but I have forgotten.) :)

 

In any case, we booked a U.S. west coast cruise from Vancouver to Los Angeles and it was great. :D We had never previously considered that, as we live on the other side of the country, but for both cruises, we wanted to visit Vancouver as well so opted for the second possibility.

 

Bill

[seashell]

Thanks for answering Bill. One question, did you get much notice on the change? Glad it worked out well for you. Vancouver is beautiful. Hope to see it again.

[Elusive_Cruiser]

Cannot answer any of the OPs questions, as this has 'yet' to happen to us, but I must admit, being a Type A vacation planner, I've worried about having our cruise cancelled for a charter. I too would like to know at what point are we safe? After final payment? We book our cruises a year+ out and our flights as soon as they are released (11-12 months).

 

On our upcoming February cruise, we're meeting up with friends we made a couple cruises/years ago. When you've spent time planning and organizing with friends, private shore excursions, etc, etc. it is a great inconvenience and disappointment to have the rug pulled out from under your feet.

 

Personally, I do not like that they can do this. If you, a special group, want to book a charter, book it - but book it before the regular itineraries are offered to the regular cruising public.

 

Just MHO

[Demonyte]

It amazes me that we have a contract and X feels they can cancel it in order to maximize revenue by booking a charter on those dates instead.

 

 

By your contract you can cancel too if you find a better deal far enough in advance - you can cancel and rebook even the exact same cruise if the price drops.

 

Yes, that is the way the mass market cruise industry works.

 

To OP: What has been described (few alternative offers and small, fixed amount of OBC) is pretty much the standard procedure on many cruise lines in case of cancellations - my old go-to line NCL does exactly the same.

 

Personally I wouldn't book my flights a year before unless I was sure that I could easily get something alternative (another cruise, land vacation, etc) to do during that timeframe if the original cruise for some reason gets cancelled - waiting until 6-7 months before and one should be on the safe side.

Edited October 22, 2015 by Demonyte

[Cruise Raider]

Hi there,

 

We were originally booked this past September on a 14-day Canada/Alaska cruise on the Infinity. Probably about 6 months ago, I was looking at my reservation on-line to fill in some missing info and I noticed the cruise had been changed to a 9-day coastal round trip from SF - I was never informed of this change nor my TA so we were a bit flustered as you can only imagine. She checked it out and found out the ship had been chartered for 5 days and they cancelled our cruise. They could've at least told us why it had been cancelled but they never did. So, we decided to go with a 12-day cruise about 2 weeks prior and they never even lowered the pricing. The only thing they did was give us an additional $200 OBC (which, in my opinion, was never enough to make up for those lost days). It's a good thing I hadn't paid for my airfare yet - who would've paid for those plane changes right? It could've been a bigger mess if you ask me. We still had a nice time but from what I heard, that charter was a nightmare. They made the people actually pay for their meals - they should've just had this sales conference at a hotel (why they didn't, is beyond me). Anyway, I hope to never experience something like this again.

 

We were also booked on this Alaska itinerary but had a very different experience than the one you had. We were called and also sent an e-mail just to be sure we were notified.....think they gave us about 10 months notice on this. There really wasn't a lot of opportunity to book airfare that far out so they weren't offering any compensation for that from what others had mentioned on these boards. I stayed on with the 9 day coastal and ended up getting not only an amazing price but also the $200 OBC and still got to keep all the perks from my previous cruise so ended up with over $700 in OBC overall. I really felt as though our compensation was incredible but that was because we stayed on one of the alternate sailings offered. I do admit we had to call a few times to get everything straightened out. It wasn't Alaska, but we ended up getting upgraded and had the best cruise ever!! I think just a handful of people from the 14 day canceled Alaska cruise sailed on the 9 night Pacific Coastal cruise.

Sorry your experience turned out to be quite a bit different than ours. At least it sounds like you had a good time on the cruise you chose.

 

PS -- even before the notifications from Celebrity, someone posted on these boards so I knew it was coming. I have learned so much from reading these boards. Always finding valuable information on CC.

[upwarduk]

We were booked on the last Century sailing.

In Sept 2014, passengers on our roll call were reporting that the Century had been redeployed and would be sailing Dubai - Singapore instead and then be refitted and sail for a company not under the RCCL umbrella.

Our TA knew nothing ( we always seem to be the last to be informed in UK) so our she enquired.

Eventually ( about a week later) we were offered 3 alternative cruises, all of which were early 2015, in Asian waters ie before she left for Dubai. None of these were suitable, so we eventually transferred to a Baltic sailing on Eclipse in July 2015.

We were given $200 OBC per cabin.

[lisiamc]

Thank you, Sir.

May I please have another?!

"Just the way it is." Interesting philosophy.

 

I think what cruzeluver means is that most, if not all of the cruise lines do this, so if you avoid Celebrity and give your business to another cruise line in the future, you could still find yourself with a cancelled cruise. So you can avoid cruising completely, or you can reluctantly accept that there is a risk of cancellation.

 

It's no fun when it happens to you, but at present there is no way to guarantee that it won't.

[nijh]

$200 here too. They cancelled our trip that would have had us docked in Hong Kong Harbour over Chinese New Year. [emoji20][emoji20].

 

We were given 2 weeks to select another cruise or lose the OBC offer. We were cancelled 12 months out.

[monicajay]

5 night cruise on the Constellation cancelled 12 months out.

 

Offered only other dates on the same ship with a $50 per cabin OBC. After much complaining and getting transferred to resolutions we were able to get the $50 OBC on another ship.

 

Fares had increased a lot when we changed our booking. Plus, if I'd known it would be cancelled I'd have booked the Reflection while on the Summit and gotten a $300 OBC.

 

Wrote a letter, never even got a reply. :(

 

Don't think it was handled very well at all.

[seashell]

Lots of different experiences showing up. Too bad there aren't more good experiences. I guess Celebrity has a bit to work on for customer relations. I really do appreciate you all relaying what happened. I would guess if my cruise got chartered most likely I will find out soon. What the replacement cruise will be is still up in the air. I am glad it is far enough out that air is not involved. Some in the group have a lot more OBC than I do so keeping that is important to them.

 

I would like to see more stories too. I know Celebrity employees supposedly read the threads so hearing what happened before can be educational for them too. As a small business owner i believe getting feedback on your service is one way to make it better. That said I am sure we will be making several phone calls if we do get bumped. I hope customer relations works well with us. (Not a job I would like).

[Jobeth66]

I, too, am on the soon-to-be-cancelled January 2017 Summit Southern Caribbean trip. It amazes me that we have a contract and X feels they can cancel it in order to maximize revenue by booking a charter on those dates instead. It's at the very least lousy public relations/ customer service. They should book charters on trips not yet sold to the public. Do they really expect any loyalty when this is the way they treat their customers??

 

Are you in the US? If the price goes down on your cruise after you book it, do you ask for the lower price or an upgrade, or do you pay the price that it was when you booked, since that was the 'contract'?

 

I remember when they stopped allowing price changes and only allowed upgrades after final payment, and how angry people were at that development. Even though they liked the price when they booked or they wouldn't have booked it.

 

How do you book a charter on a trip that is 'not yet sold to the public'? They work out the itineraries about 2 years in advance - a group contacts them after they have the itineraries worked out and says 'we want to charter the Constellation for 10 days in February 2016' - Celebrity is supposed to say 'oh, sorry, we've already had 2 people book that, so we can't allow you to buy all the berths'? That makes no business sense at all.

 

Yes, it sucks to lose your vacation. I'm a Type A vacation planner myself, so I know how that goes. I plan everything from car service to hotels to tours to cabins, and I research to death. I booked my Feb 2016 cruise in January of 2014, and I've stressed over every detail - even moreso /because/ it's a charter - my booking doesn't go to Celebrity until January. So I can't purchase drinks packages or meal plans or excursions or anything else until January, for a cruise that leaves the first week of February. I'm /incredibly/ stressed, since it's an itinerary they don't normally do, I can't even really research excursions.

 

I'd be completely and totally lost if my cruise got cancelled. But I have insurance for anything the cruise line wouldn't cover. It doesn't make it 'right', but it does make it 'better'.

 

I definitely understand being upset about it, but I also accept that companies are not there to make me happy - they're there to make the shareholders happy. And a charter ship with NO discounts, NO 'freebies' (123Go, OBC, etc.) makes the shareholders happy. they make much more profit off that than they would if the ship sailed a regular itinerary. So it makes sense to give things like non-refundable OBC which is probably costs them essentially pennies on the dollar at the end of the day.

 

IE - my 10 day Connie in February in an A1 costs $6k for 2 people. No discounts. No OBC. No drinks package. No pre-paid grats. And our charter is probably running at about 85-90% full at this point.

 

It makes financial sense for them to do this. Oh, and my cruise had to be 66% paid for (with NO refunds) by 1/1/15. Full, final payment was made on 7/1/15. 7 months in advance of sailing. Again, no refunds.

 

The cruise lines would be stupid to refuse that revenue, even at the expense of a few disgruntled customers.

[MartinsCruise]

Seven years ago we were booked on the Galaxy which was be to be sold. They decided to turn it over earlier than planned so we got a call from Celebrity to let us know that we needed to change or reservation. We changed it to the last sailing and received $200 OBC. Closer to our sailing date I noticed that we were upgraded from an Oceanview to concierge so I always wondered if that was done because of the change we had to make. The upgrade worked for them because we've booked a cc cabin almost every time since then. :)

[hartleykg]

I, too, am on the soon-to-be-cancelled January 2017 Summit Southern Caribbean trip. It amazes me that we have a contract and X feels they can cancel it in order to maximize revenue by booking a charter on those dates instead. It's at the very least lousy public relations/ customer service. They should book charters on trips not yet sold to the public. Do they really expect any loyalty when this is the way they treat their customers??

 

Which date in Jauary 2017 is it?We are booked on the Summit.

[Going Coastal]

Someone asked for good experiences and ours was great! Because of a charter last spring our nine day cruise on Millie in Asia was lengthened to 12 days at no additional charge and still met up with the second leg of our b to b. Celebrity really came through.

 

Sent from my KFTT using Tapatalk

[Can'tstopcruising]

Someone asked for good experiences and ours was great! Because of a charter last spring our nine day cruise on Millie in Asia was lengthened to 12 days at no additional charge and still met up with the second leg of our b to b. Celebrity really came through.

 

Sent from my KFTT using Tapatalk

 

That's fabulous.

 

We should be so lucky!

[spearmint]

Thanks for answering Bill. One question, did you get much notice on the change? Glad it worked out well for you. Vancouver is beautiful. Hope to see it again.

 

If I recall, we had ample notice of the cancellation. And even when we decided to rebook, we still had lots of time to plan and to anticipate the cruise. Sorry I cannot be more specific, but then, it was several years ago, and the brain just isn't what it used to be.:)

[WayTea]

Which date in Jauary 2017 is it?We are booked on the Summit.

 

21 January 2017

 

You can do an online search for "smooth jazz cruise 2017"

 

These charters generally sell out.