Cruises to Cuba

[sanmarcosman]

We wanted to go but not on a Fantasy class ship. The Carnival Pride would have been good.

[lasvegascruising]

I was waiting at the FLL airport on May 11 to fly home when I started talking two a mother and son who had just finished their Carnival cruise to Cuba that same day and were flying home also.  The mother told me that she had to take her own toilet tissue off the ship to use in the restrooms in Cuba.  I was shocked.  They said it was beautiful but very sad. 

[crusing48/51]

We have a cruise booked on the Sunshine to Cuba for January 2020. Just waiting and seeing what Carnival says. Still want to go, and will hopefully get there. 

 

Read that if you already have travel booked they will honor it. Only travel booked after June 5th not permitted. We'll see. Fingers crossed!

[beacha]

1 hour ago, sfaaa said:

Fly there if you are that desperate to go.

American citizens won’t be able to go at all. It’s not just cruises.

[beacha]

8 minutes ago, crusing48/51 said:

We have a cruise booked on the Sunshine to Cuba for January 2020. Just waiting and seeing what Carnival says. Still want to go, and will hopefully get there. 

 

Read that if you already have travel booked they will honor it. Only travel booked after June 5th not permitted. We'll see. Fingers crossed!

Sure hope this is true for your cruise.

[davelinde]

2 hours ago, xDisconnections said:

Maybe I'm in the minority but if I was ever to be given a gesture of goodwill by someone at a cruise line, hotel or airline, the last thing I would do is brag about it on a message board and try to make life difficult for the poor agents fielding phone calls of people angry and seeking the same compensation because one person received it.

 

Why should someone need to talk to the right person in the right way? Wouldn't you want the employees of whatever company you are patronizing to be empowered to make decisions and if necessary, provide an immediate service recovery to ensure total guest service satisfaction? A consistent experience should be had by all.

 

So... one of the things topical moderated discussion board does is "help" companies be consistent.  While I would hope policies are consistent I am going to assume that every CSR or manager looking at whatever policy they need to find will both find the right policy, understand it, and be able to put it through the system.   Knowing what is possible allows you to have a discussion about it without being angry or pressuring the CSR.  I'm not asking anyone to brag about anything, just asking what folks find out.

And, in cases where there's a big problem like this one companies don't always make uniform offers of compensation.   A few years back we had a problem with an airline and had not thought to ask for compensation until someone told us what to ask for and how to do it.  There was no angry call or anything like that - once we knew what to ask for we got compensated.  If we had not asked they were not going to seek us out and offer.

In this case there may be nothing offered or even possible.  We will see.

[ZoeyVictoria]

I have had my Cuba cruise for March 2020 booked since January.  I have paid 68% of the cruise, final payment date is 1/21/20.  I actually had my credit card in my hand to quickly pay it off today, just in case “completed a transaction” meant paid in full instead of partially paid.  Then I realized that there was no way Carnival would proceed with that cruise for only the passengers who had paid in full nine months in advance, so I put away the card without using it.

[lovelights]

31 minutes ago, beacha said:

Sure hope this is true for your cruise.

Sorry, I believe you have read it wrong. Carnival isn't going to take half-full ships to Cuba, and that's what would happen, even if they continued to go, but wasn't allowed to book anyone else on the ship, due to the new travel rule.

 

The news is indicating that as of June 5th, no ships will be going into Cuba. Should be interesting to see how the cruise lines are going to handle this, since the majority of the people only paid the extra money to go on the cruises because they were suppose to be going to Cuba.

 

 

[Ceryndipity]

Just called and Carnival doesn't know what they are going to do yet. They said they just got news and trying to figure out how to handle. She said most calls today about this. Not happy, because today is final payment day, my timing has never really been good. Thinking about getting insurance, because just interested in Cuba, on that side of the country, for now. Don't know what the substitution would be. Very sad.

[lovelights]

One news article stated that maybe they'll just replace Cuba with a day at Sea. 😮

 

I looked at my husband and said, "Seriously? We could possibly be going on a 5 day cruise just to go to Nassau for one day, and all the remainder of the days will be circling around in the Atlantic?" I would have never booked this cruise, and paid the extra money for a Cuba sailing, if it wasn't going to Cuba. I know it's not Carnival's fault, but I'm in hopes that they'll offer us to use the money we paid, to book a different Carnival cruise.

 

 

[tallnthensome]

I'm on the August 3rd sailing to Cuba ..... or is that "was" ? If Carnival puts Nassau in its place I'm going to be pissed. 

[annnmarie]

Not supporting or defending anything here, only want to urge people who are or expect to go to carefully check out every detail concerning "medical attention and treatment" in Cuba. Make sure you do understand. Some "may" (emphasis "may") not understand all the fine line details. Big "if", but, should you or someone you are with have a serious problem, it is always complicated no matter where you are in the world, but in Cuba you can not decide just to by-pass what is offered, call a cab, and go to the airport. Again, not giving thumbs up or down, just saying consider this for yourself and any you may be traveling with, and then make sure you understand ALL the details. If they are still doing this (and I have not been there in 2019), you must sign a kind of medical "insurance and waiver" paper in which you agree that your medical treatment will be done in one of a series of clinics when possible, and in a hospital if absolutely necessary. So many people seem to take offense to posts here, so just want to say, I only report one experience and give you time to consider BEFORE you go as to what options you have in the very rare possibility of a serious incident. (Ships do not want responsibility for seriously ill patients in general, some lines are more interested in liability, and some seem more interested in weighing the passenger as first priority). I've pretty much witnessed the full spectrum over the last 35-40 years of cruising.

 

 

 

[ZoeyVictoria]

24 minutes ago, lovelights said:

One news article stated that maybe they'll just replace Cuba with a day at Sea. 😮

 

I looked at my husband and said, "Seriously? We could possibly be going on a 5 day cruise just to go to Nassau for one day, and all the remainder of the days will be circling around in the Atlantic?" I would have never booked this cruise, and paid the extra money for a Cuba sailing, if it wasn't going to Cuba. I know it's not Carnival's fault, but I'm in hopes that they'll offer us to use the money we paid, to book a different Carnival cruise.

 

 

 

That is exactly the situation we are in.  I am tolerating Nassau because it was the only itinerary that worked for the dates/ship that we wanted.  If the itinerary will be only the Bahamas, we will take the $198 loss on the deposit rather than waste that much time and money on a Bahamas cruise.  We paid a premium to go to Cuba, would never pay that much for just the Bahamas.  I used two Amex offers on this cruise (spend $500, get a $100 statement credit), so we wouldn’t really be out of pocket on the $198 deposit loss, but I would much prefer to have the full amount transferred to another cruise.  I have already been researching other cruises to substitute, so I don’t have to make a quick decision when the time comes.

[lovelights]

7 minutes ago, ZoeyVictoria said:

 

That is exactly the situation we are in.  I am tolerating Nassau because it was the only itinerary that worked for the dates/ship that we wanted.  If the itinerary will be only the Bahamas, we will take the $198 loss on the deposit rather than waste that much time and money on a Bahamas cruise.  We paid a premium to go to Cuba, would never pay that much for just the Bahamas.  I used two Amex offers on this cruise (spend $500, get a $100 statement credit), so we wouldn’t really be out of pocket on the $198 deposit loss, but I would much prefer to have the full amount transferred to another cruise.  I have already been researching other cruises to substitute, so I don’t have to make a quick decision when the time comes.

I agree with you 100%. My thoughts exactly. I'll give up the deposit (since it was non-refundable), and go on another cruise, however, if Carnival doesn't allow me to use that deposit on another Carnival cruise, the cruise we switch it out for, won't be Carnival. Some people are saying "they can change the ports, and there's nothing you can do about it." Well, I understand that if it's the weather, and they're swapping Mexico for Grand Turk, or something like that, but our cruise is almost 1 year out, and has nothing to do with the weather. That would be like saying that if you book a Panama Canal cruise, but when you get on the ship, you find out that you're going to St. Thomas instead, then oh well, there is nothing you can do about it? That would be BS.

[sanmarcosman]

5 minutes ago, lovelights said:

 That would be like saying that if you book a Panama Canal cruise, but when you get on the ship, you find out that you're going to St. Thomas instead, then oh well, there is nothing you can do about it? That would be BS.

Per the contract they can. A better analogy in this instance would be if you booked a Panama Canal cruise and the canal was closed and would not reopen for the foreseeable future. 

[ZoeyVictoria]

2 minutes ago, lovelights said:

I agree with you 100%. My thoughts exactly. I'll give up the deposit (since it was non-refundable), and go on another cruise, however, if Carnival doesn't allow me to use that deposit on another Carnival cruise, the cruise we switch it out for, won't be Carnival. Some people are saying "they can change the ports, and there's nothing you can do about it." Well, I understand that if it's the weather, and they're swapping Mexico for Grand Turk, or something like that, but our cruise is almost 1 year out, and has nothing to do with the weather. That would be like saying that if you book a Panama Canal cruise, but when you get on the ship, you find out that you're going to St. Thomas instead, then oh well, there is nothing you can do about it? That would be BS.

 

I originally booked a refundable rate because the cruise was 14 months out.  After a few months I switched to a non-refundable casino rate because we were positive we wanted to go to Cuba, so we saved $152 at that point.  I would need to stick with Carnival, though, to save the $200 I got from the Amex offer.  I will do the math once I have specific prices, and I will be comparing to non-Carnival cruises also.  What can make this situation really difficult is when other cruise lines handle the same situation differently.

[MarilynR26]

36 minutes ago, tallnthensome said:

I'm on the August 3rd sailing to Cuba ..... or is that "was" ? If Carnival puts Nassau in its place I'm going to be pissed. 

I'm supposed to be sailing to Cuba that day too. I have zero interest in going to Nassau or anywhere else...even the stop in Key West is a throwaway for me since I've been there tons of times already. 

 

I'm watching this closely to see what happens. Hopefully we are still able to go - there are conflicting stories all over the place 😞

[ZoeyVictoria]

1 hour ago, Ceryndipity said:

Just called and Carnival doesn't know what they are going to do yet. They said they just got news and trying to figure out how to handle. She said most calls today about this. Not happy, because today is final payment day, my timing has never really been good. Thinking about getting insurance, because just interested in Cuba, on that side of the country, for now. Don't know what the substitution would be. Very sad.

 

I know it is too soon for Carnival to make a final decision, but they have had some time already to contemplate “what if?” and have possible scenarios figured out.  It is not like it just came up today, and hopefully that will figure into the amount of time it takes to make a decision.

[lovelights]

13 minutes ago, MarilynR26 said:

I'm supposed to be sailing to Cuba that day too. I have zero interest in going to Nassau or anywhere else...even the stop in Key West is a throwaway for me since I've been there tons of times already. 

 

I'm watching this closely to see what happens. Hopefully we are still able to go - there are conflicting stories all over the place 😞

If they swap Cuba for Nassau I will really be upset, because our itinerary already has Nassau on it. I would never have paid a prime price for a 5 day cruise that only goes to Nassau, because you can get those for cheap prices all day long. If they don't let me move my non-refundable deposit over to another Carnival cruise, then they can keep it, and I'll find another cruise line to book my next cruise vacation on.

 

[MarilynR26]

Just now, lovelights said:

If they swap Cuba for Nassau I will really be upset, because our itinerary already has Nassau on it. I would never have paid a prime price for a 5 day cruise that only goes to Nassau, because you can get those for cheap prices all day long. If they don't let me move my non-refundable deposit over to another Carnival cruise, then they can keep it, and I'll find another cruise line to book my next cruise vacation on.

 

Agree 100%. Nassau is way cheaper and definitely not worth the extra cost so I don't blame you one bit. We all realize this isn't Carnival's fault but it's not ours either so hopefully they make some concessions. I guess we will see how things unfold but man, this is stressful. Here I was just yesterday too thinking "Woo hoo, another 60 days to my Cuba trip!" and now who knows if it's actually going to happen. 

[EMOSEA]

2 hours ago, crusing48/51 said:

We have a cruise booked on the Sunshine to Cuba for January 2020. Just waiting and seeing what Carnival says. Still want to go, and will hopefully get there. 

 

Read that if you already have travel booked they will honor it. Only travel booked after June 5th not permitted. We'll see. Fingers crossed!

We're booked on that one too. 

[tom3562]

We are booked with NCL for July 22 2019, I haven't heard from them yet...... I'm pretty sure the extra insurance purchased thru the cruise line will not allow cancel for any reason, like someone suggested earlier in the post....so don't count on that. Most likely they will just change the itinerary, which sucks since we all paid a premium for Cuba on the older ships!

[EMOSEA]

19 minutes ago, lovelights said:

If they swap Cuba for Nassau I will really be upset, because our itinerary already has Nassau on it. I would never have paid a prime price for a 5 day cruise that only goes to Nassau, because you can get those for cheap prices all day long. If they don't let me move my non-refundable deposit over to another Carnival cruise, then they can keep it, and I'll find another cruise line to book my next cruise vacation on.

 

Same. I was going to be done with Carnival after this cruise anyway. 

[EMOSEA]

2 minutes ago, tom3562 said:

We are booked with NCL for July 22 2019, I haven't heard from them yet...... I'm pretty sure the extra insurance purchased thru the cruise line will not allow cancel for any reason, like someone suggested earlier in the post....so don't count on that. Most likely they will just change the itinerary, which sucks since we all paid a premium for Cuba on the older ships!

Here's Carnival's cancelation insurance: 

[tom3562]

2 minutes ago, EMOSEA said:

Here's Carnival's cancelation insurance: 

i guess 75% is better then nothing......  I've got to check my NCL policy now