Cancellation due to serious illness: can passenger get a refund or change date?

[bayportkat]

Just a thought- I happened to be looking at my credit card "perks" the other day for something else, but noticed that there was information about travel insurance.  It may not cover the person who is ill, but may cover the companion and they could recoup some of the money paid out.  May at least be something to look into.  I hope that things improve and the party can travel!

[ONECRUISER]

6 hours ago, Ourusualbeach said:

You cannot "resell" cabins.  One original name must remain on the reservation

When I was a Kid some Hotels ran hourly rates. They went away and Hot Tub rentals came along, rented by hr or even 1/2 hr for "Nooners" 

[Merion_Mom]

8 minutes ago, ONECRUISER said:

When I was a Kid some Hotels ran hourly rates. They went away and Hot Tub rentals came along, rented by hr or even 1/2 hr for "Nooners" 

 

And what does this have to do with cruise cabins?

[neverbeenhere]

Yes, please leave the folks from Oklahoma out of this conversation. 😁

[not-enough-cruising]

1 hour ago, cruisegirl1 said:

People buy insurance to cover themselves if there is  an issue. No one expects to be ill, but you never know.
 

 

As someone who purchases insurance, I would be annoyed if Royal Caribbean issued refunds to those who do not spend the money on insurance.  That’s what insurance is for.

 

Sadly several years ago, I had to cancel two cruises after  final payment because of a medical diagnosis. I had  the proper insurance, and after providing the appropriate paperwork I was reimbursed for everything I had  paid.

 

Sorry to be so harsh, but if people received refunds without buying insurance, why would anyone buy insurance?    

 

m

 

 

It's kinda like a bank that didn't use the FDIC to insure their deposits, THEN when they fail they expect the federal government to sweep in and cover their losses (after paying board of director bonuses of course)......................THAT NEVER HAPPENS

[Charles4515]

6 hours ago, LB_NJ said:

I have seen an argument that you should absolutely always buy health insurance for a cruise because of the possibility of extreme costs (e.g, possibly a $100,000 in medical bills or more) however, it might not make sense to buy travel insurance. The argument is that you have already budgeted for the cost of the cruise so losing the money will not break you and if you add up the total cost of travel insurance for many cruises then in the long run you may be better off taking the occasional loss.  

Well my friend was billed $60,000 for medical care by the cruise line. Was happy that the insurance covered it. My main reason for buying insurance is medical evacuation coverage. That could run $100,000. 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Charles4515

[dleahy4444]

38 minutes ago, bayportkat said:

Just a thought- I happened to be looking at my credit card "perks" the other day for something else, but noticed that there was information about travel insurance.  It may not cover the person who is ill, but may cover the companion and they could recoup some of the money paid out.  May at least be something to look into.  I hope that things improve and the party can travel!

That is a great idea thanks!

[Charles4515]

6 hours ago, dleahy4444 said:

I however do expect that a business that I have been loyal to for many years would show some compassion when someone in my group is in a difficult situation. if not, lesson learned.

 

Cruise lines don't usually show much compassion or loyalty. They don't operate like Apple. However it does not hurt to ask. 

[Charles4515]

7 hours ago, orville99 said:

Without travel insurance from RCL itself, the cruise line will not make any accommodation. Even had they purchased travel insurance, the fact that it appears to be a pre-existing condition would have negated any compensation, regardless of who issued the insurance. Have you contacted the TA that the group booked through to see if there is any way that they can re-sell the cabin to someone else. Other than that, there really are no viable options for a refund or any credit other than to try to move the reservations to a future date.

 

What we did a few years ago on a group cruise was move people in the group around to help out. I think the person who had to cancel lost about 50%.

[Fouremco]

It's a real pity that the experienced cruisers in the group didn't provide any advice to those booking their first cruise.

[orville99]

50 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

What we did a few years ago on a group cruise was move people in the group around to help out. I think the person who had to cancel lost about 50%.

That's what I was thinking as well. Depending on the make up of the group there might be a way to do that.

[rimmit]

8 hours ago, dleahy4444 said:

I however do expect that a business that I have been loyal to for many years would show some compassion when someone in my group is in a difficult situation. if not, lesson learned.

RCI had no sympathy prior to the pandemic when their coffers were flush with cash.  Their sympathy has sadly not improved since then now that they have billions in debt.

 

RCI and cruise lines in general seem to be significantly less sympathetic than other travel businesses.  When things have gone awry I have had great customer service from Disney, Marriott branded hotels, and the legacy airline carriers.  Despite their stringent cancellation policies, many times I have been able to get travel credit, a refund or coupon when contacting their customer service.   They were not obligated to based on the T&C but they typically offer something as a “good will” gesture.  The cruise lines are by far the most stringent and loyalty status matters nothing to them in these matters.  If past final payment they will stick to those T&Cs to the letter.

 

Definitely look into your credit card policies.  I have gotten thousands back this last year filing travel insurance claims via my credit cards travel policies.  The pre existing condition clause could nullify your claim however.

 

 

 

 

[BirdTravels]

10 hours ago, dleahy4444 said:

If she is not well enough to travel and has a doctor’s note to that effect, will RCCL issue a refund or at least a credit toward a future cruise date? How about for the adult son? He is her caretaker and one of the reasons he booked the trip was to help her during the sailing.  Anyone with any insight on this? Thank you 

No, RCCL will not (and should not) refund or offer FCC for an illness. The cruise contract provides you with a penalty schedule and you need to cancel before final payment to get a refund. And no, the adult son has no basis for any refund or insurance claim. 

 

I feel sorry for your party. But every week, hundreds of people have a sad stories on why they missed their cruise. And why they deserve a refund from the cruise line,,, because they don't have any insurance,,, and why it is bad business not to give back money for any reason. 

 

At this point, you are at 75% penalty (cruise fare only) and you have a couple of weeks to cancel before you lose 100% of the cruise fare. 

[dleahy4444]

1 hour ago, rimmit said:

RCI had no sympathy prior to the pandemic when their coffers were flush with cash.  Their sympathy has sadly not improved since then now that they have billions in debt.

 

RCI and cruise lines in general seem to be significantly less sympathetic than other travel businesses.  When things have gone awry I have had great customer service from Disney, Marriott branded hotels, and the legacy airline carriers.  Despite their stringent cancellation policies, many times I have been able to get travel credit, a refund or coupon when contacting their customer service.   They were not obligated to based on the T&C but they typically offer something as a “good will” gesture.  The cruise lines are by far the most stringent and loyalty status matters nothing to them in these matters.  If past final payment they will stick to those T&Cs to the letter.

 

Definitely look into your credit card policies.  I have gotten thousands back this last year filing travel insurance claims via my credit cards travel policies.  The pre existing condition clause could nullify your claim however.

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to post this. I’m definitely taking your advice 

[dleahy4444]

22 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

No, RCCL will not (and should not) refund or offer FCC for an illness. The cruise contract provides you with a penalty schedule and you need to cancel before final payment to get a refund. And no, the adult son has no basis for any refund or insurance claim. 

 

I feel sorry for your party. But every week, hundreds of people have a sad stories on why they missed their cruise. And why they deserve a refund from the cruise line,,, because they don't have any insurance,,, and why it is bad business not to give back money for any reason. 

 

At this point, you are at 75% penalty (cruise fare only) and you have a couple of weeks to cancel before you lose 100% of the cruise fare. 

 What does the cruise line do if someone shows up at the port reporting cold symptoms or stomach upset? Are they allowed to cruise? If not, are they given future cruise credit even if they did not get the insurance? Does anyone know?  I understand that the cruise line should not be on the hook for someone who has a flu or an unfortunate fracture and does not feel well enough to cruise. But I do think that is a different situation from someone who has a sudden re occurrence of cancer it is a medical necessity to receive chemotherapy/ radiation during the cruising period. Certainly the ship can’t provide it for her. No, she didn’t think to get the insurance, but should her result be different from someone who catches Covid then gets a refund or future cruise credit? 

[Charles4515]

8 minutes ago, dleahy4444 said:

 What does the cruise line do if someone shows up at the port reporting cold symptoms or stomach upset? Are they allowed to cruise? If not, are they given future cruise credit even if they did not get the insurance? Does anyone know?  I understand that the cruise line should not be on the hook for someone who has a flu or an unfortunate fracture and does not feel well enough to cruise. But I do think that is a different situation from someone who has a sudden re occurrence of cancer it is a medical necessity to receive chemotherapy/ radiation during the cruising period. Certainly the ship can’t provide it for her. No, she didn’t think to get the insurance, but should her result be different from someone who catches Covid then gets a refund or future cruise credit? 

If you tell them you are sick they will evaluate you. If they decide you are too sick you cannot board. If the sick person does not have insurance then they made a bad gamble not buying insurance.  

Edited March 20, 2023 by Charles4515

[dleahy4444]

1 minute ago, Charles4515 said:

If you tell them you are sick they will evaluate you. If they decide you are too sick you cannot board. If the sick person does not have insurance then they made a bad gamble not buying insurance.  

Oh I thought they were still offering to reschedule cruises for people with Covid. That has changed?

[Charles4515]

10 minutes ago, dleahy4444 said:

Oh I thought they were still offering to reschedule cruises for people with Covid. That has changed?

I don’t know about Covid now but you asked if her situation should be different. Covid policies were an exception. They don’t apply to her cancer. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by Charles4515

[MommaBear55]

You've gotten some good advice here. I hope some of it helps. The best advice would have been from the person who booked this group who should have told everyone to get travel insurance.  

[rimmit]

45 minutes ago, dleahy4444 said:

 What does the cruise line do if someone shows up at the port reporting cold symptoms or stomach upset? Are they allowed to cruise? If not, are they given future cruise credit even if they did not get the insurance? Does anyone know?  I understand that the cruise line should not be on the hook for someone who has a flu or an unfortunate fracture and does not feel well enough to cruise. But I do think that is a different situation from someone who has a sudden re occurrence of cancer it is a medical necessity to receive chemotherapy/ radiation during the cruising period. Certainly the ship can’t provide it for her. No, she didn’t think to get the insurance, but should her result be different from someone who catches Covid then gets a refund or future cruise credit? 

I’ll tell you what happens as it happened to my wife back in Oct.  I have a whole thread devoted to this exact scenario where I got a little emotional and calmed down relatively quickly once all the cruise critics snapped me back to reason in regards to policies being policies and that those are RCI’s policies. 
 

There were some extenuating circumstances that made me more emotional than normal.  Mainly based around the fact that in the year of 2022 we had a track record of basically having a disaster occur on every vacation we scheduled.  
 

Such as getting quarantined in Ecuador with Covid after a Galapagos expedition, having a family emergency that caused me to leave the Inca Trail after 1 day on the trail in Peru, my wife getting run over by a car in Zimbabwe, my son being hospitalized while we were in Disney World on vacation and the one in question where my wife got sick 1/2 day into a combined Disney World then 3 night cruise on Independence of the Seas.  This was after she had been recovering for 100+ days after being run over by a car in Zimbabwe and had 13 surgeries and we just needed a break.  So I was a little emotional in that thread and admit it, but agree with all the posters that the T&C are T&Cs.  So given all that I have gotten good at filing insurance claims with my credit card and travel insurance company.

 

So what happens if you are sick on day of embarkation?  
 

On Oct 5th my wife started feeling ill midday at Disney and we left. She was having fevers, chills, nausea, vomiting, and a sore throat and muscle aches.  I test her for Covid on the 6th.  Negative.  Our cruise was the Oct 7th.  The next day she was even worse.  Test her for Covid again.  Negative.  The 7th comes around and I call RCI asking my options.  They said she had to board or we would lose our money.    RCI at this point no longer requires covid testing to cruise of note.
 

I did have medical travel insurance, but since this was booked about 5 days prior to the embarkation date, for whatever reason trip cancellation was not an option when I ran the trip for quotes with insuremytrip.com where I buy travel insurance.  It had medical and some other benefits but for some reason cancellation was not offered.  I didnt care as I figured the odds of us missing were low as we had enough bad luck already this year and the cruise was in 5 days.  Lol.  Boy was I wrong.  Thankfully, the people on cruise critic remind me that my credit card likely has trip insurance and I calm somewhat.

They will not budge on the cancellation despite fever and all the symptoms.  We go to urgent care as I know to file a trip insurance claim I need medical documentation as I have become a claims filing expert at this point.  She ends up being Covid Positive so then RCI states we will get an FCC.  
 

We ended up filing with our credit card trip insurance and got our money back that way as I didn’t want another FCC.  We also got our taxes and port fees back from RCI.  We did not have to worry about medical as we were still in the US and due to all her medical care from being run over by a car we were at our maximum out of pocket for the year within hours of being back in the US after she was medically repatriated. 
 

So long story short, the only way they are denying boarding at this point is Covid.  I specifically said “So despite her symptoms you want her to sail?”  And the rep consulted the supervisor and she said “Yes.  If she is covid negative she can sail.”  
 

“So you want me to bring a sick person with fever, chills, nausea, vomiting, muscle aches on board the ship.”

 

 “Sir, if she is Covid negative she is good to sail.”

Edited March 20, 2023 by rimmit

[dleahy4444]

1 minute ago, MommaBear55 said:

You've gotten some good advice here. I hope some of it helps. The best advice would have been from the person who booked this group who should have told everyone to get travel insurance.  

Some of it does help. I’ll advise them both to check their credit cards to see if there is any coverage. The well wishes from some posters also help. The young couple who got the cruise together for a special event had only cruised twice before and probably didn’t think of it. The couple told everyone to contact the group booking agent at rccl to book their rooms. I don’t know what the booking agent said, if anything, about travel insurance, since I booked independently.  Many, many people have posted that the insurance should have been purchased. Obviously if it had been, she would not be in this situation. But the references to owhat should’ve been done in the past is not really helpful going forward. 

[dleahy4444]

5 minutes ago, rimmit said:

I’ll tell you what happens as it happened to my wife back in Oct.  I have a whole thread devoted to this exact scenario where I got a little emotional and calmed down relatively quickly once all the CC snapped me back to reason in regards to policies being policies and that those are RCI’s policies. 
 

There were some extenuating circumstances that made me more emotional than normal.  Mainly based around the fact that in the year of 2022 we had a track record of basically having a disaster occur on every vacation we scheduled.  
 

Such as getting quarantined in Ecuador with Covid, having a family emergency that caused me to leave the Inca trail early, my wife getting run over by a car in Zimbabwe, my son being hospitalized while we were in Disney World on vacation and my wife getting sick 1/2 day into a combined Disney and the Independence vacation.  This was after she had been recovering for 100 days after being run over by a car and having 13 surgeries and we just needed a break.  So I was a little emotional in that thread and admit it, but agree with all the posters that the T&C are T&Cs.  So given all that I have gotten good at filing insurance claims with my credit card and travel insurance company.

 

So what happens if you are sick on day of embarkation?  On Oct 5th my wife started feeling ill midday at Disney and we left. She was having fevers, chills, nausea, vomiting, and a sore throat and muscle aches.  Our cruise was the 7th.  The next day she was even worse.  The 7th comes around and I call RCI asking my options.  They said she had to board or we would lose our money.  I run two home covid tests on her.  One on Oct 6th and also day of embarkation and they were both negative.  RCI at this point no longer requires covid testing to cruise.
 

I did have medical travel insurance, but since this was booked about 5 days prior to the embarkation date, for whatever reason trip cancellation was not an option when I ran the trip for quotes with insuremytrip.com where I buy travel insurance.  It had medical and some other benefits but for some reason cancellation was not offered.  I didnt care as I figured the odds of us missing were low as we had enough bad luck already this year.  Lol.  Boy was I wrong.  

They will not budge on the cancellation despite fever and all the symptoms.  We go to urgent care as I know to file a trip insurance claim I need medical documentation as I have become

a claims filing expert at this point.  She ends up being Covid Positive so then RCI states we will get an FCC.  We ended up filing with our CC trip insurance and got our money back that way as I didnt want another FCC.  We also got our taxes and port fees back from RCI.  We did not have to worry about medical as we were still in the US and due to all her medical care from being run over by a car we were at our maximum out of pocket for the year within hours of being back in the US after she was medically repatriated. 
 

So long story short, the only way they are denying boarding at this point is Covid.  I specifically said “So despite her symptoms you want her to sail?”  And the rep consulted the supervisor and she said “Yes.  If she is covid negative she can sail.”  
 

“So you want me to bring a sick person with fever, chills, nausea, vomiting, muscle aches on board the ship.”

 

 “Sir, if she is Covid negative she is good to sail.”

Wow, you certainly had your share of bad luck. I hope everyone is on the mend.   From all the posts on this thread, it’s unlikely that she will get any type of refund/ future credit from RCCL abut I’ll adviser her to call asap to see what they say and to also contact her credit card company to see if it provides some travel insurance. I hadn’t thought of that and I’m sure she hasn’t, so thank you again to the poster that made that suggestion.  

[rimmit]

2 minutes ago, dleahy4444 said:

Wow, you certainly had your share of bad luck. I hope everyone is on the mend.   From all the posts on this thread, it’s unlikely that she will get any type of refund/ future credit from RCCL abut I’ll adviser her to call asap to see what they say and to also contact her credit card company to see if it provides some travel insurance. I hadn’t thought of that and I’m sure she hasn’t, so thank you again to the poster that made that suggestion.  

Yes.  Sadly of all the companies I have dealt with among all of the trip cancellations, interruptions, etc.  RCI is the only one that has not given any goodwill if even something small.  Disney was of course incredible.  The park tickets are completely nonrefundable once you buy them, but they refunded the unused portions back to my CC.  The day she got sick we had to miss a dining reservation and it was way past cancellation.  I didnt even ask to not be billed the cancellation fee and they just said they’d waive it and hope she feels better.

 

Marriott gave me back my nonrefundable room fare back when I called them.  I am a Platinum Bonvoy member so maybe that helps. AA gave me airline credit on basic economy tickets when I couldn’t make my return flight back from Ecuador and had Covid.   The list goes on.  RCI doesn’t budge though. 
 

Anything I couldnt get back or get credit I filed a claim for.

[dleahy4444]

1 minute ago, rimmit said:

Yes.  Sadly of all the companies I have dealt with among all of the trip cancellations, interruptions, etc.  RCI is the only one that has not given any goodwill if even something small.  Disney was of course incredible.  The park tickets are completely nonrefundable once you buy them, but they refunded the unused portions back to my CC.  The day she got sick we had to miss a dining reservation and it was way past cancellation.  I didnt even ask to not be billed the cancellation fee and they just said they’d waive it and hope she feels better.

 

Marriott gave me back my nonrefundable room fare back when I called them.  I am a Platinum Bonvoy member so maybe that helps. AA gave me airline credit on basic economy tickets when I couldn’t make my return flight back from Ecuador and had Covid.   The list goes on.  RCI doesn’t budge though. 
 

Anything I couldnt get back or get credit I filed a claim for.

Frankly, even prior to this,  RCCL had begun to lose its luster for me (after 20+ cruises) but that’s a subject for a different thread. 

[Charles4515]

27 minutes ago, rimmit said:

RCI doesn’t budge though. 

I can't think of any cruise line that will budge. I have had good luck with hotels too like when I had to leave three days early from a Hilton property because of a family emergency. They actually said probably not but when I got my final invoice the three days were knocked off. I think because I was very chill when I explained I had to check out early.