Carnival Pride Jul 21-

[lalaland82]

We were scheduled to sail on the Carnival Pride out of London on July 21. The ship broke down during the sailing before and Carnival cancelled our cruise. They claimed they would refund our flights, hotel, and meals however I keep submitting receipts and have yet to receive a dime. When I email asking for a status they sometimes claim to not have received the receipts, need more receipts from me, etc. I feel like I’m getting the run-around. Has anyone else had this issue? 

[pjhootch]

They offered different compensation depending on whether you were already in transit to the cruise, had not left home yet for the cruise, or were already on it (doing a back to back cruise) when it broke down.  Which of those groups do you fall into?  

[lalaland82]

I fell into the group of we were in transit (flew from the US to London)

[pjhootch]

Okay- if you did not get on the ship for the shortened cruise, they offered up to $300 US dollars per night for two nights of hotel.  They also offered to pay airline change fees to move your flights up to turn around and go home. They offered two days of $100 per person per diem for food, BUT they ultimately would not pay for any food or drinks if you did not have itemized receipts.  Some folks got the $100 per day, most of us only received compensation for clearly itemized items.  No alcohol was another rule they added after the fact, but some people received compensation for alcoholic drinks with meals and others didn't.  You should have received a refund of your cruise fare, port fees and taxes, to the original method of payment.  That came through for most people within a couple of weeks of the cancellation.   I was in this group too and submitted my claims for reimbursement on July 31st.  There was an initial auto response.  Then we heard nothing at all for 2 weeks.  Then a person named "Hamlet" started emailing and denying compensation.  I spent 2 more weeks arguing through email before a resolution was reached (and had to send more documentation).  It took another two weeks to receive a check for Carnival that was as close as possible to what I asked for but did not fully compensate us for our food.

 

If you took the shortened cruise, they added on an extra night of hotel compensation and some additional  food (I think) reimbursement, since the short cruise didn't leave until Monday.   A lot of this group of folks were having a big fight with Carnival because they wound up losing money on trains, transportation and a series of botched connection fees trying to get to and from Dover for Monday.  It also took them quite a while to obtain reimbursement.

 

One of the big clusters happened when someone started spreading a customer service email that was different than the original reimbursement email Carnival directed us to use.  After a couple of weeks with no response from the first email, tons of folks started using the customer services email.  They got fast responses and weren't being denied payment like those of us that stuck to Carnival's directions.  But after many, many people had submitted claims (some to both emails) - the customer services folks started saying the shouldn't have handled these claims. Some people had received checks and then got an email the check was being voided.  

 

It took 6 weeks for the earliest claims to be processed.  There were still some people waiting on claims as of last week, to my knowledge. 

[lalaland82]

Wow. The amount of total disregard Carnival has for their customers… we flew out a couple days before the cruise so we could get adjusted to the time change. They said they will not reimburse our flights since we went early, they will only reimburse our change flight fees. I’m starting to get beyond frustrated with Carnival. 
 

I’m curious how other cruise lines have handled similar situations in the past. 

[pjhootch]

They definitely won't reimburse our flight costs, just the change fees associated with changing your ticket to go back home before the 31st of July.  I had travel insurance, so I submitted my flight costs to my travel insurance company, as well as some extra things that Carnival didn't cover.  My travel insurance paid up to my policy limit for trip interruption/delay- so that helped.

[lalaland82]

Ooh, you’re lucky! They claimed they will cover the change flight fees, however they don’t like the receipt Delta gave me for them because it doesn’t prove it was for the flights to and from London despite the fact our names and all the dates and flight info is on there and it also shows the same confirmation number for everything.