How often does Carnival cancel?

Greetings everyone. First cruise booked for Jan. 2017 and I have been reading all the good information on here for first timers. One issue that surprised me was Carnival just cancelling a cruise and their, what appears to be, "O well, sucks to be you" attitude. That might not be that big of an issue for some, especially if you leave near a port, but for those who have to fly in, that could hurt. So my questions are: How often do they cancel? Is this common across other cruiselines? Does flight insurance usually cover a cruise cancelation? Thanks for any input.

and have never had a cruise cancelled. It is rare that an entire cruise would get cancelled. I personally would not worry about it. If it is a worry for you - please check into purchasing insurance.

Not very often at all, 30 plus cruises never has happened to us.

I have heard of ships being chartered and they require you to choose another cruise. Usually it is more than 6 months out and it is in the cruise contract that this can happen. Luckily I have never had it happen to me but there is always a chance. Many times the ship is not fully chartered and other passengers can still board. This has happened to me, and I still had a great cruise. I have also seen cruises canceled for mechanical issues that cannot be quickly repaired. I think all the cruise lines work to accommodate displaced passengers as best as they can.

Not common but it does happen. Another thing that also happens periodically is ship substitutions, which really angers people who book specifically for a ship.

Been cruising for 20 years and the only time I'm aware of where the cruise lines 'Cancelled" a cruise is if there was a natural disaster or a terrorist attack.

The cruise you're talking about, someone chartered the entire ship. Therefore those people who had booked a cruise on that ship are offered different things, Sail on a different ship, Sail on a different date, etc.

Now, you're right in that they could care less about your seperately purchased airline ticket. That's not their problem nor should it be. You can change the ticket, you can cancel the ticket and maybe get future credit. That's all on you. Insurance might cover. Nobody twisted anybodies arm and made somebody buy the cheapest non refundable ticket. That was a choice the consumer made.

And Yes,,, all cruise lines will charter out a ship. That's BIG money right there.

I have had a cruise cancelled by Carnival. They were doing a "dancing of the ships". Unfortunately our cruise changed from a 7 day Southern cruise round trip from San Juan into a 5 day cruise from San Juan to Port Canaveral. Everybody was cancelled. It was 7 months in advance and we had just purchased our airfare a week before.

We called the insurance company and they said airfare was not covered because the airline hadn't cancelled, just the cruise line. The flight was still able to be used. Our policy only covered $75 of the $200pp change fee. At first Carnival said they wouldn't help with the change fee but later said they would. We didn't take them up on it. Instead we <script id="gpt-impl-0.02916564116789022" src="http://partner.googleadservices.com/gpt/pubads_impl_92.js"></script>just went on another cruise lines ship doing almost the same itinerary on the same dates. We ended up on the Celebrity Summit and paid the exact same fare as we would have on the Carnival ship. So it all worked out and we found that we liked Celebrity and would be willing to cruise with them again.

When you book, google search your ship and sailing dates and see if anything comes up for group sailings, concert cruises, sales/employee incentive cruises. At least you know if something is going on. Also check again periodically if you book way ahead of time.

Also look into purchasing 3rd party trip insurance, you cover airfare in the entire cost of your coverage. Another option is just keep your flights and turn it in to a land vacation if your cruise is cancelled.

I had a cruse canceled once and they gave us all kinds of concessions to make up for it...was worth it as I recall

I had one cancel and as it turns out, it was good that it did because something happened that would have caused me to have to skip the cruise and lose my money.

Funny thing was that I learned of it here on cruise critic from another person long before Carnival contacted me.

Greetings everyone. First cruise booked for Jan. 2017 and I have been reading all the good information on here for first timers. One issue that surprised me was Carnival just cancelling a cruise and their, what appears to be, "O well, sucks to be you" attitude. That might not be that big of an issue for some, especially if you leave near a port, but for those who have to fly in, that could hurt. So my questions are: How often do they cancel? Is this common across other cruiselines? Does flight insurance usually cover a cruise cancelation? Thanks for any input.

Only had it happen once and still not quite over it, they cancelled a 12 night Journeys Cruise for November this year so they could move the ships around early and empty. We got 100.00 total in OBC to pick another cruise.

Several years ago out cruise was changed from a 4 day to 5 day or something like that. But I already had my airline tix and couldn't make the extra free cruise day work. We got obc but they also covered the airline fee to change our flight. I had to ask for it. But up having to change from a LA departure cruise to a Orlando to find one that worked with my vacay schedule I had no issue changing completely dif ports.

It happens (rarely) across all lines. I've read similar threads on Princess and HAL.

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Greetings everyone. First cruise booked for Jan. 2017 and I have been reading all the good information on here for first timers. One issue that surprised me was Carnival just cancelling a cruise and their, what appears to be, "O well, sucks to be you" attitude. That might not be that big of an issue for some, especially if you leave near a port, but for those who have to fly in, that could hurt. So my questions are: How often do they cancel? Is this common across other cruiselines? Does flight insurance usually cover a cruise cancelation? Thanks for any input.

They do cancel when they are moving a ship around, it happens to the Splendor a lot because they move her to other ports.

I've been on over 40 cruises and I've never had a cruise cancelled (except the time Celebrity sold the ship I'd booked on.).

Twice, I have had newer ships substituted for older ships I had booked. In one case I knew they were going to do it. The second time, I didn't know about it in advance. I just got lucky and was able to sail on a newer ship for the price of a cruise on an older ship.

Seems that I'm one of those unfortunately 'lucky' passengers who books so far in advance that the chance for full charter, or itinerary change (without any substitution) is greatly increased.

I've taken a very long break from the Carnival brand but decided earlier this month to book one for later in 2017. Chose a ship I'd not previously been on, and a fun week. Received an e-mail yesterday morning that it was cancelled due to full charter. No big deal, as it's so far in advance . . . but that was #6 for me with Carnival. :eek:

The apologetic e-mail was quite clear of what my options were for rebooking, and offered a price protection if booking a similar replacement sailing. I checked online and found an option rather quickly and called to make the swap. I quickly remembered what it was about guest service that had soured me on Carnival earlier, but knew I had to put on my patience pants and deal with it. Replacement was identical in length, different Florida embarkation port, starting one day earlier, same number of stops, comparable class ship, and exact same cabin. It took 45 minutes on the phone (repeatedly placed on hold) for someone to make the decision that is was a near perfect match and would be allowed. Yea! And there would be a very minimal onboard credit applied for the inconvenience. Yea again, as I clearly know they don't have to do squat. But then the 'fun' began.

New invoice showed the revised sailing with price protection, small OBC, and a nice Administrative Fee of $50 for making the change. :confused: I'd previously been paid in full, so that was unexpected. Another call, and at the 45 minute mark I asked if I was truly needed to remain on the phone as there were zero questions needed of me while a supervisor checked on this error. The answer: "Yes, because if you hang up we will no longer continue to work on your issue, and will have to take care of the next caller."

Welcome back to Carnival, Don!

I'm still gonna have a terrific time onboard . . . no doubt. None of those dim bulbs will be on the ship. :)

.

Seems that I'm one of those unfortunately 'lucky' passengers who books so far in advance that the chance for full charter, or itinerary change (without any substitution) is greatly increased.

 

I've taken a very long break from the Carnival brand but decided earlier this month to book one for later in 2017. Chose a ship I'd not previously been on, and a fun week. Received an e-mail yesterday morning that it was cancelled due to full charter. No big deal, as it's so far in advance . . . but that was #6 for me with Carnival. :eek:

 

The apologetic e-mail was quite clear of what my options were for rebooking, and offered a price protection if booking a similar replacement sailing. I checked online and found an option rather quickly and called to make the swap. I quickly remembered what it was about guest service that had soured me on Carnival earlier, but knew I had to put on my patience pants and deal with it. Replacement was identical in length, different Florida embarkation port, starting one day earlier, same number of stops, comparable class ship, and exact same cabin. It took 45 minutes on the phone (repeatedly placed on hold) for someone to make the decision that is was a near perfect match and would be allowed. Yea! And there would be a very minimal onboard credit applied for the inconvenience. Yea again, as I clearly know they don't have to do squat. But then the 'fun' began.

 

New invoice showed the revised sailing with price protection, small OBC, and a nice Administrative Fee of $50 for making the change. :confused: I'd previously been paid in full, so that was unexpected. Another call, and at the 45 minute mark I asked if I was truly needed to remain on the phone as there were zero questions needed of me while a supervisor checked on this error. The answer: "Yes, because if you hang up we will no longer continue to work on your issue, and will have to take care of the next caller."

 

Welcome back to Carnival, Don!

I'm still gonna have a terrific time onboard . . . no doubt. None of those dim bulbs will be on the ship. :)

 

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Wow you would think that because it was done for their convenience they would bend over backwards to make it right and not give you further aggravation.

We booked on the Magic for the first week of May this year while on the Magic the prior year. A few months later I found out that they were playing move the ships around and the Magic would not be at the port we booked. So they put us on the Breeze which sailed a week later out of the same port. They did not bother to tell us but we found out on CC. Unfortunately we had other commitments that prevented us from the week later cruise. I called them to cancel and get the reservation fee back which they did after an attempt to get us to move to a different ship or port that week. I was very insistent since they had caused the change while many may have folded under the sales pressure to keep the booking. So yes they do cancel for various reasons and are not customer friendly IMO.

On my last cruise our ship changed from the Triumph to the Magic, due to the Freedom launching in Galveston. For us it was an upgrade as the Magic has spa cabins.

As far as cancelling cruises that generally only happens when there is a major failure on a ship such as when the Triumph and Splendor had their well publicized problems. Either that or the embarkation port is closed, usually due to weather such as when Hurricane Ike hit Galveston several years ago.

Carnival has also loaned/leased ships to the government for various purposes, I suppose they could cancel cruises if that happens again. Such as during the Katrina cleanup effort when they sent two ships to New Orleans to use for relief worker housing.

Yes, my very first cruise on Carnival was cancelled due to Katrina. We were driving from Illinois to NOLA to pick up husbands son who was flying in from Nevada then we were going to head to the port in Mobile. We actually stopped in Jackson, MS due to Katrina bearing down on the coast. We called Carnival several times that day trying to get some information on whether the cruise the next day was going to be cancelled or diverted, we were never given any concrete answers. (by this time son's flight was cancelled)

Of course the next morning (cruise day) Katrina hit, the cruise was still not in a cancelled status at 8am that morning. With no power in the hotel, no internet and cell phones on low batteries we finally resorted to calling my parents so they could check the Carnival website and relay the info to us--it was eventually changed to a 3 day cruise going nowhere to being cancelled within a few hours.

Carnival did not contact us in any way during this whole time! Not even one email or phone call. We did however get our $ back, that took about 3 weeks.

I'm glad we eventually rebooked another cruise the following year and have been sailing with Carnival since. :)

We still wanted to salvage some of our vacation, so we ended up driving down to Galveston for the week and had an awesome time. Now we love Galveston!

On my last cruise our ship changed from the Triumph to the Magic, due to the Freedom launching in Galveston. For us it was an upgrade as the Magic has spa cabins.

 

As far as cancelling cruises that generally only happens when there is a major failure on a ship such as when the Triumph and Splendor had their well publicized problems. Either that or the embarkation port is closed, usually due to weather such as when Hurricane Ike hit Galveston several years ago.

 

Carnival has also loaned/leased ships to the government for various purposes, I suppose they could cancel cruises if that happens again. Such as during the Katrina cleanup effort when they sent two ships to New Orleans to use for relief worker housing.

Well our cancellation was for none of those reasons. In fact our letter about the cancellation even said that they were switching ships around to keep things fresh for the passengers. I felt that they shouldn't do this after people have booked the cruise. It should have been done before releasing the dates for booking. And then they treated us like it was our fault for the cruise being cancelled. It was not being put on a different ship it was a complete cancellation.

Sometimes it is easy to work with Carnival in these situations, other times not so much. Most people on our cruise were completely frustrated with the lack of help and the attitude we received from Carnival. That's why several people switched to Celebrity and Royal for the replacement cruise. Some get good compensation and others get next to nothing. Our cancellation was the latter.

As you can see it hasn't stopped me from sailing with Carnival, but I don't think I would choose a cruise where I had to buy airfare again. So much easier to make the change if you are driving. You also have to be prepared for an attitude from the cruise line even when they are the cause of the change.

I've taken a very long break from the Carnival brand but decided earlier this month to book one for later in 2017. Chose a ship I'd not previously been on, and a fun week. Received an e-mail yesterday morning that it was cancelled due to full charter. No big deal, as it's so far in advance . . . but that was #6 for me with Carnival. :eek:

 

The apologetic e-mail was quite clear of what my options were for rebooking, and offered a price protection if booking a similar replacement sailing. I checked online and found an option rather quickly and called to make the swap. I quickly remembered what it was about guest service that had soured me on Carnival earlier, but knew I had to put on my patience pants and deal with it. Replacement was identical in length, different Florida embarkation port, starting one day earlier, same number of stops, comparable class ship, and exact same cabin. It took 45 minutes on the phone (repeatedly placed on hold) for someone to make the decision that is was a near perfect match and would be allowed. Yea! And there would be a very minimal onboard credit applied for the inconvenience. Yea again, as I clearly know they don't have to do squat. But then the 'fun' began.

 

New invoice showed the revised sailing with price protection, small OBC, and a nice Administrative Fee of $50 for making the change. :confused: I'd previously been paid in full, so that was unexpected. Another call, and at the 45 minute mark I asked if I was truly needed to remain on the phone as there were zero questions needed of me while a supervisor checked on this error. The answer: "Yes, because if you hang up we will no longer continue to work on your issue, and will have to take care of the next caller."]

Now I have finally figured out what "having control of your own booking" means. It means you can spend endless time on the phone and on hold on the phone instead of your TA having to deal with that aggravation.

My TA has told me (in regard to our Carnival cruise next month) that he spends more time on the phone having to deal with Carnival than all the other cruise lines put together.

Yes, my very first cruise on Carnival was cancelled due to Katrina. We were driving from Illinois to NOLA to pick up husbands son who was flying in from Nevada then we were going to head to the port in Mobile. We actually stopped in Jackson, MS due to Katrina bearing down on the coast. We called Carnival several times that day trying to get some information on whether the cruise the next day was going to be cancelled or diverted, we were never given any concrete answers. (by this time son's flight was cancelled)

 

Of course the next morning (cruise day) Katrina hit, the cruise was still not in a cancelled status at 8am that morning. With no power in the hotel, no internet and cell phones on low batteries we finally resorted to calling my parents so they could check the Carnival website and relay the info to us--it was eventually changed to a 3 day cruise going nowhere to being cancelled within a few hours.

 

Carnival did not contact us in any way during this whole time! Not even one email or phone call. We did however get our $ back, that took about 3 weeks.

 

I'm glad we eventually rebooked another cruise the following year and have been sailing with Carnival since. :)

 

We still wanted to salvage some of our vacation, so we ended up driving down to Galveston for the week and had an awesome time. Now we love Galveston!

I was living in Mobile at the time. I'm very surprised that they didn't make the decision earlier. We had watched her storm track pass over us from Apalachicola to NOLA in the preceding days, but by three days before she made landfall it was pretty obvious that she was going to hit east of Mobile (east side of a hurricane is always worse than the west side) and she that was going to be huge. Downtown ended up under 10 feet of water due to storm surge. Mobile Bay is bell-shaped, so surge like that has nowhere to go except into the city. I don't recall the boat (was it still the Holiday at the time?) being damaged so they had to have moved her away from the port.

I had a very pleasant cancellation by Carnival experience. I was booked on an ES rate (this was booked before I swore to never ever book ES rate again) for the Breeze out of Galveston in April of 2017. I had been regretting it for a long time because I was stuck with that booking and really wanted to go on Liberty of the Seas since it moved to Galveston too.

They decided to send Breeze into dry dock for refurbishments during that sail date and thus they cancelled on me.

I had another Carnival cruise booked already so I just had them transfer my money to my other booking. I was happy because I was off the hook for the ES rate cruise and I could now book the Liberty of the Seas cruise instead.

I joked with the phone rep that I would have to charge Carnival a cancellation penalty but the lady was so nice that I dropped even joking about it. I really didn't get an extra benefits to them cancelling on me but I was happy with the outcome. :)

I was living in Mobile at the time. I'm very surprised that they didn't make the decision earlier. We had watched her storm track pass over us from Apalachicola to NOLA in the preceding days, but by three days before she made landfall it was pretty obvious that she was going to hit east of Mobile (east side of a hurricane is always worse than the west side) and she that was going to be huge. Downtown ended up under 10 feet of water due to storm surge. Mobile Bay is bell-shaped, so surge like that has nowhere to go except into the city. I don't recall the boat (was it still the Holiday at the time?) being damaged so they had to have moved her away from the port.

Hope y'all were OK in Mobile during Katrina. A lot of our friends were hard-hit by it. We had moved from Mobile to Dallas just 2 weeks before.