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What do you do if you are cancelled?


Sharra13
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Our Romantic Danube cruise is at the end of August and I am getting super nervous about all these cancellations!

 

What do you do if they cancel you?? How fast do you get the refund from Viking?

 

Besides all the "stuff" we bought to prepare for this vacation, and the hours I have spent brushing up on my German, we already have our vacation time off from work set in stone...it's not like we can just reschedule for a few months later. I imagine that it will be near impossible to do a replacement cruise somewhere else at the same time. Does anyone here have experience we getting a cruise cancelled and doing something else instead?

 

A couple years ago, my husband and I were all set and ready to go on our very first ocean cruise with the Carnival Magic. You guys MAY remember that that was the ship that got stuck at see for a while, needed to be towed back to the US, and needed a complete overhaul after all the damage and sewage issues. Our trip was cancelled 3 or 4 weeks out from our trip and we got our full refund about 2 weeks out. Luckily, we had JUST enough time for our travel agent to find us an alternative and we ended up spending a really amazing week in an all-inclusive Dominican Republic resort instead. That is pretty different than going to Europe, though...

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If Viking cancels you are not going to get much notice beforehand. But there are several things that Viking does to keep trips going including switching boats in the middle of an itinerary or using a docked boat as a floating hotel and busing passengers to various sites for excursions, or even both. Start your rain dance now and perhaps these options will not happen.

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What I would do is to keep the flights and just book hotels in the cities I would want to visit. See fewer locations, but spend more time in each. Travel between the cities by train.

 

Of course since you would be handling your own luggage pack lighter.

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What I would do is to keep the flights and just book hotels in the cities I would want to visit. See fewer locations, but spend more time in each. Travel between the cities by train.

...

 

That's probably what I would do as well, since I usually book my own air. Luckily it's not happened to me, but next September we're doing the Rhine/Main/Danube and it could happen. We'll have pre- and post-cruise stays booked in Amsterdam and Budapest, so I would come up with an impromptu itinerary taking in that part of the world I think.

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We also have a plan B. Our avalon cruise is at the end of September so still a couple months to go. We will go anyways and just turn the whole thing into a land tour. We had already booked 2 weeks after the cruise with a car so well just extend that. Unless there is another cruise available. I'm hoping that there are no cancellations at that time, since we are really looking forward to it. Guess we'll just wait and see. No point worrying.

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With 43 days to go my Plan B is in full swing! We ARE flying to Europe no matter what happens to our Amsterdam to Budapest cruise. The train system in Europe will be our new best friend and off we will go! Some hopping about is planned.

 

Since we had planned to be in Europe 3 full weeks we plan to divert to the Beaches at Normandy for 5 days, on to London and work our way back to Budapest..... Crazy but we have plenty of time and our flights can't be changed!

Edited by JVilleGal
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glad that you all are preparing a plan B...but I have a ?...if you have travel insurance and your trip is canceled wont the travel insurance cover the airfare or non-refundable hotel costs?

 

I guess I better read my policy?

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I am currently building my plan B. We have non refundable flights into and out of Europe so I'm very busy looking for options/alternatives. Bus tour is just not an option for us. Looking into France for river cruises, not much still available for our dates.

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I would also still go, since I normally book my air independently. Luckily I work with a wonderful TA so I don't think it would take too much work to get a land trip scheduled. I would probably spend 2-3 days in both the embarkation and disembarking cities, assuming I haven't been there before, then find 1 or 2 other cities to spend a day or two at. All of sudden, you are at the 7-10 days of most river cruises. Obviously if the river cruise is for longer, then you could stop in more cities or spend more days there. Granted it wouldn't be the same trip as a river cruise, but I'd still go.

 

There are wonderful pensions and guest houses all over Europe and these are what I like to stay in when I'm doing a land trip. I think they are so much more quaint that the big chain hotels. Plus the owners tend to have great suggestions of things to do in their cities.

 

As to how quickly you would get your refund from Viking, it is really hard to tell. Would you have it before you left on your trip? Possibly but I wouldn't count on it. Just use credit cards and pay off with the refund when you get back.

 

There is a poster on these board, JPAlbany, who had an Avalon trip cancelled due to water issues and he turned it into a land trip. Hopefully he stops by this thread to post about his experiences. I think he was doing a Danube trip, but I don't remember the details.

 

Kelly

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If you have travel insurance, you should be able to get all of your money refunded, but this can be quite a process and can take up to 6 months. The OP stated that they have their vacation days set and can't change them. Given this fact, I say go and make the best of it.

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Our Travel insurance will cover and I won't take a bus trip. But we are not going to stay home so those airline tickets are going to be used "low water/high water" makes no difference.

We are going and we hope it's on the Avalon Illumination.

 

PS we have cancel for any reason as our back up, but would rather not use that option.

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Thanks guys! I knew about the possibility of buses and ship switching, but didn't really think about a total cancel, when we booked. A few people have posted about their trips being completely cancelled by Viking. We have TI but I assume if Viking cancels THEY refund.

 

I definitely still want to go to Europe, especially Germany, no matter what. Just wondering how to handle it if we get that VERY last minute notice. We booked the whole trip (air, pre-stay, cruise) with Viking, so I'm not sure if we are able to keep just the air and pre-stay stuff if they cancel us and just get the cruise itself refunded...that would be ideal, but I doubt it.

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The worst problem would be if you get to Europe and only learn about the problem as you try to board the ship. No time for Plan B (in the sense of "plan")! I suggest buying an easy-to-follow guidebook (I like Rick Steves) and thoroughly planning a land trip now. That way you will be prepared no matter when disaster strikes, and if the cruise goes as scheduled you'll know more about the places you are seeing.

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That's my biggest worry - not finding out until we're boarding the ship. I don't have a Plan B (which is unusual for me - I've always had one). We leave very shortly and are on the Rhine, so I'm hoping all goes well. We'll just have to roll with the punches. :cool:

 

From what I've heard, Viking has issued refunds quickly on totally cancelled cruises.

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German trains are very easy to use. (Do not use the reseller site RailEurope.)

Look at http://www.bahn.de for train info. Can change to English at the top of the page.

You can buy tickets from machines but bigger stations have a staffed ReisenZentrum (travel center) where you can get help with purchasing tickets for a small additional fee. In 2009 it was about euro 2.

If you belong to a loyalty program for a large hotel chain look at what they have available in the places you want to visit. That will not give you local ambiance but might help make your trip a little easier.

Keep in mind that many smaller pensions will not have air conditioning or elevators.

Many German cities and towns have great tourist information centers and offer local tours in English i.e. Heidelberg and Nuremberg.

Rick Steves' guidebooks are good. Try your local public library or buy used from Amazon. You'll have to check current opening hours online anyway since once a guidebook is printed its already out of date.

I like the DK Top 10 guidebooks since they have more pictures. Fodor's are good too. Both DK and Fodor's have good maps but Rick Steves does not

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YoungDubFan, thanks for remembering that I did this. I'm at work now and don't have time to post lots of details but yes, this exact thing happened to us. We were canceled just a few days prior to our scheduled departure from the US, and we had independently booked flights, and time off from work, that we didn't want to give up.

 

We did tons of stuff on our own, combining trains, rental cars, ferries, etc. We scrambled to rearrange the first week before we left, then we made up the second week of the trip up on the fly once we were already in Germany. It helped that Chris had already researched the area; we had a few days on either end and she'd looked up lots of possibilities. So instead of choosing just a few of her possibilities, we could choose 2 weeks' worth!

 

In retrospect, I am glad that it turned out this way. I think we saw more on our own than we would have on the organized tour. But it *is* a very bold step to jump out on your own and try this, if it's your first time doing anything like this. We were admittedly a little nervous about it, but we really shouldn't have been.

 

I did a blog of this trip if you're interested in seeing just what you can visit in 2 weeks on your own, or if you want some ideas. The link is in my signature below. But, hopefully this won't be an issue for you...

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We were cancelled 2 days before we were to fly yo Munich for departure July 19. We were in shock. No clue there was any river level problems. Avalon offered us a tour of Munich and Berlin, a cruise Paris to Normandy, a bud tour Frankfurt to Frankfurt. None of them appealed.

 

We did not want to travel independently

 

We received a full refund on our CC within a week and today, less than 2 weeks received a voucher for $500 each on a cruise good thru 12/31/16.

 

I talked to a rep who said we could use it for a Globus land tour which we will probably do next June. The rep said best time to sail is May/June. We have decided the land tour is a better option

 

Meanwhile we have used the non refundable tix to fly into London 9/30 and out of Brussels on 10/13. Paid the $300 change fee plus $42 extra for the fare difference.

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Western Europe is a piece of cake to just show up and rent a car when you are leaving whatever big city you fly into. The train system is awesome. Avoid Rail Europe and use the actual train companies. In the UK and Ireland, driving is a bit harder because of the wrong side of the road stuff. I have driven in Ireland and Scotland and have survived, but I practiced on the bigger roads of Australia and New Zealand before heading to Ireland on one lane tracks. You can find reputable guides if you want in most cities by searching the ports sections here, and tripadvisor. I love travel books but I refuse to buy them any more, except electronically on my Ipad. I am not lugging 5 Rick Steves, Lonely Planet or Moon books, and I refuse to by anything with Arthur Frommer's name on it.:D

 

jc

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Please don't rule out the motor coach tours. My husband is a real control freak and we did one in the west, Yellowstone, Rushmore ect. He can back in love with them. No dealing with places to stay, things to do, where to eat. Loved all of the info, we would have missed if we were just driving by some place. I was pretty sure he would have a nice time, just did not know how much he would like it.

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