nfsalmo

On 3/5/2022 at 1:39 AM, happywhencruising said:

You should not have a problem to get a private tour up to L'Anse Au Meadows. It is about 40 km (25 miles) north of St. Anthony and will take about an 45 mins to get there. There is some very nice scenery along the way.  I am sure a privet tour can be arranged for a very reasonable price. You will be treated like family. 

 

My advice, being from Newfoundland, would be to do as GTJ suggested and call Thresa Burden, (709) 454-2812 ext 227 at the Tourism Development Office or email at developmentofficer@stanthony.ca (copy info@stanthony.ca as it goes to more people).  They also have a Facebook page @townofstanthony where you can send them a message.

 

If this doesn't work, I know a tourism 'tour de force' in the St. Anthony area named Barb Genge. She is very involved with tourism in the area and owns a beautiful place near St. Anthony called Tuckamore Lodge.  My wife and I have stayed there many times. You can reach her at tuckamore.lodge@nf.sympatico.ca. You just tell here that Rob & Raelene Thomas recommended that you contact her.  She will get it done.

18 hours ago, jollyjones said:

I was booked on the Jan 14th Spirit cruise which SS cancelled. It had been paid for with two FCCs, one of which expired last year and the other was due to expire this March. 
I asked my TA to ask them for an extension and they extended both FCCs for two years, till 2024. 
 

Extending FCC should not be an issue. The company has your money and will have it for and additional period because of the FCC extension. We had a similar situation with 2 other cruise lines and both extended the FCC. It took a bit of a fight with one of them but they eventually acquiesced.

23 hours ago, TLCOhio said:

The Crystal Cruises "Soap Opera" continues.  Hollywood fiction writers could not dream up such a script like this one.  Very sad for the passengers, crew, etc.  The Crystal Symphony was our ship in July 2008 on our second cruise.  That great experience did the Baltics, Russia, etc.   

 

From the Bloomberg News yesterday, they had this headline: “U.S. Ready to Seize Genting Cruise Ship on Unpaid Fuel Bills" with this sub-headline: "U.S. district judge ordered ship’s seizure after lawsuit filed.” 

 

Here are some of their story highlights: “The Crystal Symphony, a luxury cruise ship operated by financially-strapped Genting Hong Kong Ltd., will be seized to repay $1.2 million in unpaid fuel bills if it docks in Miami Saturday, amid reports the vessel is being diverted to the Bahamas after a U.S. court issued an arrest warrant.  A U.S. marshall and a court-appointed custodian are ready to arrest the ship if it comes into port as scheduled Saturday morning in the Florida port city, according to J. Stephen Simms, the lead attorney representing Peninsula Petroleum Far East Pte. Ltd. who said he has been told of the plan.  Peninsula Petroleum Far East filed a lawsuit in the U.S. district court seeking to recoup $4.6 million in total unpaid fees for bunker fuel it has delivered to three of Genting’s ships since 2017. A U.S. federal district judge in Miami issued the arrest warrant for the Crystal Symphony Thursday, according to Simms and trade publication TradeWinds.  Lisa Jimenez, a passenger on the Crystal Symphony posted on Facebook about the sudden change. 'Does anyone want to guess why our ship, The Crystal Symphony, can now no longer disembark in Miami? We received noticed that we are being taken to Bimini, Bahamas, put on a ferry, and taken to the USA that way. Hmmmm.' ”

 

What a mess for the passengers and crew!!??  As the lead story this am with the London Daily Mail, here is what their updating headlines stated below with this one story highlight: "Now, the passengers are scrambling to re-book their onward travel after their arrival in south Florida was delayed by at least a day,  and the crew are facing the grim prospect of losing their jobs as the cruise line's parent company faces liquidation.": 

 

Full stories at:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-22/u-s-marshall-ready-to-seize-genting-ship-on-unpaid-fuel-bills

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10431571/Cruise-ship-700-passengers-crew-onboard-diverts-Bahamas-avoid-arrest-warrant.html

 

THANKS!  Enjoy!  Terry in Ohio

 

From late 2018, see “Holy Lands, Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Dubai, Greece, etc.”, with many visuals, details and ideas for the historic and scenic Middle East. Now at 20,415 views.  Connect at:

www.boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2607054-livenautica-greece-holy-lands-egypt-dubai-terrypix’s/

This whole situation is very interesting. Here's my take on the whole mess. 

First off lets look at Genting HK and the predicament they find themselves in. Genting HK are a substantial cruise and casino company as an independent part of the Genting Group. They have been very prominent in the Asian cruise market now for a number of years with 2 major cruise lines, Star and Dream.  Crystal Cruises, that was acquired in 2015 was, relatively, a small part of their business. 

They were very successful in the Asian market and had some major growth plans over the next decade. Things were looking pretty good. So much so they purchased ship building assets in Germany to facilitate the building of there newest ships. One of the first to come off the line would have been 'World Dream', a 5,000 pax mega ship.  This ship was 75% complete when COVID hit and was primarily financed through debt. 

COVID tended to effect Genting HK significantly. Much more than the big 3 cruise lines. The enormous amount of debt, due to the ship construction relative to their assets, and the fact the the zero COVID policy set by many Asian countries to this day, has been crippling on their cash flow from current cruising was more than they could sustain. This combination of events leeds us to where we are today.

It should be noted that Genting HK is only one of the companies that has the Genting brand. Genting's primary business has been, and continues to be, the leisure/resort/casino business. Genting Malaysia is the firm representing this side of the business and has been effected by COVID, but nowhere to the same extent. Currently, Genting Malaysia has over $4.5 billion in cash on their books. That's almost the same as RCI & NCL, combined. 

So there may be an influx of cash to Genting HK from their sister company. This has occurred in the past and may weigh into the restructuring. 

So what to do about Crystal Cruises. I think they may be picked up be one of the major cruise lines. However, it is difficult to figure out which line would be the best fit. All 3 have luxury brands already similar to Chrystal in there groups; CCL has Seabourn, NCL has Regent and, of course, RCI has Silversea. If I were to guess I would say CCL may take it over. If for no other reason then to prevent one of the other 2 from purchasing. That said, I don't think NCL has deep enough pockets.

Well that's my soapbox for the day!

Keep cruising

1 hour ago, lienf said:

 

Interesting response by Celebrity to your problem. We had booked the Eclipse TP in April/21 which was also canceled. We transferred to the Solstice TP and had our price protected, our perks (3) transferred, and our $100 deposit remained to same. I know others from the April 15th thread got the same protection. If you were interested in the later cruise from Hawaii on the Solstice I would think they would transfer everything for you. 

One more item. My deposit was approx $1,000

14 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

Of course.

 

lLutoff-Perlo@celebritycruises.com <lLutoff-Perlo@celebritycruises.com>

 

I had to contact her for a debacle on my last Edge sailing.

Thanks a bunch. I'll give it a try.

15 hours ago, K12Guy said:

I'm just curious what would have been good enough that you would not have posted?

How about if Celebrity really tried to accommodate. 

Our original booking had 4 perks included in the fare. This was now cut back to 2. They could of maintained this original benefit but wouldn't. The $100 credit doesn't even cover this. We asked to be wait listed for a period of time to see if something similar to our original fare became available on the Solstice. Originally, we had a balcony on the stern of the ship which my wife and I love, especially on cruises with many sea days. On the Solstice we were downgraded. No, no wait-listing. We even asked to be notified when a future cruise, similar to this, would be available for 2022 and they could keep the deposit. This was also denied.

Basically, in the end, Celebrity said our only option, if we wished to keep our $100, was to maintain our deposit with the new booking that was created and if there was some other cruise that was of interest, to transfer our booking to the new cruise. 

Any of the above would have been very helpful.

However, this whole experience does provide some insight into Celebrity's overall customer service culture when things go wrong. 

So the April 22, 2021 Hawaii to Vancouver cruise is toast thanks to the inept planning of Celebrity. They went ahead and booked passengers on a cruise without any confirmation of a dry-dock booking.

I received a call on Saturday asking for me to call them. Figured it wasn't going to be good news. I called on Sunday and was informed that the the trip I booked was cancelled and that there was no alternative arrangements that could be made to book us into similar accommodations on a similar sailing. At this point we are disappointed. They have downgraded our booking onto the Solstice sailing a week later and provided a $100pp onboard credit. Not really good enough. We really liked the cabin we had originally booked on a ship that would have been fresh out of re-fit. This significant booking downgrade, onto a tired ship about to go in for re-fit, is really not the same.

We have sailed on many other lines including Princess, HAL, Cunard and SIlverSea and had heard good things about Celebrity. This would have been our first Celebrity cruise but it may never happen. It has really left a bad taste about Celebrity and their fairly rude telephone staff leave a lot to be desired. 

Not sure what to do about the situation. I'd call someone if there was someone to call but they tend to keep customers a good distance away from any decision-makers. Managemnt is totally to blame here and it is truly impossible to contact just about any person who actually works for Celebrity. A call centre doesn't count. I believe they make a a policy that they should never have to actually talk to a customer.

Well I'm off to see where else we can cruise Spring of 2021.

Two to three hours ago it was working fine. I was on the phone with them and on the site. They processed my credit for the cruise I booked due to the sale and then the whole system appeared to die. Maybe system over loaded due to sale?