pukekolive

My experience of this on Air New Zealand from New Zealand to Japan in October 2023 was that they did accept my hiking poles as the way I would mobilize in the plane (787-9), and allowed me to stow them in the overhead without collapsing them.

2 hours ago, dogs49 said:

I am booked on Diamond Princess in November 2023.  Princess still says docking at Tempozan but per the port schedule found on 

https://www.cruisemapper.com/ports/kobe-osaka-port-11, we are docking in Kobe-Osaka.  I am confused.  You can use this to find your ship.   Not sure what to believe.  

Use this cruise schedule issued by Osaka Port itself not any 3rd party schedule.

Our Celebrity cruise which caused me to start this thread is now back on the Osaka Port schedule again (don't worry it says 2020 on it, a Japanese person has confirmed it definitely is 2023 in Japanese). Use Chrome browser as it translates the site to English:

https://www.city.osaka.lg.jp/port/page/0000442982.html

11 minutes ago, erewhon said:

Good luck.

Please let us know the outcome.

Have you tried contacting the HAL agent in Auckland?

I didn't know there was one in Auckland? Do you have the details thanks?

Hi all,

I want to contact Holland America regarding Club Orange for my May 2024 Alaska cruise but on their website and Australia website can only find US or Australia freecall numbers to call which won't work from New Zealand and their Help icon on Start webpage flicks away before I can enter it to ask for a callback.

I have not been able to find any international number to call.

I booked direct not through a travel agent. 

Has anyone got an international or NZ freecall number or has any other suggestion thanks?

36 minutes ago, Belgian fry said:

16 March and the one afterwards, I believe 

I personally think it is just a couple of people catching up with the previous cull who misunderstood what their TA and Celebrity told them. Others who read what these people posted are on another X ship and the future cruise agent told them the cruises are still going ahead, not cancelled.

We are booked on 12 Day Best of Southern Japan 24 October 2023 cruise on Celebrity Millennium and Celebrity have us porting at Osaka (Kyoto) overnight but all cruise schedules have us at Kobe (Osaka). I have not been able to find ANY cruise ship schedule on line for Osaka for the last several weeks.

The cruise before us has a 2 night port stay but Celebrity has them arriving at Kobe for 1 night and leaving from Osaka after another night as if Millennium changes port so passengers on thus cruise are also confused.

I have found a reference to the Tempozan Pier and Village at Osaka currently undergoing renovations in preparation for the 2025 Expo which may be the issue. A search on Google related to this comes up blank (it may be that Japan don't like to publicise this sort of thing).

Is anyone able to confirm that Osaka (Tempozan Pier) is currently temporarily closed to cruise ships thanks?

12 minutes ago, Tarwood3 said:

Out of curiosity…what class of cabin are you booked?  We were told by Celebrity that anyone booked after October 2021 wiould be canceled…mostly veranda cabins but there have been a few from other categories.   They have been doing the cancelations in waves…ours was one of the first over 2 weeks ago…people are still getting canceled. 

By your logic we should have been cancelled but have not to date; we lifted and shifted 2020 to 2021, then 2021 to 2022, finally in April 2022 l&s to October 2023. The deposit is only an FCC of the original extra 25% for the first cancelled cruise. It is a V1 with confirmed cabin number. At no time was it a guarantee cabin.

From this thread, the last known directly booked cabin was cancelled by Celebrity on 29 April 2023, although some TAs may have been late advising their clients but the TAs themselves would have been notified before 29 April. What cabins have you seen cancelled after this date thanks?

59 minutes ago, raananh said:

Totally agree with you! Only if you lose money, you should place a claim.

But if I have a non-refundable flight to Japan, for October 2023, 6 months from now, I will not realize a loss of money until October 2023, when I don't show up for the flight.

Celebrity / travel insurance will not wait until October for a realized loss of money so I can place a claim.

So Celebrity said "if you show us a ticket and it says "non-refundable" on it, you get $500."

Not sure what my Travel Insurance would say.

In all honesty, I am not sure what I will do with this Japan flight ticket by October. Maybe I will fly.

I have another dilemma here, and I need to decide this week. I did not place flight claims yet.

 

Surely if you cancel your flight now due to cruise cancellation you will lose your money now? This is what happened in 2020 to us except we had $300 cancellation fee each when we asked for our independent flights to be cancelled; Celebrity reimbursed this on production of our airline invoice showing the cancellation fee.

41 minutes ago, MandL said:

 

Thank you for that. I will look for an email that includes it, so I can send it to my Celebrity contact as a follow up to my other email.

Here is a copy of the actual email received by passengers

32 minutes ago, MandL said:

 

Thank you for that. I will look for an email that includes it, so I can send it to my Celebrity contact as a follow up to my other email.

I think I found the original FB post of this list in Captain's Club FB group and the comment it was in was from a travel agent so may have been notifying travel agents of affected cruises? 

24 minutes ago, MandL said:

 

Thank you for that. I will look for an email that includes it, so I can send it to my Celebrity contact as a follow up to my other email.

See post #25 but I will check FB as that is where it came from 

15 minutes ago, MandL said:

 

Do you have any idea where they got this list?  Or did someone simply type up this list on an assumption?

 

We are sailing 3/28/2024 (original booking from way back November 2019, lifted and shifted over and over again).  We always book now with Celebrity directly, and stay with them so I don't have to go through a third party to make adjustments.  One mishap a few years back was enough for me.  I just sent off an email to our contact at Celebrity to see what she knows. Should be interesting to get her take.   

This list was posted by several people who received it in their cancellation email from Celebrity, advising them of the overbooked situation.

20 minutes ago, susan450 said:

I have contacted my TA to ask celebrity regarding this. Still waiting and waiting for a reply back. However I have come to learn they are not the best TA's. I have also messaged X and they haven't replied either.

Ours is a balcony cabin. It's very frustrating

I'm also on tenterhooks as we booked April 2022 for 24 October 2023 and I have a tour guide waiting for confirmation of tours in Tokyo precruise and Kamakura post cruise. The tours are refundable but require payment in full not just a deposit.

11 minutes ago, DaKahuna said:

I have been reading this and wondering what is going on.  I just booked a cruise on Millennium for May 2nd, 2024 with no problem at all.  Had originally booked for May 27th but then realized that would impact out granddaughters high school graduation so had them rebook us to the May 2nd 13-day cruise. 

 

So I am still now clear what 2024 sailing are being cancelled and who is saying Millennium will not be in Japan in 2024.

There are 9 sailings of Millennium from September 2023 to April 2024 that have been affected by an overbooking issue. Unfortunately the op of this topic thought that the whole 2024 season on Millennium was cancelled, this is not true.

57 minutes ago, anniegb said:

How many cruises were impacted in total : 9

 

Millie has a capacity of approx 2000 x 9 =18000 ?? 

 

Do the maths.  I suspect at least 10% but again that is speculation.

 

 

We are booked on 24 October 2023 and understand one TA/ big box agency lost at least 100 cabins from a huge group booking on our cruise.

4 minutes ago, southwestie said:

Hopefully now this mess has been sorted  out by Celebrity.  No more cancellations. We booked a c2 cabin with number. C cabins were among those not over sold and what saved our booking.  Well I think so

I sent Celebrity a message on Twitter a couple of days ago and they replied for my booking number; I asked if they had finished the overbooking process and they replied yesterday that they didn't have the information but if I had a cancellation letter to call their special line and rebook before 1 May! So maybe they haven't finished?

2 hours ago, cruiseconcious said:

I've been reading these posts with interest. So much speculation. So many people hoping that they are the lucky ones that don't get literally cast off. Maybe you will be lucky. Maybe you will dodge the bullet, and if so you have every right to be overjoyed; going on the cruise you planned for, you saved for, and that you rightfully deserve to be on.

All I would ask you is that you think of this: Celebrity did a bad thing to a lot of people. You were not affected so that will be easy to forget. But I will tell you from personal experience, we had every right you did to be on that cruise, and we are not. And what's worse is that Celebrity just didn't care. We have flights we are going to lose money on. They don't care. When they talked to me they used phrases like, "if you cancel you get nothing." If I cancel? We have been trying to find land tours now to take the place of the cruise, but of course all the good ones are sold out. When I told the Celebrity representative that she was canceling my cruise 13 months after I bought it and why did they wait so long, she curtly replied, "You still have another 6 months." They just don't care.

Maybe you got lucky. But don't you dare give credit to Celebrity for that, because if you think they care about you individually, they do not. It could just as well have been you. Try to eternalize that and you will be doing a service both to those they slighted, and to yourselves, as it may prepare you for a similar sad awakening in the future.

 

If we eventually get onto our cruise on 24 October 2023, we will certainly be mindful of all the people that didn't and raise a glass to them. We have cruised with Viking and MSC before and would travel again with both of them but I don't think we will ever use Celebrity again after this debacle. The waiting for the axe to drop has been an unsettling and stressful time even if we successfully embark on the cruise; a lot of things could have been handled differently for better passenger communication.

6 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

It could be worse. When Celebrity Covid cancelled the 2021 Australia/New Zealand season (Eclipse) passengers were given only one week to make their Lift & Shift decisions. Depending on the sailing, it was only 3-5 months notice before the date of the cruise. 

 

Here is a link to the cancellation notification which also details the compensation. 

We got 125% of our March 2020  cancelled cruise payment back, 100% back as a refund and 25% as an FCC. It is this FCC, about NZD$1800 that we have used for our deposit. Trying our best not to lose the value of this.

5 minutes ago, anniegb said:

Agreed. 

 

Made a similar statement on my roll call a few days ago.

 

If I followed my roll call correctly, one cruiser was moved from waiting list to confirmed booking 5th April 2003. 19th April  the TA had 200 cabins purged - same agency.

 

I hope the purging was done in order of sailing date.

 

 

Uh oh someone has just posted on a FB group that they have JUST received their cancellation .....

8 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

It appears we've gone through a full business day with no new reports of someone having just received a cancellation. Perhaps the storm is over. 

I've been holding off calling to check that we aren't affected but not doing it in case I hear the wrong answer/ jinx myself lol!

13 minutes ago, wahwah1 said:

Tip of the day: consider booking via large agency than directly with the cruiseline!  

Some cancelled pax did book with a large agency, I seriously don't think it matters.

11 minutes ago, floridatravelersforlife said:

If you check Neal, the OP of the Cruisehive post, they joined CC last Thursday. Clearly a suspect post meant to spread disinformation.  I'd ignore it

I've already asked where his information came from, waiting for his response (if I get one). We have already booked flights from New Zealand for the 24 Oct cruise; treated ourselves to Premium Economy for first and only time as 1st flight since I have had reduced mobility and is an 11 hour flight. Luckily quite flexible but has $600 change fees over our 2 bookings.

At thus stage not had anything from Celebrity, fingers crossed.

34 minutes ago, anniegb said:

I am on the Oct 23 sailing and I read in CruiseHive that over 1000 passengers have been cancelled from that one sailing.

 

I suspect that there will be a clause in the booking conditions that allows this so far out.

 

Even in the UK where we have some consumer protection, I don't think because of the timeline, we would have much redress.

 

This is the only thing I can find on Cruise Hive but it doesn't mention how many affected: https://www.cruisehive.com/celebrity-cruise-ship-oversold-six-months-before-sailing/99276

17 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

I am not sure about that.  This seems like a slow moving train wreck.  Have all of the cancellations occurred yet?  Not according to some posts.

I posted on Celebrity Cruises FB page asking whether the cancellations had all been communicated but there has been no response.

43 minutes ago, john1970 said:

I think they might leave UK and European passengers out of the cull as we usually have stronger consumer protection laws and it is more hassle for them to toy with us.

Not sure if any Kiwis have had cabins cancelled, our Consumer Guarantees Act has a few teeth too!