dethman

currently on hold with air2sea.  it's been 1h40 min.  😒

five months and countless calls after cancelling my march cruise from barcelona on smeralda, i finally received a refund on my credit card from costa.  full refund for their cancelled cruise.  *whew.*  i'm never dealing with them again.

9 hours ago, gerryuk said:

Just out of interest how much is the voucher worth, is it what you paid or have they added a percentage figure on top?

Oddly about 155% of original fare/taxes. 

Aaand... After 4 months of me telling them to give me my refund, what do they do today? 

Send me a f*cking VOUCHER.  aaaagh. 

I hate Costa with such a passion. 

still waiting for refund since costa called us jun 22 and re-confirmed for like the 4th time that YES i want a refund on not some stupid credit. nothing on the CC back yet. that's four months + and counting....

19 minutes ago, drsel said:

6 hours ago, dethman said:

costa called me today regarding the 3/16 barcelona cruise i cancelled in february.  'sir, just wanted to check if you still wanted a refund and not credit'.  they were offering about 150% i think.  
 
yes just like i told you the last six times over the past four months i have called you, i don't want your credit and PLEASE refund my credit card.
 
we'll see if anything happens from here...

Would you be willing to accept a FCC if it was 200% or 300% of what you paid?

probably not, given the way costa has treated myself and other customers.  sailing until the very last minute without regards for safety and refusing to allow cancellations for refunds, keeping people in the dark regarding their money for months, and with next year's cruises being significantly more expensive than this year's.

also being based in the US, costa doesn't really sail here and i imagine airline prices to europe would be significantly higher next year so it doesn't really help with the cost of the vacation.

costa called me today regarding the 3/16 barcelona cruise i cancelled in february.  'sir, just wanted to check if you still wanted a refund and not credit'.  they were offering about 150% i think.  

yes just like i told you the last six times over the past four months i have called you, i don't want your credit and PLEASE refund my credit card.

we'll see if anything happens from here...

On 5/4/2020 at 4:45 AM, jerseylily said:

So going back to the original question...has anyone has a refund paid by Costa yet?

cancelled way back in late february.  been over 65 days nothing yet.

checked a week ago, said it would be still be weeks before i received a refund.  and i cancelled a month ago.

still waiting on refund of my port fees, cancelled almost 3 weeks ago now.

9 hours ago, drsel said:

I hope the cruise lines are still in business with all these losses.
There is a very active thread about Royal Caribbean going bankrupt

RCL is a tremendous buy at $22 down from $133 high, IF they don't go bankrupt.   🤔

8 minutes ago, drsel said:

It makes one wonder how they fill their cabins.

surely it must be the low prices

i got enticed by the price.  a 7 night mediterranean on a premium balcony cabin was probably about 30% of the price of a royal caribbean cruise of similar itinerary.  

'how bad could it be,' i thought?  for 30% of the price i could handle bad food, bad customer service, no english, possible cancelled excursions, at least i'll be in the mediterranean cruising right?  😔

never booking with costa again.  too many 'try to save money' policies which ends up screwing their customers.

they should have cancelled italian cruises immediately after italy started seeing cases, instead of running smeralda up until the 15th of march.  seriously *****.

take the refund.  there is too much uncertainty about what the travel industry is going to be like in 8 months.

14 minutes ago, gerryuk said:

I believe that Viking have just done the same?  

yup.

2 hours ago, FredT said:

Uhhh   You do know that each and every one of the cruise lines you mentioned ARE owned by the same corporation?  

🤣

I was scheduled to sail out of barcelona on smeralda Mar 16 with my wife and 2 small kids.   Decided it just wasn't worth it to be stuck on Italian cruise line with generally shitty customer service in a time of crisis, probably missing a bunch of ports, and then possibly being stuck on a quarantined ship because there's no way a ship full of Italians is Corona virus free.  Also wasn't sure if trump was going to let me back in my own country afterwards. 

Very disappointed as we were looking forward to the trip and ended up taking a huge bath as Costa wouldn't give me a refund and flights from Los Angeles also weren't refundable.  Costa and trip insurance said go F yourself. 

Oh well such is life.  Already lost multitudes more in the stock market past 2 weeks anyway. 

4 hours ago, Bobbingbob said:

What is Level 3, please, for us non USA citizens to understand? Is it possible for you to post a link to where you found your info?

Cheers

Bob

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/italy-travel-advisory.html

Level 3 means a travel advisory, saying for all US travelers to avoid all nonessential travel to Italy. 

This includes the entire country, not just Lombardy, veneto, or Sicily. It is an independent recommendation by the US State Department and does not matter whether Italian cruise ports are open or closed. 

8 hours ago, maryann2 said:

I have cancelled my cruise ( Diadema from Abu Dhabi to Rome March 13th).

The amount I paid will be applied to another cruise of my choice in 2020 or 2021.

Seems I was able to do it because of the Canada travel advisory to Italy.

 

 

i called costa to see if i could cancel my cruise on smeralda march 16 and get a credit for a future cruise.  said US has a travel advisory to italy. 

they pretty much said F U, no dice, we want our penalty money, thanks very much.

3 hours ago, tenpin said:

I think that given the severity of this virus full re-funds must be given to anyone cancelling forth coming cruises.

i wish.

Will be interesting to follow.  I am scheduled for Mar 16 but will probably cancel.  Not worth the hassle it seems. 

1 minute ago, heatherb1958 said:

It was a false alarm .

 

You are right it was only influenza but there still have been a lot of precautions taken to prevent other viruses from spreading so I wanted to see if anyone had any personal experience regarding how it has affected day to day life on the ship. 

35 days til next one.  😞

anyone been on smeralda since the little 'episode' at civitavecchia about a week and a half ago?  wondering what the atmosphere is on board, if the crew are actually sanitizing things, and if there's any specific practices on board to see that costa is taking infectious diseases seriously.  also wondering if any ports have been affected.   curious whether i should go through with my cruise in march.