southwestie

5 hours ago, Bruin Steve said:

Again, cruisemapper is in NO WAY official.  It is just someone's website where they pick up whatever info they happen to find.  They don't have a lot of info on Japan because 1)  The official port websites haven't been updated since the pandemic and 2)  Celebrity's website, for various reasons, isn't showing all of the information on their Asia cruises.

 

The ship iusn't just disappearing for three months.  They didn't arbitrarily charter three months worth of cruises that were already sold out.  They aren't doing a three month drydock somewhere.  And they haven't scheduled some other itineraries during this time period in some other part of the world.

 

The cruises are "ON".  We are sailing on two of them.  We have booked air and hotels and shore excursions through Celebrity...as is NORMAL.  I have been in DIRECT CONTACT with Celebrity regarding these cruises several times during all of this imagined controversy.  There is nothing clandestine or subversive going on.

 

Quite simply, Several cruises during this time period have been SOLD OUT for years.  Celebrity mistakenly, due to IT error, double sold some stateroom categories and have had to cancel a large number of bookings.  They currently have EVERY stateroom booked...and they have a long list of angry canceled customers they would try to appease before ever taking new bookings.  Which is why they don't show the cruises on the schedule for "Find a Cruise".  They DO, however, show these cruises on their website on the individual accounts of those booked on the cruise...and they show them on their app as well...along with full ability to book airfare, hotels, shorexes, dining reservations, drink packages, etc.

 

These cruises were sold out, in their earlier incarnations,, years ago...since they have been canceled each year for multiple years during the pandemic.  But, with Japan finally lifting restrictions, they are NOT canceled for 2024.  Adding to the booking crunch, the cruises were returned to the Millennium after having been scheduled for the Solstice for the prior two years...meaning about 400 fewer staterooms for lift-and-shifts from a cruise that was already sold out on the larger ship.

 

The bookings were so backed up that Celebrity decided to leave the ship in Asia and added an entire season of cruises beyond April--when, in prior years, the ship was scheduled to do a Transpacific and then a season in Alaska.

 

It is all very simple.  Conspiracy theories notwithstanding.

Thank you. A long post but we'll worth reading it all. You put everything clearly.  All the thingsvi have heard and read now make sense.  Thank you

14 minutes ago, Bruin Steve said:

Pataroo, you may want to hop over and join the Roll Call for the April 9, 2024 cruise...here:

 

It has been a very active roll call with a lot of information, commentary and exchange of ideas all related specifically to this sailing.  It is one of our B2B cruises (along with March 28) and we definitely expect everything to be going full steam forward.  We now have both air and hotel booked directly through Celebrity.

Thank you for the info. I'm on 3rd march Singapore to Tokyo.  Been told were sailing. But there's no way of seeing the ship in port. So you explained why. Thank you. Hopefully 3rd march is OK.

Any news on the Millenium  sailing 4th march 2024

It's all gone quiet.  A few uk agents are showing it but shown as full

I'm told it's all going ahead. So Hope it's doing just that

1 hour ago, Mark_T said:

Which cabin class though?

 

The majority of the problems seem to have been with verandas, not exclusively though.

I think your right. Insides sold out. As we're verandas mostly.  Seems the cruise is back on our ta website. Although showing as sold out

14 hours ago, clojacks said:

Your rumor is 100% incorrect. Within this 35 pages of posts are story after story after story of reports from passengers in all kinds of cabins with all kinds of bookings at all levels of payments being cancelled. Rumors are a waste of time to report when you have 35 pages of people who have diligently been reporting what happened to them.

Mine was booked via a TA. And not only was the booking rebooked at the 2021 price we got 2 tours added and a japan transport card the same as the new booking.  Our only concern was we might get cancelled.  But we're not. The cruise is around 30% less inc drinks ,WiFi tips . So there's no logic. We were told some cabins were sold as double and even 3  over booked.  How true that is I don't know

10 hours ago, clojacks said:

Your rumor is 100% incorrect. Within this 35 pages of posts are story after story after story of reports from passengers in all kinds of cabins with all kinds of bookings at all levels of payments being cancelled. Rumors are a waste of time to report when you have 35 pages of people who have diligently been reporting what happened to them.

That's right. It's a mixture from all.

My ts only had 11 to cancel. Mixture of all cabins.  So cabins were 3 times oversold. But who knows. It's such a mess. 

2 minutes ago, iBeatle71 said:

TA gets the list affected guests and sails

Yes your right.   I couldn't be bother to try and explain . I'm told that all of the March 4th Re done and dealt with now

2 minutes ago, pmarrsouth said:

 

Be very careful with "definitive" info that a 3rd party is giving about Celebrity

Thank you 😊

On 5/1/2023 at 7:24 PM, patty1955 said:

I'm still waiting to hear if I'm sailing next March. How Celebrity is handling it is another issue and should be on it's own tread.  (IMHO)

My TA said yesterday  that the final list of cancellations were sorted. Ours was fine. They had 11 to cancel.  So after the 1st May your fine. . You should now be able to relax and look forward to the cruise.  Very saD for those affected

I Phoned Mt TA this morning  1st May

They had a list of 11 people still to contact. Today.

Our booking was OK. They said all is good and we're going. March 4th 2024.   Very sad for the 11 people today. And all in the past few weeks

55 minutes ago, Sstan said:

I said early on that I do not have dog in the fight.  To date my reservation has not been canceled (knock wood).  My point in posting was for those that have incurred significant financial loss may have options.  There have clearly been hundreds from reading the 29 pages of posts here who will not be compensated for their losses.

 

One post accurately described the class action process.  It is not funded out of pocket but on a contingency basis.  In my case the big box TA did not send me X’s T’s&C’s - I just rechecked. I was sent my cancellation rights not theirs.  Nevertheless I’m questioning whether X’s ‘contract’ would protect them from damages. Especially when the way they ‘exhausted all options’ was disclosed.

 

 

Hope it works.

21 hours ago, Sstan said:

I disagree.  Those terms were not given to me by my TA during booking.  I’m no attorney but have studied contract law and think this has merit. 

TA don't convey all the small print however it is sent to you. It's down to you to read the t&gs. I'm sure you won't get far but worth a try if you can. Afford it

16 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.

 

 

Yes I read it was at least 9. It's crazy.   It would interesting to know how many and how. It should never have happened

3 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

This is the post of the month.

I wonder how many this has happened too that don't share on here

5 hours ago, luckybecky said:

What a clusterf***! 

 

I'm so sympathetic to all of you who have been cancelled. What a disaster, especially when you have a lot of other expenses (air, hotels etc) invested. 

 

For many reasons, we decided our Japan cruise just isn't going to work for us right now. We have (had?) a concierge veranda and an inside, both with rooms assigned since September of 2021.

 

So as I posted previously, we were willing to be voluntarily cancelled on our Sept 30, 2023 cruise which would be good for us but also hopefully be good for Celebrity -- that would be two less cabins they would have to involuntarily cancel resulting in very unhappy passengers, as many of you understandably are. 

 

I made a call on Tuesday. Bottom line is this: we know Celebrity has oversold this cruise. We are willing to cancel our two cabins, which would open those up for customers who do not want to be involuntarily cancelled -- but we don't want to lose our deposit. We asked our TA, is there anything we can do to make this work?

 

This seems to us a win-win. Celebrity has the opportunity to make some other customers happy by not involuntarily cancelling them -- especially when many passengers have invested a lot of money in travel expenses. And it would make us happy by not losing our deposit. Those cabins are still filled with paying customers, and Celebrity still keeps our money as FCC. It does not seem to me to be a difficult calculation.

 

Now keep in mind, we have not reached final payment date yet. Under the terms of our booking, we could choose to roll that deposit over to a different cruise as long as we do it before final payment -- we would only have to pay a change fee of $100 per person. 

 

So that was a viable option for us, but if we can just voluntarily cancel now and get the FCC, even better! We can take our time choosing how to spend the FCC -- but Celebrity still gets our business -- and someone on the current cruise is happy because our cabin can be assigned to them. Honestly I don't see any downside for anyone here, especially Celebrity.

 

And on Tuesday that was the option that was offered to us and we accepted.  Cancel our Japan cruise and receive an FCC for the full amount of our deposit.

 

But 48 hours later I had never received any confirmation. So I called back our TA. What a mess! I was on the phone for 2 hours. Big Box C travel agent says they show that our concierge veranda was cancelled, but the inside cabin was not. They had no information about any FCC.

 

They got Celebrity on the line. After much back and forth, bottom line is this:

 

1. Our concierge veranda was cancelled in the TA system, but is still showing as active with Celebrity. So we really aren't sure if we have that booking or not.

2. That concierge veranda on the Celebrity website has been downgraded from a confirmed cabin number (reserved and confirmed almost two years ago) -- to a guarantee cabin.

3. our kids' inside cabin appears unchanged and still active. We are a family traveling together. No way would we agree to cancel one and not the other. This was made VERY clear in our conversations.

4. Neither cabin is eligible for an FCC -- even though they told us the EXACT OPPOSITE and we accepted two days ago.

 

When I repeatedly pointed out that this is not what we were told and accepted, the Celebrity rep said, "I'm not saying you are lying, but...."

 

Ooohh boy. It is NEVER good business to say to a customer, "I'm not saying you are lying, BUT"  😡

 

My blood is boiling. As it is for so many others who have so much time, money and effort invested into these cruises. 

 

When we ended our call today, nothing was resolved. Arthur from the resolutions department at Celebrity says they are going to pull our phone call from Tuesday and listen to it to see what they actually offered. No matter that the Costco contemporaneous notes from the call describe exactly what I said above.

 

Once they listen to the Tuesday call, they will contact us with their decision. OMG

 

Sorry for the long post. I'm just venting. I know there are many of you who have it much worse than we do. At least we had not yet purchased air fare, for example. 

 

But the point is, there are SO MANY  ways that Celebrity could have/ could still handle this better, and they just are not.

 

We have only cruised with them twice and loved them: loved the food, the ships, the decor, the crew, the entertainment, everything. Really wanted to make them our favorite cruise line and become dedicated customers. But now....

 

Thats really badly worked out. I hope you get sorted ASAP. 

3 minutes ago, patty1955 said:

I wasn't trying to point out a mistake. I assumed they had changed it again. I know they showed cabins available this morning. 

They have changed every day and in every way

 But encouraging  to it back

However it has gone again it seems.

Best to wait till May 1st there dead line.

At least now with 3 free tours Inc and with 3 tours passengers organising some my tours are almost covered.  I feel its happing 7

13 minutes ago, patty1955 said:

Our March 4th cruise now shows on Celebrity's website as sold out.

 

Well that's interesting

 They have made several changes to it all through the day. It was all oversold

Then inside. Balcomy. Retreat. Then it had normal prices and then astronomical  prices and now sold out

Thank for again picking out my mistake.  Nice to have back covered.

The main point is the cruise is back on the website and hopefully if any cabins are available they will. Show. Tomorrow maybe.

Please feel free to pick on any other mistakes I make.  As I say I have patial blindness and I do my best 👌

1 hour ago, pukekolive said:

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?

Well maybe . They did say may 1st

 The cruise is now back in there website. Show  the availability of cabins left. You can book or do anything yet 

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

4 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.

 

I do agree with uou. I learnt in lockdown. Lucky BA refunded me in a week. The hotel didn't I finally got a voucher. But in ybr I lost £200,  not too bad. But this cruise I'm letting my TA book everything.  Transfer  hotel. Flights. Exactly  what I'd book. But they have to sort it all out

I do feel for those who lost out

We're on March 4th  from Singapore.  The cruise is now back on celebrity website. You can't book anything but it is back. Looks as if there are a few concierge  or aqua cabins which is odd.  And the prices autonomic.  But the sailing is there

Not heard of anymore cancelled cabins today and celebrity  assure me its all OK now.  Hope  so

14 minutes ago, donald1039 said:

 “You can't cancel or you'll lose your entire deposit”

 

isn’t it interesting the one way contract we’ve all signed up for where we pay a financial penalty if we cancel but they can cancel the guaranteed reservation anytime without penalty. But in their world of clever wording on the letter we are the ones cancelling because our choice was lift and shift of cancel. So we, the customer, chose cancel and as the Celebrity agent said to me “Celebrity” waived the loss of deposit penalty for the cancellation” that I chose. The reality is that I chose between cancel and cancel and it was just a choice of how the funds were applied. 

 

 

Mt ta got us lift n shift. 2021 booking. To 2024. But this year they cancelled the booking and rebooted it. Same deal and same cabin number  seems to have worked

26 minutes ago, wahwah1 said:

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

Nice thought if it works.  Mine is a complete package at a good price. Flights. Hotels etc. . Since covid we have been booking a package. Before covid I was happy to book everything separately.  Still we are back in normality  at last

5 minutes ago, quickpick said:

Because of some computer glitches (they claimed), the Celebrity Millennium are oversold substantially for most Japanese sails between Sept 2023 to April 2024. For those who are 'selected' to be cancelled, they got 2 options:
1. geta a full refund + $500 FCC (expired in a year),

2. move to a future similar sail in 2024 or 2025 with the same price tag

 

For those who have been cancelled, they should have been notified by now.

 

That what I heard from someone working in an cruice agency.

Very interesting.  Hopefully we're all OK now. Hope so

16 minutes ago, tscoffey said:

Already grabbed 5 nights at the Hotel Lancelot. Walkable to most places east of the Tiber, as well as Termini for train trip to Naples/Pompeii.

I know the area.  Enjoy