We have 11 people going on a carnival cruise, well 10 now. We booked 12, in 3 rooms with 4 bunks. Our rooms are: 1) I'm the primary with 2 named guests and using my casino rate and have 1 paid to be determined person (empty paid bed). Room 2 my cousin is the lead and using her casino rate and 3 named guests. Room 3) a friend is primary using her casino rate and there are 3 other guests.
My cousin (room 2) has a health concern and is likely not able to go 39 days before cruising. I called to see what we could do. We can move people around any which way as it doesn't matter who is in what room. Nobody else in the party qualifies for a casino rate besides those already using one. One of the other guests on my cousins room cruises a lot with carnival and would otherwise qualify for discounts/promos but they will not allow any promos this close to cruising.
We asked what if we move extra passenger from room 2 to the paid empty bed in my room. They will do that and charge $100 cancellation fee, even though we're not cancelling her and moving her to a different room, which they told me when I booked wouldn't be a problem if done at boarding. If we remove my cousin her fare is fully non refundable including port fees? Which I know it is non refundable but they even refund port fees if you don't show normally. And, for the two remaining guests in the cabin the rate would be $650 higher.
So, basically they don't refund my cousins fare and we're charged a total of $750 more because we move one passenger to another room where we already paid for an additional passenger and now have only two remaining people in the room. I think that this is ridiculous. We basically dropped two people from the reservation and the remaining people would otherwise qualify for a discounted fare but they can't apply any because it is too close to booking, even though those people have been on the room since it was booked many months prior.
This fully makes me not want to cruise with Carnival ever again. I asked the agent what would happen if my cousin was just a no show and they said that it would be up to the port to decide but that they're "supposed" to reprice the rate to rack rate at the port but that it is up to the port customer service to decide how it is handled.
I just wonder what other people think is the best thing to do? It really sucks that we had paid for 1 extra person that to this point is not occupied and now we're also being charged another $100 for a guest to simply move to another room and $650 more for the main with discount dropping off of room 2.