tsklag

Terry&Mike,

That sounds like a wonderful trip! Thanks for offering to post about your experiences! My wife and I are leaving September 30 for a 14 night trip on the Saone and Rhone rivers in France. Since we are touring entirely within France, I expect to have fewer problems.  We are mid-seventies and live in Venice, Florida (possibly neighbors of yours 😉.)

2 hours ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

They are not alone in this policy change.  The trend is toward FCC-only as cruise lines realize they must conserve cash to pay crew and cover the expenses of keeping their ships seaworthy.

So, Jazzbeau do you think it's right that AMA use the $5000 I paid them for air, most or all of it refunded to them because American cancelled the flight, to pay their crew and expenses. Apparently when the going gets tough, AMA takes it out on their customers, in violation of the Terms and Conditions in their booking contract.

22 minutes ago, cruisr said:

Their announcement states they are offering 115% FCC.  It does not say that they will NOT be issuing a refund to credit cards.  If they refuse to refund the credit card you can request a chargeback from your credit as what you purchased was not delivered.

 

 

My travel agent told me that they will not issue a refund. The previous coronavirus notification explicitly mentioned a refund as an option. The current one does not.

AMA has cancelled all May cruises and refuses to offer refunds. Will only give Future Cruise Credit despite their Terms and Conditions which state:

Cancellation by Carrier: Carrier reserves the right to cancel, change or postpone any cruise departure date and itinerary. In the event of a complete cancellation of a departure by Carrier, we will refund monies paid for the cruise or cruise & land package to those participants who have not previously cancelled. See Passenger Ticket Contract for further details.

I had an excellent day trip to Glendalough and Kilkenny with Wild Rover Day Tours. They have a 4.8 out of 5.0 rating on Trip advisor.

I was a day late at a hotel in Auckland, NZ that I had booked for a few nights before a cruise. I didn't arrive until a day late due to flight delays and a curfew at the Sydney airport. I had paid for the room in advance and lost the deposit for one night's stay. Cruise Care would not reimburse me because I booked the room on my own. They only cover hotel charges if purchased through Celebrity. i.e pre cruise or post cruise packages. Since then I always buy insurance on my own through insuremytrip.

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A word of warning - I noticed many times on our cruise last week that bartenders and waiters would sub wines without telling me if they didn't happen to have the wine listed on the menu. They are very good at keeping the label turned away from you so you can't see exactly what they're pouring. We had the premium package so I wasn't paying upcharges, but if I had been paying upcharges on each glass I would have been pretty irritated if they subbed a cheaper wine for the more expensive one I was charged for. It irritated me with the premium package only because it seems like a sneaky way for them to save money, but as long as I liked the wine I didn't make a fuss.

I just returned from a cruise on the Eclipse where I had the premium package. There were 4 or 5 wines on the premium list that I normally get that were not available. I was usually offered a substitute that was 2 or 3 dollars less per glass. Never was I offered an equally priced or more expensive wine. In Cellar Masters, the wine steward was substituting a $2 a glass cheaper wine until I caught her in the act. In the future I will probably stay with the classic package and pay the upcharge per glass. Staff blamed the lack of wines on a failure to load them in Miami. Very disappointed with the premium package on this cruise.

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I agree with the opinions about the lack of knowledge of some sommeliers. The head sommelier at a premium Italian wine tasting told me that the Chianti Classico wines are named after a village in Chianti named Classico. LOL Another one told me the Veneto region is in northwestern Italy. It's actually in northeastern Italy and when I mentioned this she insisted she was right.

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Just be glad you didn't get there. Website has many software bugs.

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Forgot to mention it was on the wine list in Blu. Did not see it in Cellar Masters, so I'm not sure if it's available everywhere.

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Yes. Had it in May on the Silhouette. On the premium package at $13 per glass.

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Two days ago I was looking at a cruise I have booked for October. I noticed that the bed configuration was undefined, so I selected "beds together" and saved changes. My outstanding balance increased by about $300. The next day it still showed the higher amount, so I called Captains Club. After some investigation it was determined that the cruise was repriced without a loyalty promo in effect when I booked it. I asked the agent how such a benign change could cause the cruise to be repriced and she said she has seen cases where changing from late to early dining has caused a similar problem. To add insult to injury, the bed configuration had not been changed and the agent had to do it.

Beware making changes of any type on the website.

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I suspect this is a website problem. The same thing happened to me this afternoon. I'm going to wait a few days to see if it gets resolved before calling.

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I flew out of Santiago last month. Had a 9:50pm flight on Delta. We were not able to checkin until 2 1/2 hours before the flight. By this time there was a long line of people waiting in line to check-in. Line moved pretty quickly and security didn't take long.

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Dave from Canada was Maitre D in Blu on Constellation in June.

They never mentioned the company that they worked for. The bus driver and tour leader were both teachers moonlighting during the tourist season. We were very pleased with the whole land tour. Everything was very well planned and efficiently executed.

Some choices did eventually sell out. You should probably make your choices within a day or so to be sure of getting them.

I don't know if this will help, but we took 8b in August 2014. The cruisetour optional activities were presented the first night in Fairbanks by the tour leader. We had several days to decide and arrange for payment. We did a Homestead Huskies tour in Denali to Jeff King's dogsled training facility and a jet boat ride in Talkeetna. Both were excellent and the highlights of our entire trip.

I have the same problem with 2 cruises I booked onboard the Solstice in February, 2015. I registered them online and they now appear if I select "View All" in the fine print below other cruises I have booked online. However, they have no cost breakdown and there is no option to make final payment online. I don't recall having this problem with previous cruises booked while onboard.