X lie to customers about the overnights

[Cindy]

The words in the contract have little meaning when there are consumer protection laws as there are in the UK and EU. If all passengers were from the US, your comment would be appropriate. Unfortunately for Celebrity, they are not. The world does not revolve around the US policies and laws....

 

The folks in the US can just cancel with no penalty. Those in other geographies such as the UK can't...and they are the one's who, IMHO, have a right to question why Celebrity isn't allowing them to cancel with no penalty.

 

Nowhere in my post did I say the world revolved around US policies. My apologies for trying to educate myself and asking how other contracts may be different. I should have known better than to ask a question on Cruise Critic.:(

 

 

Some more contract language:

 

Carrier may also...

 

Seriously....if one books with a travel agent and never visits the web site, how is the celebrity cruise contract provided to the passenger?

 

You have to accept the contract as part of the on-line check-in process. If you have a TA do it, I believe they have to accept on your behalf.

[jwattle]

Just an observation: on different trips, different ports are being skipped, while others are overnights.

Example: cruise A: 14 nights, skipping Antigua, overnight in Curacao, still seeing Bonaire

 

Cruise B: skipping Bonaire, overnight in Antigua, and still seeing Curacao

 

This makes the "safety" argument null, as they are assuredly going to call on the same port in a different cruise that they are skipping for "safety" on another...

Btw, we're okay with our change, but do see both sides of the argument

[C 2 C]

Maybe Celebrity did send him something. Just sayin'

 

 

I have always given a poster the benefit of the doubt and believe, unless proven otherwise that the information is correct.

 

When other posters start doubting the veracity of a thread, the integrity of this whole community is challenged.

 

I am always dismayed when some people want to attack the messenger rather than commenting on the message.

 

Did Celebrity have the right to change the itineraries? Of course.

Does the contract state that their ships have to be sea worthy? Of course not.

Does Celebrity have to provide us with good food? Not according to their contract.

 

However most of the people who follow the Celebrity threads believe that Celebrity provides a better product than the competition and also believe that they treat their passengers with respect.

 

We continue to sail with Celebrity despite the changes but I am very disappointed with the way they implemented this change.

[DirtyDawg]

Maybe Celebrity did send him something. Just sayin'

 

And I'm sure the apologies will follow as quickly as posters' decided to question the OP's honesty. :rolleyes:

 

Hey, I'm not sure I'd describe the whole mess as X lied. More likely Celebrity's left hand doesn't know what their right hand is doing. We've all seen that before.;) :(

Edited June 3, 2015 by DirtyDawg

[C 2 C]

And I'm sure the apologies will follow as quickly as posters' decided to question the OP's honesty. :rolleyes:

 

Hey, I'm not sure I'd describe the whole mess as X lied. More likely Celebrity's left hand doesn't know what their right hand is doing. We've all seen that before.;) :(

 

The IT department is now in charge of itinerary scheduling..

 

and making excuses rather than admitting that, just maybe, they erred in making these changes effective on nearly sold out cruises.

[BosoxI]

People have complained about Costa Maya since it became a port, but now that it's been cut you'd think it was St. Petersburg eliminated from a Russia itinerary.:rolleyes: .

 

Funny. We are one for one getting into Costa Maya and had a very interesting tour there, incidentally. No need to return, though.

[OzKiwiJJ]

Maybe Celebrity did send him something. Just sayin'

 

The OP did post the details of what Celebrity sent him and another poster kindly posted the Google translation of the German.

[DirtyDawg]

The IT department is now in charge of itinerary scheduling..

 

LOL:D

 

What's next? The Legal department driving the boats?

 

The Engineering department cooking the meals? Engine Oil, Olive Oil, no big dif.;):)

Edited June 4, 2015 by DirtyDawg

[hcat]

Since Arno is probably one of the 10 most frequent Celebrity cruisers of the millions who cruise the line, I would think HE would determine whether or not he should find another line, not you.

 

APPLAUSE! As Arno knows, I am sure he and Joanne will always be welcome on Celebrity and Cruise Critic

 

***

[hcat]

I have always given a poster the benefit of the doubt and believe, unless proven otherwise that the information is correct.

 

When other posters start doubting the veracity of a thread, the integrity of this whole community is challenged.

 

I am always dismayed when some people want to attack the messenger rather than commenting on the message.

 

Did Celebrity have the right to change the itineraries? Of course.

Does the contract state that their ships have to be sea worthy? Of course not.

Does Celebrity have to provide us with good food? Not according to their contract.

 

However most of the people who follow the Celebrity threads believe that Celebrity provides a better product than the competition and also believe that they treat their passengers with respect.

 

We continue to sail with Celebrity despite the changes but I am very disappointed with the way they implemented this change.

 

well said...we agree. It has been handled poorly by someone while top mgmnt is running around with their picnic baskets promoting a new catch phrase..,,...more attention should have been devoted to the very personal impacts of the shakeup of itins, cancellations and overnights...

[Cindy]

[/size]

 

Funny. We are one for one getting into Costa Maya and had a very interesting tour there, incidentally. No need to return, though.

 

I'm hoping to make it 50% in December, when my Princess cruise is scheduled to stop in Costa Maya. I have the same ruins tour scheduled that I had planned two other times when we missed the port!:eek: Maybe I'm not destined to see the ruins!:rolleyes:

[Cruise Junky]

FYI "Columbia" is in the US.

 

Hey, it was 5:48 am on the westcoast, cut me some slack ;) :p

[Project_gal]

How is the language in the UK/European contract different? The way I interpret the US contract is the cruise line can do what they want, when they want, and they don't have to have a reason!:eek:[/size]

 

Well, you asked!

 

In the UK our Confirmation Invoice refers us to the UK website and I eventually found the equivalent wording [on page 142 of 148 of the downloaded brochure. I could not find anything anywhere else. There is more but, if I kept adding sections referred to ...]:

 

5.4 What about advanced or delayed sailings and changes in the itinerary? We regret we cannot guarantee that ships will call at every advertised port or follow every part of the itinerary. Itineraries may change from time to time, both before and after your sailing departs. Celebrity Cruises and the Master of the ship have the right to omit or substitute any port(s), call at any additional port(s), vary the order of call for ports, change the time of arrival at, departure from or time spent at any port of call, deviate from the advertised itinerary in any way or substitute another ship. Where possible, you will be advised of any significant changes to your confirmed itinerary before departure from the UK – see section 5.5. Changes to the last confirmed itinerary for your cruise may become necessary after you have departed from the UK for a variety of reasons such as prevailing weather and sea conditions, guest emergencies, providing assistance to other vessels and the ship being unable to operate at its normal speed(s) due to unexpected mechanical or technical problems. We will of course do our best to avoid any changes that will have a significant detrimental effect on your last confirmed itinerary. However, we cannot accept any liability in respect of any changes which result from circumstances outside our control (see section 5.10) or which do not have a significant detrimental effect.

 

5.5 Can you change or cancel my holiday? Occasionally, we have to make changes to the brochure and other details both before, and after, bookings have been confirmed and, even more rarely, cancel confirmed bookings. There may be a requirement to carry out maintenance/building works on your cruise. Where the works are likely to seriously impair your holiday, we will notify you as soon as possible. Occasionally we may also be forced to cancel a U.S. back to back cruise due to local legal restrictions preventing us from allowing you to travel on this basis but will endeavour to advise you promptly after making such a booking if this is necessary (see Before You Sail, What about Consecutive Cruises?). Whilst we always endeavour to avoid changes and cancellations, we must reserve the right to do so. If we have to make a significant change or cancel, we will tell you as soon as possible. If there is time to do so before departure, we will offer you the choice of the following options:- (a) ( for significant changes) accepting the changed arrangements or (b) purchasing an alternative holiday from us, of a similar standard to that originally booked if available. We will offer you at least one alternative holiday of equivalent or higher standard for which you will not be asked to pay any more than the price of the original holiday. If this holiday is in fact cheaper than the original one, we will refund the price difference. If you do not wish to accept the holiday we specifically offer you, you may choose any of our other then available holidays. You must pay the applicable price of any such holiday. This will mean you paying more if it is more expensive or receiving a refund if it is cheaper. © c ancelling or accepting the cancellation in which case you will receive a full and quick refund of all monies you have paid to us. Please note, the above options are not available where any change made is a minor one. What is a significant change? A significant change is a change to your confirmed holiday,

which

we can reasonably expect will have a significant effect on it. Examples of significant and minor (defined below) changes are as follows: Significant change: Examples include a change from two days port of calls to two days sailing instead; a change in UK departure airport (excluding changes between local airports) and a change in the time of your outbound flight by more than 12 hours on a 14 night holiday. Minor change: Examples include a change from one port of call to another; a change from one day’s port of call to one days sailing; a change in timings for any port(s) of call but the ship still calls at all confirmed ports; a change in order of ports that are visited; and a change in the time of your departure or return flight that is less than 12 hours on a 14 night holiday. Very rarely, we may be forced by “force majeure” (see section 5.10) to change or terminate your holiday after departure but before the scheduled end of your time away. This is extremely unlikely but if this situation does occur, we regret we will be unable to make any refunds (unless we obtain any refunds from our suppliers), pay you any compensation or meet any costs or expenses you incur as a result.

 

5.10 What about circumstances which are outside your control? Except where we specifically say otherwise in these terms and conditions, we cannot accept any liability or pay any compensation where your holiday and/or any other services we have promised to arrange or provide cannot be provided at all, or as promised or you otherwise suffer any damage or loss (as more fully described in section 5.7 above) as a result of circumstances which are outside our control (‘force majeure’). When we talk about circumstances which are outside our control, we mean any event which we or the supplier of the service in question could not have predicted or avoided even after taking all reasonable care. Such events are likely to include war or threat of war, acts of terrorism or threats of such acts, riots or civil unrest, industrial action, natural or nuclear disaster, fire, adverse weather conditions, health risks, epidemics and mechanical difficulties (which we could not have anticipated or avoided despite our normal comprehensive mechanical checks) and all similar circumstances which are outside our control.

 

5.7 What is your liability towards guests? (1) S ubject to section 5.8 below we promise to make sure that the holiday arrangements we have agreed to make, perform or provide as applicable as part of our contract with you are made, performed or provided with reasonable skill and care. This means that, subject to these booking conditions, we will accept responsibility if, for example, you suffer death or personal injury or your contracted holiday arrangements are not provided as promised or prove deficient as a result of the failure of ourselves, our employees, agents or suppliers to use reasonable skill and care in making, performing or providing, as applicable, your contracted holiday arrangements. Please note it is your responsibility to show that reasonable skill and care has not been used if you wish to make a claim against us. In addition, we will only be responsible for what our employees, agents and suppliers do or do not do if they were at the time acting within the course of their employment (for employees) or carrying out work we had asked them to do (for agents and suppliers). (2) We will not be responsible for any injury, illness, death, loss (for example loss of enjoyment), damage, expense, cost or other sum or claim of any description whatsoever which results from any of the following: • t he act(s) and/or omission(s) of the person(s) affected or any member(s) of their party or • t he act(s) and/or omission(s) of a third party not connected with the provision of your holiday and which were unforeseeable or unavoidable or • ‘force majeure’ as defined in section 5.10 below Please note, we cannot accept any liability for any damage, loss, expense or other sum(s) of any description (1) which on the basis of the information given to us by you concerning your booking prior to our accepting it, we could not have foreseen you would suffer or incur if we breached our contract with you or (2) which did not result from any breach of contract or other fault by ourselves or our employees or, where we are responsible for them, our suppliers. Additionally we cannot accept liability for any business losses. Please note, we cannot accept responsibility for any services, which do not form part of our contract. This includes, for example, any additional services or facilities, which your hotel or any other supplier agrees to provide for you where the services or facilities are not advertised in our brochure, and we have not agreed to arrange them. In addition, regardless of any wording used by us on our website, in any of our brochures or elsewhere, we only promise to use reasonable skill and care as set out above and we do not have any greater or different liability to you. For shore excursions, please refer to section 4.5. Shore excursions do not form any part of your contract with us even where we suggest particular operators/centres and/or assist you

 

in booking such activities in any way. Accordingly, we cannot accept any liability in relation to such activities. The promises we make to you about the services we have agreed to provide or arrange as part of our contract - and the laws and regulations of the country in which your claim or complaint occurred - will be used as the basis for deciding whether the services in question had been properly provided. If the particular services which gave rise to the claim or complaint complied with local laws and regulations applicable to those services at the time, the services will be treated as having been properly provided. This will be the case even if the services did not comply with the laws and regulations of the UK, which would have applied had those services been provided in the UK. The exception to this is where the claim or complaint concerns the absence of a safety feature, which might lead a reasonable holidaymaker to refuse to take the holiday in question.

Edited June 4, 2015 by Project_gal

[wallie5446]

Thanks Sue.

 

From what you posted the UK contract says the same thing as the U.S. version.

Which would explain why there have yet to be any challenges in the legal system there.

[steamboats]

MarkusToe,

 

you´ll find the German press release here.

 

steamboats

[Oceangoer2]

I have always given a poster the benefit of the doubt and believe, unless proven otherwise that the information is correct.

 

When other posters start doubting the veracity of a thread, the integrity of this whole community is challenged.

 

I am always dismayed when some people want to attack the messenger rather than commenting on the message.

 

Did Celebrity have the right to change the itineraries? Of course.

Does the contract state that their ships have to be sea worthy? Of course not.

Does Celebrity have to provide us with good food? Not according to their contract.

 

However most of the people who follow the Celebrity threads believe that Celebrity provides a better product than the competition and also believe that they treat their passengers with respect.

 

We continue to sail with Celebrity despite the changes but I am very disappointed with the way they implemented this change.

It's not only the way these changes were implemented. We found out about the change on this board, and only received an email re the overnight in St Martin, dropping Dominica, after questioning our X booking rep. The website still shows the original itinerary. If we hadn't already booked and paid for our air we would have cancelled. Having been in St Martin many, many times it didn't seem like a good port to overnight for us. Communication is the key and we should have been advised immediately when the change occurred.

[RDC1]

Thanks Sue.

 

From what you posted the UK contract says the same thing as the U.S. version.

Which would explain why there have yet to be any challenges in the legal system there.

 

It really does not say the same thing. In the UK version they go into depth about what defines a major or a minor change. That is because under the PTR 1992 a vendor must notify the customer in case of a significant change and must offer a refund if the customer is not willing to accept.

 

They are treating the changes as being the replacement of one port by another and thus they are classifying it as a minor change according to their contract.

[Cindy]

Well, you asked!

 

In the UK our Confirmation Invoice refers us to the UK website and I eventually found the equivalent wording [on page 142 of 148 of the downloaded brochure]. I could not find anything anywhere else.

 

5.4 What about advanced or delayed sailings and changes in the itinerary? We regret we cannot guarantee that ships will call at every advertised port or follow every part of the itinerary...

 

I did ask, and thank you very much!

 

I think even though at first glance the contracts seem to say the same thing, the UK contract is much wordier and goes into lots of discussion about what does or does not constitute a "major" change.

 

Celebrity certainly must have determined, that at least from a legal perspective, the changes they made were within the boundaries of what's allowable for all contracts regardless of someone's residency. Whether or not the changes should have been made is a completely different discussion than whether they were allowable contractually.

Edited June 4, 2015 by Cindy

[Celebrity Cruises]

HI folks

 

news from X europe:

I've in written form the following statement: we skip one port out of your caribbien cruise because of saftey reasons...

Because it's a safety issue you are not entiteled to cancel the cruise without loosing your deposit (10% of total cruise fare, incl port fee + tax)

 

never got such a outrageous lie from a company.....

 

Hi there,

 

Apologies, but this cruise was not changed for safety reasons. The change was made to allow for us to provide overnights itineraries.

[dodger1964]

Hi there,

 

Apologies, but this cruise was not changed for safety reasons. The change was made to allow for us to provide overnights itineraries.

 

Thanks for reply...but that is what the OP was informed of (at least if the posted german email was legit and was from X)

[CanadianDee]

Interesting thread. We have no skin in the game, as our upcoming cruise is not affected.

 

I feel like there's some rational middle ground here, beyond the hyperbole on both sides.

 

Yes, we've missed ports because of bad weather. Everybody understands change for weather or safety. But this is something different. While Celebrity appears to have the contractual right to change ports without notice or explanation, it does seem to be bad form to change itinerary on already-scheduled, already-booked itineraries without giving existing passengers the opportunity to bail on the cruise.

[MarkusToe]

Hi there,

 

Apologies, but this cruise was not changed for safety reasons. The change was made to allow for us to provide overnights itineraries.

 

 

Hi Celebrity

 

thanks to give clear reason....

 

the only thing I'd like to have is: change or cancel the effected cruise without loosing my deposits.....

best regards Markus

[TravelerThom]

...Celebrity is absolutely allowed to make any changes they see fit. We can all speak with our wallets about whether we like changes or not. Cruise lines are going more and more with destination immersion. There are still plenty of mainstream lines that spend 5 hrs in a port and sail on - sounds like those cruises would be a good fit for those complaining on here...

IMO it is not a matter as to what is contractually legal, but rather what is in the long term interest of the company. I'm pretty sure that X would be within their contract to serve nothing but peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for dinner, but they wouldn’t stay in business for long. I think almost anyone who cruises recognizes that for weather, local unrest, etc there may be last minute changes to the itinerary beyond the control of the company. But changing the itinerary just because the company thinks it is good idea, and telling non North American passengers to like it or lump it is virtually guaranteed to irritate many. I think X should allow penalty free cancellation in this case in the interest of customer relations. If this is such a good idea, they should have no trouble replacing canceling passengers (I actually don’t think that many would cancel), probably at higher fares; sounds like win-win for X. If they can’t replace the passengers, X might realize this is not a great idea.

 

Thom

 

PS The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has a list of Global Homicides rates per 100,000 population by country. 17 of the worst 24 are Caribbean basin countries or islands. Have fun wandering around at night:mad:

Edited June 5, 2015 by TravelerThom

[HokiePoq]

Interesting thread. We have no skin in the game, as our upcoming cruise is not affected.

 

I feel like there's some rational middle ground here, beyond the hyperbole on both sides.

 

Yes, we've missed ports because of bad weather. Everybody understands change for weather or safety. But this is something different. While Celebrity appears to have the contractual right to change ports without notice or explanation, it does seem to be bad form to change itinerary on already-scheduled, already-booked itineraries without giving existing passengers the opportunity to bail on the cruise.

 

Well-said. This pretty much puts the entire discussion in a nutshell.

[RickT]

I hope X is willing to work with the OP and work out a resolution. I am affected by an overnight change in March 2016 but I have the option to cancel, the OP currently does not have that option and to further add to the issue were misinformed regarding the reason for the change. Come on Celebrity, do the right thing.