empress first 6 sailings canelled

[baron9]

Dear Travel Partner,

 

We are writing to inform you that the March 30, April 4, April 7, April 11, April 16 and April 21 sailings of Empress of the Seas have been cancelled. Please provide this information to your clients booked on this sailing.

As you know, Empress of the Seas recently transitioned into the Royal Caribbean International fleet after sailing with Pullmantur Cruises. The ship is currently at the shipyard where it is getting an extensive makeover, including a rock-climbing wall, new pools and whirlpools, an adults-only Solarium, and our signature steakhouse Chops Grille. In addition, the ship will offer Voom, the fastest internet at sea.

Like many large renovation project, we are going to need more time to ensure the ship meets the high standards for quality our guests expect from Royal Caribbean. This additional time in the shipyard means it will be necessary to cancel the March 30, April 4, April 7, April 11, April 16 and April 21 sailings of Empress of the Seas.

As an alternative, guests may move to the same stateroom category on another Empress of Seas sailing between April 25, 2016 and July 23, 2016, and may also move to the same stateroom category on any Majesty of the Seas sailing between now and April 29, 2016 for the same cruise fare rate they paid for their original sailing. Guests who rebook to any Royal Caribbean Sailing will receive a $100 per stateroom onboard credit.

Guests with air transportation booked through Royal Caribbean International that transfer to another sailing will receive modified flights at no cost to them. If your client did not purchase air transportation through Royal Caribbean International, we will assist them by paying for their airline change fee, up to $200 for domestic and $300 for international flights. We ask that guests please send a copy of the receipt for the change fee, along with a brief note explaining that they were booked on the above mentioned sailing dates to the following address: Royal Caribbean International, Customer Service, 1050 Caribbean Way, Miami, FL 33132-2096.

If your client cancels or moves to one of the sailings listed above, your commission for this sailing will be protected. In addition, you will receive a $25 rebooking bonus (per booking) from Royal Caribbean International.

Should your client be unable to rebook on one of the alternative sailings and would prefer to cancel, Royal Caribbean International will provide them with a full refund of their cruise fare paid. Cruise fare refunds will be automatically processed back to the original form of payment. Please allow four to six weeks for all transactions to be processed. Also, if your client booked air transportation through Royal Caribbean International, and chooses to cancel, they will receive a full refund.

[Luv06012012]

Yikes! Six sailings is a lot....

[Clarea]

Thanks for the info, unfortunate, but we suspected cancellations were coming.

 

Consideration provided by Royal seems typical.

 

I did notice that when they mentioned "Voom", the word "free" was no longer associated with it.

[shipshape sam]

For sure. They seem to push a lot of work in a short time. This would seem though to be a special case: not a typical drydock as they are retrofitting the whole ship, but still I have always felt they planned for all circumstances.

 

Sorry for those sailings being canceled and hope they can rebook without too much hassle and cost.

[DEIx15x8]

When the sailings are 3-5 nights, 6 sailings isn't a long time compared to other ships where that would be 1.5 months or more. This is still a bit surprising though. They only opened her up for bookings 4 months before sailing and are walking her out for only about 6 months. With such a short window you would think they would have known with 100% certainty what was and wasn't possible. It's not like she even transferred from a random line, she's always been there's so they know her exact state and condition going into the refit. I could see this happening if she was opened up 1.5 years ago and coming from another company, but this just seems odd when they held all the cards and waited so long. I'm suddenly glad I didn't end up booking her because I was planning on the first 3 and that would have really stunk. I've been regretting missing the C&A rate by about 24 hours (got everyone to finally agree and then it was full price), but maybe it was meant to be after all.

[shipshape sam]

When the sailings are 3-5 nights, 6 sailings isn't a long time compared to other ships where that would be 1.5 months or more. This is still a bit surprising though. They only opened her up for bookings 4 months before sailing and are walking her out for only about 6 months. With such a short window you would think they would have known with 100% certainty what was and wasn't possible. It's not like she even transferred from a random line, she's always been there's so they know her exact state and condition going into the refit. I could see this happening if she was opened up 1.5 years ago and coming from another company, but this just seems odd when they held all the cards and waited so long. I'm suddenly glad I didn't end up booking her because I was planning on the first 3 and that would have really stunk. I've been regretting missing the C&A rate by about 24 hours (got everyone to finally agree and then it was full price), but maybe it was meant to be after all.

 

Not sure what you mean that because of the sailings length, it is not a long time. I don't think there was a comparison of the 6 canceled sailings to six 7 day sailings. I would suggest that it is worst though as you point out, that with shorter sailings, the 6 cancellations effect more passengers than if you had less sailings and the same number of days canceled.

[coaster]

The offer to move to Majesty for same price is an option? Trading my 5 night cruise for a 4 night cruise is fair? Sleezy move on Royal's part.

 

 

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[coaster]

The press release mentions the ship is getting a rock climbing wall. Ummm.... what am I missing there? Ship already has one. More bad press coming at Royal regarding these cancellations.

 

 

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Edited March 18, 2016 by coaster

[molly361]

That's too bad and not very much notice as well

[knittinggirl]

the ship will offer Voom, the fastest internet at sea.

 

If the oldest ship in the fleet can have fast internet, there's no excuse for that horribly slow internet on any other ship with Royal Caribbean. How fast is Voom anyway? Does it compare to cable connection back home?

 

As an alternative, guests may move to the same stateroom category on another Empress of Seas sailing between April 25, 2016 and July 23, 2016, and may also move to the same stateroom category on any Majesty of the Seas sailing between now and April 29, 2016 for the same cruise fare rate they paid for their original sailing. Guests who rebook to any Royal Caribbean Sailing will receive a $100 per stateroom onboard credit.

We got $400 (for a suite) when they cancelled our cruise and forced us to rebook. Why so little? Edited March 18, 2016 by knittinggirl

[voyager70]

Wow so sorry to hear this. And such short notice. A lot of unhappy people I'm sure - deservedly so.

[Clarea]

If the oldest ship in the fleet can have fast internet, there's no excuse for that horribly slow internet on any other ship with Royal Caribbean. How fast is Voom anyway? Does it compare to cable connection back home?...

Yes, the Voom on Oasis was just like our home broadband. Very fast, and no problem doing things like Facetime.

[iMedic]

I'm on hold waiting for someone from the supervisor department. Not pleased, and will probably never book with RCCI again.

[coaster]

On hold now trying to salvage our trip.

 

 

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[Ocean Boy]

At least they are cancelling the sailings rather than having passengers sail on a ship that isn't ready to provide them the vacation they deserve. However, if they are cancelling that many sailings they have had to know for some time that the ship was not going to be ready. You start cancelling six weeks worth of sailings just two weeks before the first of those is to occur?

[voyager70]

Best of luck to those trying to reschedule. Please let us know how everything turns out.

[MCC retired]

For canceled cruises this close in , RCI's announced options and compensations really show little concern over ruined vacations .

Really RCI ? This close ? Only that ?:mad:

[voyager70]

At least they are cancelling the sailings rather than having passengers sail on a ship that isn't ready to provide them the vacation they deserve. However, if they are cancelling that many sailings they have had to know for some time that the ship was not going to be ready. You start cancelling six weeks worth of sailings just two weeks before the first of those is to occur?

 

This is my question as well. There's got to be more to the story than not enough time to finish the dry dock work. They've done tons of dry docks; they should know how much time it will take. I can understand being a few days, maybe even a week behind schedule, but a month? No.

[iMedic]

This is my question as well. There's got to be more to the story than not enough time to finish the dry dock work. They've done tons of dry docks; they should know how much time it will take. I can understand being a few days, maybe even a week behind schedule, but a month? No.

 

I pointed that out to them, their response was "oh well, we made a mistake".

[Keith1010]

Thanks for sharing.

 

Keith

[cynt]

My coworker was on the April 21 sailing. They're cruise newbies and I strongly suggested to her when she booked to try a newer ship and not one emerging from drydock. She's going to talk it over with her husband tonight. I told her she can find some fabulous cruises for that week at a discount price. I feel soo bad for them. Hopefully, it all works out for everyone.

[superwario]

iMedic, thanks for the help and updates.

 

Does Royal Carribbean not offer 100% back and full credit towards a future cruise anymore? The $100 onboard credit to re-book is a big joke to me.

 

Are there any additional concessions they will offer once we get on the phone and talk to a supervisor?

 

If I rebook my 4-day cruise to a 3-day cruise, it seems that according to the language on the email that it would be the same price. I would expect some money to be refunded due to losing a day.

[voyager70]

I pointed that out to them, their response was "oh well, we made a mistake".

 

Well that's pretty lame. Hope you can still make something work.

[knittinggirl]

When they cancelled Rhapsody out from under us. We were given two weeks to change to another cruise, two weeks that included Thanksgiving weekend. But they knew about it for four to six weeks. Because that's when the cruise disappeared from Royal's sale page.

 

I'd suggest those needing to change book a cruise that's just appearing on the site out now. Not something that's had 18 months of price jumps.

[iMedic]

Well that's pretty lame. Hope you can still make something work.

 

I cancelled. All in all they were pretty resistant to accommodating my partner and myself. Even gave them the opportunity to retain my as a customer and their response was simply "this is what we have, take it or leave it".

So i'm now officially out.