Viking did not honor credit for cancelled port of call

[yoshi]

When we originally booked our Mediterranean cruise, it included a stop in St Tropez France. Subsequently, Viking cancelled this port and promised a credit of $250 per person because of the cancellation. We expected to use this credit for an upgraded optional tour and tips however when we asked on board they would not honor the promised credit. Apparently there were over 250 guests who were promised the same and it was quite an issue but they said it could not be handled on the ship during the cruise. We will see if our TA can pursue something with Viking but were very disappointed in how that was handled on the ship. For our party four this was $1,000. It also seemed that they didn't add much to do during the extra sea day to make up for no port visit.

Interested to know if anyone on this Viking Sky cruise was able to get the credit?

[Parsley Cruises]

Other cruise lines do this too.  I've known cruise lines to cancel a port of call before they even leave the initial embarkation port.  Ok, you've missed St T, but (maybe I'm a bit blasé about it, sorry), but you haven't missed much.

[peasmith]

We got our credit and used it beforehand to purchase the drinks package and a couple of DIY trips to Nice and Lucca and then what was left was added to our onboard account on our Christmas cruise last week

 

[yoshi]

13 hours ago, peasmith said:

We got our credit and used it beforehand to purchase the drinks package and a couple of DIY trips to Nice and Lucca and then what was left was added to our onboard account on our Christmas cruise last week

 

Hi Peasmith,

Did your TA get the credit for you beforehand? We asked before the cruise started and the Viking help line said we would get the credit once on board, then it didn't happen.

[Parsley Cruises]

I was referring to a situation where it can be proved that the cruise line knew about a port cancellation before embarkation, some of the passengers could prove this, but the cruise line didn't actually admit to the cancelled port until after departure.  This was not VO.

Many passengers were quite angry.

Edited January 3, 2019 by Parsley Cruises
addition

[peasmith]

2 hours ago, yoshi said:

Hi Peasmith,

Did your TA get the credit for you beforehand? We asked before the cruise started and the Viking help line said we would get the credit once on board, then it didn't happen.

We always book direct with Viking and the credit was on our account shortly after we received the notification e-mail about not stopping at St Tropez - we were advised that any unused credit prior to our sailing would be added to our onboard account on embarkation.  We also had some onboard credit for booking the cruise early and the leftover from the missed port credit was added to that.  As you will see we are in the UK and know that the operations in the USA are different to those here i.e. we only need to pay our remaining balance approximately ten weeks before departure. 

[yoshi]

Thank you Peasmith, we probably would have gone on one or two more optional excursions if we had the credit early, not sure why they didn't put it on our account because they sent us notification that we would get the $250pp when they cancelled the port. Our TA is working on it now.