May 8, 2019 - Check your Cruise Planner for New Deals

[Merion_Mom]

Thanks for the heads-up, CRUISEFAN0001 

 

I didn't have any price drops, but the train ride in St Kitts is the lowest I have ever seen it.  (I've been to St Kitts many times and never did the RR, so the price made me think that "it's time".  🙂 )

[CRUISEFAN0001]

4 hours ago, Merion_Mom said:

Thanks for the heads-up, CRUISEFAN0001 

 

I didn't have any price drops, but the train ride in St Kitts is the lowest I have ever seen it.  (I've been to St Kitts many times and never did the RR, so the price made me think that "it's time".  🙂 )

You are quite welcome.

 

Saving money on a cruise is a nice thing.  Since there are so many people here who share information and advice that aids  others...it's only fitting this small bit of information might helps fellow passengers as well.

[goodml]

On 5/8/2019 at 10:20 AM, CRUISEFAN0001 said:

Just got a notice of some deals available today. Your opportunities may vary based on which specific cruise ship you sail on and the date.

 

I checked my Cruise Planner - and found that I could cancel 3 items and then I re-booked all 3...saving $57.83. Not a fortune...but did save it nonetheless.

 

Savings included several items at CocoCay...including a slight reduction in cabana prices, as well as a lower beverage package and also Voom cost.

 

Nice.

 

Meant to come back and say thanks earlier in the week. We have a quick Navigator sailing coming up at the end of the month and both the UDP and refreshment package had gone down. Saved me just under 50 bucks on a 3 night. Greatly appreciate the heads up.

[CRUISEFAN0001]

3 minutes ago, goodml said:

 

Meant to come back and say thanks earlier in the week. We have a quick Navigator sailing coming up at the end of the month and both the UDP and refreshment package had gone down. Saved me just under 50 bucks on a 3 night. Greatly appreciate the heads up.

Thank you for taking the time to reports your savings.  Glad to help.

[goodml]

On 5/8/2019 at 11:56 PM, LeeW said:

 

Sometimes you can do a "modify" from the Order History at the top of the Cruise Planner page.  Just tried that with an excursion and it gave me a "something didn't work" message.  So just cancelled and rebooked.

 

Just wanted to give you a caution on this.  Double check your reservation. I did the cancel and rebook on my refreshment package Weds night after seeing this thread. All went well. Got my 2 emails, one for cancellation and one for new purchase. Everything was perfect in the cruise planner. Thursday morning I logged in to look at something and noticed the ‘Make a payment’ link was now blue instead of greyed out. I discovered I now have a balance owing of $92.04 which was the amount of the cancelled drink plan. I sail in 3 weeks so I’m long past final payment. Alarm bells started ringing in my head because I’ve read here before of bookings being system cancelled due to balance owing after final payment date and the ensuing drama of the cabin being sold to someone else etc. I called C&A right away and they were very helpful; could see the problem immediately and said there’s an issue with the Cruise Planner system and the cruise invoicing system not communicating properly. She contacted resolutions while I was on the phone and they’ve created a ticket but said it will take several days to resolve. They told me the interim solution while it’s being worked on so the booking doesn’t auto cancel is that they’ve manually pushed my final payment date out till next Tuesday. You can bet I’ll be bugging them Monday but in the back of my mind I keep thinking that if I hadn’t noticed this it would have been cancelled.

 

The other interesting thing is that the system triggered an email of our invoice when this balance was added. I saw the email, saw it had the PDF and thought, ok another random RCCL email but didn’t really look closely. Once I figured all this out I took a closer look at the new cruise invoice and sure enough it shows a new balance outstanding of $92.04.

Edited May 11, 2019 by goodml

[Sunny AZ Girl]

4 minutes ago, goodml said:

 

The other interesting thing is that the system triggered an email of our invoice when this balance was added. I saw the email, saw it had the PDF and thought, ok another random RCCL email but didn’t really look closely. Once I figured all this out I took a closer look at the new cruise invoice and sure enough it shows a new balance outstanding of $92.04.

That is scary! Did you book directly with RCI or through a TA? I am wondering if it only affects bookings directly through RCI. 

[goodml]

Just now, Sunny AZ Girl said:

That is scary! Did you book directly with RCI or through a TA? I am wondering if it only affects bookings directly through RCI. 

 

I booked direct and I did the cancel and rebook of the refreshment package on the cruise planner. The C&A rep said that when the cruise planner system issued the refund somehow the cruise invoice system picked it up and showed it as a reduction in what we had paid for the actual cruise. She said the two systems don’t communicate properly.  I’m sure for any of us who’ve sailed with them many times, this is not a big surprise😆. But honestly, it became really clear to me in that moment how some of these weird cancellations that people have reported in the past can happen. In this instance it paid off that I’m a bit of a control freak and check things obsessively lol.

 

[CRUISEFAN0001]

25 minutes ago, goodml said:

 

Just wanted to give you a caution on this.  Double check your reservation. I did the cancel and rebook on my refreshment package Weds night after seeing this thread. All went well. Got my 2 emails, one for cancellation and one for new purchase. Everything was perfect in the cruise planner. Thursday morning I logged in to look at something and noticed the ‘Make a payment’ link was now blue instead of greyed out. I discovered I now have a balance owing of $92.04 which was the amount of the cancelled drink plan. I sail in 3 weeks so I’m long past final payment. Alarm bells started ringing in my head because I’ve read here before of bookings being system cancelled due to balance owing after final payment date and the ensuing drama of the cabin being sold to someone else etc. I called C&A right away and they were very helpful; could see the problem immediately and said there’s an issue with the Cruise Planner system and the cruise invoicing system not communicating properly. She contacted resolutions while I was on the phone and they’ve created a ticket but said it will take several days to resolve. They told me the interim solution while it’s being worked on so the booking doesn’t auto cancel is that they’ve manually pushed my final payment date out till next Tuesday. You can bet I’ll be bugging them Monday but in the back of my mind I keep thinking that if I hadn’t noticed this it would have been cancelled.

 

The other interesting thing is that the system triggered an email of our invoice when this balance was added. I saw the email, saw it had the PDF and thought, ok another random RCCL email but didn’t really look closely. Once I figured all this out I took a closer look at the new cruise invoice and sure enough it shows a new balance outstanding of $92.04.

Thanks for sharing.  Yes...changes right before a cruise (within weeks) can sometimes make goofy things happen in the Cruise Planer system. It doesn't happen often...but a few people have seen it happen.  Glad to hear C&A customer service addressed the system error for you.  Enjoy your cruise.

[goodml]

1 minute ago, CRUISEFAN0001 said:

Thanks for sharing.  Yes...changes right before a cruise (within weeks) can sometimes make goofy things happen in the Cruise Planer system. It doesn't happen often...but a few people have seen it happen.  Glad to hear C&A customer service addressed the system error for you.  Enjoy your cruise.

 

Lesson learned. I had my new trusty C&A friend change the dining plan for me😂. This is a weird one for us. I normally book way in advance and we have to fly to the port but I’ve been intrigued by the changes on Navigator so we just actually booked this one on May 5th for the May 31st sailing. Unfortunately that means everything has been done in the last few weeks before sailing. I also got lucky and snagged an aft balcony that popped up (maybe someone got a Royal Up) so I really don’t want to lose it.