On board excursion cancellations

[alainciao]

I’ve tried to get an answer from corporate on this with no luck.  Long holds and no answer to an email.  “Contact us”......??

We’re booking our excursions with Seabourn ahead of the cruise in order to get our first choices.  Can someone tell me what the cancellation rules are for pre-booked excursions once on board?  Thanks in advance!

 

[DC Traveler244]

My recollection is that the tickets for the excursions we've pre-booked are waiting for us in our suite when we board, and these tickets indicate the cut-off for cancellation.  If you decide you don't want to go on an excursion and are within the cancellation window, you bring your tickets to Seabourn Square.  They'll cancel your reservation, take your tickets, and you'll get a credit to your onboard account.

[wripro]

Because I never do ships excursions I am not 100% sure but I think the cancellation window is 48 hours. If I'm wrong someone can correct me.

[offtoalaska]

Here's the cancellation policy from  the Seabourn site:

 

"We understand plans change. However, last minute cancellations can result in costs to us or to our third party service providers. Cancellations of shore excursions, spa services or gift orders made more than three days prior to embarkation will be fully refunded; cancellations made onboard or within the three day window prior to embarkation may be subject a cancellation fee. Cancellation fees for certain shore excursions may be up to one hundred percent (100%) of the shore excursion price, depending on the shore excursion. For onboard cancellations of shore excursions, therefore, please speak with the Shore Excursion department onboard for the actual cancellation fee amount. Cancellations of spa services within twenty-four hours of the appointment are subject to a fifty percent (50%) cancellation fee. All cancellations made onboard will be refunded in the form of onboard credit, regardless of whether the purchase was made by a guest or a third party."

My recent onboard experience was 48 hours prior cancellation no penalty. Read the tour descriptions carefully; I believe those excursions with 100% penalty i.e. no cancellation clearly advise guests of that.

Edited June 9, 2019 by offtoalaska
omitted word

[SKP946]

5 hours ago, alainciao said:

I’ve tried to get an answer from corporate on this with no luck.  Long holds and no answer to an email.  “Contact us”......??

We’re booking our excursions with Seabourn ahead of the cruise in order to get our first choices.  Can someone tell me what the cancellation rules are for pre-booked excursions once on board?  Thanks in advance!

 

 

Is this your first cruise with Seabourn? If yes apply for a Referral Coupon (at the top of this board) and you will receive a $400 On Board Credit that you can use to offset your excursions once onboard. 

[alainciao]

Hi all,

 

Thanks for the responses.  Seabourn finally responded to my online request.  For those who are interested, on board they ask you to cancel 48 hours ahead but if you cancel after 24 hours there is no refund.

[Sunviking]

We have booked excursions that we wanted and were afraid would be sold out in advance. On at least one occasion we had a large amount of on board credit.  After boarding I went to Seabourn Square and had the excursions charged to our OBC and a credit went on my account.  At the end of the cruise we received the appropriate amount of credit to the card originally charged. I know that there are some excursions that require that you book in advance, for example the trip to Moscow from St. Petersburg which requires you to book 70 days in advance (I think).  I have to believe that if you have to cancel sometime before, say 7 days or so you will receive some kind of refundable credit.

[Paulchili]

On 6/9/2019 at 11:11 AM, offtoalaska said:

Here's the cancellation policy from  the Seabourn site:

 

Cancellations of shore excursions, spa services or gift orders made more than three days prior to embarkation will be fully refunded; cancellations made onboard or within the three day window prior to embarkation may be subject a cancellation fee. Cancellation fees for certain shore excursions may be up to one hundred percent (100%) of the shore excursion price, depending on the shore excursion. For onboard cancellations of shore excursions, therefore, please speak with the Shore Excursion department onboard for the actual cancellation fee amount. Cancellations of spa services within twenty-four hours of the appointment are subject to a fifty percent (50%) cancellation fee. All cancellations made onboard will be refunded in the form of onboard credit, regardless of whether the purchase was made by a guest or a third party."

.

In reference to the three separate highlighted sections:

 

1) This seems to imply that ANY cancellations onboard may (will be?) be subject to a cancellation fee even if canceled more than 3 days before the tour itself or before the cancelation deadline simply because they were cancelled onboard rather than before boarding.

Is this the case?

2) How can you decide before boarding if you should cancel a tour that you are not certain about if you won’t know the cancellation fee until you are onboard - by that time it is too late to avoid the fee should you decide to cancel.

3) The cancelled tours are apparently refunded as OBC according to above statement rather than to the credit card used to book them. If so, is this OBC then refundable in cash at the end if not used?

 

Much appreciate all help with these questions.

[SKP946]

From our experience on our recent cruise.

We booked two excursions before the cruise and paid for them both on our credit card.

On boarding we went to Seabourn Square and had both excursions offset against our onboard credit.

Later we decided to cancel one of the excursions, 100%  of that  tour cost  was credited to our OBC. (NO cancelation fee was deducted)

On leaving the ship all the amounts that had been added to our OBC were credited back to our card.

(we had spent all the amount of the original OBC onboard on the one tour and other purchases.)

Hope this makes sense.

Edited August 6, 2019 by SKP946

[ab21au]

We cancelled several all day excursions on our last SB cruise. In all cases bar one, we were provided a full refund. The one we were not given a refund was the Bruges tour for which DW was sick at the last minute and we tried to cancel within the 24 hr period.  Others were outside the 48 hrs because we had decided that all day tours we not much fun in places which we had been to before (eg. Cinqe Terre tour) and we were given a full refund. 

[Paulchili]

Thank you both for your reply.

It looks to me that this is a CYA policy just to let people know that there may be cancellation fees but for canceling “regular” tours in time there is no fee.

[florisdekort]

Over the years I’ve probably booked 100+ excursions online before the cruise and then cancelled them once on board, in most cases to immediately re-book with OBC (always well before the 48-hour window). I have never been charged any fees. Seabourn is always exceptionally accommodating, as a truly luxury line should be.

[Paulchili]

6 hours ago, florisdekort said:

Over the years I’ve probably booked 100+ excursions online before the cruise and then cancelled them once on board, in most cases to immediately re-book with OBC (always well before the 48-hour window). I have never been charged any fees. Seabourn is always exceptionally accommodating, as a truly luxury line should be.

Thank you - that is reassuring to know.