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Celebrity's Handling of their Millennium Sailing is SHAMEFUL!


BelloMundo
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I went through a FCC with Celebrity recently.   I believe you just have to apply the FCC to a future booking within the year.   It will also take them quite awhile to process these FCC's so you may  not get it for 30-60 days,  that would be the effective date.  

 

So if you were to receive it in Feburary, you would have until Feb 2021 to apply it to a future reservation.  I believe itineraries for into 2023 will be available in that timeframe.

 

I believe they are very strict about the fact that it has to all be used on a single cruise (for that passenger).   I know some people with cancelled Xpedition cruises (very very expensive) were using their FCC on regular Celebrity cruises which were much less expensive and were running into this issue.

Edited by wrk2cruise
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2 hours ago, Fouremco said:

I would suggest that most posters here have a good understanding of the issue and of the complexity of determining and implementing the best of many imperfect courses of action. To say that there is no reason to delay changes demonstrates a lack of understanding of the rapidly changing situation and tremendous amount of work entailed in effecting change.

CDC/WHO categorized the virus as a global emergency less than a week ago, airlines suspended flights till March within a couple of days, and Celebrity itself sent out a letter to modify the next departure away from HK two days later.  To state there is "tremendous amount of work required for an itinerary modification" demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of how the cruise industry works.

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16 minutes ago, wrk2cruise said:

I went through a FCC with Celebrity recently.   I believe you just have to apply the FCC to a future booking within the year.   It will also take them quite awhile to process these FCC's so you may  not get it for 30-60 days,  that would be the effective date.  

 

So if you were to receive it in Feburary, you would have until Feb 2021 to apply it to a future reservation.  I believe itineraries for into 2023 will be available in that timeframe.

 

I believe they are very strict about the fact that it has to all be used on a single cruise (for that passenger).   I know some people with cancelled Xpedition cruises (very very expensive) were using their FCC on regular Celebrity cruises which were much less expensive and were running into this issue.


FCC is good for two years. It can be applied to any cruise with the exception of Edge and Galapagos unless specifically issued for those cruises.

 

When we received certificates we received two certificates, one for each passenger. So we could have applied them to two cruises had they been lower priced.

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44 minutes ago, wrk2cruise said:

I went through a FCC with Celebrity recently.   I believe you just have to apply the FCC to a future booking within the year.   It will also take them quite awhile to process these FCC's so you may  not get it for 30-60 days,  that would be the effective date.  

 

So if you were to receive it in Feburary, you would have until Feb 2021 to apply it to a future reservation.  I believe itineraries for into 2023 will be available in that timeframe.

 

I believe they are very strict about the fact that it has to all be used on a single cruise (for that passenger).   I know some people with cancelled Xpedition cruises (very very expensive) were using their FCC on regular Celebrity cruises which were much less expensive and were running into this issue.

w - does this mean that if the FCC was for a regular verandah and one chooses a sailing where the pricing is not as expensive, generally, a suite can be the choice of cabin using the FCC?

 

Or, is it for same category of cabin only, as originally booked?

 

Thank you and bon voyage

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It can be used for any cabin type.   In our case when it was applied it reduced the "Cruise Fare" by the amount of the certificate.   I would have assumed that it would be applied as "payment" but that wasn't the case.   I know some fellow cruisers lost some TA OBC due to this but my TA said his commission was protected (due to the cancelled sailing) so my OBC from him was not reduced.

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10 minutes ago, intr3pid said:

To state there is "tremendous amount of work required for an itinerary modification" demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of how the cruise industry works.

Sorry, but anyone who thinks that there ISN'T a tremendous amount of work involved is either naive or has a complete lack of comprehension of what is entailed in developing multiple new itineraries to multiple new ports.

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9 hours ago, heidikay said:

 

The cruise line is NOT doing all they can.  I'm not suggesting they should. I get Celebrity is a business and this is a difficult situation.  But offering full refunds would certainly be more than future cruise credit that must be used in one year.  Even extending the cruise credit for two years would be more generous.  

 

 

We have just applied future cruise credits to our cruise next year. You have two years from receiving them to book a cruise which would obviously sail at a later date than when booked so all in all you could use them for a cruise that sailed up to four years from receiving  them.

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9 hours ago, heidikay said:

  But offering full refunds would certainly be more than future cruise credit that must be used in one year.  Even extending the cruise credit for two years would be more generous.  

 

Why should they! The passenger booked a cruise. The circumstances have changed but still the cruise line has no legal obligation to cancel and yet they give the passenger the choice to cancel, risking they will sail with an empty cabin. 
The least they can do is to make sure the passenger fills another cabin some day and maybe creates some onboard revenue - even if the stateroom is already paid for. Add it up... the cruise line is still at risk to lose one payment.

 

FCC is good for two years. 

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2 hours ago, Fouremco said:

Sorry, but anyone who thinks that there ISN'T a tremendous amount of work involved is either naive or has a complete lack of comprehension of what is entailed in developing multiple new itineraries to multiple new ports.

I have no behind the scenes knowledge of how cruise ships work but I would think the effort at making these changes would be tremendous. And horrendous usually. 

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11 minutes ago, Pushka said:

I have no behind the scenes knowledge of how cruise ships work but I would think the effort at making these changes would be tremendous. And horrendous usually. 

They can do this very quickly actually.  For our September Mediterranean Edge cruise they shuffled and changed the ports as we went along due to weather.  I am sure that the ports were given very little notice as we did not know from day to day where we were going.  We had some different ports and some scheduled ports on a different day.  The middle of our Edge cruise was all different than schedule.

 

The sooner that they make the decisions the more choice that are available.  

Edited by NMTraveller
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2 hours ago, Fouremco said:

Sorry, but anyone who thinks that there ISN'T a tremendous amount of work involved is either naive or has a complete lack of comprehension of what is entailed in developing multiple new itineraries to multiple new ports.

Ahh, the customary leap from itinerary modifications to "developing multiple new itineraries to multiple new ports".  Maybe it IS the naivety that makes the world go round - but still nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact:

3 hours ago, intr3pid said:

CDC/WHO categorized the virus as a global emergency less than a week ago, airlines suspended flights till March within a couple of days, and Celebrity itself sent out a letter to modify the next departure away from HK two days later.

 

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As a cruiser who was supposed to sail on the 2/1 millennium, I have to say that I agree with OP that celebrity waited way too long to offer refunds. The airlines started offering  refunds/changes for itineraries including Hong Kong as of Sunday.  Celebrity waited until 6pm EST Thursday (which was already Friday in Singapore) to send me an email saying that I could cancel my Saturday sailing for FCC. My travel agent was closed for the day and couldn’t address it until Friday, which was sail date in Singapore. I understand that there are a number of things that need to be addressed w/r/t port changes, but they could’ve offered refunds sooner, and I really question whether they waited so that most people would already be on their 30 hour flights and wouldn’t back out. They could’ve Triaged the situation and worked out the new port list separately from offering refunds. 
 

As another point, if an airline, whose job is to sell you transportation, cannot get you to your ticketed destination, they are by law required to offer you a refund. Why are cruise lines different?  
 

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1 minute ago, intr3pid said:

Ahh, the customary leap from itinerary modifications to "developing multiple new itineraries to multiple new ports".  Maybe it IS the naivety that makes the world go round - but still nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact:

 

Oh, did you think that only one itinerary needed to be modified and it only involved one port? 

 

SMH

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20 hours ago, Bo1953 said:

Well, all I can add is, My popcorn does not ever get stale on topics like this one... even without butter! 😂

 

bon voyage

Just catching up on this thread.....You gave me a chuckle!

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We are sympathetic with the OP and their concern.  But all the cruise lines are caught in a no-win situation.  Would you have them change the itinerary for your cruise?  Should they also change itineraries for a cruise in 6 months, 8 ,months, 10 ,months?  And what some of the newly schedules ports later have their own medical emergency?  There is no way to predict the situation a month from now, 6 weeks, etc.  What if the Coronovirus becomes a major problem in your own country?  And even worse consider if there is a major flu outbreak...which is killing many more then the new virus.  We all have to suck it up and take a wait and see attitude.

 

Hank

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5 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

Oh, did you think that only one itinerary needed to be modified and it only involved one port? 

 

SMH

Well, considering only two more Millennium sailings left in this season - one in each of February and March - still involving HK/China, I had a choice.  I could sit here, shake my head, and type first. 

 

Or, I could think.

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1 minute ago, intr3pid said:

Well, considering only two more Millennium sailings left in this season - one in each of February and March - still involving HK/China, I had a choice.  I could sit here, shake my head, and type first. 

 

Or, I could think.

I suggest that you give the latter a try! :classic_biggrin:

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41 minutes ago, keifernny said:

As a cruiser who was supposed to sail on the 2/1 millennium, I have to say that I agree with OP that celebrity waited way too long to offer refunds. The airlines started offering  refunds/changes for itineraries including Hong Kong as of Sunday.  Celebrity waited until 6pm EST Thursday (which was already Friday in Singapore) to send me an email saying that I could cancel my Saturday sailing for FCC. My travel agent was closed for the day and couldn’t address it until Friday, which was sail date in Singapore. I understand that there are a number of things that need to be addressed w/r/t port changes, but they could’ve offered refunds sooner, and I really question whether they waited so that most people would already be on their 30 hour flights and wouldn’t back out. They could’ve Triaged the situation and worked out the new port list separately from offering refunds. 
 

As another point, if an airline, whose job is to sell you transportation, cannot get you to your ticketed destination, they are by law required to offer you a refund. Why are cruise lines different?  
 

 

So what actually happened?

Did you cancel the cruise, cancel air and reach your TA in time?

Or did you get to Singapore?

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22 minutes ago, intr3pid said:

Well, considering only two more Millennium sailings left in this season - one in each of February and March - still involving HK/China, I had a choice.  I could sit here, shake my head, and type first. 

 

Or, I could think.

 

you are correct that sometimes a one port change can be done quickly. Sometimes it becomes an extra sea day and you may never know why.

 

You are also correct that the Millennium only had a few more sailings to be fixed. However, the Millennium is not the only ship over there trying to get into a port. I know Holland had some cruises out there. I would assume there are also some cargo ships out there. Also, the days for stops are switching. The stop in Taipei on the 3/14 trip was day 3. Now it will end up being 11 or 12. Just because a boat can get into a port on one day doesn't mean they can get in the next. I'm not positive, but I guess how many dock workers that will be on hand may affect it. I won't even pretend I know the labor laws/union rules in Taiwan

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3 minutes ago, txflood33 said:

 

you are correct that sometimes a one port change can be done quickly. Sometimes it becomes an extra sea day and you may never know why.

 

You are also correct that the Millennium only had a few more sailings to be fixed. However, the Millennium is not the only ship over there trying to get into a port. I know Holland had some cruises out there. I would assume there are also some cargo ships out there. Also, the days for stops are switching. The stop in Taipei on the 3/14 trip was day 3. Now it will end up being 11 or 12. Just because a boat can get into a port on one day doesn't mean they can get in the next. I'm not positive, but I guess how many dock workers that will be on hand may affect it. I won't even pretend I know the labor laws/union rules in Taiwan

Princess too has a lot of ships currently in Southeast Asia, and so do RCL, AIDA, and Costa (though the cruise terminals aren't shared with any container traffic).  Winter is a busy time in Asia.  And it is a dynamic situation, I agree.

 

The real priority issue - nevertheless - for all airlines and cruise ships is the embarkation/debarkation in HK/China.  If you are asking passengers to pass through these ports, you are risking their re-entries into their own countries.  Or asking them to be subjected to a mandatory two-week quarantine.  I would think these bans aren't going away anytime soon.

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I think that the lesson from this is to purchase cancel for any reason cruise insurance.  I have not been doing this but I probably will start.

 

Celebrity seems rather slow to react/inform.  The ports that they will substitute will most likely be in cooler regions or not as popular or good as the original itinerary.

 

 

Edited by NMTraveller
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