Warning when booking carnival excursions

[rukkian]

Just found out a issue when booking carnival excursions that hopefully can help others in the future.  If there is any chance of cancelling an excursion later on, book them all one at a time on different orders.  If you book several together and decide to cancel one, they make you cancel the entire order.  I tried online, and then also calling customer service, and got the same answer.  The problem with with - you have to wait some time to get the money back (in this case gift cards), if there are ones that are now fully booked, you may never get them back, and if you booked during a sale, you will no longer get that sale price.  

 

We have one we have decided to book - kayaking for 4 of us at HMC, and it will cost us about the same to cancel and rebook at higher prices than to just keep it.  Had I made several individual bookings, I could have cancelled just the one.  

[lasekeye]

Hmmmmm, thanks for the “heads-up”.

[shof515]

or you can wait till you get onboard the ship and then cancel. the cancellation will be refunded as onboard credit that you can use onboard the ship or they will mail a check at the end of the cruise

[rukkian]

53 minutes ago, shof515 said:

or you can wait till you get onboard the ship and then cancel. the cancellation will be refunded as onboard credit that you can use onboard the ship or they will mail a check at the end of the cruise

According to customer service, that would incur a 25% penalty, and would not be obc, it would be sent as a gc in the mail after the fact.  Just can't believe they wont let me cancel one of the 8 we booked.

[ninjacat123]

Good to know, thx!

[2wheelin]

2 hours ago, rukkian said:

According to customer service, that would incur a 25% penalty, and would not be obc, it would be sent as a gc in the mail after the fact.  Just can't believe they wont let me cancel one of the 8 we booked.

We have canceled on board (night before excursion) and did not receive a penalty, and received OBC. The problem with waiting, I believe, is that you cannot book  something else in that time period until the first one is canceled.

[sparks1093]

Definitely worth knowing, thanks!

[StolidCruiser]

In my experience, this is when you book during a “bundle sale”. I have always been able to cancel a single excursion when booking several at the same time that wasn’t part of a “bundle sale” which understandably would negate the availability  of a discount or sale applicable those that remain uncanceled.

 

 

[edspec]

Same thing happened to me when I booked cooking classes together on Panorama. Decided a few days later I didn't want one of them and tried to cancel. Followed same procedure as the OP, including call to customer service. Will always book one at a time for classes or excursions going forward.

[Bases5]

We learned this awhile back also.  it's the same thing if you buy from the fun shops.  group orders are cancelled as group orders.  We buy everything as single items now.

  I think one reasons way back when they used to give 10% discounts on shore excursion the first 48 hours after booking.  They were sold normally in groups of 3 excursion.  you used to be able cancel 1 and keep the discount on the other 2. (covering eyes) I did this for the savings.  They caught on and fixed it.

[Mrs CruisinCritter]

We ran into a weird issue when we booked excursions through a bundle sale on our Horizon cruise that put us into a similar situation in regard to needing to make changes.
 

We noticed after booking that the system booked our then 6yo son on different departure time slot than DH and I because we must have bought the last 3 tickets. We called the shore excursions number as soon as we realized what happened a few days later when one of us was looking at the booking and noticed the issue. They advised that we wait until we board the ship and explain what had happened to the shore excursions desk so they could correct the issue and get all of us booked for the same departure time. Since we didn’t notice the issue until after the sale price was no longer being offered, that was the only way they could make an adjustment and honor the bundle price. It had to be done on the ship. We asked the rep to send an email to my husband’s email account explaining what she said, just to be safe, so we could take it on the ship, but it wasn’t needed. 
 

Fast forward several months, we get on board and wait until the first sea day to go see the reps at the shore excursions desk. Once we explained that we booked during a bundle sale but wanted to make changes to our excursions, the rep swapped our excursions around with no issues and they honored the bundle sale discount. We even completely changed one excursion out for a different one because we decided we would rather have a beach day instead of sight seeing in Curaçao. We didn’t have to show them the email from the rep that we took just in case. They just did it automatically because the bundle sale was in the system where we booked it that way.
 

We even managed to get a small refund on one excursion that we didn’t make any adjustments to because it had come down in price and was almost $10 cheaper per person than when we had originally booked it several months prior. It was a win-win. There were no fees when cancelling or adjusting any of our excursions, even the one that we decided the change because we had just changed our mind about it.
 

Cancelling the day of the excursion may incur a penalty or fee, but cancelling before the day of shouldn’t incur a fee if done onboard the ship unless something had changed very recently. 

[HeidiHo]

I noticed this same thing just today when I decided to cancel the soda I had ordered. I had ordered 2 - 6 packs of soda. I was considering only cancelling only one but I had to cancel both. It's only soda so not a lot of money and I could still go in and order one if I decide to. At least I don't have a lot of money tied up waiting for a refund.

[2wheelin]

So would this also be a problem if 3 people in one cabin book the same excursion in one transaction and one later decided they want to book something else? Would the other two need to cancel and rebook if the one wanted to book before sailing?

[sparks1093]

9 hours ago, 2wheelin said:

So would this also be a problem if 3 people in one cabin book the same excursion in one transaction and one later decided they want to book something else? Would the other two need to cancel and rebook if the one wanted to book before sailing?

I think it's probably likely that all three would need to cancel under those circumstances.

[rukkian]

10 hours ago, 2wheelin said:

So would this also be a problem if 3 people in one cabin book the same excursion in one transaction and one later decided they want to book something else? Would the other two need to cancel and rebook if the one wanted to book before sailing?

From what I can tell, that is correct, you would need to cancel the whole order.  

[2wheelin]

Good to know. Would never have thought of that.

[LuckyStar]

On 2/2/2020 at 11:54 AM, rukkian said:

Just found out a issue when booking carnival excursions that hopefully can help others in the future.  If there is any chance of cancelling an excursion later on, book them all one at a time on different orders.  If you book several together and decide to cancel one, they make you cancel the entire order.  I tried online, and then also calling customer service, and got the same answer.  The problem with with - you have to wait some time to get the money back (in this case gift cards), if there are ones that are now fully booked, you may never get them back, and if you booked during a sale, you will no longer get that sale price.  

 

We have one we have decided to book - kayaking for 4 of us at HMC, and it will cost us about the same to cancel and rebook at higher prices than to just keep it.  Had I made several individual bookings, I could have cancelled just the one.  

Great advice...Thanks for sharing!