Worst canelation policy in the cruise industry

[MalteseMama2]

On 2/11/2020 at 4:08 PM, mom2tcdx2 said:

 

 

I am very sorry to hear about your mom.  Though honestly I am not even sure some insurance companies cover the reason being related to someone else, unless it is the cancel for any reason type policies.  

 

2 years ago we were faced with a similar situation. My father was in his last days and we had a cruise coming up. I called our TA to see if our insurance would cover cancellation and she said yes, it would but wait until a couple days before canceling. Daddy passed a week before the cruise so we were able to go. While it wasn’t the happiest trip, it was very restful and healing. 
My prayers are with the OP. Losing a parent is extremely difficult. 

[HBE4]

7 hours ago, ONECRUISER said:

Agree. Though over last 23yrs on CC seen many one and done's...

 

He fit's the profile of one-and-done.....newly created account.....a grand total of 2 posts, both blasting RCL, to their name.

 

Then again, as his mother is in her final days, I'm sure his priorities lie elsewhere. Other than a few people in the early part of this thread that offered actual helpful advice that the OP could use in his current situation, there is little reason for him to return to this thread. Funny, as soon as I saw the title, I knew exactly how this thread would evolve before reading the first post.

[KelSny1011]

Shouldn't we as a consumer know what we are getting ourselves into before we put down thousands of dollars on a trip?  OP has already been down this road before by canceling a previous cruise due to being ill.  I have a hard time believing he wasn't aware of insurance, and since he was able to get himself out of last cruise, he assumed the same thing would be acceptable with RCI cruise.  Tough lesson to learn, however, it's not a matter of compassion it's a matter of knowing what you're purchasing before you plan something that is going to cost you a lot of $$.  People talk about the extra money it costs to have insurance, how it makes the cruise more expensive and some people cannot afford it.  I find that excuse ridiculous.  I'm far from rich, but I'm smart enough to know that this trip is costing me a lot of money so why risk it? I get the insurance.   May this post be a lesson to all.  ANYTHING.CAN.HAPPEN.DO.NOT.RISK.IT.

[Icesk8rReedy]

For every person that says they are done with RCL and will only CCL, there is someone else stating they will never cruise with CCL every again and will only do RCL.  These billion $ companies won't miss him.

[A&L_Ont]

3 hours ago, HBE4 said:

Funny, as soon as I saw the title, I knew exactly how this thread would evolve before reading the first post.

A lot of us were right there with you.  I see a title like that, and the first thing is do is look at their post count/join date.
 

99.9% of the time that says it all. 

Edited February 13, 2020 by A&L_Ont

[nascarcruiser]

On 2/11/2020 at 7:06 PM, lowbass said:

I would say that the vast majority of people don't buy trip insurance because they can't afford it or think it's necessary. Not so they can get their money back or reschedule a cruise if they have an emergency right before their cruise. 

 

When my wife and I first started cruising we just did 3 or 4 night cruises. And we never brought trip insurance because we didn't feel like it was needed(and it never was needed).

 

Now we take 7 day or longer cruises and we always get trip insurance.

 

 

My take on insurance is this, if you can't afford the insurance and can't afford to lose the cost of the trip you don't need to travel.   For us cancel for any reason insurance cost an extra couple of hundred dollars or less.   We figure it as part of the cost of the trip.   If it puts us at a cost we aren't comfortable with we don't go.  We do not and will not travel without cancel for any reason insurance. 

To the OP sorry about your mother and the situation with the cruise line. 

[royal girl]

I don't understand why they just can't move their cruise.   I had a cruise booked for April 2020.  A couple decided that they wanted to go with us, but not in April.  I called my TA and moved our reservation to August 2020 - no questions asked.  Is it because I actually had another cruise in mind and did not ask them to 'hold' my credit?  Why couldn't they just pick out a future cruise and move their reservation?  I must be missing something here!! 

 

ps:  we still have not made our final payment.  not sure if that has anything to do with it.

Edited February 13, 2020 by royal girl

[Ourusualbeach]

4 minutes ago, royal girl said:

I don't understand why they just can't move their cruise.   I had a cruise booked for April 2020.  A couple decided that they wanted to go with us, but not in April.  I called my TA and moved our reservation to August 2020 - no questions asked.  Is it because I actually had another cruise in mind and did not ask them to 'hold' my credit?  Why couldn't they just pick out a future cruise and move their reservation?  I must be missing something here!! 

 

ps:  we still have not made our final payment.  not sure if that has anything to do with it.

It’s because you are not past final payment, they are.  

 

After final payment there are different cancellation penalties depending on how close to sail date you are.  Within 30 days is 100% penalty phase. 

Edited February 13, 2020 by Ourusualbeach

[molly361]

5 minutes ago, royal girl said:

I don't understand why they just can't move their cruise.   I had a cruise booked for April 2020.  A couple decided that they wanted to go with us, but not in April.  I called my TA and moved our reservation to August 2020 - no questions asked.  Is it because I actually had another cruise in mind and did not ask them to 'hold' my credit?  Why couldn't they just pick out a future cruise and move their reservation?  I must be missing something here!! 

 

ps:  we still have not made our final payment.  not sure if that has anything to do with it.

And you must have had a refundable deposit booking or you would have been charged a change fee

[royal girl]

I see.  Thanks for clarifying! 

[Milwaukee Eight]

28 minutes ago, A&L_Ont said:

A lot of us were right there with you.  I see a title like that, and the first thing is do is look at their post count/join date.
 

99.9% of the time that says it all. 

Andrew, I sure wish you were a bit more confrontational. Lol

 

Peace

[HBE4]

1 hour ago, A&L_Ont said:

A lot of us were right there with you.  I see a title like that, and the first thing is do is look at their post count/join date.
 

99.9% of the time that says it all. 

 

And yet, against my better judgment,  I foolishly let myself be drawn in and added my .02 cents. 😀

 

[Biker19]

17 minutes ago, HBE4 said:

 

And yet, against my better judgment,  I foolishly let myself be drawn in and added my .02 cents. 😀

 

Just like in a dress code, tipping, etc... thread

[molly361]

Cancel that transmission

Edited February 13, 2020 by molly361

[dodgestang]

Just for giggles I did actually do a side by side comparison....for the most part RCCL and Carnival have the same "No full refund after final payment date" policy.

 

The small difference here being it appears the RCCL is a blanket "final payment due 90 day before sailing" while Carnival has a sliding scale (shorter cruises have closer to cruise final payment dates.....going from 60 days for the shortest to 90 days for the longer ones.

 

After that, then there is also some small difference in that RCCL hits the 100% non-refundable at 30 days while Carnival appears to be at 15 days with 1 certain type of category NEVER refundable. 

 

RCCL policy (edit to replace cruise contract with website details that show delta based on cruise length)

 

FOR 1 TO 4 NIGHT CRUISES (including Holiday sailings) IF CANCELLATION IS MADE	CANCELLATION CHARGE
75 days or more prior to the first day of the Cruise	No charge (except for Nonrefundable Deposit amounts)
74 to 61 days	50% of total price
60 to 31 days	75% of total price
30 days or less	100% of total price (No refund)

 

FOR 5 NIGHTS OR LONGER CRUISES (including Holiday sailings and Cruisetours) IF CANCELLATION IS MADE	CANCELLATION CHARGE
90 days or more prior to the first day of the Cruise	No charge (except for Nonrefundable Deposit amounts)
89 to 75 days	25% of total price
74 to 61 days	50% of total price
60 to 31 days	75% of total price
30 days or less	100% of total price (No refund)

 

Carnival stated policy

• 2, 3, 4 & 5 Day Cruises (excluding all Alaska & Europe cruises and all cruises purchased under the Pack & Go Fare)
  • 56 Days to 75 Days Prior to Departure: Deposit Paid
  • 55 Days to 30 Days Prior to Departure: 50% of the total fare or the deposit amount, whichever is greater
  • 29 Days to 15 Days Prior to Departure: 75% of the total fare or the deposit amount, whichever is greater
  • 14 Days Prior to Departure: 100%* of total fare
• 6 - 9 Day Cruises (excluding all Alaska & Europe cruises and all cruises purchased under the Pack & Go Fare)
  • 56 Days to 90 Days Prior to Departure: Deposit Paid
  • 30 Days to 55 Days Prior to Departure: 50% of the total fare or the deposit amount, whichever is greater
  • 15 Days to 29 Days Prior to Departure: 75% of the total fare or the deposit amount, whichever is greater
  • 14 Days Prior to Departure: 100%* of total fare
• 10+ Day Cruises, as well as all Alaska & Europe Cruises
  • 56 Days to 90 Days Prior to Departure: Deposit Paid
  • 30 Days to 55 Days Prior to Departure: 50% of the total fare or the deposit amount, whichever is greater
  • 15 Days to 29 Days Prior to Departure: 75% of the total fare or the deposit amount, whichever is greater
  • 14 Days Prior to Departure: 100%* of total fare
• All Cruises Purchased Under the Pack & Go Fare
  • Any time after booking: 100%* of total fare

So from a certain POV.....RCCL does appear to have a worse general cancel policy....but neither cruise line would ever just give you all your money back after passing a well documented cut off point.  This is also the reason why you can add or even removed insurance from your trip right up until final payment.  Because technically.....you don't need it until you past final payment and subject to cancel policy.

Edited February 13, 2020 by dodgestang

[xxHadleyxx]

OP--in case you are still reading, two things:

First, I am very sorry that your mother is so ill.  

Secondly, if you have not canelled yet, I have just pulled the paperwork for our next several RCI cruises and all state !A change fee of $100 USD per guest will apply for ship or sail date changes"

This is what I expected to see as we have made use of this policy when an unexpected work conflict caused us to move a cruise with short notice.

As I read it, and as it was applied for us, so long as you choose another cruise and go ahead and move the booking to that new sailing, you can do so for only $100 per person (so in your case, $200, right?).  This is a far better deal than being out the full fare, or whichever portion of it you are on the line for if you fully cancel.

 

Otherwise, again, while I feel so much for you seeing your mother ill and knowing you will lose her soon--I have to agree with the majority that it is not reasonable to expect RCI to give you a refund or issue a FCC in this situation.  Personally, we have a travel medical insurance policy which we carry at all times and otherwise choose not to buy insurance (we travel so often and are young enough and have means to handle emergency flights and/or lost cruise fare if needed, that it is worth the risk for us at this time---as we age it will become less so) but we KNOW the risk is OURS and not the responsibility of the cruise line.

[TX_Atlantis_Cruiser]

As others have said the OP likely is not returning to read any more of this thread, but just for the record someone just posted on the Carnival boards that they are set to sail this coming Sunday and their father was just put in hospice not expecting to make it Monday. Their options are the same with Carnival as the OP's were with Royal and the advice on the thread reads almost the same as this one. Shoulda bought insurance because now you are out of luck as Carnival likely won't make an exception to their policy. Regardless of what you think about "big corporations being heartless" and all of that, bottom line is you always self-insure whether that means you buy a policy or you risk losing your entire vacation. 

[Ourusualbeach]

33 minutes ago, xxHadleyxx said:

OP--in case you are still reading, two things:

First, I am very sorry that your mother is so ill.  

Secondly, if you have not canelled yet, I have just pulled the paperwork for our next several RCI cruises and all state !A change fee of $100 USD per guest will apply for ship or sail date changes"

This is what I expected to see as we have made use of this policy when an unexpected work conflict caused us to move a cruise with short notice.

As I read it, and as it was applied for us, so long as you choose another cruise and go ahead and move the booking to that new sailing, you can do so for only $100 per person (so in your case, $200, right?).  This is a far better deal than being out the full fare, or whichever portion of it you are on the line for if you fully cancel.

 

Otherwise, again, while I feel so much for you seeing your mother ill and knowing you will lose her soon--I have to agree with the majority that it is not reasonable to expect RCI to give you a refund or issue a FCC in this situation.  Personally, we have a travel medical insurance policy which we carry at all times and otherwise choose not to buy insurance (we travel so often and are young enough and have means to handle emergency flights and/or lost cruise fare if needed, that it is worth the risk for us at this time---as we age it will become less so) but we KNOW the risk is OURS and not the responsibility of the cruise line.

Unfortunately that only applies up until final payment.  After final payment there is a separate cancellation schedule. 

[mayleeman]

I actually am a little surprised that no one has suggested that the OP could have availed himself of the chance to let his wife go on the cruise. I would have been thrilled for my wife and a cousin or sister or friend of hers to to get away from the final days after she had been taking care of my mother so devotedly in her final months.

 

More importantly, I know my mother would have felt very content with that arrangement knowing that her approaching death was not leaving everyone miserable. She always hated her teenage-years memories of families in her small town gathering for a deathwatch, and made us promise we would celebrate her life by living ours.

 

Obviously, everyone reacts differently to the loss of a parent, and grieving manifests itself in extremely varying ways. I disagree, however, with the suggestion that it gives anyone the right to expect the world not to hold us accountable for our obligations. (I wonder how the OP made the request to RC in the first place.)

 

 

[xxHadleyxx]

10 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

Unfortunately that only applies up until final payment.  After final payment there is a separate cancellation schedule. 

Interesting.  The sentence directly before the one I quoted reads "Final payment has been posted to your reservation" (though we did pay a fw weeks sooner than requred, maybe tha is why?) and I knwow we made such a change only about 6 weeks out from sail date once, but perhaps the policy has changed?  Or maybe that was one of our German bookings (where finaly payment is only 30 days out) but I am 90% that it was a US booking.  Hmmm,  We had just called and asked if we could possibly switch sailings or if I needed to find someone to take my husband's spot on the booked sailing and that was offered to us as the standard policy.  In any case, the wording does NOT indicate that you cannot change ship and sail date past final payment date:
 All other penalites are listed as for "cancellation" not "ship and sail date changes" so I do think it would be fair to press on that issue a bit as those two things are listed seperately and a clear differance is made between the two in the wording in the documentation.  

Edited February 13, 2020 by xxHadleyxx

[Ourusualbeach]

4 minutes ago, xxHadleyxx said:

Interesting.  The sentence directly before the one I quoted reads "Final payment has been posted to your reservation" (though we did pay a fw weeks sooner than requred, maybe tha is why?) and I knwow we made such a change only about 6 weeks out from sail date once, but perhaps the policy has changed?  We had jsut called and asked if we could switch sailings or if I needed to find someone to take my husband'S spot and that was offered to us as the standard policy.  In any case, the wording does NOT indicate that you cannot change ship and sail date past final payment date:
 All other penalites are listed as for "cancellation" not "ship and sail date changes" so I do think it would be fair to press on that issue a bit as those two things are listed seerately and a clear differatin is made between the two in the wording in the documentation.  

Yes, it is when the cruise lines final payment date is and not when you pay it.  Also final payment dates have changed (become longer) in recent years. 

 

After final payment any change to the booking either ship or sail date is considered a cancellation.  

Edited February 13, 2020 by Ourusualbeach

[xxHadleyxx]

4 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

Yes, it is when the cruise lines final payment date is and not when you pay it.  Also final payment dates have changed (become longer) in recent years. 

 

After final payment any change to the booking either ship or sail date is considered a cancellation.  

I believe you.  Nonetheless, in that case, it is NOT clearly stateded as such in the documentation, so there could have been room for reasonable discussion with RCI there.  I gather OP has already cancelled the cruise outright anyway, and also stopped reading (if they ever read it at all rather than just posting to get the complaint out there).

 

[mayleeman]

@xxHadleyxx  This is from RC's FAQ on cancellations. The timing might have been different for you (also, did yours get booked under US T&C?). Just including it here in case someone wanting to cancel could discover (after wading through all this) they could change instead, at least before final.

 

 

Non-Refundable Deposit Fares

Outside of final payment, when a non-refundable deposit cancellation occurs, you will receive a Future Cruise Certificate in the amount of their designated cruise deposit, less a $100 per guest change fee. Such Future Cruise Certificates can be applied towards your future Royal Caribbean cruise vacation when reserved within 1 year of the issue date. Thereafter, the Future Cruise Certificate will expire and becomes invalid.

Should you choose to change your original ship and/or sail date, if you booked directly with us, please contact our Consumer Outreach team at (866) 562-7625 where a representative will assist in making the desired changes, while also applying the qualifying change fee(s) and collecting payment, if not already done so.  If you booked via a travel advisor, please contact them for any booking changes.

 

 

Edited February 13, 2020 by mayleeman

[Ourusualbeach]

14 minutes ago, xxHadleyxx said:

I believe you.  Nonetheless, in that case, it is NOT clearly stateded as such in the documentation, so there could have been room for reasonable discussion with RCI there.  I gather OP has already cancelled the cruise outright anyway, and also stopped reading (if they ever read it at all rather than just posting to get the complaint out there).

 

It looks pretty clear to me.  

 

The reference to the $100pp penalty is in small print at the top where it refers to deposits.  

 

Below in a a larger font it describes the cancellation schedule and refers to before final payment it is non refundable deposit amounts and then clearly lists the penalties. 

[brillohead]

15 minutes ago, xxHadleyxx said:

I believe you.  Nonetheless, in that case, it is NOT clearly stateded as such in the documentation, so there could have been room for reasonable discussion with RCI there. 

It's pretty clear-cut on my booking confirmation from Royal: