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Possible Carnival Cancellation/Delay


trcamp
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38 minutes ago, Organized Chaos said:

Carnival couldn't predict the future. They didn't know all those cruises were doomed "from the get-go." Their initial shutdown was only set to last about a month. Their first extension of the shutdown was, again, for another month. Each time they wanted & intended to begin sailing again. They didn't know for sure the shutdown would be as bad as it's been. Then the CDC stepped in and extended their no-sail order, so Carnival was forced to shutter its doors for another three months. And that's where we are now, waiting to see what happens for August.

 

Carnival can't predict the future, just like they didn't know if the shut down would be extended, they didn't know if they were going to sail again either. I think where people too offense to Carnival's tactics were when the CDC shut down went to late July but they announced they would be sailing in late June. I don't think they knew for sure whether or not the CDC would release the conditions early, but they probably knew it was more likely than not that they wouldn't be sailing in June at this point. I think it's simply coming down to semantics. Carnival says "cruises are cancelled until August at which point we are working on a plan to phase cruising back in starting August 1" and some people hear "cruises are cancelled until August, who knows after that" and some people here "cruising is definitely going to restart August 1" 

 

Carnival's CEO has already said that the August restart is tentative and cancellations could be extended. I don't believe they have a boardroom full of executives laughing Dr. Evil style about all the people they are tricking into booking cruises they can't take. I think they are trying to keep their business afloat by optimistically scheduling cruises that they hope will sail and want to have bookings on hand in case they do. To me this is like if the weather man knows that tomorrow there's a 50% chance of sun and a 50% chance of clouds. He's going to put a little sun icon on the map because it's what people want to hear, even though it just as likely that it will be cloudy. Carnival is announcing "sail dates" to keep people booking so that when are finally able to sail they have a ship full of people ready to go. But they don't know any better than anyone on here on when that will actually be.

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Now this is just pure speculation and probably because I live in a land of unicorns and the glass is usually half full, but if you check one of the many cruise ship trackers/mappers all 8 carnival ships set to sail in August are clustered together off of Miami and South of Freeport. Do you think if carnival had this master plan to steal everyone's money and continue to book, these ships would just be floating around together in such close proximity to where a majority will sail from? 

 

Also after wanting to jump off the bridge after reading this thread and another one I felt compeled to email my PVP, who responded within 20 minutes. As of today August 2nd  is happening. Could that change tomorrow? YES, but as of today things are still a go. And before someone says that's a company line, please don't, I've used the same person for almost 20 years and trust this person more than many other people. This based on what our friends on one of those 8 ships floating around off of Miami leads me to believe that, the attempt to sail in August still exists and is going to happen. So some of those ships disappearing from booking in August may have reached the desired capacity.  Now can this all change tomorrow, next week or next month, absolutely, in a heart beat, based on second wave, CDC, just not being able to crew all 8 ships appropriately. 

 

Enjoy your days folks.. 

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We've received 3 emails from Carnival concerning our Aug 22 sailing on the Dream from Galveston.

Most encouraging sign is:

Your Countdown to Fun email series continues...   •  

Carnival

35b92519-c488-4b60-8257-8e40af5ee1aa.png

70 DAYS 'TILL YOUR CRUISE!

BOOKING #:              |  SAILING DATE: 08/22/2020

 

 

The other emails were reminders to finish booking our excursions & drink packages, etc.

A few weeks ago, Carnival sent email & offered a great $100 deal to upgrade from interior to balcony.  We took it.

$50 pp was awesome.

Luckily, we're an hour's drive  from Galveston, so flights to worry about.

We take it as Carnival wanted to do early Aug sailings right & wanted to limit capacity, move passengers from interiors to ocean & balconies...

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6 minutes ago, sanger727 said:

Carnival says "cruises are cancelled until August at which point we are working on a plan to phase cruising back in starting August 1" and some people hear "cruises are cancelled until August, who knows after that" and some people here "cruising is definitely going to restart August 1"

 

Right, a lot of people were confused by that announcement. That's exactly why Donald came out and clarified that the Aug. 1 date was not set in stone. I'm of the strong belief that it'll happen as long as the CDC doesn't say no. Carnival wants nothing more than to get back to business.

 

8 minutes ago, sanger727 said:

I don't believe they have a boardroom full of executives laughing Dr. Evil style about all the people they are tricking into booking cruises they can't take. I think they are trying to keep their business afloat by optimistically scheduling cruises that they hope will sail and want to have bookings on hand in case they do. To me this is like if the weather man knows that tomorrow there's a 50% chance of sun and a 50% chance of clouds. He's going to put a little sun icon on the map because it's what people want to hear, even though it just as likely that it will be cloudy. Carnival is announcing "sail dates" to keep people booking so that when are finally able to sail they have a ship full of people ready to go. But they don't know any better than anyone on here on when that will actually be.

 

I don't have a problem with anyone who doesn't think they'll restart in August. It's anybody's guess right now. My problem is with a handful of people who keep claiming it's some kind of secret scam to cheat people out of their money for cruises Carnival knows aren't happening. What you described there is not that at all...it's good business practice.

 

I'll go a small step further and say, I don't think they're just telling us what we want to hear (like your weatherman reference suggests). I think it's purely legitimate business. They have to have bookings in place in preparation for a return that they hope and intend to happen. They have to take these bookings with enough time to reach their desired capacities, or as close to it as possible.

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2 hours ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

It stands to reason that it's taking them a long time to process refunds. Thousands upon thousands of cancellations in a few short months, not to mention they were forced to work with heavy limitations as a result of stay-at-home orders.

 

 

I’m sorry this is not accurate , I see that this has been repeated several places ... this does not take long at all.  Perhaps if people pay by check it will take a while.. but EFT  reversal is quite easy and I’m sure they (ccl ) has a great relationship with their  provider.. If they wanted to they could reverse thousands , many thousands a day.. available funds is another Issue.

Spent 8 years in the pci  area and know most large merchant systems and many top tier  customers ... it’s not a work force issue In the slightest .. 

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If Universal, SeaWorld  can open and Disney is set to open on July 11 2 parks and July 15 the other 2 parks. I am getting more confident that Carnival will begin cruising in August. 

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2 hours ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

I'll go a small step further and say, I don't think they're just telling us what we want to hear (like your weatherman reference suggests). I think it's purely legitimate business. They have to have bookings in place in preparation for a return that they hope and intend to happen. They have to take these bookings with enough time to reach their desired capacities, or as close to it as possible.

 

I'm not saying it's not a legitimate business practice. But it's certainly a business focused practice as opposed to a customer focused practice. There are other cruise lines out there that I believe had been able to accomplish the same goal with more customer focused practices. I don't think there's anything wrong with someone saying "hey, maybe they will sail in August and if they do, I want to be on it". I do think there's something wrong with encouraging people to believe that if Carnival said that they will sail in August, then they will sail and August.  I think there are some people on these threads that foster that belief in others.  Someone who believes that and books may be sorely disappointed.  Carnival lost their credibility when they started announcing a new "sailing' date every month as opposed to just extending their cancellations. 

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I've heard that many are  now getting invites to pay for an upgraded cabin for sailings in August.  Dont think Carnival would do that deliberately if they knew they wouldnt be sailing.  Our cruises in Aug & Sep are still showing,  but our Hawaii Miracle from San Diego in Oct isnt .

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On 6/13/2020 at 9:05 PM, trcamp said:

We're booked on the Carnival Dream (Galveston, TX) embarking on 8/17. I noticed today while checking prices that the date was no longer appearing; then I got a notification from AA that my flight booked through Carnival had been cancelled. As far as I can tell, that flight is still operating so I think Carnival probably cancelled the flight either because the cruise will be cancelled, or there will be an itinerary change that necessitates a new flight time. Anyone else have insight?

Were you able to contact Carnival for an explanation?  

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By the way, our refunds to our Visa hasnt been bad. Royal has been 11-21 days, Carnival is longer 30-45 days. But longest & still waiting is Princess (they said they go in order of cruise date, not when you asked for the refund. I asked early Apr, for the cancelled June 27. (We go on a lot as my husband gets casino deals & we live in S. FL.). Saving so much just by being home LOL.

 

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1 hour ago, firefly333 said:

I was really dying to hear if the op called carnival and what explanation they gave her about why her flight got cancelled. Please start your own thread to argue. 

 

1 hour ago, bambilin said:

Were you able to contact Carnival for an explanation?  

 

I was catching up on work today and didn't have a chance but am planning to call them tomorrow morning. FB/Twitter support both said they didn't have access to flight booking information.

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16 minutes ago, trcamp said:

 

 

I was catching up on work today and didn't have a chance but am planning to call them tomorrow morning. FB/Twitter support both said they didn't have access to flight booking information.

Thanks for keeping us posted tr! Please keep us informed. We are ALL very interested in your predicament, sorry to say. It's so bizarre that the airline cancelled you booking, and nothing from Carnival. Bestest of luck to you! 👍

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18 hours ago, sanger727 said:

 

Carnival says "cruises are cancelled until August at which point we are working on a plan to phase cruising back in starting August 1" and some people hear "cruises are cancelled until August, who knows after that" and some people here "cruising is definitely going to restart August 1" 

 


You are not remembering that correctly.  Carnival didn’t say “we’re working on a plan”, they said “Our plan is to resume cruising slowly in August out of a small number of ports”.  They then cancelled every other August cruise (including my August cruise out of Jacksonville) and left Orlando, Miami, and Galveston open for bookings (including my new August cruise out of Orlando).

 

They weren’t “working on a plan” for August, they drafted and implemented a plan for August. 
 

I’m not mad at Carnival and I won’t be even if this cruise get cancelled, but I get tired of people on this forum saying “execs just said in an interview that they never meant sailing in August was the plan”.  Yes, they absolutely did, they actually put manpower hours into planning what ports would sail, cancelling the rest, and then updating the booking engine to reflect the plan they announced several weeks ago.

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20 hours ago, EZ1 said:

I've heard that many are  now getting invites to pay for an upgraded cabin for sailings in August.  Dont think Carnival would do that deliberately if they knew they wouldnt be sailing.  Our cruises in Aug & Sep are still showing,  but our Hawaii Miracle from San Diego in Oct isnt .

 

Don't count on it - those types of emails are automated.  I got offers in May from NCL to upgrade my cabin on a cruise that was cancelled at the end of April.

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24 minutes ago, shipbound2 said:

I hope they do sail  August 1,2020 but IMO I don't think they will sail but we'll see what happens. 

I am too, since we booked a cruise for 8/1 a year ago, but I think if they do resume in August it will be the shorter intinieries.

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On 6/15/2020 at 11:40 AM, outdoors27 said:

but if you check one of the many cruise ship trackers/mappers all 8 carnival ships set to sail in August are clustered together off of Miami and South of Freeport.

 


just to clarify, the Carnival Breeze, which is one of the 8, is now off United Kingdom.  The ship brought European employees back home. I’m sure when it returns it will join the other ships

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On 6/15/2020 at 12:05 PM, bitemyfly said:

I’m sorry this is not accurate , I see that this has been repeated several places ... this does not take long at all.  Perhaps if people pay by check it will take a while.. but EFT  reversal is quite easy and I’m sure they (ccl ) has a great relationship with their  provider.. If they wanted to they could reverse thousands , many thousands a day.. available funds is another Issue.

Spent 8 years in the pci  area and know most large merchant systems and many top tier  customers ... it’s not a work force issue In the slightest .. 

 

For what it's worth, I've seen others talk about their cancelled cruises on other lines and said they, too, were told 90 days, and in some cases longer. I don't think that's a coincidence. I don't know why it's taking the cruise lines that long, but I don't think it's for nefarious reasons.

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On 6/15/2020 at 1:01 PM, sanger727 said:

I'm not saying it's not a legitimate business practice. But it's certainly a business focused practice as opposed to a customer focused practice. There are other cruise lines out there that I believe had been able to accomplish the same goal with more customer focused practices. I don't think there's anything wrong with someone saying "hey, maybe they will sail in August and if they do, I want to be on it". I do think there's something wrong with encouraging people to believe that if Carnival said that they will sail in August, then they will sail and August.  I think there are some people on these threads that foster that belief in others.  Someone who believes that and books may be sorely disappointed.  Carnival lost their credibility when they started announcing a new "sailing' date every month as opposed to just extending their cancellations. 

 

Out of curiosity, could you give examples of how other lines are doing it in a more customer focused manner? Just to reiterate, we're talking about the practice of taking bookings for cruises that they hope and intend will happen, but may not because of a continued shutdown. If they hope for and intend August sailings to happen, how do they take bookings for that in a more customer focused manner? I mean, offering a refund or FCC is a given. Carnival has also been offering huge amounts of OBC (ex. $600 OBC) on future cruises for those who got cancelled. Amounts that go far beyond generosity, in my opinion. What more are the other lines doing?

 

I, personally, have posted many times that Donald clarified the Aug. 1st date wasn't set in stone. We here on CC are only tiny fraction of the Carnival cruising population, so there's certainly a lot more out there that still got the wrong message from their Aug. 1st date, but we can't do anything about that here. I haven't seen anyone on this forum who blatantly tries to make people think the Aug. 1st date is THE definitive return date.

 

They kept announcing new sail dates because they were only extending their shutdown for about a month at a time (in the beginning). If they say, "We're shutting down for a month," that's to say we hope to sail when that month is up. They had no idea what this mess was going to grow into. Everyone, not just cruise lines, said they were going to shut down for a month and they all hoped they'd reopen after that time, but it didn't work out that way. Carnival had to continue to take bookings for cruises they genuinely thought would happen, but we already discussed that. I'm one of the first people to criticize Carnival when I think they do something wrong, but I think they've handled this whole mess quite well.

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On 6/13/2020 at 8:05 PM, trcamp said:

We're booked on the Carnival Dream (Galveston, TX) embarking on 8/17. I noticed today while checking prices that the date was no longer appearing; then I got a notification from AA that my flight booked through Carnival had been cancelled. As far as I can tell, that flight is still operating so I think Carnival probably cancelled the flight either because the cruise will be cancelled, or there will be an itinerary change that necessitates a new flight time. Anyone else have insight?

 

Do you live in Canada? It sounds exactly like what happened to some Canadians on my August Magic cruise.

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1 hour ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

Out of curiosity, could you give examples of how other lines are doing it in a more customer focused manner? Just to reiterate, we're talking about the practice of taking bookings for cruises that they hope and intend will happen, but may not because of a continued shutdown. If they hope for and intend August sailings to happen, how do they take bookings for that in a more customer focused manner? I mean, offering a refund or FCC is a given. Carnival has also been offering huge amounts of OBC (ex. $600 OBC) on future cruises for those who got cancelled. Amounts that go far beyond generosity, in my opinion. What more are the other lines doing?

 

 

 

I believe that some lines, like Viking, cancelled several months out from the get go so as to not leave passengers in limbo and with the knowledge that they could potentially be leaving money on the table by not sailing as soon as possible. I would consider that customer focused.  The FCC and bonus OBC is fine, and I don't know if this has become an issue on Carnival, but on some lines people are reporting that to rebook the same cruise for the next year was exorbitantly more expensive.  If this isn't happening on Carnival then this may be less of an issue, but some lines like Royal and Celebrity allow passengers to simply move their booking to the next year, whether or not their cruise was cancelled, and keep the same price and any OBC or perks that they had with their booking. That's a nice gesture, if you aren't sure if you August cruise will be cancelled or not and don't want to deal with waiting could choose to move it without paying a cent extra. Refunds are being offered, but when they take 90+ days to get, that is certainly no customer focused.  Refunding their passengers in a reasonable period of time would be. 

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