Correction RE Westerdam cancellation

[sarellen8385]

Did anyone else get this message today? It is re Westerdam Oct. 2021 to Nov. 13, 2021.

 

 

 

Dear Valued Guest:

 

On Friday, November 20, we announced an extension of our pause in cruise operations as we begin to prepare our ships and implement all procedures under the CDC's Framework for Conditional Sailing Order. As a result of that announcement several voyages were cancelled and guests were advised accordingly.

 

In reviewing our records, we have discovered that your 26-Day Mediterranean Romance & Spanish Farewell voyage on board Westerdam  was inadvertently included in the notifications sent to guests whose voyages had been cancelled. That notification was sent in error, and we wish to reassure you that this voyage has not been cancelled and your booking remains active.

 

Please accept our deepest apologies for this error.

 

We very much regret any confusion this may have caused, and thank you again for choosing Holland America Line. We look forward to welcoming you on board.

 

Best regards,

 

Holland America Line

 

Edited December 11, 2020 by sarellen8385
Forgot to remove booking number

[StLouisCruisers]

3 hours ago, sarellen8385 said:

Did anyone else get this message today? It is re Westerdam Oct. 2021 to Nov. 13, 2021.

 

 

 

Dear Valued Guest:

 

On Friday, November 20, we announced an extension of our pause in cruise operations as we begin to prepare our ships and implement all procedures under the CDC's Framework for Conditional Sailing Order. As a result of that announcement several voyages were cancelled and guests were advised accordingly.

 

In reviewing our records, we have discovered that your 26-Day Mediterranean Romance & Spanish Farewell voyage on board Westerdam  was inadvertently included in the notifications sent to guests whose voyages had been cancelled. That notification was sent in error, and we wish to reassure you that this voyage has not been cancelled and your booking remains active.

 

Please accept our deepest apologies for this error.

 

We very much regret any confusion this may have caused, and thank you again for choosing Holland America Line. We look forward to welcoming you on board.

 

Best regards,

 

Holland America Line

 

 

I am glad to hear your cruise wasn't cancelled but you must be pretty upset about getting the wrong info from HAL.  That was weeks ago that email went out and I can hardly believe their mistake slipped through the cracks like that.  I hope it hasn't inconvenienced you being "off and on" again.  Good luck with the cruise! 

[sarellen8385]

Thanks! We were surprised by it and wondered why it took 3 weeks to correct the error.

[kazu]

Yes those of us that were on that cruise and were told it was cancelled got the email.

 

The cruise disappeared from the website so I believe that it was cancelled as it’s ‘frozen’ right now while they assign cabins.  To me, that would only happen if they had cancelled and re-instated it.

 

Maybe it’s just me, but I find it a bit audacious that the assumption has been made that everyone who was booked and then cancelled still plans on sailing on this cruise.   Especially when it took them this long to correct the error.  😳 😯 

 

[Cruising-along]

I'm not sure why, but we didn't get the email.  Thanks to the roll call I found out about it.  DH called our TA who also hadn't heard about it.  Checked our spam, not there either....

[sambamama]

I can't go.  It has been a month and they say it is a simple error. First, a simple error would not take a month to realize they were wrong-we all knew they were wrong about the date!  Second, they want everyone to jump back on with their reservation without offering not one bit of additional compensation.  Are they crazy??  You can't say, hey your cruise is cancelled, and then say ONE MONTH LATER, no we are sorry , it is back on, you are still booked (and this is in COVID times) and expect people to think ,yup, I was hoping they would bring my cancelled cruise back (because they have brought so many cancelled cruises back!)  Perhaps if they had said, we are putting this on hold, we need to double check the date-and we will let you know in a week or two, people might be OK.  BUT they did not do that.  Me, right after they cancelled this, I went to work trying to salvage my vacation.  I already had hotels booked and a flight over.  I  changed my plans and decided to do a month long land tour of Spain and Portugal.  I have interior European flights and hotels-EVERYTHING IS BOOKED!  Plus I have to plan in advance for my job.  I can't go back and undo all this because they say the cruise is back on.  For all I know, they could cancel it again.  And because I paid with FCC, I supposedly get nothing again.  So for three cancelled cruises, I have gotten a grand total of $600.  I am totally fed up.  I told my TA they better give me some compensation.  This is totally ridiculous, and no way to run a company.  I love HAL, but since they have now cancelled four cruises on me, and in my opinion, they owe me over $10k, and they say it is $3300, my love affair has gone sour.  Plus the whole way they have communicated with me (which is not), and given me my compensation ( which took well over five months) and did not happen until I wrote Mr. Arocha has left me very unhappy.  All the cruises are now priced at 100% single supplement.  You can't find anything for under $3k for a 2 week cruise.  Nothing has much shipboard credit at all. I had cruises that were $1500 with $900 of shipboard credit cancelled.  I can't even find cruises I want.  I can't cruise in 2021-I have too much travel planned.  I hate to say this, but I may not be cruising again.  I may use up my FCC or just take it and leave.  HAL has behaved horribly and I have no good will left with them.  They may have committed consumer protection violations as well. 

[sambamama]

 

"Please accept our deepest apologies for this error.

We very much regret any confusion this may have caused, and thank you again for choosing Holland America Line. "

 

HAL thinks this makes up for their huge error?  Two lines of apology?  That they caused confusion? That they caused Perplexment, or disorientation or disconcerted?  No, there was no CONFUSION.   They said we cancel your cruise.  They may have been perplexed or confused, but we were not.  We know what "cancelled means.  It means no cruise-make other plans.  They cancelled our cruise November 20-then they "uncancelled" our cruise today.  But they don't get to decide if we are still booked-they cancelled it.  I think you have a valid travel claim if you send travel insurance the email saying the cruise was cancelled.  I don't think that they can uncancel a cruise-they can reschedule one to replace once they cancel.  But you can't can't uncancel something 25 days later.  It's just like an airline flight.  When COVID hit, TAP was cancelling flights.  But they tried calling it rescheduling.  If it has a new flight number , it is cancelled, it is not rescheduled.  

[sambamama]

And Kazu, I totally agree with you. The cruise is still not up on the website. An uncancelled cruise would remain on the website. They are using language to try to trick us. The cruise was cancelled, we have an email that told us so. An inadvertent error would not take 24 days to fix. We aren't that stupid. I am a lawyer. Part of our training is to interpret words and see if they were used in an ambiguous way. There is nothing ambiguous about cancelled. And how much do they regret this error? Very much, but not enough to give any sort of compensation on their part. I wouldn't say they regret the error at all. Management has made some very poor choices this year. For two of my cancelled cruises, they had replacements in place within  2-3 weeks. You would think they would have emailed me to offer the same booking on the replacement. Nope, not at all! And I never found out until months later. Right now there are hotel bargains galore. But HAL cruises are much much more expensive, at least for singles, and there are no bargains to be had. 

[fusion927]

We are on the 10/10/21 (since rescheduled to 10/20/21) TA out of Amsterdam on the Rotterdam.  We received the original cancellation notice in the morning and then received a similar letter as in the original post  just a few hours later, the same day!

 

They did reschedule it to depart 10 days later so it wouldn't reach Florida until after November 1st.

 

Can't believe it took them weeks to realize their error.

[sambamama]

Morons are running this company.  This is not a "correction", this is not an "uncancellation."  You can't send out an email saying your cruise is cancelled from the company, and then send out another one 24 days later saying the cruise is "uncancelled" and you are still booked!  And you got notice the same day!  Then they are even more moronic than I thought!!!!

[bennybear]

Somehow reminds me of the Hawaii ballistic missile inbound,  this is not a drill text!  How do they walk these back?

[VMax1700]

Gotta say, that as soon as it is shown on HAL website, I will try to move my Volendam TA to the Westerdam.  I have always been of the opinion that there is no way they would finally cancel the original TA as they had to get the ship back to USA and no way would they sail it empty. My thoughts were that if there was a Westerdam European season, then there would be a TA.

I now have so many cruises on hold or booked, that I am starting to feel like HAL having to cancel so many.

[sambamama]

I wrote to HAL about this.  What the gist is HAL is cheating people by calling this not a cancellation.  Anyone getting off this cruise WILL NOT GET EXTRA FCC  BECAUSE HAL SAYS THIS IS NOT A CANCELLATION EVEN THOUGH THEIR INITIAL EMAIL SAYS IT IS A CANCELLATION AND THE EMAIL A MONTH LATER SAYS IT IS A CANCELLATION!  They won't give anyone anything, although if you write and complain, you can get a free Pinnacle dinner-but not one that costs extra!  How they can justify this is beyond me, and they obviously did not run this by their lawyers because it does not hold water by contract law, and even if it did, the concept of detrimental reliance still renders it a victory for the consumer.