If Celebrity changes embarkation port, can I cancel for full refund after final payment?

[MarkWiltonM]

I have a Celebrity cruise scheduled for November out of Fort Lauderdale, which is where I live. Does anyone know if Celebrity has the right to change the embarkation port after final payment without issuing a refund? And I mean refund, not a future cruise credit. I might be willing to fly to another port, but I want to have the option to do so or to cancel. I know they can change the itinerary based on weather, etc., after the cruise begins, but this seems quite different.

[Fouremco]

The cruise contract gives Celebrity the right to make changes at will, with no recourse for passengers:

 

CANCELLATION, DEVIATION OR SUBSTITUTION BY CARRIER:

 

a. Carrier may for any reason at any time and without prior notice, cancel, advance, postpone or deviate from any scheduled sailing, port of call, destination, lodging or any activity on or off the Vessel, or substitute another vessel or port of call, destination, lodging or activity. Except as provided in Section 7.e below, and except as provided in Section 4.e or Section 4.f regarding an actual or suspected COVID-19 infection, and except where a refund is required by law as a result of a declaration of a public health emergency or government order cancelling the Cruise or delaying boarding of the Vessel by Passengers by 24 hours or more, Carrier shall not be liable for any claim whatsoever by Passenger, including but not limited to loss, compensation or refund, by reason of such cancellation, advancement, postponement, substitution or deviation.

Edited May 8, 2021 by Fouremco

[gerelmx]

The house never loses

[DallasGuy75219]

8 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

The cruise contract gives Celebrity the right to make changes at will, with no recourse for passengers.

While not contractually required to, they would almost certainly offer refunds for customer goodwill purposes.

 

When Royal Caribbean announced they were moving Navigator from Ft. Lauderdale to California, booked passengers were told they were being moved to equivalent 3/4 day Bahamas itineraries on Freedom out of Miami, but we also had the option to cancel for a refund. 

[MarkWiltonM]

48 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

The cruise contract gives Celebrity the right to make changes at will, with no recourse for passengers:

 

CANCELLATION, DEVIATION OR SUBSTITUTION BY CARRIER:

 

a. Carrier may for any reason at any time and without prior notice, cancel, advance, postpone or deviate from any scheduled sailing, port of call, destination, lodging or any activity on or off the Vessel, or substitute another vessel or port of call, destination, lodging or activity. Except as provided in Section 7.e below, and except as provided in Section 4.e or Section 4.f regarding an actual or suspected COVID-19 infection, and except where a refund is required by law as a result of a declaration of a public health emergency or government order cancelling the Cruise or delaying boarding of the Vessel by Passengers by 24 hours or more, Carrier shall not be liable for any claim whatsoever by Passenger, including but not limited to loss, compensation or refund, by reason of such cancellation, advancement, postponement, substitution or deviation.

 

If I understand this correctly, it says they could cancel the cruise and not refund the passenger. That would mean they have the right to cancel a cruise, not substitute anything for it, and keep your money. Really?

[Fouremco]

10 minutes ago, MarkWiltonM said:

 

If I understand this correctly, it says they could cancel the cruise and not refund the passenger. That would mean they have the right to cancel a cruise, not substitute anything for it, and keep your money. Really?

I'm no lawyer, but I don't have quite the same interpretation. I believe that this means they can, for example, cancel a port of call with no compensation, but not the entire cruise. While clearly written in Celebrity's favour, their lawyers can only go so far in avoiding liability.

[wrk2cruise]

I would think they have 2 options.   Get you from the initial embarkation port to the new one at their own expense or offer to refund you.    I know they did something in the last couple of years where they had to move a ship from Port Everglades to Port of Miami and they provided transportation to get from FLL to the ship in Miami.

 

I would expect that if they move a ship from US to a Caribbean port it would involved canceling the original reservations and opening the new sailing.

[MarkWiltonM]

38 minutes ago, wrk2cruise said:

I would expect that if they move a ship from US to a Caribbean port it would involved canceling the original reservations and opening the new sailing.

 

That sounds like the reasonable thing to do. I do feel bad that the cruise lines are unable to plan for the fall/winter Caribbean season given the recent legislation passed in Florida. If they can't work something out with the state of Florida (and any other states that pass similar legislation) in the next couple of months I imagine they will have to scramble to line up slots in Caribbean ports and/or in U.S. ports that don't prohibit proof of vaccination. St. Maarten, Antigua, Nassau, Barbados, etc., don't have the capacity and infrastructure to accommodate all the cruises and cruise passengers currently scheduled to embark from Florida ports in the fall and winter.

 

Edited May 8, 2021 by MarkWiltonM
clarity

[sanger727]

1 hour ago, MarkWiltonM said:

 

If I understand this correctly, it says they could cancel the cruise and not refund the passenger. That would mean they have the right to cancel a cruise, not substitute anything for it, and keep your money. Really?

 

It goes on to say " except where a refund is required by law as a result of a declaration of a public health emergency or government order cancelling the Cruise or delaying boarding of the Vessel by Passengers by 24 hours or more". So if it's a covid cancellation then they certainly have to refund the sailing. But they can substitute any port, including embarkation or debarkation, or cancel any port stop without a refund. If they moved embarkation from ft lauderdale to Orlando, I suspect you would be stuck. But if they move from Florida to the caribbean I suspect they would offer refunds. That takes it from a cruise that doesn't require a passport to one that does. And if they do it past final payment, there's a very real chance someone applying for a new passport wouldn't be able to get one in time. 

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

Here's my experience with Celebrity's cancelling/changing a port.  We were cruising in the Caribbean.  We were scheduled to stop in Nassau.  Freeport had pretty much been leveled in a hurricane.  The captain announced that we were skipping Nassau and sailing to Freeport to provide relief supplies and water there.  All passengers were refunded one day's cruise cost (refundable OBC).  The passengers pitched in to make sandwiches, help deliver water, and donated clothing and money (Celebrity made this easy to do).  Win, win for everybody.

[WestLakeGirl]

Cancelling a port stop is one thing.  Moving the port of embarkation is entirely another matter, requiring purchase of alternative transport, possible hotel stays, passport requirements, lots of extra expenses for the passengers affected

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

5 hours ago, WestLakeGirl said:

Cancelling a port stop is one thing.  Moving the port of embarkation is entirely another matter, requiring purchase of alternative transport, possible hotel stays, passport requirements, lots of extra expenses for the passengers affected

Given how Celebrity handled the cancelled port stop, I would think they would take care of passengers if they are forced to change the port of embarcation.  Personally, I was thrilled to get paid not to go to Nassau since I never get off the ship there!

[Waynetor]

On a typical Sat. or Sunday the 3 ports in Eastern Florida often have around 15 ships, each with its own terminal. 

 

Thinking that cruise lines can simply start embarking/disembarking in the Caribbean makes no sense.  Most Caribbean ports do not have check-in/luggage handing facilities to handle the number of ships that could come there. 

 

Some smaller ships could make the change but not most.

[cruisestitch]

While quite a few ships could be made to Caribbean ports for embarkation and disembarkation, that’s not the only option. Galveston comes to mind if fights over Proofs of vaccination  continue in Florida.  

[Host Jazzbeau]

1 minute ago, cruisestitch said:

While quite a few ships could be made to Caribbean ports for embarkation and disembarkation, that’s not the only option. Galveston comes to mind if fights over Proofs of vaccination  continue in Florida.  

Up till now, cruises from Galveston (and Mobile and New Orleans, AFAIR) only do Western Caribbean itineraries.  We need ports on the East Coast for the Eastern Caribbean. 

[DallasGuy75219]

1 hour ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

Up till now, cruises from Galveston (and Mobile and New Orleans, AFAIR) only do Western Caribbean itineraries.  We need ports on the East Coast for the Eastern Caribbean. 

Carnival was doing 7 day itineraries from New Orleans to Key West and the Bahamas, but that's about as far as you can sail from the western Gulf in 7 days.

Edited May 9, 2021 by DallasGuy75219

[Host Jazzbeau]

43 minutes ago, DallasGuy75219 said:

Carnival was doing 7 day itineraries from New Orleans to Key West and the Bahamas, but that's about as far as you can sail from the western Gulf in 7 days.

Right.  14 day itineraries would work, but that seems to have been FLA's specialty that even before the CDC ban they were an endangered species.

[abbydancer2003]

I wonder if the problem becomes DeSantis and not the CDC (ie, CDC says OK to sail if vaccinated, DeSantis says don't ask don't tell from Florida) if they'd move to San Juan.  It's a flight, but no passport required.  Just doing some WAG (wild a** guessing)

[WestLakeGirl]

Yes San Juan would work if Florida and Cdc can’t see eye to eye 

[DallasGuy75219]

49 minutes ago, WestLakeGirl said:

Yes San Juan would work if Florida and Cdc can’t see eye to eye 

It's Florida and the cruiselines (at least NCL for now) that don't see eye to eye, not Florida and the CDC.

 

CDC's guidance for restart has two options: (1) Unvaccinated requires test sailing(s) with volunteer passengers. (2) Cruises with (almost) fully vaccinated passengers and crew have no test cruise requirements.

 

While the cruiselines have lots of issues with the CDC's other conditions for restart, the Florida issue is that cruiselines that want to do option #2 can't do so under the new Florida law.

[WestLakeGirl]

Thank you for the clarification

[MarkWiltonM]

2 hours ago, DallasGuy75219 said:

While the cruiselines have lots of issues with the CDC's other conditions for restart, the Florida issue is that cruiselines that want to do option #2 can't do so under the new Florida law.

 

Initially, DeSantis issued the "no proof of vaccination allowed" mandate as an executive order. If it was just an executive order, he could withdraw it or revise it to carve out an exception for cruise ships, if he was so inclined. But now that it's been passed as legislation, it's the law of the land in Florida. The legislature would have to pass new legislation undoing part or all of the law they just created. Politically, I'm not sure how many of the Republican politicians, who control Florida government, are going to be willing to step back from this position. This is especially unfortunate for us in Florida who cruise primarily because of our easy access to embarkation ports. Reluctantly, I'm currently checking out a Viking cruise round trip from San Juan this coming winter. I have a great deal on a Celebrity Equinox cruise in November from Fort Lauderdale, but if that gets canceled and I'm offered a FCC on another cruise from a different port, the current pricing on Celebrity may not be compelling. So I'm looking at premium and luxury lines as an alternative. The gap between Celebrity and Oceania/Viking is shrinking. And Crystal has some fairly reasonable pricing in the Caribbean.

[abbydancer2003]

1 hour ago, MarkWiltonM said:

 

Initially, DeSantis issued the "no proof of vaccination allowed" mandate as an executive order. If it was just an executive order, he could withdraw it or revise it to carve out an exception for cruise ships, if he was so inclined. But now that it's been passed as legislation, it's the law of the land in Florida. The legislature would have to pass new legislation undoing part or all of the law they just created. Politically, I'm not sure how many of the Republican politicians, who control Florida government, are going to be willing to step back from this position. This is especially unfortunate for us in Florida who cruise primarily because of our easy access to embarkation ports. Reluctantly, I'm currently checking out a Viking cruise round trip from San Juan this coming winter. I have a great deal on a Celebrity Equinox cruise in November from Fort Lauderdale, but if that gets canceled and I'm offered a FCC on another cruise from a different port, the current pricing on Celebrity may not be compelling. So I'm looking at premium and luxury lines as an alternative. The gap between Celebrity and Oceania/Viking is shrinking. And Crystal has some fairly reasonable pricing in the Caribbean.

Unless a court decides that the CDC has jurisdiction over the cruise terminals, or that the state can't mandate how private (non government) companies do business. Or the (almost) 160,000 Floridians whose income will remain shuttered get some clout.   

 

[Oceangoer2]

On 5/8/2021 at 11:43 AM, MarkWiltonM said:

I have a Celebrity cruise scheduled for November out of Fort Lauderdale, which is where I live. Does anyone know if Celebrity has the right to change the embarkation port after final payment without issuing a refund? And I mean refund, not a future cruise credit. I might be willing to fly to another port, but I want to have the option to do so or to cancel. I know they can change the itinerary based on weather, etc., after the cruise begins, but this seems quite different.

Same question has been lingering with me as well.  Booked flights to/from Ft L for Nov '21 cruise.  Also this cruise is 10 nights.

• If 7 night mandate stays and US ports are not open to embarkation, I'm assuming this cruise will be moved to an island embarkation port. 
• If moved to 7 nights,  some ports will change. 
• If 7 nights instead of 10 nights, will there be a 3 night refund?
• Or cruise will be cancelled and reopened,  probably at prevailing rate and cabin choice gone to faster internet fingers than mine. 

So new flights, at my own increased prevailing rate cost.  Loss of 10 night cruise at chosen itinerary.  Perhaps loss of #1 choice of cabin.  Loss of great cabin rate booked last year.  Most likely Celebrity won't make this cost whole.  The cruising picture isn't looking good even after Nov. 1st if some of these impediments aren't lifted.

 

Edited May 9, 2021 by Oceangoer2

[RedneckBob]

18 hours ago, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

Given how Celebrity handled the cancelled port stop, I would think they would take care of passengers if they are forced to change the port of embarcation.  Personally, I was thrilled to get paid not to go to Nassau since I never get off the ship there!

If you are correct then I would not mind if my Equinox cruise to the Carribean in late October depart now from Bora Bora 😀