Looking back, do you regret your decision taking the refund or $600 OBC?

[Joebucks]

I had a cruise in Oct 2020 cancelled. At the time, I was really eager to take the $600 in OBC as I always want to plan future cruises. Gratuities, drinks, specialty dining, and probably a bottle of Blanton's to take home sounded like a good deal. I wasn't too high on all of the "conspiracy theories" around the OBC. Like how your cruise is just going to skyrocket in price, etc. As the shutdown went on, and there was no budging whatsoever in allowing cruises, they took on more debt, etc, I elected to take the refund. I didn't know if and when we would sail again.

 

Looking back, I wish I took the OBC. That sounds really good for my next cruise.

[xDisconnections]

Looking back, I'm happy I took the refunds on all my canceled Princess and Royal Caribbean cruises and did not take the respective OBC or FCC offers.

[Don Kehote]

Super happy to take the OBC.  We're going to get nice new replacement wedding rings using it.  

[Bowman1]

We turned a single cabin on Panorama in Mar 2020, into 2 cabins on Panorama in Mar 2021 (same cost), into 2 cabins on Pride in Europe for June 2022

 

We now have $1200 in OBC on a 12 day cruise in Europe (ports we have never done) out of a single cabin original booking - we are very happy with our decision

[LAKingsFan]

Very happy to have taken the obc as well. Got a casino offer that when paired with the obc, we have more spending cash than the cost for our 7 day balcony room on the Panorama.

[Rudyard]

There were a couple of times I wished I had taken the refund, but in the end I was glad I didn't. Having $600 OBC on our last cruise allowed us to do more than we'd usually do (specialty restaurants, etc) and still made it the cheapest cruise we've ever been on. 

[lazydayz]

Very happy to have the OBC.  I knew we would cruise again and now we have a lot of fun to look forward to over the next two years.  

[firefly333]

Mixed feelings as I love deals and the obc would have been nice for b2b breeze I just did. 

 

On the other hand my dad has taken a turn for the worse and I'm home until he passes and not sure I can do my dec booked cruise. Seize the day, if you have a deal take it if you can. Right now I'm living life day by day. Cant regret yesterday but only live for tomorrow. I've alluded before that I'm not booking more cruises but havent said why here before. Even if I got a $20 deal for next week I couldnt go. Probably shouldn't have done the breeze most told me to stay home. But it will be the last for a while.

[lazydayz]

2 minutes ago, firefly333 said:

Mixed feelings as I love deals and the obc would have been nice for b2b breeze I just did. 

 

On the other hand my dad has taken a turn for the worse and I'm home until he passes and not sure I can do my dec booked cruise. Seize the day, if you have a deal take it if you can. Right now I'm living life day by day. Cant regret yesterday but only live for tomorrow. I've alluded before that I'm not booking more cruises but havent said why here before. Even if I got a $20 deal for next week I couldnt go. Probably shouldn't have done the breeze most told me to stay home. But it will be the last for a while.

Very sorry to hear about your dad's failing health.  I hope you get to enjoy some more time with him.  

[gnocchi_mommy]

We had $1200 on this cruise thanks to a few cancellations and casino credit, and we really enjoyed having it.

[kdr69]

25 minutes ago, firefly333 said:

Mixed feelings as I love deals and the obc would have been nice for b2b breeze I just did. 

 

On the other hand my dad has taken a turn for the worse and I'm home until he passes and not sure I can do my dec booked cruise. Seize the day, if you have a deal take it if you can. Right now I'm living life day by day. Cant regret yesterday but only live for tomorrow. I've alluded before that I'm not booking more cruises but havent said why here before. Even if I got a $20 deal for next week I couldnt go. Probably shouldn't have done the breeze most told me to stay home. But it will be the last for a while.

sorry to hear

[Saint Greg]

No. I took the 600 and I’m letting it pay for my cheers, internet, gratuities.

[BlerkOne]

So many cruises cancelled I did both. It has worked out well.

[nwcruiselover]

1 hour ago, firefly333 said:

Mixed feelings as I love deals and the obc would have been nice for b2b breeze I just did. 

 

On the other hand my dad has taken a turn for the worse and I'm home until he passes and not sure I can do my dec booked cruise. Seize the day, if you have a deal take it if you can. Right now I'm living life day by day. Cant regret yesterday but only live for tomorrow. I've alluded before that I'm not booking more cruises but havent said why here before. Even if I got a $20 deal for next week I couldnt go. Probably shouldn't have done the breeze most told me to stay home. But it will be the last for a while.

I’m very sorry to hear about your dad’s condition.  Make the most of every day you have with him, and cruise later.  

[trvlgirlmq]

Yes I am starting to regret moving our cruise. We had our 2021 British Isles cruise cancelled so we moved to 2022. Thought everything would finally be back to more normal but it doesn’t look like that will be happening. The testing requirements to get into UK and return to US are what is making  me regret not just taking the refund. This was my son’s HS graduation trip and he was really looking forward to it. Now I don’t know how we are supposed to meet these requirements (plus the added expense for 2 tests each for 5 people) when we will be on a ship 3 days before we fly back to the US. 

[skrufy]

1 hour ago, gnocchi_mommy said:

We had $1200 on this cruise thanks to a few cancellations and casino credit, and we really enjoyed having it.

Since the thought of not cruising for awhile never crossed our minds and we did not need the money we just put up with the continued cancellations. Only thing that got annoying was the booking and rebooking everything. We rebooked a B2B for Christmas, have almost $2,000 in OBC and a great rate for cheers on both cruises. Rebooked another cruise and have $900 in OBC. I will guarantee you we are going to have a great time cruising again.

[pinklucky61]

I took OBC when my 2020 cruise cancelled.   Casino offer went from $500 OBC to $650 when rebooked.  That's going to be my gambling money.

[Virga]

We made out pretty well - I booked a series of cruise in Australia.  They were cancelled before I paid more than the deposit - it would be ludicrous for me to take the refund instead of the FCC/OBC.  I'm not sure I would feel as good about it if I'd been paid in full, of course.

[mondello]

There were drawbacks for some guests. The OBC was split, $300 for each of the 2 named guests, some paid to book and friend could choose to walk away with half the OBC if they didn't rebook together.

Others got $600 and rebooked a shorter cruise, time constraints or rising prices. Some then got $300 when rebooking another week long cruise, after the second cruise was also cancelled. Bitter pill going from $600 to $300 OBC and stuck with rising prices, too.

[natefish95]

I wish I took the $600 instead of the refund. On my Freedom cruise in October I was able to get $500 in OBC, so if I had $1100 in OBC, I would have spent a lot of time in the casino, but also would have cashed out some OBC and come home with a fat stack of bills!

[vwrestler171]

Glad I took the OBC, but wish I would've sat down longer and thought things through first.  I am booked on a ship next fall trying to find a cruise that aligned with the kids Fall Break, and there are many other, better options out there.

[firefly333]

Let's be honest. No one getting free obc will regret having the extra money to spend. Seems like a no brainer to me. 

 

It will encourage extra bookings in the future for carnival. Win win. If I had a cancelled carnival cruise I hadnt taken a refund on, I'd be more interested in booking. Who would regret extra obc?

[icft]

How I look back on past decisions has long been shaped by my experience with the stock market. I started trading in 1976, then trading and investing for most of the intervening years. So my approach is long established and I am comfortable with it.

When I look back on a decision my question is not “how did it turn out.” The future can’t be known for sure. Regretting not being able to see the future is plain dumb and reduces your decision making to dumb luck. My question is “was my analysis of the situation given available information at the time correct or was it flawed.” If it was flawed then I regret it, identify the flaw and make sure to never make that mistake again. If the analysis was correct I don’t regret the decision even if future events caused an undesirable result. For example, when the covid crash hit the market I didn’t regret my inability to foresee a pandemic.

With regard to refund or credit I made two different decisions and I am comfortable with both.

Our first cancelled cruise was not long after they started cancelling cruises. How long it would be before cruises began again and how cruise line management would handle the situation was unknown. I rated the risk of bankruptcy as high since Chapter 11 bankruptcy would be on the list of tactics to emerge from the pandemic in good shape, especially if long term financing could not be obtained. I opted for the refund. I think it was the correct decision given available information.

Our second cancelled cruise was months later and things had changed when it was time to make a decision. Carnival had lined-up huge amounts of long term financing and management had obviously planned for a long, long time of no cruising. They had not taken the Chapter 11 fork in the road. I opted for the OBC. I think it was the correct decision given available information.

[IntrepidFromDC]

8 hours ago, Joebucks said:

I had a cruise in Oct 2020 cancelled. At the time, I was really eager to take the $600 in OBC as I always want to plan future cruises. Gratuities, drinks, specialty dining, and probably a bottle of Blanton's to take home sounded like a good deal. I wasn't too high on all of the "conspiracy theories" around the OBC. Like how your cruise is just going to skyrocket in price, etc. As the shutdown went on, and there was no budging whatsoever in allowing cruises, they took on more debt, etc, I elected to take the refund. I didn't know if and when we would sail again.

 

Looking back, I wish I took the OBC. That sounds really good for my next cruise.

Interesting perspective, Joe and I can agree with your logic and feelings every step of the way.  Only difference is I tend not to have regrets if I rationalize the decision I made was sound based on all the information I had at the time.  There was legitimate concern, although small, that Carnival might restructure to unload it's debt.  At that point I would have lost all my equity in CCL that I felt I had just cleverly bought in the $8 - $12 range plus stock I had bought as high as $36.  As for the $600, if they restructured I'm pretty sure that would have been $0 and I might have lost all the cruise fare as well.  Thinking about the risk vs. the $600 reward, I still feel I made a prudent decision.  But, like you, knowing what I know now, and having been on two covid-era cruises already, the OBC risk would have been worthwhile.  I'm just happy the casino offers are returning to pre-covid level, that makes me really happy.

[Clarasgrandma]

What I regretted was paying my cruise off months ahead of time. A lesson learned! Going forward, we will only pay the deposit until the remainder is due. We are looking forward to the $600 OBC we have on both our January cruises.