Japan 2024 canceled…

[omeinv]

14 minutes ago, anniegb said:

Well you are far more polite than I am. 

 

Try another agent?? As you say, different agents give different answers.

 

Could you make a case that you need at minimum a balcony cabin on medical grounds??

 

Good luck

That's a horrible idea.  If one alleged the "medical grounds" you suggest; it would open the door to cancellation without the OBC, as the passenger has volunteered they're unfit to travel. 

 

In any conversation like this one must be very aware of unintended consequences.  Another example is saying "I'll contact my lawyer".  Many companies have a hard and fast rule that the moment a customer threatens legal action, the customer service staff is to cease all conversation.  Generally staff are more than happy to comply with this rule, as it lets them stop dealing with a difficult situation.

 

Harris

Denver, CO

Edited April 23, 2023 by omeinv

[anniegb]

2 minutes ago, omeinv said:

That's a horrible idea.  If one alleged the "medical grounds" you suggest; it would open the door to cancellation without the OBC, as the passenger has volunteered they're unfit to travel. 

 

In any conversation like this one must be very aware of unintended consequences.  Another example is saying "I'll contact my lawyer".  Many companies have a hard and fast rule that the moment a customer threatens legal action, the customer service staff is to cease all conversation.  Generally staff are more than happy to comply with this rule, as it lets them stop dealing with a difficult situation.

 

Harris

Denver, CO

Is Claustrophobia not a medical condition ??

 

Apologies WahWah, but you state that a parent is claustrophobic ??

 

 

[omeinv]

11 minutes ago, anniegb said:

Is Claustrophobia not a medical condition ??

 

Apologies WahWah, but you state that a parent is claustrophobic ??

 

 

Indeed it is a medical condition.  But bringing it up at this stage would be advising Celebrity of a medical contraindication to cruising, which would allow them a perfectly valid reason to cancel the reservation. 

 

Imagine if I booked a room close to the elevator, on a transatlantic cruise.  Then for whatever reason Celebrity has to move my room to a different one, far from the elevator.  If I then say that I need to be close to the elevator because I have a cardiac condition; they would have every right to say - based on the new information I provided - I was unfit to travel; and cancel my reservation.

 

My point is that alleging a medical necessity can be a route to unintended consequences.

 

Harris

Denver, CO

Edited April 23, 2023 by omeinv

[anniegb]

1 minute ago, omeinv said:

Indeed it is a medical condition.  But bringing it up at this stage would be advising Celebrity of a medical contraindication to cruising, which would allow them a perfectly valid reason to cancel the reservation. 

 

Imagine if I booked a room close to the elevator, on a transatlantic cruise.  Then for whatever reason Celebrity has to move my room to a different one, far from the elevator.  If I then say that I need to be close to the elevator because I have a cardiac condition; they would have every right to say - based on the new information I provided - I was unfit to travel; and cancel my reservation.

 

Harris

Denver, CO

I understand what you are saying.

 

Currently Wahwah only has the offer of a downgrade.

 

 

[wahwah1]

7 minutes ago, anniegb said:

Is Claustrophobia not a medical condition ??

 

Apologies WahWah, but you state that a parent is claustrophobic ??

 

 

Yes, so we always travel balcony+.

 

One agent said I may choose to cancel and potentially shift and lift (pending approval), but it's not in writing. So when i got all the options and discussed with my parents. I called back in 1 hr and the last agent said I only got 1 option which is the downgrade.  

 

It's disappointing to cancel as we got independent air and hotel booked. 

 

I really don't know how this works as I still see the balcony room assigned to my booking. The letter doesn't said I need to respond by any date, no alternative and doesn't mention it will cancel my booking... 

[floridatravelersforlife]

6 hours ago, anniegb said:

For what gain?? Most cruisers have not heard of cc or cruisehive.

 

I don't think unfortunately, those who are cancelled have much legal recourse.  

 

Just OOI, when did LLP announce she was stepping down ?? and this then hit the fan!. 

There are many misguided people who get their jolly's from stunts like this.

 

During my 40 year stint in the Corporate world, whenever an executive goes from running  an organization with thousands of people to a new job that involves outside PR, there is a reason.

[anniegb]

3 minutes ago, wahwah1 said:

Yes, so we always travel balcony+.

 

One agent said I may choose to cancel and potentially shift and lift (pending approval), but it's not in writing. So when i got all the options and discussed with my parents. I called back in 1 hr and the last agent said I only got 1 option which is the downgrade.  

 

It's disappointing to cancel as we got independent air and hotel booked. 

 

I really don't know how this works as I still see the balcony room assigned to my booking. The letter doesn't said I need to respond by any date, no alternative and doesn't mention it will cancel my booking... 

Hi again

 

So what do communication do you have from Celebrity in writing?? 

 

Is it reflected in your Manage Reservation tab??

 

 

[wahwah1]

12 minutes ago, anniegb said:

Hi again

 

So what do communication do you have from Celebrity in writing?? 

 

Is it reflected in your Manage Reservation tab??

 

 

In writing, I only got the automactic downgrade option. It doesn't say I need to respond, however it did mention if it doesn't work out for you, I could call.

 

The last agent said she can only go by letter and not the notes. So I will try again tomorrow as that agent who offered me with more options will back to work on Monday.

 

Based on my celebrity reservation app, the balcony room is still assigned to me. Nothing has changed. 

Edited April 23, 2023 by wahwah1

[raananh]

3 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

Celebrity has known about this for months.  It has exposed problems in their upper management, accounting, and auditing.  Why did not anyone notice such a large issue that should have been caught by both accounting and management much earlier?

I can't believe that if cabins were double or triple sold for 6 months or more and nobody at Celebrity would notice it quite immediately.

Surely, in those 6 months, if person A calls about their cabin, person B would show up when Celebrity retrieves the data. In 6 months, not a single person called about their cabin / name only to be told that another name comes up? Hard to believe!!! (I did not call in the last 6 months)

I have a been in the corporate world for too long so I am totally not surprised that despite an army of accountants, auditors, auditing companies, reports, systems, etc, the worse imaginable things happen, or, rather be hidden until they blow up, because nobody wants / afraid to blow the whistle or they are being ignored.

I remember setting up a new credit card based ordering system and we processed $millions orders against it. But nobody in accounting turned on the billing process to create invoices to charge the customers. Nobody noticed that Total Sales does NOT equal total income. This went on for almost 9 months with many "happy" customers. End result: the company had to write-off $millions of orders because you can't charge an order older than 3 months on a credit card. Bonus: nobody got fired for this fiasco.

[patty1955]

5 minutes ago, raananh said:

I can't believe that if cabins were double or triple sold for 6 months or more and nobody at Celebrity would notice it quite immediately.

Surely, in those 6 months, if person A calls about their cabin, person B would show up when Celebrity retrieves the data. In 6 months, not a single person called about their cabin / name only to be told that another name comes up? Hard to believe!!! (I did not call in the last 6 months)
 

When you call about your cruise, you give them your name and confirmation number. They don't look it up by cabin number. 

We're on the March 4, 2024 Asian cruise and a couple of people have reported that this affects them. Since we're in a veranda cabin, I'm keeping a close eye on the situation. 

[raananh]

9 minutes ago, patty1955 said:

When you call about your cruise, you give them your name and confirmation number. They don't look it up by cabin number. 

I am sure that in the last 6 months, many people called specifically about their Cabin Number, when giving Booking number and their name. Maybe they wanted to change cabin, upgrade, etc.

Very very hard to believe that in more than 6 months, nobody noticed that the "wrong name" is assigned to a cabin.

Anyway, back to the original post: "Celebrity has known about this for months.  It has exposed problems in their upper management, accounting, and auditing.  Why did not anyone notice such a large issue that should have been caught by both accounting and management much earlier?"
 

Edited April 23, 2023 by raananh
Typo

[southwestie]

8 minutes ago, patty1955 said:

When you call about your cruise, you give them your name and confirmation number. They don't look it up by cabin number. 

We're on the March 4, 2024 Asian cruise and a couple of people have reported that this affects them. Since we're in a veranda cabin, I'm keeping a close eye on the situation. 

Veranda cabins are some of the oversold  cabin. Do you have a cabin number. Or a guarantee  cabin

[patty1955]

Just now, southwestie said:

Veranda cabins are some of the oversold  cabin. Do you have a cabin number. Or a guarantee  cabin

We have a cabin number and we booked FBC so I'm hoping we're safe.

[patty1955]

3 minutes ago, raananh said:

Anyway, back to the original post: "Celebrity has known about this for months.  It has exposed problems in their upper management, accounting, and auditing.  Why did not anyone notice such a large issue that should have been caught by both accounting and management much earlier?"
 

That's not the original post but carry on.

[southwestie]

2 minutes ago, patty1955 said:

We have a cabin number and we booked FBC so I'm hoping we're safe.

My TA thinks. Usa guarantee  bookings are most likely  to be cancelled.  But who knows. I'm sure the guarantee  booking with no cabin would be cancelled  before cabins with numbers.  The ship clearly is not oversold.  Only some cabins.  Inside.  Verander  and retreat are oversold. . But the way its happening  who can say.  My TA said we are booked . I also read it could be a complete deck because japan wants them for possible  quarantine.  I know our last 2 cruises did have a deck for Quarantine.   Its all a mystery.

 

Hopefully by now it's all sorted out. Let's hope so

[wahwah1]

23 minutes ago, southwestie said:

My TA thinks. Usa guarantee  bookings are most likely  to be cancelled.  

FYI, i got assigned cabin and booked a specific category (e.g. not guarenteed) and still got bumped out.

[Mark_T]

33 minutes ago, raananh said:

I am sure that in the last 6 months, many people called specifically about their Cabin Number, when giving Booking number and their name. Maybe they wanted to change cabin, upgrade, etc.

Very very hard to believe that in more than 6 months, nobody noticed that the "wrong name" is assigned to a cabin.
 

It is entirely possible that the error is at a level where there are duplicate reservations assigned to the same cabin, easy to miss that if you are primarily searching by reservation number...

 

This should have been highly visible at the revenue level for the cruise, or even just total number of reservations on the cruise, but again, only if they get those numbers from the individual reservations rather than looking at inventory...

 

Either way it is inexcusable, but given a sufficiently major IT error it is sadly believable.

[clojacks]

Unfortunately, there are an awful lot of “I think” and “I heard” and “they used to” comments starting to take the place of actual facts and personal impact reply’s. Unfortunately, that is what is proliferating the FB boards related to the Millennium right now….tons and tons of wasted comments, particularly to those who have already been impacted to those waiting for dreaded email or phone call. I know every bodies opinion is valuable, but in this unfortunate situation, factual information becomes way more valuable than someone’s guess.

 

Let me add that some of the trash opinions on the FB Millennium thread make it totally unreadable. The value of comments on CC are infinitely more informed it appears.

Edited April 23, 2023 by clojacks

[donald1039]

When we were cancelled we did not receive a letter. When I spoke with the agent I was only given 2 options, lift and shift to 1 of 3 2025 sailings at the same rate or refund with $450 future credit which was consistent with the letter some have posted.  She said they had exhausted all options to keep us on that ship (March 28) in answer to a possible downgrade which we wouldn’t have accepted anyway.
We were very disappointed and moving out another year of uncertainty would have further deflated us so we’ve found an alternate vacation in Japan for the same time frame which we’re now more excited about than the cruise. Many of you can’t do this I realize, but if cancelled I would recommend exploring non Celebrity options to get past this. 

Edited April 23, 2023 by donald1039

[clojacks]

2 minutes ago, donald1039 said:

When we were cancelled we did not receive a letter. When I spoke with the agent I was only given 2 options, lift and shift to 1 of 3 2025 sailings at the same rate or refund with $450 future credit which was consistent with the letter some have posted.  She said they had exhausted all options to keep us on that ship (March 28) in answer to a possible downgrade which we wouldn’t have accepted anyway.
We were very disappointed and moving out another year of uncertainty would have further deflated us so we’ve found an alternate vacation in Japan for the same time frame which we’re now more excited about than the cruise. Many of you can’t do this I realize, but I would recommend exploring non Celebrity options to get past this. 

Is your “alternate vacation” land based or a cruise with another line?

[donald1039]

10 minutes ago, clojacks said:

Is your “alternate vacation” land based or a cruise with another line?

Land tour - both Trafalgar and Insight have open itineraries (didn’t check any others) which focus more time on the best mainland locations but at a higher price. Also in researching we noticed that at least 1 cruise line has similar cruises with open verandas in our desired timeframe at similar prices to our cancellation. We have no history with any of the optional companies but we have eliminated Celebrity as an option for Japan.  

[southwestie]

1 hour ago, wahwah1 said:

FYI, i got assigned cabin and booked a specific category (e.g. not guarenteed) and still got bumped out.

But your not saying the cabin grade.  Inside,  verander and retreat are sold out. Concierge  and others have lots of cabins. They seem be bumping off the guarantee first.  Some cabins  seem to double or triple booked.

 

It certainly is odd what ever there doing

[pmarrsouth]

6 hours ago, southwestie said:

The ship clearly is not oversold.

Proof?

[southwestie]

7 hours ago, wahwah1 said:

FYI, i got assigned cabin and booked a specific category (e.g. not guarenteed) and still got bumped out.

Well that is bad. You have been upgraded.

[anniegb]

3 hours ago, southwestie said:

Well that is bad. You have been upgraded.

Wahwah had an assigned balcony cabin for triple occupancy and is now assigned to a triple occupancy OV cabin and that is an upgrade??

Further they enquired if they could move to a concierge cabin and was advised that option was not available for their booking.

Edited April 24, 2023 by anniegb