Japan 2024 canceled…

[luckybecky]

Just trying to get through 8 pages of this....

 

We need to cancel our Sept 30, 2023 cruise. I called our big box TA to find out what our options are. He then called Celebrity.

 

He got confusing answers. First, he said that our cruise had been "changed" but he wasn't clear on what that meant. At some point he said canceled, then oversold. My impression was that Celebrity wasn't clear to him, so he wasn't able to give us a definitive answer. He said they told him that letters "were going out" but we (and they, the big box TA) haven't received them yet. 

 

At any rate, they told him that we could cancel without penalty and either lift and shift (again) or get our deposit back in full. 

 

So we told him -- great! We will take the refund! 

 

So he puts us back on hold and goes back on with Celebrity (he has us both on the line and is switching between us to work this out) and tells the rep, great! Our client wants to accept your offer to cancel and receive a refund. 

 

They said, oops. Sorry. That was a mistake. There is no problem at all with the Sept 30 sailing and if they cancel they will forfeit their deposit. This was like, 3 minutes after they had told him that ... something ?... was going on with our cruise and we had the option to cancel without penalty. 

 

Nobody seems to know what the hell is going on.

[luckybecky]

By the way, we have a veranda and an inside, not GTY. People on our roll call have said they have been involuntarily canceled on this same cruise.

[Tarwood3]

6 minutes ago, luckybecky said:

Just trying to get through 8 pages of this....

 

We need to cancel our Sept 30, 2023 cruise. I called our big box TA to find out what our options are. He then called Celebrity.

 

He got confusing answers. First, he said that our cruise had been "changed" but he wasn't clear on what that meant. At some point he said canceled, then oversold. My impression was that Celebrity wasn't clear to him, so he wasn't able to give us a definitive answer. He said they told him that letters "were going out" but we (and they, the big box TA) haven't received them yet. 

 

At any rate, they told him that we could cancel without penalty and either lift and shift (again) or get our deposit back in full. 

 

So we told him -- great! We will take the refund! 

 

So he puts us back on hold and goes back on with Celebrity (he has us both on the line and is switching between us to work this out) and tells the rep, great! Our client wants to accept your offer to cancel and receive a refund. 

 

They said, oops. Sorry. That was a mistake. There is no problem at all with the Sept 30 sailing and if they cancel they will forfeit their deposit. This was like, 3 minutes after they had told him that ... something ?... was going on with our cruise and we had the option to cancel without penalty. 

 

Nobody seems to know what the hell is going on.

Exactly…they have been so confusing.  A previous poster suggested that because I asked 3 times about the cancellation, she just told me that everyone is canceled…in essence, to get rid of me.  But this was my point,  she was unclear and wouldn’t answer anything directly, hence my asking 3 times about the cancellations…

[hubofhockey]

2 hours ago, Tarwood3 said:

Love how people think Im making this up…we were told definitively. “ everyone is canceled”. “Millenium won’t be in Japan”.  And if she did lie to us….we have her name and will take it up the ladder…

Everything for 2023 and 2024?  Just booked 5/15/24.

[clojacks]

Just now, hubofhockey said:

Everything for 2023 and 2024?  Just booked 5/15/24.

You might want to catch up on the reading…..

[hubofhockey]

1 minute ago, clojacks said:

You might want to catch up on the reading…..

You don’t have to answer may question.  Maybe someone else can.  This discussion seems all over the place.  Some say the Millennium is not going to Japan.  Others say only some people are getting canceled by Celebrity.   

[luckybecky]

25 minutes ago, hubofhockey said:

You don’t have to answer may question.  Maybe someone else can.  This discussion seems all over the place.  Some say the Millennium is not going to Japan.  Others say only some people are getting canceled by Celebrity.   

 

You are exactly right!! The discussion has been all over the place. People are getting all kinds of contradictory answers from Celebrity. It's very frustrating. 

[clojacks]

4 minutes ago, luckybecky said:

 

You are exactly right!! The discussion has been all over the place. People are getting all kinds of contradictory answers from Celebrity. It's very frustrating. 

It appears that the most likely answer, barring some poor info provided by Celebrity, is that NO CRUISES are cancelled, but a significant number of passengers had their cruise cancelled due to overbooking of certain cabins.

[Covepointcruiser]

3 hours ago, pukekolive said:

Millennium goes to Alaska in November each year until the following March. When the March 2020 and later cruises were cancelled due to Covid, we were offered lift and shift to the 2022 Asia season on Solstice/ Millennium. Japan was not open in the 2022 season so these cruises were canceled in turn and 2023/ 24 cruises offered. Personally, I think it is this latter lifting and shifting that has caused the overbooking.

Is the Millenium doing winter cruises to Alaska??   Now that would be interesting cruising.

[Tarwood3]

46 minutes ago, hubofhockey said:

Everything for 2023 and 2024?  Just booked 5/15/24.

We didn’t ask about any other cruises except for ours April 9th 2024

[pmarrsouth]

2 hours ago, raananh said:

We also got "oversold" on the April 12, 2023 cruise. Got a call from Celebrity. 


 

Ouch 😞

 

When did you receive this call/notification that you had been bumped from this 12th April 2023 cruise?

[Tarwood3]

51 minutes ago, hubofhockey said:

You don’t have to answer may question.  Maybe someone else can.  This discussion seems all over the place.  Some say the Millennium is not going to Japan.  Others say only some people are getting canceled by Celebrity.   

Thats the point of all this…. Everyone is getting different answers.  Celebrity is being very dodgy and no one seems to know what the hell is going on, or don’t want to say 

[Honolulu Blue]

I would suggest someone contact LLP's office while she's still the big dog. When Celebrity made all those dining changes back in January and some were hot and bothered about it, several people made contact and some got return phone calls (always phone calls, of course 🤔). The answers were mostly spin with some platitudes, but maybe it started the process of change? I'm sure those in her office are more interested in solving problems (of which some of you seem to have, and I'm sorry) than discussing policy decisions.

 

I don't have her contact info on hand, but it's been spread around in several threads. Search should pull it up.

[NMTraveller]

38 minutes ago, Honolulu Blue said:

I would suggest someone contact LLP's office while she's still the big dog. When Celebrity made all those dining changes back in January and some were hot and bothered about it, several people made contact and some got return phone calls (always phone calls, of course 🤔). The answers were mostly spin with some platitudes, but maybe it started the process of change? I'm sure those in her office are more interested in solving problems (of which some of you seem to have, and I'm sorry) than discussing policy decisions.

 

I don't have her contact info on hand, but it's been spread around in several threads. Search should pull it up.

Yet another Celebrity inflicted train wreck...

[mnocket]

1 hour ago, Tarwood3 said:

Thats the point of all this…. Everyone is getting different answers.  Celebrity is being very dodgy and no one seems to know what the hell is going on, or don’t want to say 

Perhaps this is just Relaxed Customer Service to along with Relaxed Luxury🤔

[Parkland Hiker]

Just now, Parkland Hiker said:

According to the letter we received from Celebrity advising us that our reservation had been canceled, the Sept 30/23 cruise is also overbooked. So, I would hope, that if you want to voluntarily cancel your booking, they should allow you to and refund your money, so that someone who has Ben involuntarily canceled can go on the cruise!

 

[Parkland Hiker]

[Arizona Wildcat]

1 hour ago, Honolulu Blue said:

I would suggest someone contact LLP's office while she's still the big dog. When Celebrity made all those dining changes back in January and some were hot and bothered about it, several people made contact and some got return phone calls (always phone calls, of course 🤔). The answers were mostly spin with some platitudes, but maybe it started the process of change? I'm sure those in her office are more interested in solving problems (of which some of you seem to have, and I'm sorry) than discussing policy decisions.

 

I don't have her contact info on hand, but it's been spread around in several threads. Search should pull it up.

FWIW- I have always gotten either a phone call OR email reply within a day or two at most from the staff at the executive office.  Clear answers.

[Emmauk]

Just my two cents, if one check the Yokohama cruise terminal schedule 

https://www.cruisetimetables.com/yokohama-japan-cruise-ship-schedule.html

 

It shows all the cruise ship scheduled to depart from there. March 2024 and April 2024 (up to 21st) schedule shows no Celebrity cruise ship at all. So it is highly unlikely these cruise are going to happen. 

[Belgian fry]

I just about had heart failure when I received a mail from Celebrity this morning. 
 

It was for another matter altogether, thankfully 

[raananh]

8 hours ago, neverlaysup said:

The US government has taken steps to protect airline passengers from this situation by forcing the airlines to pay up to 4x your one way fare up to $1550. They need to address the cruise industry as well and maybe force them to compensate at a somewhat similar rate, lets just say up to $10K for an involuntary bump. 

I agree with you. But cruise lines are not "American companies". Most of their customers are not even Americans.

Whatever caused an "oversold" situation, be it a booking system issue (unlikely), cancellation of another cruise and shifting the customers to this cruise, greed (let's sell the same cabin for more money), etc, should have serious consequences for cruise lines, by law.

Already this costs Celebrity $450 per person, $500 per person for flights, many customers who chose to cancel and get a 100% refund (loss of sales), customers who will not book again with Celebrity, agents busy dealing with this instead of selling more cruises, etc.

My strong impression is that this whole fiasco is due to bad management, lack of planning and bad decision making. Even without this incident, I think the cruise industry made a lot of management mistakes that annoyed customers and hurt sales.

I own stocks in RCL.

We need something (regulations) that will force cruise lines to save themselves and be better managed. I doubt that will happen. I think the trend is worse and worse management + worse service for the cruisers.

 

[WestLakeGirl]

8 hours ago, clojacks said:

It appears that the most likely answer, barring some poor info provided by Celebrity, is that NO CRUISES are cancelled, but a significant number of passengers had their cruise cancelled due to overbooking of certain cabins.

I believe that as of right now, this is the most accurate summary of the situation.

[Fly and Sail]

9 hours ago, luckybecky said:

They said, oops. Sorry. That was a mistake. There is no problem at all with the Sept 30 sailing and if they cancel they will forfeit their deposit. This was like, 3 minutes after they had told him that ... something ?... was going on with our cruise and we had the option to cancel without penalty. 

 

Nobody seems to know what the hell is going on.

 

Sounds to me like the agent knew you'd cancel and the decided to swipe the deposit from you.

[Judy Arthur]

With Celebrity creating and subsequent bungling of this entire situation, I would pin the blame on them long before the agent.    He’s just the messenger.

[NMTraveller]

7 hours ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

FWIW- I have always gotten either a phone call OR email reply within a day or two at most from the staff at the executive office.  Clear answers.

I never got a call back when I contacted Celebrity regarding the food changes in January.

 

Also many got a call back from the retention department ...  It is rather obvious the difference between the two.

 

It is worth a try...

Edited April 20, 2023 by NMTraveller