Cancelling a cruise

[room with a view]

If you cancel a NCL cruise and then book another more expensive NCL cruise do you lose your deposit ?

UK £100 per person 

thanks

[drumming cruisers]

@room with a view   I don't cancel cruises; I call and have NCL change it. 

[omahabob]

9 minutes ago, room with a view said:

If you cancel a NCL cruise and then book another more expensive NCL cruise do you lose your deposit ?

UK £100 per person 

thanks

Not if you call them and transfer it to a different cruise.

[njhorseman]

1 hour ago, drumming cruisers said:

@room with a view   I don't cancel cruises; I call and have NCL change it. 

 

1 hour ago, omahabob said:

Not if you call them and transfer it to a different cruise.

OP is from the UK, which has different rules than the US and Canada so there may be a cancellation penalty in the UK that isn't applicable here.

[omahabob]

The policies don't actually address changing to a different cruise, but the UK cancellation policies appear to be less stringent than the US policies. I still recommend calling to see if you can transfer to a different cruise without cost.

Edited June 23, 2023 by omahabob

[room with a view]

OK thanks ..I phoned NCL and cancelled an existing cruise booked direct with NCL prior to the final payment date . Booked the new NCL cruise  had to pay £ 200 deposit on the new cruise but lost the £ 200 we had paid on the previous cruise 

Seems mighty unfair .

[mjkacmom]

5 hours ago, room with a view said:

OK thanks ..I phoned NCL and cancelled an existing cruise booked direct with NCL prior to the final payment date . Booked the new NCL cruise  had to pay £ 200 deposit on the new cruise but lost the £ 200 we had paid on the previous cruise 

Seems mighty unfair .

 

5 hours ago, room with a view said:

OK thanks ..I phoned NCL and cancelled an existing cruise booked direct with NCL prior to the final payment date . Booked the new NCL cruise  had to pay £ 200 deposit on the new cruise but lost the £ 200 we had paid on the previous cruise 

Seems mighty unfair .

Blame your country’s travel regulations (which are actually better than ours in the US for different situations).

[mypleasure]

On 6/23/2023 at 7:41 PM, room with a view said:

If you cancel a NCL cruise and then book another more expensive NCL cruise do you lose your deposit ?

UK £100 per person 

thanks

Due to a health issue that requires surgery exactly when I would be on a cruise I needed to call my PCC and cancel.

When I got through to him I was asked if we wanted to reschedule rather than cancel. We found a cruise for next summer that will work for us. I was refunded the money I had paid for a couple of shore excursions I had booked. Everything else including the reservation number, some OBC, our Free at Sea (which had changed since we originally booked but was honoured as per the original booking) was just transferred over at no loss or cost other than a change fee of £35 per person.  Better than losing £200 I thought.

[insidecabin]

On 6/24/2023 at 2:06 PM, mjkacmom said:

 

Blame your country’s travel regulations (which are actually better than ours in the US for different situations).

 

The travel regulations do not cause profiteering from cancellations they are controlled to try to represent the actual costs

 

The rules allow for reasonable estimates of the admin and potential costs/losses of the cancellation based on things like the termination date and the potential to resell.

 

12.—(1) The provisions of this regulation are implied as a term in every package travel contract.

(2) A traveller may terminate the package travel contract at any time before the start of the package.

(3) Where the traveller terminates the package travel contract under paragraph (2), the traveller may be required to pay an appropriate and justifiable termination fee to the organiser.

(4) The package travel contract may specify reasonable standard termination fees based on—

(a)the time of the termination of the contract before the start of the package; and

(b)the expected cost savings and income from alternative deployment of the travel services.

(5) In the absence of standardised termination fees, the amount of the termination fee must correspond to the price of the package minus the cost savings and income from alternative deployment of the travel services.

(6) The organiser must provide a justification for the amount of the termination fee if the traveller so requests.

 

 

NCL in the UK have set the admin fee to make changes or reprice a cruise at £35pp which is reasonable,  could be used as the basis of a cancellation with sufficient notice

 

NCL changed the rate to try to comply. 

 

They do include the wording needed to support their rates

 

Cancellation charges (as set out below) will apply. In calculating these charges, we have taken account of the period before departure the cancellation is notified to us, expected costs savings arising as a result of your cancellation and the likely generation of income from other bookings made with us which utilise the cancelled services

 

 

The rates 

 

Period before departure notification of cancellation received by us	Cancellation charge per person cancelling*
more than 60 days	Loss of Deposit
59 - 42 days	25%
41 - 29 days	50%
28 - 15 days	75%
14 - 8 days	90%
7 days and less+	100%
After departure	100%

 

 

For my current cruise  a £100 deposit is about 50% of the part of the fare used to calculate fees that would make loss of deposit unreasonable. 

 

 

At least one cruise line has lost a case where a passenger took action for excessive cancellation charges.  

 

[room with a view]

On 6/23/2023 at 11:28 PM, omahabob said:

The policies don't actually address changing to a different cruise, but the UK cancellation policies appear to be less stringent than the US policies. I still recommend calling to see if you can transfer to a different cruise without cost.

Thanks, I phoned NCL to cancel the cruise and transfer my £200 deposit to the new cruise . They said that I would lose the £200 I had paid  (which I did) and then had to pay £200 deposit on the cruise I had just booked (if that makes sense) Going to contact NCL as I cancelled before final payment date.

[room with a view]

Thanks everyone for your kind advice ..this has gone to "resolutions" department of NCL .