Apex excursion overbooked and canceled

[ginadis2002]

I am wondering if the sheer amount of passengers on these huge ships has just become too big for smaller ports and excursion operators to handle. 

[phoenix_dream]

4 hours ago, ginadis2002 said:

I am wondering if the sheer amount of passengers on these huge ships has just become too big for smaller ports and excursion operators to handle. 

There's no question of that.  Many ports, as I'm sure you are aware, are even passing legislation to ban cruise ships entirely, or severely limit them.  But that in itself is no excuse for this happening, regardless of whether it was the fault of Celebrity or the railroad itself.  Modern technology should have no problems handling a simple reservation process.  

[Seasoned_Traveler]

We were on the same cruise as you and our Flam Railway excursion was cancelled too. The ticket agent at the Flam Railway ticket sales counter told us that Celebrity had not released any of their tickets.

Later in the week we shared a table with a retired doctor that was traveling with family. They booked their cruise a month before departure, including the Flam Railway excursion for a group of 7, many months after our tickets were confirmed for our 4 excursions.

His family group was in a suite, had been on numerous Celebrity cruises, and was able to bump us. We have never had anything like this happen on other cruise line or land tour. This is our first and last cruise on Celebrity.

[jagoffee]

1 hour ago, Seasoned_Traveler said:

We were on the same cruise as you and our Flam Railway excursion was cancelled too. The ticket agent at the Flam Railway ticket sales counter told us that Celebrity had not released any of their tickets.

Later in the week we shared a table with a retired doctor that was traveling with family. They booked their cruise a month before departure, including the Flam Railway excursion for a group of 7, many months after our tickets were confirmed for our 4 excursions.

His family group was in a suite, had been on numerous Celebrity cruises, and was able to bump us. We have never had anything like this happen on other cruise line or land tour. This is our first and last cruise on Celebrity.

Ouch.  Certainly is not fair.
 

   Perhaps Celebrity oversold the tour or the Flam Railway did not provide enough tickets?

I think you can be confident that Celebrity did not use the purchase date as the priority for who‘s  ticket was cancelled. Was this excursion every sold out? I have no idea how different cruise lines handle this kind of situation.

 

Were  you able to buy a ticket directly from the railroad for the railroad?

 

I am sorry to hear that this happened to you.  
 

It might be worth writing a little and complain, but if you already know that you will never cruise with Celebrity it might not be worth the effort.

Edited August 11, 2023 by jagoffee

[terrydtx]

2 minutes ago, jagoffee said:

Were  you able to buy a ticket directly from the railroad for the tour?

The OP reported that the railroad was sold out when they tried to buy them direct on the day they stopped at the port.

[jagoffee]

4 hours ago, terrydtx said:

The OP reported that the railroad was sold out when they tried to buy them direct on the day they stopped at the port.

Yes, I recall. I was wondering if Seasoned_Traveler had the same experience.  Certainly a terrible experience.

[Seasoned_Traveler]

We checked the Flam Railway site, the night that we received the Cancelation Notice, and it showed that there were no tickets available for the train, during the hours that were aligned with the ship's port time. When we visited the ticket office in Flam the live monitors, and ticket counter sales clerk, confirmed that there were no tickets available, therefore we were not able to ride the train. When the sales clerk stated that "Celebrity had not released any of their tickets for the train, so they probably overbooked it, or we would have tickets for sale" we became very suspicious. That lead us to asking numerous passengers on the Celebrity Apex whether they had experienced the same type of cancellation. We dropped the investigation once we had heard from enough passengers that were treated the same.

All readers of this site are likely aware of the Flam Railway's famed views, and they are the primary reason why we chose this Celebrity Apex itinerary. Celebrity is likely caught up in the business practice of attempting to maximize profits, regardless of the impact it makes on their customers, and for that they should be called out for it. We plan to write our own posting, and write to executive management, but nothing will entice us to return to a provider that lacks integrity.

[jagoffee]

Seasoned_Traveler, thanks for the additional information.  

[hcat]

19 hours ago, Seasoned_Traveler said:

We were on the same cruise as you and our Flam Railway excursion was cancelled too. The ticket agent at the Flam Railway ticket sales counter told us that Celebrity had not released any of their tickets.

Later in the week we shared a table with a retired doctor that was traveling with family. They booked their cruise a month before departure, including the Flam Railway excursion for a group of 7, many months after our tickets were confirmed for our 4 excursions.

His family group was in a suite, had been on numerous Celebrity cruises, and was able to bump us. We have never had anything like this happen on other cruise line or land tour. This is our first and last cruise on Celebrity.

That would be a very unfair practice!

 

 I believe we were switched out of a long  standing  pre paid dining time to a much later time in Fine Cut on EDGE to accomodate someone "more entitled".  Of course, we canceled not so easily after putting up a fuss! 

 

[lovetogolfgirl45]

On 8/11/2023 at 1:40 PM, Seasoned_Traveler said:

We were on the same cruise as you and our Flam Railway excursion was cancelled too. The ticket agent at the Flam Railway ticket sales counter told us that Celebrity had not released any of their tickets.

Later in the week we shared a table with a retired doctor that was traveling with family. They booked their cruise a month before departure, including the Flam Railway excursion for a group of 7, many months after our tickets were confirmed for our 4 excursions.

His family group was in a suite, had been on numerous Celebrity cruises, and was able to bump us. We have never had anything like this happen on other cruise line or land tour. This is our first and last cruise on Celebrity.

Exactly as we feel as well.  

[Cruise till you drop]

Did you ask for an explanation on how exactly an excursion gets overbooked given the max size is known and the system shouldn’t allow more people than spots to be sold.  In fact you can see comments like “7 Spots Left” as it starts getting fully booked.

 

And once those spots are gone, the system shows “Sold Out”.

 

Basically their system I thought should already be foolproof not to overbook

 

 

Edited August 13, 2023 by Cruise till you drop

[C4HCG]

On 8/11/2023 at 8:40 PM, Seasoned_Traveler said:

We were on the same cruise as you and our Flam Railway excursion was cancelled too. The ticket agent at the Flam Railway ticket sales counter told us that Celebrity had not released any of their tickets.

Later in the week we shared a table with a retired doctor that was traveling with family. They booked their cruise a month before departure, including the Flam Railway excursion for a group of 7, many months after our tickets were confirmed for our 4 excursions.

His family group was in a suite, had been on numerous Celebrity cruises, and was able to bump us. We have never had anything like this happen on other cruise line or land tour. This is our first and last cruise on Celebrity.

So you think someone manually cancelled you in favour of some other group? 

[C4HCG]

On 8/12/2023 at 3:10 PM, Seasoned_Traveler said:

. Celebrity is likely caught up in the business practice of attempting to maximize profits, regardless of the impact it makes on their customers, and for that they should be called out for it. We plan to write our own posting, and write to executive management, but nothing will entice us to return to a provider that lacks integrity.

Celebrity is a business, hardly a surprise that they attempt to maximise profit.

[jagoffee]

1 hour ago, Cruise till you drop said:

Did you ask for an explanation on how exactly an excursion gets overbooked given the max size is known and the system shouldn’t allow more people than spots to be sold.  In fact you can see comments like “7 Spots Left” as it starts getting fully booked.

 

And once those spots are gone, the system shows “Sold Out”.

 

Basically their system I thought should already be foolproof not to overbook

 

 

You would certainly think it would easy enough to manage.  The only justifiable explanation that I could even remotely see would be if the railroad had an issue and took a car out of service.  No indication that it happened.

[MandL]

I'm so sorry this was your first experience with Celebrity.  Pre-pandemic they were great to sail with.  But, on to how they handled this.  Look how Celebrity oversold the Asia cruises by overbooking the staterooms, and randomly canceling passengers for the 23/24 season, and no public apology.  This seems to be their standard practice now.  We're Elite plus, and seriously looking to Seabourn.  I doubt Seabourn would overbook and cancel passengers at the last minute on an excursion unless there was a very good reason.  Seabourn's itinerary this year in the Fjords was fabulous. It was a better price, for less sea days.  By the way, the big push is to go zero emissions by 2025.

[Seasoned_Traveler]

We did not ask for an explanation as to why our seats were given to a more important customer. That would have further distracted us from enjoying our time together and our bottle of Italian wine ;-).  Reservation Systems normally perform as intended, until someone manually intervenes, and bumping us in favor of a more important customer is definitely what Celebrity did. For that, our only recourse is to use social media to let others know that they should consider alternatives to Celebrity.

Yes, Celebrity is a for-profit business, as is American Airlines (AA). Even though I quickly requalify for Executive Platinum (EP) status each year, it is very unlikely that AA would treat a "low/no status customer" the way Celebrity treated us. The airline industry business model is to overbook, as most travelers know, but when needed they can quickly find an available seat on another flight even if it means flying on it's competitor. The exception to this is weather, not an issue in Flam that day.

The sales clerk at the ticket office in Flam confirmed to us that Celebrity did not release any of their tickets that day, nor were there any mechanical issues that reduced the Flam Railways capacity that day.

BTW, we booked this cruise on AA's cruise site, and my review of Celebrity's actions are posted on their site, hoping to steer fellow AA customers away from Celebrity and Royal Caribbean Group (RCG). Afterall, it is RCG's Terms & Conditions that one must agree to when booking an excursion. They can cancel excursions the night before docking in Flam, but customers are left with no way to recover from Celebrity's poor business decision.  

[Cruise till you drop]

22 minutes ago, Seasoned_Traveler said:

We did not ask for an explanation as to why our seats were given to a more important customer. That would have further distracted us from enjoying our time together and our bottle of Italian wine ;-).  Reservation Systems normally perform as intended, until someone manually intervenes, and bumping us in favor of a more important customer is definitely what Celebrity did. For that, our only recourse is to use social media to let others know that they should consider alternatives to Celebrity.

Yes, Celebrity is a for-profit business, as is American Airlines (AA). Even though I quickly requalify for Executive Platinum (EP) status each year, it is very unlikely that AA would treat a "low/no status customer" the way Celebrity treated us. The airline industry business model is to overbook, as most travelers know, but when needed they can quickly find an available seat on another flight even if it means flying on it's competitor. The exception to this is weather, not an issue in Flam that day.

The sales clerk at the ticket office in Flam confirmed to us that Celebrity did not release any of their tickets that day, nor were there any mechanical issues that reduced the Flam Railways capacity that day.

BTW, we booked this cruise on AA's cruise site, and my review of Celebrity's actions are posted on their site, hoping to steer fellow AA customers away from Celebrity and Royal Caribbean Group (RCG). Afterall, it is RCG's Terms & Conditions that one must agree to when booking an excursion. They can cancel excursions the night before docking in Flam, but customers are left with no way to recover from Celebrity's poor business decision.  

Did you also book the Celebrity excursion through the AA site ?

[Seasoned_Traveler]

No, we booked the excursions on Celebrity's site once we had the ability to access them. 

We typically book our overseas trips about a year in advance, to coincide with the availability to book flights on AA or One World (OW) flights, to make sure that we have access to lay flat seating on the outbound (overnight) flights. We live in Dallas, and only fly AA/OW, for obvious reasons.