Questions about Cancelling cruise prior to final payment.

[suzyed]

Sorry, searched for this several times and couldn't find the answers I needed.

We booked a 7 day California Coastal cruise, booked excursions, and Specialty Dinners.   We put down our deposit and FCC's that we had have been applied.
Some of the excursions and dinners were paid with a combo of credit card and obc. Final payment is approaching and we have decided to cancel... We've decided that we would rather pay a bit more and go on a longer cruise..maybe a transatlantic of 14 days+ .
So my questions: Should I go on the app/or online and cancel the excursions and the dinners before we cancel the sailing?  Actually I already cancelled the excursions and now are wondering if I should have  done it all at once. I just felt like if I cancelled in a more orderly fashion it would be easier to decipher later.
Also, since final payment was not made yet, I am thinking the Platinum insurance premium would not be charged.
We booked through a TA and plan to call her on Monday.
Thanks for any insight!

Edited January 7 by suzyed

[Rick&Jeannie]

I don't have any hard facts in regards to the order of cancellation for Princess...but I can report what we did very recently on Celebrity.

 

We were booked for an Egypt/Israel cruise for next month.  Well...obviously this was not going to happen (without the eventual itinerary changes that were made.)  I cancelled everything that had been previously booked and received cancellation emails to confirm.  Then, I cancelled the actual cruise.  It was 3 or 4 days before everything eventually filtered through our credit card...but everything did.  I should say that the cruise was not fully paid for and we were greater than 120 days out.  We got everything back due to this timing...back to credit card.

 

Now...back to Princess.  They have always been very good about returning funds back to original form of payment.  I would cancel any/all excursions and SD reservations.  Of course...you're not going to get anything for OBC since that is a promo item.  If you have time now to wait until you see these credits come through, that's what I would do.  Of course, your FCC (FCD?) will take a while to be processed back into your account...it has always been slow in that regard, but I would think within 2 weeks (?).  

 

It just seems that from a "personal" accounting standpoint things should go a lot smoother if you do things in this order such that you know exactly where you stand all along the way.

 

Just my 2 cents worth!

[hpeabody]

Hi, I think your plan seems logical. I hope you have proof of what you have booked and paid for.  Be sure to devise a way to monitor refunds as they come in to be sure ALL is refunded that should be.

[azbirdmom]

When I had to cancel a casino cruise before final payment date I did cancel the excursions and specialty dinners payments first to get that in the queue.  Then a couple of days later I called to cancel the whole thing.  Since it was a casino cruise we lost the $400 deposit but got everything back including the amount paid for the Princess insurance.  Actually we were given a choice: keep the insurance and claim the deposit or get the refund for the insurance and lose the deposit.  Since the deposit was less than the insurance cost we went with the latter.  If your deposit is refundable, then you'd get everything back.  If it's not, then do the math like we did and figure out which way you want to go before you call to cancel.

[Steelers36]

@suzyed, yes, cancel everything you ordered extra and get those refunds in process.  Strip it back to the cruise fare alone and then cancel the cruise via the TA.  FCCs go back to your account.  If you described it wrong, and you meant FCD (but I don't think you did), well those also go back to your CC Member Profile fairly soon as long as they have not yet expired.  If your actual deposit was FCDs, they are returned to your CC Member Profile in relatively short order.  However, if they have since expired, you will get a refund to form of payment of the FCDs.  If you intend to use the FCDs on a new booking, it is imperative for you or TA to get the expiry date extended BEFORE cancelling the cruise booking.

[suzyed]

On 1/6/2024 at 9:18 PM, Steelers36 said:

@suzyed, yes, cancel everything you ordered extra and get those refunds in process.  Strip it back to the cruise fare alone and then cancel the cruise via the TA.  FCCs go back to your account.  If you described it wrong, and you meant FCD (but I don't think you did), well those also go back to your CC Member Profile fairly soon as long as they have not yet expired.  If your actual deposit was FCDs, they are returned to your CC Member Profile in relatively short order.  However, if they have since expired, you will get a refund to form of payment of the FCDs.  If you intend to use the FCDs on a new booking, it is imperative for you or TA to get the expiry date extended BEFORE cancelling the cruise booking.

In the process....cancelled all onboard stuff...and now just emailed the TA so she can get the sailing cancelled and I asked her for a quote on another sailing in October.