Cruise cancellation question

[clo]

44 minutes ago, osandomir said:

Definitely, cancelling the revenue tickets is a much more complicated matter. The post I was replying to was about the air tickets booked with miles. I was just saying that Delta probably didn’t do much of a favour to the poster on the award tickets return compared to the other major airlines that I mentioned.

I tell ya what. Having this miles refund benefit which, honestly, didn't mean all that much to us, sure does now. To the point that I'm wondering if we should only travel to certain places ON miles.

[Robininthenest]

My husband and I booked an Oceania cruise. We previously had gone on a wonderful Baltic cruise with Oceania and swore we would never sail with any other cruise line.
I had to cancel our trip due to the need to have knee replacement surgery. The penalty was $9000.  We asked if we could change our booking to a different date either with the same UK itinerary or another and put the $9000 penalty towards it...and we were denied. 
Is this everyone's experience as I understand other cruise lines will permit a change of date without penalty?

Edited August 19 by Robininthenest
misspelling

[AMHuntFerry]

10 minutes ago, Robininthenest said:

My husband and I booked an Oceania cruise. We previously had gone on a wonderful Baltic cruise with Oceania and swore we would never sail with any other cruise line.
I had to cancel our trip due to the need to have knee replacement surgery. The penalty was $9000.  We asked if we could change our booking to a different date either with the same UK itinerary or another and put the $9000 penalty towards it...and we were denied. 
Is this everyone's experience as I understand other cruise lines will permit a change of date without penalty?

Sorry you had such a costly experience! After a certain date that is listed in your cruise contract/statement, the penalties get larger periodically until they reach 100%. I peruse my contract each time since sometimes there are changes that I need to know. For future trips the following info may be useful to you: I have a credit card that has travel insurance included (no extra charge....similar to car rental insurance). It would have fully covered this situation. If the trip is significantly more than my credit card's insurance or I want to cover more circumstances than my current coverage, I'll buy additional coverage (there is a whole forum on CC that discusses travel insurance).

[Harters]

16 hours ago, Robininthenest said:

I understand other cruise lines will permit a change of date without penalty?

Sorry to say but the policies of other lines are not relevant. The only thing relevant is O's terms and conditions that apply where you are in the world. It's cancellation policy should be clearly set out in them.

 

As mentioned above, your travel insurance may a route worth trying. That said, I wouldnt hold my breath. I had a similar issue with a knee replacement some years back. This was post surgery but within the period when I was not advised to fly. I claimed on the insurance but was refused on the grounds I hadnt properly declared the pre-existing arthritis condition. That was a lesson learned. 

[1985rz1]

17 hours ago, Robininthenest said:

My husband and I booked an Oceania cruise. We previously had gone on a wonderful Baltic cruise with Oceania and swore we would never sail with any other cruise line.
I had to cancel our trip due to the need to have knee replacement surgery. The penalty was $9000.  We asked if we could change our booking to a different date either with the same UK itinerary or another and put the $9000 penalty towards it...and we were denied. 
Is this everyone's experience as I understand other cruise lines will permit a change of date without penalty?

You must have been within the staggered penalty period.  There's a scale of penalties that go into effect starting 120 or 150 days out.  

 

If you heard that other lines allowed a penality free transfer, that means the cancelation was outside the penalty period.  Same with Oceania.

 

While the rules for other lines is not relevant to O,  but other lines have same same policy.  We sail O, Azamara, Viking, and Seabourn, and they have similar policies.  

 

We had to cancel several trips in 2023 on different lines following a medical emergency, and lost only deposits on several and the full amount in one case.  Our travel insurance covered all the losses.