Any issues with cancelled ports?

[MEFIowa]

23 hours ago, ORV said:

... My bottom line is if I didn't trust the judgement of the Captains that Oceania hires then I wouldn't cruise with them.... 

So true!

 

For two of our cruises it was medical issues by passengers. We had to divert to the Dominican Republic off Sirena 11/2022 to anchor and use our tender boat to send the ill passenger to a hospital there. Cost us one of the Caribbean Islands, St. Kitts, where I had been hoping to go see the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Brimstone Fortress. We had to make a stop off Key West on Riviera 12/2021 to have the USCG pick up a seriously ill passenger and high seas/waves cost us our day on the private island in the Bahamas. Off our 20 nights on Riviera in the Med 10-11/2023 we only had to cancel Livorno due to high seas/waves but substituted La Spezia. Did cost us our excursion to Pisa, though I did get to "join" the Italian Communist Party in the transportation workers' strike marching down the street that day, a Friday morning. Their hammer and sickle flag reminded me why I joined the USAF during the Cold War, that we won. Of course, the strike ended at noon and the city had a massive street sale that afternoon which we enjoyed.

[chocchic]

Thanks everyone for your contributions.  I guess I am just going to make a decision on excursions assuming that we quite possibly may lose the money if we have to pay in advance.  One thing I did learn on our Australia New Zealand cruise is that cruise lines are required to pay rather substantial port fees to dock.  We visited one port that I'm certain was so new to the game and so little to offer (no excursions cause really not much to see) that I doubt they charged much.  We got off the ship and hired a taxi to drive us to a garden.  We were back at the dock rather quickly.  It was pretty funny to have locals ask us what we were doing there and why.

Pam

[travelingJimmy]

3 hours ago, chocchic said:

Thanks everyone for your contributions.  I guess I am just going to make a decision on excursions assuming that we quite possibly may lose the money if we have to pay in advance.  One thing I did learn on our Australia New Zealand cruise is that cruise lines are required to pay rather substantial port fees to dock.  We visited one port that I'm certain was so new to the game and so little to offer (no excursions cause really not much to see) that I doubt they charged much.  We got off the ship and hired a taxi to drive us to a garden.  We were back at the dock rather quickly.  It was pretty funny to have locals ask us what we were doing there and why.

Pam

I'd be interested to hear anyone's experience with private tours and refunds on canceled ports.   We book almost exclusively private tours.  We were very worried about booking private tours and having port cancels.   That said, in Europe on 2 different cruises when we have had last minute port cancels (France, Spain and Italy), the private tour companies have been extremely gracious about giving refunds. I think they must know that on social media people will talk and those that do give refunds, even last minute, will be rewarded with a positive comments online.   Not to mention it would be pretty easy to verify that a ship has canceled a port verses someone changing their mind.

[CurlerRob]

8 minutes ago, travelingJimmy said:

I'd be interested to hear anyone's experience with private tours and refunds on canceled ports.   We book almost exclusively private tours.  We were very worried about booking private tours and having port cancels.   That said, in Europe on 2 different cruises when we have had last minute port cancels (France, Spain and Italy), the private tour companies have been extremely gracious about giving refunds. I think they must know that on social media people will talk and those that do give refunds, even last minute, will be rewarded with a positive comments online.   Not to mention it would be pretty easy to verify that a ship has canceled a port verses someone changing their mind.

The vast majority of professional cruise tour providers will tell you up front that they refund payment for a missed port. Any one that doesn’t is a deal breaker for us. Refund policies overall are one element of how we choose a provider. 🍺🥌

[MEFIowa]

11 minutes ago, travelingJimmy said:

I'd be interested to hear anyone's experience with private tours and refunds on canceled ports.   We book almost exclusively private tours.  We were very worried about booking private tours and having port cancels.   That said, in Europe on 2 different cruises when we have had last minute port cancels (France, Spain and Italy), the private tour companies have been extremely gracious about giving refunds....

Off that B2B we did major private tours for Ephesus and Rome, and had one scheduled for Pisa from Livorno. But we missed it due to change in port to La Spezia and a transportation strike that Friday morning. Wife contacted the private tour group and they refunded us the payment, no questions asked. They knew what was going on. And we knew the night before. We contacted them immediately.

 

BUT we also had travel insurance, just in case.

[pinotlover]

I have found that the tour operators often know if a port will be missed before we passengers do. One tour operator was telling us three days in advance the ship was skipping the port while ship personnel refused to confirm it until 24 hours before scheduled arrival.

[ronrick1943]

Like any thing you purchase you should know the terms before you buy in writing.  Honestly we've always got a refund back to the credit card we used for the purchased tour.  We don't tour that much so maybe we've been lucky, and truth be told I'm never disappointed with another sea day (of course unless it was really-really something I wanted to do) but even a little disappointment I'll still enjoy the day at sea.

[QuestionEverything]

15 hours ago, pinotlover said:

I have found that the tour operators often know if a port will be missed before we passengers do. One tour operator was telling us three days in advance the ship was skipping the port while ship personnel refused to confirm it until 24 hours before scheduled arrival.

A good morning pinotlover.

Thank you for your post.

You have cruised much. Do you have thoughts on why passengers are the last to know?

This is very disturbing.

[pinotlover]

18 minutes ago, QuestionEverything said:

A good morning pinotlover.

Thank you for your post.

You have cruised much. Do you have thoughts on why passengers are the last to know?

This is very disturbing.

Oceania, especially the CD, would rather not listen to 1-3 days of complaining . Except in the rare case of some very localized weather, all the decisions are made in Miami. Miami makes a decision and the ship’s crew bears the brunt.

[Hlitner]

Those who say things like, "we trust the Captain" have misplaced loyalty.  While a Captain is trulyt he Master of his/her Vessel, that does not mean that the Captain is the one changing itineraries and deciding to miss ports.  While a missed port might happen because a Captain (or Port Master/Captain) does not think conditions allow for enough safety, the decison to skip ports can also be main by the home office (Operations Center).  

 

On our recent Vista cruise (35 days) we had numerous chats (usually at Martini's :), with long time O loyalists.  They told me that many of the port changes/cancellations made by O are happening because of decisions made by the Operations Center.  Why this happens on O and NCLH brands, more than some other lines, is anyone's guess.  Perhaps it is simply bad luck with the weather and sea conditions, or perhaps it is for other reasons (not communicated to the customers).  When a port is cancelled for "Operational Reasons" it can be a real mystery.  Perhaps a port is going to be overcrowded (this should have been known when the cruise was originally scheduled), perhaps the ship has mechanical problems (often kept secret from passengers) that results in reduced speeds, or perhaps it is for other reasons (seldom communicated to passengers.

 

What I know is that with "O" we have had more changes, on our two booked cruises, then on any other cruise line (based on more than 50 years of extensive cruising).  On our recent Vista cruise, there was a major itinerary change (months before the voyage) which eliminated several ports in Turkey and replaced them with less desirable (to me) ports in Greece.  Why?  To this day we have no clue.  We spoke to two different senior O managers on the Vista and they told me they also had no clue to the changes.  They simply follow the itinerary dictated by the home office.  And for those who think there were political or safety reasons connected with the cancelling of the Turkey ports, the following cruise (after we disembarked) was heading to Turkey.  Go figure.  My big problem with those port changes is that O felt no need to communicate to their paying customers why they made the changes other than to say "for operational reasons."   As a long time cruiser, I expect a cruise line to deliver the itinerary that we booked, unless there are unforeseen (and unavoidable) circumstances.  

 

We recently had a major change in a Seaborn itinerary (which we had booked before the change).  In that case, Seabourn did disclose the reason (due to a charter situation) and actually offered us a discount on a changed itinerary.  While we were not happy with Seabourn's decision, we did respect the fact that they disclosed the reason for the change.  With O changes, it seems to be the norm to keep the reasoning "top secret."

 

Hank

[mbiggers]

Our first O cruise was in late March, 2022. We started in Miami and before embarkation Frank Del Rio, the CEO of NCL, and Howard Sherman, the O CEO, came to our CC Meet and Greet. The Norwegian Escape had run aground two weeks before our cruise. FDR told us that he had informed all the Captains in all three brands that “THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN!” He said he told them to cancel any port if there was even the slightest risk in getting into port. Now, after a total of 7 O cruises, we average 2-3 port cancellations per cruise. On our last 14 day cruise there were 3, including St Malo. We had prepaid a driver to take us to Mont St Michel and were surprised that travel insurance covered it.

So, yes, it’s not your imagination that NCL is the most conservative cruise line around. For us, Oceania is worth the risk.

Edited May 15 by mbiggers
Change

[sunlover12]

There's no way of knowing in advance so just be flexible if you need to be.  FWIW, I've been on 8 Oceania cruises and have had a total of 3 ports cancelled.  2 out of those 3 didn't turn into sea days as they were replaced with other ports.  The reasons were:  a) recent reports of violence in one of the Mexico ports;  b) sea conditions in a tender port. As I recall, we did stay anchored there for at least an hour hoping it would calm but it didn't; c) weather.   So for me that was dozens of ports that were not cancelled. Pretty good odds.

 

Maybe I've just been lucky so far. 

 

[CurlerRob]

14 hours ago, pinotlover said:

Oceania, especially the CD, would rather not listen to 1-3 days of complaining . 

 

I agree.

 

In addition, the cruise lines appear to believe pax are technologically illiterate - unable to see weather patterns on Windy.com; unable to see the ship's position and track on MarineTraffic.com and unable to read newspapers from destination ports - any of which can make it clear that an itinerary change is imminent.

 

On a Sept/23 TA on Regent, we ran afoul of Hurricane Lee and a co-incident major depression. Our skipper did a magical job keeping us out of harm's way, but the above made it very clear that we weren't going to make Bermuda. The Bermuda Times published our port cancellation 3 days before we were informed.

 

Most cruise lines are poor at communicating bad news. Perhaps NCL has raised it to an art form? 🍺🥌

[Zoey123]

 
Are you concerned that Oceania won’t reimburse you for an excursion if they cancel a port? Or are you concerned because you are booking through outside vendors? We will be on the Sirena this summer in Iceland and Greenland, etc. and I very much expect that we will probably not make all the ports given the area. All of our excursions are through Oceania. I’m assuming we don’t have to worry about reimbursement if ports are cancelled?

[clo]

On 5/15/2024 at 8:01 AM, mbiggers said:

Our first O cruise was in late March, 2022. We started in Miami and before embarkation Frank Del Rio, the CEO of NCL, and Howard Sherman, the O CEO, came to our CC Meet and Greet. The Norwegian Escape had run aground two weeks before our cruise. FDR told us that he had informed all the Captains in all three brands that “THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN!” He said he told them to cancel any port if there was even the slightest risk in getting into port. Now, after a total of 7 O cruises, we average 2-3 port cancellations per cruise. On our last 14 day cruise there were 3, including St Malo. We had prepaid a driver to take us to Mont St Michel and were surprised that travel insurance covered it.

So, yes, it’s not your imagination that NCL is the most conservative cruise line around. For us, Oceania is worth the risk.

But give the money back.

[mbiggers]

7 hours ago, Zoey123 said:

 
Are you concerned that Oceania won’t reimburse you for an excursion if they cancel a port? Or are you concerned because you are booking through outside vendors? We will be on the Sirena this summer in Iceland and Greenland, etc. and I very much expect that we will probably not make all the ports given the area. All of our excursions are through Oceania. I’m assuming we don’t have to worry about reimbursement if ports are cancelled?

We have always been reimbursed for excursions purchased through Oceania. Not sure how the Simply More excursions would be handled.

[roothy123]

11 hours ago, mbiggers said:

We have always been reimbursed for excursions purchased through Oceania. Not sure how the Simply More excursions would be handled.

From what I've been told, whatever money you paid (whether as part of an excursion in which you used both SM excursion credit and your own money OR an excursion which you paid for in full) would be turned into a refundable shipboard credit (to be used on anything - excursions, spa, drinks, store purchases, etc.)  If you haven't used this credit by the end of the cruise, you can ask that what you paid be refunded to you.  But this is from what I was told by another cruiser.  I haven't yet cruised with SM shore excursion credit, so can't verify whether it's correct.  

[roothy123]

On 5/14/2024 at 5:21 PM, MEFIowa said:

Off that B2B we did major private tours for Ephesus and Rome, and had one scheduled for Pisa from Livorno. But we missed it due to change in port to La Spezia and a transportation strike that Friday morning. Wife contacted the private tour group and they refunded us the payment, no questions asked. They knew what was going on. And we knew the night before. We contacted them immediately.

 

BUT we also had travel insurance, just in case.

But are you sure your travel insurance covers this situation?  From what I've seen, very few do, at least in the U.S.  And the few policies that do cover it cost too much for my liking.

[MEFIowa]

6 minutes ago, roothy123 said:

But are you sure your travel insurance covers this situation?

If thru no fault of ours the excursion is cancelled due to what the Cruise Line and ship do, then YES, it is covered under our policy. Of course, we make sure to contact the excursion provider the moment we learn about the change. Do our due diligence. And in the case I mentioned, the excursion provider refunded the money. As others have said, they often seem to know about such things before we do and know that it isn't the passengers' fault.

[EJL2023]

40 minutes ago, roothy123 said:

From what I've been told, whatever money you paid (whether as part of an excursion in which you used both SM excursion credit and your own money OR an excursion which you paid for in full) would be turned into a refundable shipboard credit (to be used on anything - excursions, spa, drinks, store purchases, etc.)  If you haven't used this credit by the end of the cruise, you can ask that what you paid be refunded to you.  But this is from what I was told by another cruiser.  I haven't yet cruised with SM shore excursion credit, so can't verify whether it's correct.  

This is the way it worked for us on a January cruise. 

[Hlitner]

Some ask about Simply More and excursions and we will repeat what we learned on our recent 35 day Vista Cruise.  We had SM, and since we have a strong dislike of cruise line excursions, we booked (prior to the cruise) just enough excursions to utilize all of our excursions credit (over $1000 per person).   During the cruise, one port where we had an excursion, was cancelled.  One of our other confirmed excursions was also cancelled (the explanation was that the shore-based provider cancelled the excursion).  Accordingly, we had nearly $400 per person unused credits.  At that point, many of the best excursions were fully booked and many others were of no interest to us.  

 

Since O would simply keep our unused credit (there are no refunds...even though O cancelled the excursions) we booked a couple of available excursions (one turned out to be awful and the other was OK).  

 

When O cancelled our excursions, the money was quickly credited back to our account (but could only be used for other excursions).  

 

I will add that the excursion we had on Santorini (which included a winery visit and tasting) was really bad.  We know that quite a few on our tour went to the Destination Office to complain (not sure how that worked out).  We did not complain, because even if they had given us some kind of refund (which would have likely been put back into our excursion credits) there was no way we would have booked any other excursions.  We are DIY travelers and being stuck on a bus with 40+ of our "friends" is not our idea of fun.  As to the awful tour on Santorini, the problem was a very bad and disorganized guide who did a good job at wasting an awful lot of time.  This left little time for some of the promised (and better) parts of our itinerary.  

 

During numerous discussions (mostly at Martinis) with other cruisers, the quality of the excursions on our cruise seemed to be hit/miss.  This is what we typically hear on other cruise lines.  Whether you get a good excursion or something quite bad, does seem to be a matter of luck.  A good guide does make a difference, and when you book cruise line excursions you have no control over guides.  While we generally prefer to simply do our own thing, there is much to say about the benefits of booking small group tours where you have some control over choosing a guide and planning an itinerary.

 

Hank

[Eloise4Ever]

7 hours ago, roothy123 said:

From what I've been told, whatever money you paid (whether as part of an excursion in which you used both SM excursion credit and your own money OR an excursion which you paid for in full) would be turned into a refundable shipboard credit (to be used on anything - excursions, spa, drinks, store purchases, etc.)  If you haven't used this credit by the end of the cruise, you can ask that what you paid be refunded to you.  But this is from what I was told by another cruiser.  I haven't yet cruised with SM shore excursion credit, so can't verify whether it's correct.  

 

There are many reports on this forum which state that when shore excursions which were booked under the Simply More package are cancelled by O, you will receive a non-refundable credit which can only be used for excursions. If you cannot find other excursions which interest you, or if all remaining excursions are sold out, you lose the Simply More credit.

[clo]

2 hours ago, Eloise4Ever said:

 

There are many reports on this forum which state that when shore excursions which were booked under the Simply More package are cancelled by O, you will receive a non-refundable credit which can only be used for excursions. If you cannot find other excursions which interest you, or if all remaining excursions are sold out, you lose the Simply More credit.

That's what I understand also.

[roothy123]

2 hours ago, clo said:

That's what I understand also.

Yes, the Simply More excursion credit is basically use or lose.  But I was addressing an instance if your canceled excursion was paid in part by you, and "paid" in part with SM excursion credit. I've been told that you can get the money you paid back.   

Edited May 18 by roothy123

[ORV]

10 hours ago, roothy123 said:

I've been told that you can get the money you paid back. 

But not the SM part. The other post seemed to imply you get the SM & what you paid. Maybe it was just wording.