Brilliance transatlantic canceled for April 2025

[JuliaMS]

Just got an email that out transatlantic was canceled so they could go to drydock early. They offered us 3 other transatlantic cruises at today’s fare that end in Spain instead of Southampton and $200 OBC. 
 

Has anyone had any luck getting the initial offer increased? We booked a year ago so rates are double. Out trip is planned around arriving in England then visiting England and Ireland. 

[starrlite]

I just got it as well and a bit upset over it. I had a feeling something was up based of not being able to purchase packages and the cruise had disappeared off the website. We already did the TA to Barcelona last month so the options listed do not interest us. We were sooooo looking forward to the TA to England...least to say DH is not happy. Anyhoo, I suggest you call them and ask, it wouldn't hurt...worst is that they so no. 

We're mostly going to ask for a full refund and plan a cruise with a different line. We'll see... 

so sad :(

[firefly333]

2 hours ago, JuliaMS said:

Just got an email that out transatlantic was canceled so they could go to drydock early. They offered us 3 other transatlantic cruises at today’s fare that end in Spain instead of Southampton and $200 OBC. 
 

Has anyone had any luck getting the initial offer increased? We booked a year ago so rates are double. Out trip is planned around arriving in England then visiting England and Ireland. 

Just curious on the wording . .. says you cant transfer to another TA unless you pay the full asking fare currently? I'd think you could transfer to another TA price protected. Sorry, that's crazy if it says you also have to pay today's fares to cha ge to a different offered TA. I hope someone posts the letter.

 

I'm on the Voyager may 2025 TA. And thinking yikes, I was going to book hotels and air fare in the next 2 weeks. I agree $200 obc doesnt cover the changes. .

[JuliaMS]

33 minutes ago, firefly333 said:

Just curious on the wording . .. says you cant transfer to another TA unless you pay the full asking fare currently? I'd think you could transfer to another TA price protected. Sorry, that's crazy if it says you also have to pay today's fares to cha ge to a different offered TA. I hope someone posts the letter.

 

I'm on the Voyager may 2025 TA. And thinking yikes, I was going to book hotels and air fare in the next 2 weeks. I agree $200 obc doesnt cover the changes. .

Only 1 still going to England. Balcony for same price we had suite. They offered 3 price protected going to Spain but we still lose the 4 new ports we had never been to. 

[ONECRUISER]

3 hours ago, JuliaMS said:

Just got an email that out transatlantic was canceled so they could go to drydock early. They offered us 3 other transatlantic cruises at today’s fare that end in Spain instead of Southampton and $200 OBC. 
 

Has anyone had any luck getting the initial offer increased? We booked a year ago so rates are double. Out trip is planned around arriving in England then visiting England and Ireland. 

No you wont get another better offer, they'd probably rather a new customer pay full price then a lower rate that you have locked in.

[STEVE-O]

I wonder what these means for our westbound TA in August 2025.....

5 hours ago, ONECRUISER said:

No you wont get another better offer, they'd probably rather a new customer pay full price then a lower rate that you have locked in.

 

[Agavegirl1]

4 hours ago, STEVE-O said:

I wonder what these means for our westbound TA in August 2025.....

 

So far, itineraries following the original, shorter dry dock remain unchanged. I think they just needed more time for the planned refurb.

[little britain]

5 hours ago, STEVE-O said:

I wonder what these means for our westbound TA in August 2025.....

 

Why should it? Ship is still in Europe. 

[starrlite]

What get me all T'd off is that they decided to drydock this ship instead of fulling their obligation to the customers. Who is this person in charge of scheduling drydocks of ships,  because he or she should be fired!! Does RCCL just pull dates out of the arse and say "oh well, guess we will have to cancel that sailing". Absolutely poor business planning. 

[Another_Critic]

16 minutes ago, starrlite said:

What get me all T'd off is that they decided to drydock this ship instead of fulling their obligation to the customers. Who is this person in charge of scheduling drydocks of ships,  because he or she should be fired!! Does RCCL just pull dates out of the arse and say "oh well, guess we will have to cancel that sailing". Absolutely poor business planning. 

The drydock company may have had a schedule conflict, not RCI.

[JuliaMS]

4 hours ago, starrlite said:

What get me all T'd off is that they decided to drydock this ship instead of fulling their obligation to the customers. Who is this person in charge of scheduling drydocks of ships,  because he or she should be fired!! Does RCCL just pull dates out of the arse and say "oh well, guess we will have to cancel that sailing". Absolutely poor business planning. 

It was scheduled to go in after this cruise, they decided to move it up and that they didn’t want to send the ship to Southampton the turn around. 

[Another_Critic]

15 minutes ago, JuliaMS said:

It was scheduled to go in after this cruise, they decided to move it up and that they didn’t want to send the ship to Southampton the turn around. 

The question is, who is "they"?  RCI, the drydock, or both?

[SPacificbound]

I wonder if there is an issue with the ship that needs to be covered sooner than planned.

 

[cruiselvr04]

I get it.  Things change but this one was sure disappointing.  We too had planned to spend time in London after.  The other TA’s offered have dates that don’t work for us.  I don’t want to end in Barcelona on Brilliance.  There’s no other ship going out of there for at least a week (Celebrity’s Apex) and I don’t want to spend that much time there waiting.  

 

So we’re looking at other options but as others have posted rates are now much higher then if we’d booked months ago.  $50-$100 OBC doesn’t cut it.  
 

This has happened to us several times. Maybe Royal needs to be more careful before putting out schedules…it always makes us pretty unhappy.  Thankfully I was just starting to work on hotels and tours for England and hadn’t put any money out yet.  

[JuliaMS]

1 hour ago, Another_Critic said:

The question is, who is "they"?  RCI, the drydock, or both?

RCL moved up the departure. Seems they could have moved it up enough to get us to our destination country. Being a TA many people have weeks of travel that has to change. The compensation is laughable and they won’t cover getting to the original country. Since I booked so far out any other cruise but the Spain they are offering drops us from a suite to a balcony for the same price. 

[Agavegirl1]

So, I cancelled the cruise via email last week as I was told in the cancellation email to do. Today I received an email saying I had to call to cancel. After holding for 5 minutes, I spoke with a representative who said "because I was cancelling and didn't buy trip insurance, they would retain my $1,000 deposit".

 

First, I purchased a fully refundable fare. Second, I didn't cancel the cruise, they did. I demanded to speak with a supervisor and the situation was resolved. Who trains these people?

[mjldvlks]

On 6/26/2024 at 2:13 AM, little britain said:

Why should it? Ship is still in Europe. 

Well, it’s not supposed to be in Europe in April 2025.  It is scheduled to sail from NOLA over the winter. It has to cross at some point if it’s going to sail from Southampton to Boston on August. 

[GimmeOcean]

1 hour ago, mjldvlks said:

Well, it’s not supposed to be in Europe in April 2025.  It is scheduled to sail from NOLA over the winter. It has to cross at some point if it’s going to sail from Southampton to Boston on August. 

Brilliance is now sailing 14 nights Miami to Barcelona on April 7th 2025.

[cruiselvr04]

On 6/26/2024 at 8:51 PM, JuliaMS said:

RCL moved up the departure. Seems they could have moved it up enough to get us to our destination country. Being a TA many people have weeks of travel that has to change. The compensation is laughable and they won’t cover getting to the original country. Since I booked so far out any other cruise but the Spain they are offering drops us from a suite to a balcony for the same price. 

It is too bad that they completely changed the itinerary and the country of destination. Changing the date wouldn’t have been quite so bad.  I’ve literally spent most of 3 days researching how to fix this. Pricing cruises now for April are crazy high and I feel like Royal gave us poor replacement choices.  Trying to make lemonade out of lemons.  

[little britain]

5 hours ago, mjldvlks said:

Well, it’s not supposed to be in Europe in April 2025.  It is scheduled to sail from NOLA over the winter. It has to cross at some point if it’s going to sail from Southampton to Boston on August. 

She was due to arrive in Portsmouth, England on 27 April 2025. Then she was going into her dry dock, before resuming cruising on 15 May 2025; so, yes, she was meant to be in Europe in April 2025. 

Edited 3 hours ago by little britain