Celebrity cancelled sailing but has since gone dark. Questions...

[alexandria]

Just over a week ago, Celebrity called our TA on the phone to tell him that our Galapagos sailing on the Flora was cancelled and that they would be sending him an email shortly with all of the options for rebooking or refunds, compensation (future cruise credit) and reimbursement of certain costs incurred by the passenger.  Now, over a week later, Celebrity has not sent out the email and has not responded to his calls or emails.  There are apparently a number of terms and conditions that apply to the various rebooking/refund/reimbursement options and the future cruise credit but they still haven't said what those are!  😮

 

On every prior cancelled sailing we've had on other lines, the details went to our TA within an hour or two of their call to him and we were able to make timely decisions and arrangements.  Is this delay between telephone notification of cancellation and providing a written communication with the various details typical with Celebrity?  Our TA has said that in all of his years, he's never experienced such a delay nor such a lack of response to his calls and emails.

 

Is it unreasonable to expect that Celebrity should have sent this out within a day or so of calling our TA?  If you have had a sailing cancelled by Celebrity, what has been your experience?

[563toM]

We usually booked with a big box agency and RC notified us by email about the change to our cruise.  It has been so long what is your TA telling you ?

[mahdnc]

I am very sorry that happened to you, alexandria.

 

To answer your question directly, we've had one non-COVID cancellation of a sailing.  It was for the Jan 31, 2020 Silhouette sailing that was cancelled in mid-May 2019 because of a shipyard accident that affected her drydock schedule.  We first found out about it pretty quickly through our roll call in mid-May.  Our formal email notification of the cruise cancellation and the FCC that came along with it did not occur until mid-July.  So two months later.

 

You do need to act fast because you will want to get rebooked quickly before your choices diminish because of the large number of other affected passengers.  Our roll call had a fair number of people that were disappointed with their remaining choices of sailings or cabin availability.  I was lucky because I already had another cruise booked that I was allowed to use my FCC on.  

[jelayne]

Your TA should have contact at Celebrity, not the general reservations number, to assist him.  I believe our TA has what was/is called  Business Development Mgr. who they reach out to when needing assistance.

[wrk2cruise]

There is a special department that handles the Galapagos reservations.

[jelayne]

Alexranda, when is your cruise?  If you haven’t already tried, check for a Roll Call for your sailing here or on the other social media site others from you sailing may have received info direct from Celebrity.

[Jeremiah1212]

7 minutes ago, jelayne said:

Your TA should have contact at Celebrity, not the general reservations number, to assist him.  I believe our TA has what was/is called  Business Development Mgr. who they reach out to when needing assistance.

 

Agreed. The TA needs to take some ownership and reach out to their contacts at Celebrity rather than point figures. They have people to contact and could also go directly to the Galapagos desk also. 

[alexandria]

My TA has reached out to his Celebrity contact/BDM several times over the past week by phone and email and hasn't gotten the first returned call or email reply.  Nada.  He's not dealing with the general reservations department but with his sales rep/BDM who is the person that called him last week about the cancellation.  I'll find out whether he has reached out to the Galapagos sales manager at Celebrity. 

 

No roll call for our sailing.  Other effected passengers who booked direct have reported on social media that they have not received anything other than a phone call a week or more ago notifying them of the cancellation (with a sales pitch to rebook) and a promise that they would shortly receive a follow-up email with the details.

 

Since Celebrity has been accused of lying to (or at least misleading) booked passengers for at least a month who called about the rumored Flora propulsion issue (claiming that the ship was fine and no itinerary changes were planned), I can't help but wonder if Celebrity is now telling people one thing on the phone to convince them to rebook instead of taking the refund but will pull the rug out from under them when they finally receive the email with the actual details and conditions.

 

I'll follow up with my TA about contacting the Galapagos sales manager, but otherwise it looks like a wait and see approach will have to do for now.

 

Thanks for the input.  Fair winds and following seas to all!  🛳️

[alexandria]

1 hour ago, mahdnc said:

I am very sorry that happened to you, alexandria.

 

To answer your question directly, we've had one non-COVID cancellation of a sailing.  It was for the Jan 31, 2020 Silhouette sailing that was cancelled in mid-May 2019 because of a shipyard accident that affected her drydock schedule.  We first found out about it pretty quickly through our roll call in mid-May.  Our formal email notification of the cruise cancellation and the FCC that came along with it did not occur until mid-July.  So two months later.

 

You do need to act fast because you will want to get rebooked quickly before your choices diminish because of the large number of other affected passengers.  Our roll call had a fair number of people that were disappointed with their remaining choices of sailings or cabin availability.  I was lucky because I already had another cruise booked that I was allowed to use my FCC on.  

Wow...two months between learning of the cancellation and receiving the actual written cancellation notice with the compensation offer?  That's pretty absurd IMO.

 

There really aren't a lot of affected passengers for the two sailings that were cancelled.  The Flora only has fifty staterooms.  When I checked stateroom availability on our Dec 8 sailing two weeks ago (since I booked a guarantee and was wondering what was still open), about half of the fifty staterooms were still available to book.  So for the two cancelled sailings (Dec 1 and Dec 8), we are talking seventy-five impacted bookings at the most (and that is if the Dec 1 sailing was fully booked).

[jelayne]

4 minutes ago, alexandria said:

Wow...two months between learning of the cancellation and receiving the actual written cancellation notice with the compensation offer?  That's pretty absurd IMO.

 

There really aren't a lot of affected passengers for the two sailings that were cancelled.  The Flora only has fifty staterooms.  When I checked stateroom availability on our Dec 8 sailing two weeks ago (since I booked a guarantee and was wondering what was still open), about half of the fifty staterooms were still available to book.  So for the two cancelled sailings (Dec 1 and Dec 8), we are talking seventy-five impacted bookings at the most (and that is if the Dec 1 sailing was fully booked).

The OP was notified a week ago, not 2 months ago. 
The poster who referenced 2 months for a cruise in 2020. 

[alexandria]

3 minutes ago, jelayne said:

The OP was notified a week ago, not 2 months ago. 
The poster who referenced 2 months for a cruise in 2020. 

I AM the OP.  I was responding to the poster for whom the written notice of cancellation took two months in 2020.

[mahdnc]

1 hour ago, alexandria said:

Wow...two months between learning of the cancellation and receiving the actual written cancellation notice with the compensation offer?  That's pretty absurd IMO.

 

There really aren't a lot of affected passengers for the two sailings that were cancelled.  The Flora only has fifty staterooms.  When I checked stateroom availability on our Dec 8 sailing two weeks ago (since I booked a guarantee and was wondering what was still open), about half of the fifty staterooms were still available to book.  So for the two cancelled sailings (Dec 1 and Dec 8), we are talking seventy-five impacted bookings at the most (and that is if the Dec 1 sailing was fully booked).

 

I do understand that the number of affected passengers are small.  But the number of available cabins of a particular category can be very very small.  But I see the data on that in your post.  I would still be in hurry though.

[alexandria]

2 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

 

I do understand that the number of affected passengers are small.  But the number of available cabins of a particular category can be very very small.  But I see the data on that in your post.  I would still be in hurry though.

I figure it is up to Celebrity.  I'm not willing to rebook with airfare now thousands more for all 2025 Flora sailings until I see the terms and conditions of Celebrity's offer.  (Hazard of being a mostly retired trial lawyer, I'm not going to rush into a decision when I don't even know any of the details.)  Being mostly retired, nearly any date works for me.  But if Celebrity continues to drag their feet and I don't find a future Flora sailing that meets my requirements, then I'll just take the refund and move on to a different vacation option.  There are still many places we want to visit and many ways to get there and enjoy our travels.  Celebrity isn't the only fish in the seas (nor the only cruise line sailing on them).  😁

[mahdnc]

4 minutes ago, alexandria said:

I figure it is up to Celebrity.  I'm not willing to rebook with airfare now thousands more for all 2025 Flora sailings until I see the terms and conditions of Celebrity's offer.  (Hazard of being a mostly retired trial lawyer, I'm not going to rush into a decision when I don't even know any of the details.)  Being mostly retired, nearly any date works for me.  But if Celebrity continues to drag their feet and I don't find a future Flora sailing that meets my requirements, then I'll just take the refund and move on to a different vacation option.  There are still many places we want to visit and many ways to get there and enjoy our travels.  Celebrity isn't the only fish in the seas (nor the only cruise line sailing on them).  😁

 

Well, I hope it works out to your satisfaction.  Good luck and please keep us posted.

[alexandria]

1 minute ago, mahdnc said:

 

Well, I hope it works out to your satisfaction.  Good luck and please keep us posted.

Thanks.  I'm sure it will one way or the other.  We'll sail on the Flora in 2025 or we won't.  Either is fine with us!  I'll update this thread when we get something from Celebrity, even if it is two months from now!  😬

[alexandria]

Update as of this morning:  TA advises that his Celebrity BDM finally returned a call.  BDM claims that the hold-up is the Galapagos desk at Celebrity and that as soon as Celebrity's Galapagos staff releases the written cancellation notice with the details, it will be sent out to the travel agents and passengers who booked direct.

Why that process is taking so long is anyone's guess.  Particularly since the phone reps who called the travel agents and passengers nearly two weeks ago to advise them of their cancelled sailing made verbal representations about rebooking options, refund options, reimbursement of certain non-refundable expenses incurred by the passenger up to $500pp and compensation.  If they had a script/memo/email with those details to read from, how hard is it to put it together in the format they want to send out and send it?  It certainly makes me wonder if some of what was said in those calls was not authorized, was incorrect, or is being reconsidered.🤔    Otherwise, I don't know why else there would be such a delay.

[mahdnc]

2 minutes ago, alexandria said:

Update as of this morning:  TA advises that his Celebrity BDM finally returned a call.  BDM claims that the hold-up is the Galapagos desk at Celebrity and that as soon as Celebrity's Galapagos staff releases the written cancellation notice with the details, it will be sent out to the travel agents and passengers who booked direct.

Why that process is taking so long is anyone's guess.  Particularly since the phone reps who called the travel agents and passengers nearly two weeks ago to advise them of their cancelled sailing made verbal representations about rebooking options, refund options, reimbursement of certain non-refundable expenses incurred by the passenger up to $500pp and compensation.  If they had a script/memo/email with those details to read from, how hard is it to put it together in the format they want to send out and send it?  It certainly makes me wonder if some of what was said in those calls was not authorized, was incorrect, or is being reconsidered.🤔    Otherwise, I don't know why else there would be such a delay.

 

Yeah, something doesn't add up.....