Your Cruise Has Been Cancel

[bigred12]

I live in New York. I am going on a cruise out of San Diego I show up to board the ship and they tell me the cruise has been canceled. I can not return home because I have a reservation to send a week in Las Vegas after I was suppose to get off the cruise. I have plane tickets to Las Vegas when I get off the ship and tickets from Las Vegas to New York a week later. Has anybody had this problem?

[RevNeal]

bigred ... did this actually happen?

If so ... gosh, I'm VERY sorry!

If HAL canceled, then they will refund your cruise payments. However, you're trip insurance should cover your other air expenses.

[Copper10-8]

bigred ... did this actually happen?

If so ... gosh, I'm VERY sorry!

If HAL canceled, then they will refund your cruise payments. However, you're trip insurance should cover your other air expenses.

 

Bigred might be talking about the ongoing saga of the Oosterdam and her port side Azipod. No cruise has been cancelled and IF HAL decides that a drydock period is required to get that pod operating again, SOP would be to notify and compensate the affected pax before they depart their hometown(s). As far as everyone here knows, efforts to fix the pod onboard and while Oosterdam is underway are still continuing

[hammybee]

Your tense is confusing. Is this a future cruise that has been cancelled or did this happen to you?

 

As the Rev mentioned, Trip Insurance will take care of the airline costs.

[sail7seas]

bigred:

 

Which ship? Which cruise line?

Was the ship at the dock/terminal where you tried to check in?

 

When did this happen?

 

[HeatherInFlorida]

It appears that Big Red is speaking in the present (as some of us do when telling a story) indicating that this saga is in process. According to the post, upon arriving at the terminal he/she found their cruise was cancelled.

 

It appears, then, that he/she is in San Diego as we speak unable to leave because he/she is supposed to leave for Vegas a week from today to stay another week.

 

This must be the only CC member affected by this cancellation of a cruise because I don't see any other posts about it:confused: .

 

So here's my opinion. If HAL cancelled your cruise, you will get your money back from them. So I would either find a nice place to stay in the San Diego area for a week and then fly to Vegas on schedule.

 

Alternatively, you could change your flight to Vegas (if you can get a room there for the extra week) and just enjoy yourself sitting by the pool!

 

Go make that lemonade!:D

[Copper10-8]

Heather, me could be wrong (been there before;) ) but me thinks that bigred is posing a hypothetical question

You're up Bigred!

[HeatherInFlorida]

I could be wrong, too, John (heaven knows it happens:o !!), but I don't think it's meant to be hypothetical. We shall see. Or maybe not:) .

[Old As Dirt Mom]

I agree with John that Big Red is posing a hypothetical question. Big Red is on the December 2 sailing of the Oosterdam to Mexico. I think he is worried about the azipod situation. I can understand his concern.

 

Karin

[Copper10-8]

I agree with John that Big Red is posing a hypothetical question. Big Red is on the December 2 sailing of the Oosterdam to Mexico. I think he is worried about the azipod situation. I can understand his concern.

 

Karin

 

Hey Karin, any chance yoy can drop me an e-mail at jmprins@sbcglobal.net? Your convenience!

[dakrewser]

I live in New York. I am going on a cruise out of San Diego I show up to board the ship and they tell me the cruise has been canceled. I can not return home because I have a reservation to send a week in Las Vegas after I was suppose to get off the cruise. I have plane tickets to Las Vegas when I get off the ship and tickets from Las Vegas to New York a week later. Has anybody had this problem?

 

Your travel insurance should cover you, but check with the policy issuer to be sure.

[HeatherInFlorida]

I agree with John that Big Red is posing a hypothetical question. Big Red is on the December 2 sailing of the Oosterdam to Mexico. I think he is worried about the azipod situation. I can understand his concern.

 

Karin

 

Aha, Karin!!! You provided the "X" factor I didn't have:D . Thanks! That explains it. My bad.

 

So funny because when someone writes in the present tense like that, it can get confusing. One would think that the situation was in the process of occurring when actually the cart is being put before the little horse.

 

On the other hand, forewarned is forearmed!

[kryos]

I live in New York. I am going on a cruise out of San Diego I show up to board the ship and they tell me the cruise has been canceled. I can not return home because I have a reservation to send a week in Las Vegas after I was suppose to get off the cruise. I have plane tickets to Las Vegas when I get off the ship and tickets from Las Vegas to New York a week later. Has anybody had this problem?

Barring an absolute emergency, no cruise will be cancelled at the last minute like that.

 

If the cruise were cancelled, you would be notified before flying to the pier ... and HAL, in addition to reimbursing your cruise fare, would also compensate you for the cost of your airline tickets and perhaps even pay the change fees on the Vegas tickets.

 

But unless we're talking something like 9-11 ... I can't imagine HAL just cancelling a cruise on the day it was to depart. It's just not gonna happen.

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[RuthC]

I agree that the situation as posed is hypothetical, as read it that way from the first. Obviously, not everyone did.

I also think it is highly irresponsible to pose it in such a manner that it is not construed as hypothetical. It's very possible that someone will read it, not read all the replies (happens all the time), and go running off into hysteria about their own cruise. It comes very close to starting a false rumor.

[cruisldy]

oops, posted before I re-read the thread. I see someone already posted that Bigred2 is on the December 2 Oosterdam. Sorry.

[legalslave]

Hope none of the cruises are cancelled and they can fix the problem!

 

Diane

[kryos]

Hope none of the cruises are cancelled and they can fix the problem!

I highly doubt any will be. Do you realize how much of a loss a cruise line takes for every sailing they have to cancel? I watched HAL sail an abbreviated Zuiderdam cruise with only about 400 people onboard after a hurricane back in 2004. The Zuiderdam is a Vista ... and holds about 1800 passengers. Can you imagine how much money they lost on that sailing? But, can you imagine how much they would have lost had they cancelled it?

 

Do you wonder why HAL has pulled out of the Caribbean in the summertime? They took a bloodbath on that abbreviated cruise with only 400 people. They took another one on the cruise before that ... when Port Everglades was closed due to the hurricanes and a seven-day cruise had to be extended to 10.5 ... at absolutely no extra cost to the passengers onboard. Heck, even auto-tips were not assessed for those extra days. Passengers had to specifically request them to be deducted if they wanted.

 

Believe me, both of the Oosterdam's azipods will have to be completely dead in the water before HAL will cancel a cruise because of them. They'll work around the problem, if they can't properly repair it, until the next normally scheduled drydock.

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[Gone_Again]

Actually....something like this almost happened to us in June 05.

 

We were scheduled to be on the Celebrity Summit in Alaska. It was a few days (maybe 3?) before we were due to leave, and I happened to find my way to CC. I clicked on the Celebrity forum where I see a thread about our cruise being cancelled while they repaired the pods. We called our TA (quite a large firm in Canada), who had no idea what I was talking about. She called Celebrity and they confirmed it.

 

Good thing we were flying in the day of the cruise. If we had of decided to go to Vancouver a few days before the cruise, we would have flown across country to realize our ship wasn't there!

 

Celebrity didn't try to contact us, or our TA at all. Who knows if they ever would have. We did get compinsated for the cruise, and booked the same cruise for a few weeks later, but it's scary how close we were to not getting to go at all. Luckily work was flexible with the vacation time, and allowed me to postpone it a couple of weeks.

[AlohaPride]

Actually....something like this almost happened to us in June 05.

 

We were scheduled to be on the Celebrity Summit in Alaska. It was a few days (maybe 3?) before we were due to leave, and I happened to find my way to CC. I clicked on the Celebrity forum where I see a thread about our cruise being cancelled while they repaired the pods. We called our TA (quite a large firm in Canada), who had no idea what I was talking about. She called Celebrity and they confirmed it.

 

Good thing we were flying in the day of the cruise. If we had of decided to go to Vancouver a few days before the cruise, we would have flown across country to realize our ship wasn't there!

 

Celebrity didn't try to contact us, or our TA at all. Who knows if they ever would have. We did get compinsated for the cruise, and booked the same cruise for a few weeks later, but it's scary how close we were to not getting to go at all. Luckily work was flexible with the vacation time, and allowed me to postpone it a couple of weeks.

It's a good thing that was Celebrity and not HAL. I agree, the OP should have asked it as a hypothetical. I first read it as an actual occurance.

[TedC]

I suspected it was hypothetical - but BigRed should clarify.

[tomc]

Hypothetical for BR, perhaps, but not for me. I was booked for a NE/C cruise on the new Volendam a few years back (when the ship was brand new) and it was late being assembled. The cruise was cancelled and neither I, nor my TA, were notified by HAL. Apparently, there was a problem between their fax machine (where they sent the notice) and my TA's machine (where they would have received it). I happened to notice on the HAL site that it was not going.

 

In a panic, I called my TA not very long before the cruise and she, in an equal panic, called HAL. They, continuing the panic, started checking their TA faxes for that cruise. It became obvious that the fax they sent never arrived.

 

HAL bent over backwards to make it up to me and got me booked on the Maasdam, which was protecting the Volendam's cancelled cruises. Had I not noticed the HAL site schedule change, I would have showed up at the dock and found a cancelled cruise.

[bepsf]

...that Oosterdam which has had such good karma is having such problems.

 

I have the feeling that HAL is doing everything within their power to resolve this without the mass hysteria/nastiness surrounding similar problems on X - If HAL decides to cancel a cruise and pull the ship out of the water (which would seem to be the only right answer at this point), I'm sure they'll do their best to make it right with all their clients.

[Bill S]

We were on a HAL cruise that was cancelled the day after embarkation, so in that sense our situation was a bit different than bigred's. However, HAL did refund the cruise fare and for those guests who had used HAL-air to get the port and back, HAL made all air arrangements back to the originating cities for those guests;.

For those guests who made their own air arrangements, once the air travel arrangements were done for those who had used HAL-air, HAL assisted the other guests in making their arrangements as much as possible.

In other words, in the space of about 24-hours, HAL had re-booked air travel for a whole bunch of people back home. The cruise for the week after ours was also cancelled and IIRC, HAL made every effort to notify those guests as soon as possible of the cancellation. So, cancellations can and do happen. At the same time as our incident the Ryndam was out of service for at least a week due a Norwalk virus outbreak. We saw her sitting across the harbor.

[iamtrustworthy]

Most travel insurance plans won't cover your airfare if the cruise was cancelled by the cruise line because of this typical exclusion:

 

"Failure of any tour operator, Common Carrier, person or agency to provide the bargained-for travel arrangements".

 

I know of just a few plans that will cover the airfare if you meet certain rules.

 

This also means that travel insurance plans will not pay you if the ship doesn't stop at a port.