experience cancelling shore excursions with HAL?

[Chick & Ellen]

Hi there,

 

I just called HAL to ask about refunds should I decide to cancel a shore excursion, and the person I spoke to was somewhat vague.

 

She said that I should be prepared to pay up to a 10% penalty, if I cancelled before the deadlines announced onboard by the shore excursion office. (more if after the deadline, of course, up to the full price.) What determines the amount of the refund, I asked? "depends on the tour." She couldn't tell me more... This doesn't make me feel confident about prebooking!

 

Does anyone have any experience with cancelling excursions with HAL, either before or after the deadline? What penalties did you pay?

 

Thank you,

Ellen

[kakalina]

There is generally no penalty if you cancel within 48 hours of the tour. After that it goes up proportionally. We have cancelled a few days ahead of time and the entire amount was refunded. Hope this helps.

[mrskmirolla]

When we got to Turkey on the Rotterdam I was really sick and we were suppose to go to Ephesus (sp??) that morning and my husband went down to the excusion office and told them to just give them away and they told him they had one person on the waitlist and he told her to give it to her. Later on our shipboard bill we saw that they credited our bill for one excursion but we paid the other. We were surprised. Later I got better and we rented a cab and went, it was just wonderful. I usually purchase our excursions before we go after I research them alot, but this is the first time we had to cancel.

 

Kathy

[Brad98]

Hi there,

 

I cancelled a tour online and the money was straight away credited back to my card. Hope that helps. Regards Me

[Brad98]

whoops

[HappiestWhenCruising]

In March of this year, while on the cruise, I had to cancel my sister and go alone the day before. Since they had a waitlist of people wanting to get in on this excursion, I got reimbursed the total amount for her as a ship credit.

[kryos]

She said that I should be prepared to pay up to a 10% penalty, if I cancelled before the deadlines announced onboard by the shore excursion office. (more if after the deadline, of course, up to the full price.) What determines the amount of the refund, I asked? "depends on the tour." She couldn't tell me more... This doesn't make me feel confident about prebooking!

I cancelled a SCUBA tour about three days in advance once onboard the ship. I had booked it online, but had a sinus infection by the time I took the cruise and felt it would be prudent to just cancel rather than chance not being able to go and losing all the money. Well, the good folks at HAL charged me a 10% cancellation penalty, which kind of got my goat. Don't think I'm gonna be booking any shore excursions in advance on the website anymore. I personally think charging me a 10% penalty for a cancellation of an excursion on Half Moon Cay (HAL's own island) is a bit over the top ... especially since I cancelled almost immediately once onboard, and the excursion was a full three days away.

 

Of course, we're only talking like about $6.00 ... but it still got my goat.

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[MercedMike]

Indeed there was a time when HAL charged a 10% cancellation fee for excursions booked on the website. It is my understanding that they no longer do that. At least, I do not see it anyplace in the terms and conditions.

 

Of course, they still (alone among cruise lines AFAIK) continue to charge you the full price for the excursion at the time you book, even months ahead! They get a lot of bad PR for this junk. You would think in this competitive market they would want to match the liberal policies of other lines.:(

[Sunshine91]

I just booked 2 excursions this evening for our Jan 6 Noordam cruise. All over the shorex page it is mentioned there is a cancellation policy & fee, but not the amount, so I simply called HAL. If you cancel more than 10 days prior to the cruise, the entire cost is refunded to your credit card. If you cancel with less than 10 days to go, a 10% cancellation fee is assessed & the refund is applied to your shipboard account. I don't think this is unreasonable. It costs money to make these on-shore arrangements in advance. Tour operators must be reserved.

As far as paying when booking - well, I expected that too. Otherwise folks will be booking all kinds of tours for which they won't show up, holding space that others could use. Now that just wouldn't be fair, would it? :)

If you don't want HAL holding your money for "months & months", don't book that far out. But if you want to assure a spot on your tour, better put up your money. We booked now so that we're spreading out our financial contribution to HAL.

[vpoopsy]

I cancelled an excursion last tuesday on the 11th day, so I got in under the wire. I just checked my credit card and it still hasn't been credited to my account. We're leaving on saturday, so hopefully, by the time we get back, we'll have been given our credit.

[Chick & Ellen]

Thanks so much to everyone for replying.

 

Rita, your experience is what the HAL rep was warning me about... that some tours charge you even if you cancel within the deadline, which you clearly did. (compare to Kakalina, who got a full refund with only a few days notice.) And the HAL rep couldn't tell me which tours this did and did not apply to. That's the part I think is funky. Why can't they tell you upfront?

 

It is nice to hear from Kathy & HappiestWhenCruising that they give you a full refund when they can resell your seat.

 

MercedMike, I didn't even know about the discounts on other lines for early booking of shore excursions.... I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that HAL cruisers are more likely to book shore excursions with the cruise line than self-book? I don't know if that is a fact across the board, but I just was corresponding with an independent cruise tour operator in Belize who is used regularly by posters on the Belize board. He is not operating a tour on the day our ship is in port because "we've never been able to generate enough business from Holland America passengers to justify a tour." I thought that was really interesting (and sad for me.)

 

--Ellen

[Sunshine91]

It is nice to hear from Kathy & HappiestWhenCruising that they give you a full refund when they can resell your seat.

 

Ellen - I liked hearing this, too. Makes me think that if we decide to cancel anything within the 10 days of sailing, we'll wait until we're actually onboard. That way we can ask the shorex office if there's a waitlist. If our tix can be re-sold, why not give a full refund?

[shirleygr]

Indeed there was a time when HAL charged a 10% cancellation fee for excursions booked on the website. It is my understanding that they no longer do that. At least, I do not see it anyplace in the terms and conditions.

 

Of course, they still (alone among cruise lines AFAIK) continue to charge you the full price for the excursion at the time you book, even months ahead! They get a lot of bad PR for this junk. You would think in this competitive market they would want to match the liberal policies of other lines.:(

When you on-line with RC, you pay the full price of the excursion up front. RC does not charge a penalty if you cancel at least 24 hours before the excursion.

[MercedMike]

When you on-line with RC, you pay the full price of the excursion up front. RC does not charge a penalty if you cancel at least 24 hours before the excursion.

 

Which is why I like Princess. When you book in advance with Princess, the tix show up in your cabin and the charge goes on your shipboard account. The Excursions can be cancelled with the same deadline as those booked on board -- usually 48 hours. That seems fair to me. I see no reason ships should charge months in advance for something they are also selling on board. Just one of those small irksome points.

[gmhohio]

I canceled a scuba excursion while on board the Zuiderdam (I forgot my mask ground to my RX). They did charge the 10% but they refunded the charge when I scheduled a different excursion in the same port.

[refman]

a few years ago in HMC we cancelled a parasail excursion after a passenger went into the trees. they were very nice about it and gave us a full refund in part because they were able to resell it quickly.