Reservations Canceled due to a charter

[Cqis]

Can someone elaborate on this. On another thread a passanger's reservation was canceled due to another group chartering the cruise ship.

 

We are still confused about this practice.

 

The real question is ;can this be done, how often has it been done, and is this an general practice.

 

Cqs

[Happy ks]

Yes, it can and it has been done. There is generally at least a year's notice, but not always. We plan some our cruises carefully after researching for weeks, so it would be a major disappointment if it ever happened to us.

 

Fortunately, it is not something that happens frequently. I'll add that if the ship is dedicated to one particular group, so much so that they have enough people to charter the whole thing, you really don't want to be on that particular cruise. I've cruised with a group that took up perhaps 25% of the ship and had we known in advance, we would have changed sailings. I don't care what the group is, either, it can be anything from Amway to Motorcycles or beyond. Our particular group was a religious group, they were nice, but took over many of the public spaces and was closed to the general population.

[Cqis]

Thanks Happy,

 

This has settled a discussion on this subject, satifactorily for us

Cqis

[KC_fn]

That must be quite a group to take up the entire ship. :eek:

[greatam]

That must be quite a group to take up the entire ship. :eek:

 

Rosie O'Donnell displaced an entire ship at the last minute (about 5 months, IIRC). http://www.nationalledger.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=9&num=11726

[kitty9]

I booked a Seabourn cruise a few years ago and got bumped because Oprah booked the entire ship to celebrate Maya Angelou's birthday. That was a real pain in the behind because there was no way to get the airfare changed without a penalty.

[cruizie]

The only time this has happened to us was after Hurricane Katrina & Carnival was chartered to house evacuee's. We only had 1 or 2 days notice!! Talk about disappointing! They refunded our money but that was the extent of it.

[KC_fn]

OK, being bumped by Katrina I can understand... not saying I'd like it, but I could understand. But being bumped just because some egomaniacal millionaire decides she wants a little vaca with 3000 of her closest friends???? Give me a break.

[WELSH WIZARDS]

She should be made to do a show with Kitty9 and all the other dumped passengers to talk to !! :D

[newmexicoNita]

Rosie O'Donnell displaced an entire ship at the last minute (about 5 months, IIRC). http://www.nationalledger.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=9&num=11726

you are right about Rosie, but I don't think it was the last minute, in fact I am pretty sure it was nowhere near the last minute.

 

Nita

[newmexicoNita]

Some cruise lines do this more often than others. It happens rarely, but let it happen to me once and I would be pretty Pi##ed. If a group wants to charter the ship or 50% of it, fine but it should be done no less than 6 months in advance, preferably 9 months.

 

Nita

[cruise_lover]

Happy ks - I know what you mean about traveling with a large group that is why I am LOL right now. :)

 

I am one of the people who cruise with a group but rarely if ever does the number in our group exceeds 400 . It is through sponsored through a local radio station that gets terrific prices for us. Before the current cruise is over with we start booking for the next year's cruise. When we take over certain areas of the ship it is always for 1 or 2 hours where we get to meet and socialize. Our next cruise will be on Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas and if you figured that this ship holds over 3,000 passengers a group of 400 isn't that big.

 

What's nice about traveling with the group is that we have several TAs that travel with us who helps us out when things go wrong and several of the DJs are in our group to make sure we are having a good time. We get to meet the Captain and his officers at a special cocktail hour. But the nicest thing I like is that they hire tour buses (between 5-10) for those of us who do not like to drive to the ports. Our luggage is taken care of, someone else is fighting traffic, we are dropped off at the "front door" and at the end of the cruise when we are tired our bus driver is waiting for us to drive us home again so we can all sit back, take a nap and catch up on our sleep before heading back to work the next day.

 

When I was a teenager cruising meant getting in a friend's car

and cruising up and down Main St. before

heading to the local Dairy Freeze.

 

AND THEN I GREW UP - and found out the

real meaning of CRUISING!

[hajekfam]

Some cruise lines do this more often than others. It happens rarely, but let it happen to me once and I would be pretty Pi##ed. If a group wants to charter the ship or 50% of it, fine but it should be done no less than 6 months in advance, preferably 9 months.

 

Nita

I personally think that whole ship charter should not be done once a cruise has bookings. A lot of people plan and dream of their vacations before even making their reservations. And some people, once they select their vacation time, are locked into that time (some have to select their vacations by seniority at the end of the year for the next year and then if they want to change that scheduled time, have to wait until all others have selected their vacations and then can choose a time that is open).

[greatam]

you are right about Rosie, but I don't think it was the last minute, in fact I am pretty sure it was nowhere near the last minute.

 

Nita

 

I believe they announced the cruise in mid/late January or early February for a July cruise-5 months IIRC.

[newmexicoNita]

I personally think that whole ship charter should not be done once a cruise has bookings. A lot of people plan and dream of their vacations before even making their reservations. And some people, once they select their vacation time, are locked into that time (some have to select their vacations by seniority at the end of the year for the next year and then if they want to change that scheduled time, have to wait until all others have selected their vacations and then can choose a time that is open).

 

In theory, I would agree, but because bookings are often allowed up to almost 2 years, certainly 18 months in advance that probably isn't practical. I also know what you mean by selecting vacations by seniority. I have worked for 2 companies that did that with vacation and holidays. If you could only book cruises, like hotel rooms 364 days in advance the plan might work. I do think, if one gets bumped and there is another ship (same company) leaving port the same day or one day either side, the cruise line should be required to take those who are bumped and put them on the other ship.

 

I am also a dreamer from time to time. LOL

[newmexicoNita]

I believe they announced the cruise in mid/late January or early February for a July cruise-5 months IIRC.

I think that was about right, I was going to say, 6 months, but it was within that time frame. To me, 5 or 6 months isn't last minute, but there are many who have planned way more than 6 months in advance. If I am not mistaken HAL did this once or twice last year with less than 6 months notice as well.

 

Nita

[KC_fn]

I am one of the people who cruise with a group but rarely if ever does the number in our group exceeds 400 .

 

 

cruise_lover, I don't think anyone objects to large groups cruising; at least, I certainly don't. In fact, it sounds like a blast! (Can I join you? :p )

 

But it's another story if you've had a cruise booked for months, paid for it, gotten non-refundable airline tickets, made arrangements to take off work, lined up the cat-sitter, etc etc etc.... and THEN you're bumped because some spoiled celebrity can't be bothered to plan ahead the way the rest of us have to. Rosie and Oprah can have the whole darn fleet if they want it, I don't care -- as long as they go through the normal reservation process to get it. But they should not be allowed to disrupt the plans of thousands of hard-working folks who've done it the way they're supposed to. (I know... I also hope for world peace... a girl can dream!)

[newmexicoNita]

cruise_lover, I don't think anyone objects to large groups cruising; at least, I certainly don't. In fact, it sounds like a blast! (Can I join you? :p )

 

But it's another story if you've had a cruise booked for months, paid for it, gotten non-refundable airline tickets, made arrangements to take off work, lined up the cat-sitter, etc etc etc.... and THEN you're bumped because some spoiled celebrity can't be bothered to plan ahead the way the rest of us have to. Rosie and Oprah can have the whole darn fleet if they want it, I don't care -- as long as they go through the normal reservation process to get it. But they should not be allowed to disrupt the plans of thousands of hard-working folks who've done it the way they're supposed to. (I know... I also hope for world peace... a girl can dream!)

I think we all want that perfect world, I agree with you 110%.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Lately HAL has done this as well - notifying people about a ship being chartered. And some of the people already had their plane tickets bought.

[Ivanova]

I personally think that whole ship charter should not be done once a cruise has bookings. A lot of people plan and dream of their vacations before even making their reservations. And some people, once they select their vacation time, are locked into that time (some have to select their vacations by seniority at the end of the year for the next year and then if they want to change that scheduled time, have to wait until all others have selected their vacations and then can choose a time that is open).

 

I agree, but don't see it happening. :(

 

But it's another story if you've had a cruise booked for months, paid for it, gotten non-refundable airline tickets, made arrangements to take off work, lined up the cat-sitter, etc etc etc.... and THEN you're bumped because some spoiled celebrity can't be bothered to plan ahead the way the rest of us have to. Rosie and Oprah can have the whole darn fleet if they want it, I don't care -- as long as they go through the normal reservation process to get it. But they should not be allowed to disrupt the plans of thousands of hard-working folks who've done it the way they're supposed to. (I know... I also hope for world peace... a girl can dream!)

 

In my every so humble opinion, I think cruise lines should tell companies (or celebrities) that want to charter a ship that already has bookings (and the sailing is less than 11 months away) that they need to cover nonrefundable expenses (i.e. airfare) for bumped passengers (or pay the difference to move the passenger to another ship and/or cruise line for the same dates). Of course the bumped passengers would need to provide proof of airfare purchases. And the reason I specify 11 months or less before sailing is because you typically cannot purchase airfare more than 330 days before the date you want to fly.

[kitty9]

nita, what was soooo tacky about the Rosie thing was that on her website for the cruise, she stated that if any passengers who were already booked, then cancelled, on the cruise, could rebook that cruise, but ONLY if they booked through her (Rosie) partner's agency, and for an average increase of about $500. That's the part that really riled people up---they get cancelled and then they were told to rebook with her girlfriend.

 

BTW, can you imagine what it cost Oprah to book Seabourn for 12 days? Huge bucks, I would imagine, but Seabourn got a deal because Oprah filmed their cruise and she showed it on her talk show.

[KC_fn]

In my every so humble opinion, I think cruise lines should tell companies (or celebrities) that want to charter a ship that already has bookings (and the sailing is less than 11 months away) that they need to cover nonrefundable expenses (i.e. airfare) for bumped passengers (or pay the difference to move the passenger to another ship and/or cruise line for the same dates). Of course the bumped passengers would need to provide proof of airfare purchases. And the reason I specify 11 months or less before sailing is because you typically cannot purchase airfare more than 330 days before the date you want to fly.

 

Now THERE is an awesome idea!

[cruiseco]

I agree, but don't see it happening. :(

 

 

 

In my every so humble opinion, I think cruise lines should tell companies (or celebrities) that want to charter a ship that already has bookings (and the sailing is less than 11 months away) that they need to cover nonrefundable expenses (i.e. airfare) for bumped passengers (or pay the difference to move the passenger to another ship and/or cruise line for the same dates). Of course the bumped passengers would need to provide proof of airfare purchases. And the reason I specify 11 months or less before sailing is because you typically cannot purchase airfare more than 330 days before the date you want to fly.

 

Carnival does take these expenses into account when negotiating the charter cost -- I assume other cruise lines do also.

 

I did a full ship charter with Carnival for a major telephone company. At the last minute (about eight months prior to the sail date) the company merged with another major telephone company. The new merged company decided to drop the charter as they would be laying off many employees in the aftermath of the merger and thought that spending this kind of money on a cruise while at the same time laying off people to cut costs would look bad.

 

It was a big mess as Carnival, according to the charter contract didn't owe the company anything -- they could have kept it all and rebooked every cabin at fire-sale rates. But they negotiated a settlement and I got to see their accounting of every dollar of compensation they had to pay out to the two hundred or so passengers who got bumped when the charter contract was signed. It was a big bunch of money. Anyway, Carnival had known upfront what their liabilty probably would be to the existing booked passengers and I'm 100% sure that this figured into the contracted charter rate.

 

By the way, during the time the charter rate was being negotiated (about a two week period) no new bookings were taken for that sailing. The process went pretty quickly as there was no question of the company's check being good.

[sweet angel]

Is there a way to find out if the cruise you're booked on has a large group booked?

[kitty9]

You can google "groups on cruises" but don't hope for too much. Cruise lines won't tell you because they don't want mass cancellations if they find that 600 Elvis impersonators or Amway salespersons will be on board. I know Celebrity Solstice canceled their March 8, 2009 cruise cruise, already booked by hundreds, because a gay travel agency chartered the entire ship. I've been on board cruises where we had Mexican Ford dealers, Precious Moments collectors, Chinese baseball fans, and a Harley Davidson cruise. Some groups are fun and others take over a lot of the public spaces of a ship, making it a not fun cruise.