HAL canned our cruise!!

[Cerinda]

We booked two suites on the Oosterdam 3/19/05 Mexican Riviera cruise months and months ago (April '04, I think).

 

Friday, HAL told our TA that they had chartered the ship and were cancelling our booking.

 

Aargh! There are no other HAL west coast itineraries that match our spring break. There are precious few cabins available on ANY line and on ANY itinerary that week! The only HAL Caribbean itinerary that appeals to us has no suites available, and the fare is CONSIDERABLY more.

 

HAL is offering the five of us (booked in two S cabins, mind you) $200 in shipboard credit to soothe our ruffled feathers.

 

I had expected much more of HAL. I think we're going back to Radisson.

[Vic The Parrot]

That can bite, especially after making the reservation so far in advance. But, these things do happen, and it's real nice they're offering the credit as part of the compensation.

 

I'd do the other Carib that's on offer, even if it means

not being in a suite. It's a sacrifice, but at least you'll still

be going away on your holiday.

[Sage]

Cerinda,

 

I'm so sorry that they have cancelled your cruise. Have you thought about the March 16th cruise on the Ryndam? It does the Mexican Riveria and the Sea of Cortez. I beleive that they still have S suites available, as least they did yesterday when I checked, as we will be aboard. My agent was able to get us a good group rate for this sailing.

[Orcrone]

One of the advantages of booking early is supposedly receiving the best fares. If they go down prior to final payment you can get the lower fare, if they go up then you're already locked in. If Cerinda wanted the other cruise offered then she probably could have booked it much cheaper in April. However, now the fare has gone up. At the least HAL should offer to honor the lower fare in addition to the shipboard credit. I realize that the S suites are gone. So they should adjust the fare down to reflect an outside room's pricing.

 

Cerinda, is the shipboard credit $200 per person or $200 total? If the latter, then that is nothing more than a spit in the face. IMHO

[Sage]

I didn't mean to offend. I was merely offering an option for a similar cruise. In fact, the cruise we booked early has gone down in price instead of up, and there are suites left.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Cerinda

So sorry to hear that HAL has cancelled your cruise.

Someone mentioned either last week or the week before about looking at HAL's website and saw that all the cabin categories for your cruise date on the Oosterdam had been closed. They wondered what had happened. I gave one suggestion that it might have been chartered. You just confirmed what we were all talking about.

Hope you find something that you'll like. Especially since you planned a year in advance.

 

[sdcruiser]

For Spring Break, 2005, we're on the Celebrity Mercury, leaving San Francisco for the Mexican Riveria, on 03/20/05, for 10 nights. Why don't you join this cruise? We're in a Sky Suite, and I know there are several of them left.

 

If you choose the Mercury, make sure you get a SS cabin on Deck 12. They have HUGE balconies, with open, private, sun deck space....These are the best cabins on the whole ship.

 

Good Luck, and sorry about the O cancellation. We're booked next Dec 2005 out of San Diego on the O. Sure hope this doesn't happen to us.

 

SDCruiser

[Cerinda]

Thanks for the sympathetic noises: I'm just stewing here...

 

The only compensation IS the credit. HAL is offering a shipboard credit of $200 total for all five pax, no discount, no price reduction, no deal at all. My TA is furious (and embarassed). She's gone as high up the HAL chain as she can and has gotten no results at all. My DH is threatening to call today (would that make any difference? He's very civl, just insistent.

 

We have NO flexibility on our dates (March 19 - 27 PERIOD): Two of the children are finishing high school and I'm in graduate school. That's why we booked last year as soon as everybody's academic calendars came out!

 

The Veendam sounds like a lovely ship in spite of having no dedicated children's facility, teen disco, or video games. It actually sounds more my style than the Oo. I'm a little concerned that it may not offer the children adequate opportunities to meet other young people. And only late late seating is available for dinner (picture THAT with an eight year old!).

 

And here's the clincher: it MAY cost us less to cruise French Polynesia on Radisson's Paul Gauguin that week. Still waiting for final word on that.

[want2travelbad]

Hi Cerinda! You and I are in the same boat. Oh...I guess we don't have a boat, do we?! (Dripping with sarcasm) I haven't heard from my TA yet, but I guess I now know what we will be offered. I can tell you I will be squawking big time. We have already booked our nonrefundble airfare for this cruise, and there is a $100 pp (i.e., $300 for our family of 3) change fee attached to modifying the reservation. If HAL thinks they can offer us a $200 in stateroom credit as the only compensation, they have something else coming from me, and it won't be pretty. I, too, looked for other cruises on HAL for the same period, and you are right about the limitations. I personally have no desire to cruise the Carribean again anyway. I think HAL should allow us to rebook any 7 day cruise, same category for the same, if not discounted, price we paid for this cruise + give us a stateroom credit.

[weluvcruisin']

The same thing happened to us on the Volendam, we had booked in April for

btob in Jan/05 on an eastern and western, booked our non-refundable air also, in June they cancelled the eastern. We tried everything, we were offered $200.00 credit and that was it, we tried other options but got no where. Being that our air was booked we tried our best to book something else, instead of 2 ten cruises we now have a 10 and 7 day with a couple of days inbetween,not the greatest but the best we could come up with. This is the first time this has happened to us and we normally book way ahead. I guess the main thing is we will be cruising and we will have a great time.

[Cerinda]

Our situation is still up in the air, but I'm much more optimistic. I'll let everyone know when the dust settles.

 

My TA went up the HAL chain for the second time today. This time, she asked her HAL contact if she had read the CC HAL board lately.

 

Hal is offering a much different arrangement today than they offered LAST Friday. It's a generous one, and --if we can make the schedule changes work-- will go a long way to changing our first impression of the line's customer service.

 

Meanwhile, A THOUSAND THANKS TO ALL OF YOU WHO RESPONDED TO THE THREE THREADS ON THIS BOARD!!!!

 

Cerinda