Hurricane Discount Letter?

[dmfriedman]

Many of us on the "Hurricane Holiday" cruises in August/September were given some fairly nice compensation for shortened/re-arranged cruises. In my case, on the 9/4 Glory, we received a 50% refund, a shipboard credit, and 50% off a future cruise.

 

It's the future cruise credit that I'm wondering about. Should I be expecting a letter from Carnival indicating the discount? How would I go about actually using that discount if I wanted to book through another travel agent, since I don't have anything in writing?

 

Should I just give Carnival a call? (I'm posting here because it's the weekend and Carnival guest services won't be open til' Monday morning... figured y'all might know the answer already.)

[Nibby1]

Our son and daughter-in-law had a similar experience and they received a certificate for the future cruise discount and took it to a TA when booking their next cruise. They weren't on Carnival, but were on RCL and received the discount certificate within a month or so after the cruise. I would imagine Carnival would do something similar.

[parmus]

When we were diverted because of hurricanes in Mexico, Carnival gave us a letter before boarding. when we made our reservations for the next cruise at 50% discount, the PVP said we had to send the letter to their research department in order to get the discount. We did that, and got it, but our friends couldn't find their letter and pretty much just told Carnival that it's Carnival's responsibility to locate the prior cruise, verify they were on it and give them the discount. Carnival gave it to them (on the final payment date, no less). Call Carnival and ask their procedure, but if you have any written info about your future perks, be ready to send it to them upon booking your "discounted" cruise. Good Luck.

[dmfriedman]

I sure hope that the barely legible photocopy of basic information that was given to us at the airport before heading to the ship wasn't the only thing we would get to confirm the discount. Almost everyone I was with took a look at it, then tossed it in the trash.

 

Guess I'll call Carnival on Monday to see what the story is...

[Got docs?]

Dave,

 

I called Carnival and inquired about the discount and was told that it was so widespread that they were not sending letters, once you booked, it would be handled by the accounting department. I then called the TA we used and she called Carnival and was told that the discount is linked to the booking number that we had for the Glory cruise and that after a cruise was booked and the appropriate deposit was received, that the accounting department would credit 50% of the cruise fare back to the account. When you book, I would call everyday until they got the amount credited, since sometimes it takes a while for some things to happen. Especially since this was a credit for quite a number of people.

[dmfriedman]

Thanks for the details, Cindy. I am still trying to figure out which cruise to book -- unfortunately, Carnival never responded to multiple emails and phone calls trying to get them to extend that credit to one of the european or transatlantic Liberty itineraries. I'm hoping I can at least get them to allow me to use it on one of the 8-day Liberty eastern caribbean itineraries (Ft Lauderdale; San Juan; St. Thomas; Antigua; Tortola; Nassau; Ft Lauderdale). If not, I've got to start digging around for a 7-day itinerary that I want to do, and there aren't many of those left.

[Got docs?]

Dave,

 

We are looking into a cruise in May after my son gets out of school. Most of the iteneraries that we like are leaving from Florida. I don't know if I want to drive that far again. Flyig is a might expensive from here in Texas. Galveston has the same ports, just different ships. We would like to go someplace that we have not been. We already have the Elation booked for September, so don't really want to go twice in that short amount of time. Hopefully, we will be able to decide on something soon. Hope they will reconsider and let you book a longer cruise, but don't count on it. Have a merry Christmas and take care.

[Cruising89143]

Used my 50% off on the Inspiration for next year. I am using a PVP at Carnival to book it. She just looked up my booking number from the affected cruise and got it approved through accounting. The 50% was applied on the spot.

[dmfriedman]

I appreciate all the feedback. I just talked with a Carnival PVP (the first time I've used one -- I'd always used travel agencies, but this time the price difference was under $100 and I figured it'd be easier to work directly with Carnival) and booked the 3/20 Victory with a friend. Like the gator, I simply mentioned the hurricane sailing and the PVP took care of the discount in a matter of minutes. Not only that, but they had a past guest special that wasn't on the web site -- the balcony guarantee rate of $1029 applied to any category 8 cabin -- so we were able to confirm a specific cabin in 8E! I know that means I won't get upgraded beyond that (I was hoping for a 9A, but it's not worth the extra $300), but I'm perfectly content to get two people in an 8E for a week for around $1,000. :)

 

Happy Sailing!