Tobermory

I tried to book shore excursions on Monday evening to get the sale prices. I could not complete my reservations due to the computer problems. I phoned but could not get through to Celebrity. The next morning, after the sale had expired, I phoned Celebrity and they would no longer honour the sale prices. Disappointing. I feel that Celebrity should have given me the reduced prices due to their computer problem.

Yes, if we had cancelled the "Veendam" cruise and had not booked another one, I believe we would have had our deposit returned to our accounts since the cruise was originally booked as a future cruise while onboard a "Koningsdam" cruise earlier this year. Note that we also received $100 pp OBC for changing from the "Veendam" cruise to the "Oosterdam" cruise.

Our October 6/18 "Veendam" cruise from Montreal to Ft. Lauderdale has been shortened from 13 to 11 days and three ports (Martha's Vineyard, New York City and Charleston) dropped. We no longer wished to continue with this cruise because of the changes. Our TA, after a couple of long sessions with HAL, was very successful in rebooking us onto a 14-day Transatlantic cruise from Barcelona to Ft. Lauderdale in October/November 2018. HAL transferred our original on-board credits over to the new cruise, and the new booking resulted in a savings of over $2,000 compared to the original cruise. We are very pleased with the outcome.

We are booked on the October 6/18 "Veendam" cruise from Montreal to Ft. Lauderdale. I see that HAL has reduced the length of the cruise from 13 to 11 days and dropped the three ports that interested us the most (Martha's Vineyard, New York City and Charleston). There is a similar cruise one week later on the "Rotterdam" with the identical itinerary up to and including Charleston but, instead of Fort Lauderdale, it goes onto Key West and Tampa.

Am wondering what HAL may offer in terms of a moveover offer, given that the "Rotterdam" intinerary is almost identical to what we originally booked. Also, what happens to the good fare that we booked and OBCs that we received? My TA is looking into this now.

I went through my TA to try to get the Canada 150 OBC, but Princess said no. We had booked our February 2018 cruise last fall. My understanding is that to get the OBC you would have to re-book the cruise. For us, we would lose the benefits that we already have.:(

I should clarify our refund, but I prefer not to provide the exact amount. We were refunded 50% of the cruise cost on a prorated basis for the days when we did not sail even though on most of those days we were still provided with our scheduled tours (some by being bused to the city). Everyone on our cruise received a refund that was calculated on the same basis for every passenger. We were informed about this about half-way through the cruise, and we received the information in writing. All passengers received an additional $200 per person for the inconvenience of transferring ships on the fifth day (following a three-hour bus ride to the other ship).

Again, I want to emphasize that we had a wonderful trip. Under the circumstances, Avalon could not have treated us better. We met very many people who had nothing but praise for past cruises on Avalon, and most people were saying that they would sail with Avalon in the future. We were on a brand new ship, the "Avalon Tranquility II", whose cabins were nicer than we have had on ocean cruise ships. The meals were excellent. All the crew were very friendly and helpful. Everything was exceptionally well organized. Our cruise director was outstanding. Would we recommend Avalon? Yes, definitely.

Thank you very much to Avalon Waterways for posting the contact information. I have phoned the number indicated, and all is OK. We should be receiving our very fair and generous refund within the next week or so.

We very much enjoyed our Avalon experience on the "Avalon Tranquility II." We were more than satisfied with how Avalon and our cruise director Katy H. handled the problem caused by high water levels on the Rhine. Even though we stayed onboard the ship in Strasbourg for five nights, we still completed our tours in Strasbourg, Heidelberg, Mainz and Rudesheim. By transferring to the "Avalon Visionary" for the last two nights, we were able to sail through the beautiful Rhine Gorge on a sunny afternoon. We did miss stopping at Cologne, but we sailed by at night when the lights, including those lighting up the Cathedral, were absolutely spectacular. We also thoroughly enjoyed the complimentary excursion to the Keukenhof Gardens when we reached Utrecht as well as the evening canal cruise through Amsterdam with the beautiful lights along the canals and bridges.

We highly recommend Avalon Waterways based on our experience. Thank you again, Avalon. -- Allen & Gail

I phoned Avalon and was told that I had to e-mail Customer Relations which I did. They replied that it would take 4 to 6 weeks to "investigate." We are not the only ones who do not have a refund -- our friends who travelled with us also have not received their refund.

Glad to read pully8's posting.

We disembarked an Avalon Rhine River cruise in Amsterdam on May 9. We encountered significant problems and delays due to the high water levels on the Rhine. As a result there were 4 days when we didn't sail. Avalon had promised us a generous refund as well as $200 pp for the inconvenience of swapping ships between Strasbourg and Bingen.

As of today, over a month later, we have still not received either of these refunds to our credit card. We have heard that Americans on our cruise received their refunds at least 2 weeks ago, but Canadians have not. I wrote to Customer Relations at the end of May, and their reply was that it would take 4 to 6 weeks before they would investigate and reply to us.

Needless to say we are not impressed with the slow response and the time it is taking to receive the refund. Otherwise, we were very happy with the alternate arrangements made by Avalon and how they handled the very difficult situation. Our cruise director Katy H. was outstanding.

We were on the "Avalon Tranquility II" at the time of the high water levels on the Rhine. We ended up being "stranded" in Strasbourg for 4 days. During this time, Avalon treated us very, very well. We were bused to places such as Heidelberg, Mainz and Rudesheim and returned to the ship at the end of each day. By the fifth day, they arranged for us to swap ships with the "Avalon Visionary" (identical ship) docked at Bingen, Germany. We set sail from there and went through the magnificent Rhine Gorge. When we reached Utrecht, Avalon provided a complimentary excursion to the Keukenhof Gardens. In addition, Avalon is giving us a very generous refund (not vouchers) to our credit card in our own currency in addition to $200 pp for the inconvenience of swapping ships. Of course, we were disappointed with how things turned out, but we still had a wonderful trip and were more than happy with how Avalon treated us. Not one person left the cruise early, and everyone seemed to be very satisfied with how things were handled. We had an experienced and outstanding cruise director Katy Huyskens who remained calm, kept us fully informed, and found good solutions to our predicament.

Glad to hear your comments about Cabin E405 on the "Royal Princess." We have booked that same cabin on our cruise next February and March. We thought that it looked like a good cabin when we booked.

We got off the Emerald almost two weeks ago, and they didn't have the dispensers yet in our cabin on the Emerald Deck. They were still using the small bottles.