sirwired

You would receive a refund for the cruise from the cruise line. You'd be on your own for other expenses (airfare, pre-cruise hotel, etc.)

 

Insurance is still a good idea. You can't receive coverage for an existing storm, but there are other valuable parts of trip insurance, and they would be unaffected.

 

You may want to consider a medical/medevac-only policy if the remainder of the policy has no value to you.

CSA, and I believe HTH, offer such a policy.

There are pre-ex waiver policies that can be purchased up until Final Payment; I think CSA offers one. If you haven't made final yet and are still within the "free-look" period for the policy you bought, it's worth a try.

That is an oddly-written policy. If your F-I-L has passed away, you don't need a doctor's note about "medically imposed restrictions"; his death should be sufficient.

 

Can you post a link to the Description of Coverage?

 

In any case, as a claimant, you have a duty to minimize your loss; if you delay filing the claim, the insurance company (understandably) doesn't want your 50% penalty to turn into a 100% penalty.

 

(P.S. Most (all?) policies do not cover claims due to mental conditions; don't even mention your wife's grief/anxiety/depression/etc., as it's not the basis for a claim, and will totally confuse things.)

I'd fly in the day before if I was coming from Houston. Since you are coming from the Great White North, I'd get the first flight in the AM the day before.

 

Flying in the day before is way more reliable and easy on your nerves vs. missing your boat and then filing a claim with trip insurance.

This is why trip insurance saves lives. If you do not have insurance and your traveling companion can't convince an air ambulance company you can pay the bill, you are simply going to die. Not the cruise line, not the consulate, not the airline, and certainly not the benighted place you are stuck in, is going to pay for one for you.

Every policy is different on how it treats pregnancy, and any treatments that might be required while traveling.

1st-party insurance generally has two parts:

 

A Cancel for Any Reason part: This overrides whatever the no-insurance cancellation policy is and replaces it with something else. This can range from a 75% credit to 100% cash, depending on line and policy. This is administered by the cruise line.

 

An Insurance part: If the reason you cancel is listed under "Covered Reasons", and not excluded by the exclusions, you can get a 100% cash refund. This is administered by an insurance company, and you must go through a formal claims process that will involve a lot of paperwork and forms.

I'm guessing they want you to cancel ahead of time to force you to actually cancel, instead of no-show. No-show drives up claim costs (i.e. they don't need to pay you if you re-use your airline ticket, don't need to fight with you over hotel no-show fees), and makes claim processing more difficult (how do you prove you were a no-show for a flight or cruise?)

It's probably too late now, but the best insurance is always arriving the night before and staying at some cheap motel near the port.

 

It's all well and good if you get your expenses reimbursed (although reimbursement for the missed cruise days themselves are slotted under Trip Interruption, which often does not cover "any" delay), but nothing will replace those lost vacation days.

To answer your question as to HOW to cancel. Just call the airline (or whatever) and tell them you are cancelling. They don't need to know you have insurance, because it won't matter to them. Then, go to the website for the travel company and print out your reservation where it shows it has been canceled. (Alternatively, ask for a confirmation of the cancellation from the travel provider.)

 

Once that has been done, THEN file the insurance claim. The insurance company will send you a form detailing what documentation they'll need.

I have the Chase Explorer card and the coverage for cancellation is worded exactly as above for the Sapphire card. I spoke to an agent when considering other travel insurance and my cursory understanding is that cancellation is possible if there was a terrorist attack in your destination(s) within 90 days of your arrival at ( or through?) that destination.

 

I would not assume that the coverage is any greater than what is literally stated in the policy. As in, if your hotel is closed due to an attack, the insurance will make sure you can get your airfare back. I would not assume that they provide proximity-based coverage like insurance you pay for.

The insurance of the person cancelling will almost certainly require her to cancel so she can receive her tax/port fee refund. (And that's also proof she didn't go.) (Also, depending on the length of the cruise, your aunt may not yet be in the 100% penalty period; if she isn't, she definitely MUST cancel ASAP. Insurance won't cover what you could have recovered from the cruise line.)

 

Some insurance policies explicitly cover single-occupancy fees in the event a traveling companion must cancel, some policies do not; your Mom will have to read her policy. If they are covered, then your aunt can cancel without worry.

 

If it's not covered, your Mom should start pestering NCL. If they are keeping all the money your Aunt paid, then it's silly to ALSO charge your Mom a single-cabin fee.

 

Where it gets tricky is if your Aunt isn't in the 100% penalty period AND insurance doesn't cover the single-supplement. Your Mom may have to beg for mercy and maybe have them use your Aunt's partial refund to pay a partial single-supplement for your Mom.

"Chase" is not very descriptive; they offer hundreds of different credit cards. Chase is very big in the "affinity" business... alumni associations, fan clubs, retail chains, etc. The Weird Al Yankovic Fan Club Unobtainium Mastercard (I just made that up) may have an entirely different set of benefits from the Podunk University Alumni Association Subprime Visa. (Obviously, made that one up too...)

 

To know what specific benefits you have, call Chase and ask for a copy of the benefits brochure.

There are two instances in which cruise-line insurance makes sense:

 

1) You want an inexpensive CFAR rider. (May only be good for cruise credit, but I know HAL provides a 90% cash CFAR.)

2) You are elderly, but otherwise in good health, and the generally limited medical coverage doesn't bother you. (3rd-party policies are generally age-priced, while cruise-line policies are not.)

Only need to insure additional non refundable costs.

In your instance, no

 

Respectfully, klfrodo, if the policy is one of those that requires that ALL non-refundable costs be insured in order to obtain things like the pre-ex waiver, then the answer is an emphatic "yes".

 

The simple criteria for looking at this is: "If I have to cancel a minute before I was going to go out the door, what money can I not get back in my account?"

 

In this case, a changable fare is not the same thing as a refundable one. You might very will not file a claim if you plan on quickly rebooking a new trip. But if for some reason you cannot, or do not want to, cruise again, you will never see that money again in your checking account, unless the airline makes an exception to their standard policy.

You must be referring to insurance through the cruise line.

 

This is why (one reason of many) we never insure through the cruise line.

 

With outside insurers, "CFAR" truly means ANY reason, and no need to document, as "anything" will work.

 

Cruiseline insurance can be very, very different.

 

In fairness to cruiseline insurance, their insurance is often a lot less expensive than 3rd-party insurance + CFAR rider, and you'll never get a 100% CFAR rider with a 3rd-party.

 

As was noted in the other comments, cruiseline policies often provide a credit in their CFAR coverage, but cash with their traditional cancellation coverage. The letter is used to decide which payout you get.

 

(As a side-note, HAL is a notable exception; last time I checked their CFAR coverage was in cash.)

Not covering mental issues isn't unique to TG. I don't know of any travel insurance that covers them.

The primary reason mental issues are not covered is to keep from paying out when somebody decides to suddenly come down with a phobia so they can cancel their trip for what would otherwise not be a covered reason.

Unfortunately, genuine issues get caught in the crossfire, but again, this is not unique to TG.

You need to look at your booking. If you are being charged on a per-cabin basis, (one line-item, two names) you will need to be on the same policy (because otherwise one person will have a trip cost of $0). If you are being billed on a per-person basis, then separate policies are okay.

My wife and I can easily absorb the cost of losing a cruise. But when we had to cancel because of my Dad's emergency triple-bypass, it was a great relief to my parents that we lost nothing but our insurance premium when cancelling at the last minute.

How confusing. All the Compass ever talks about is the "Burgers and Brews" special which does not actually include any beer. I don't remember seeing the SeaView being listed as a regular (free) dining venue ever during the entire cruise.

 

If it did offer free burgers on sea days, great, but I have no idea how anybody was expected to know this.

My wife and I ate in the Seaview Cafe on Jewel on November 2nd. She had burger and fries, I had a Reuben and we both shared a portion of onion rings. No charge for the burger. It was open for lunch from 12 to 3, and then from 6.30 in the evening.

 

I believe it is Izumi that is being placed there after dry dock.

 

I do agree it was underused, but it was also under promoted, with zero encouragement to go there.

 

I guess the change must be recent, because our Compass clearly said $10, and it was open from 11-10. And the sign they had posted all week showed some tasty looking burgers for $10, and then the list of the three free items at the bottom.

We've sailed Jewel a couple of times since they started charging in Seaview for late night dining, I think early in 2015. I agree that charging $10 for an average burger is absurd. But they are trying to squeeze out every dime they can, so perhaps one customer is worth staying open for. And it seems to be a training venue - in the last couple of cruises on her we found the service to be very slow.

 

And I read a review at one point saying that they had to pay a $10 cover even for the "free" items (the burger is free during the day).

 

I love Jewel, but agree that she is sorely in need of sprucing up, and May can't come to soon for that. Seaview will go away, likely replaced by Izumi if RCI follows the Serenade/Brilliance remo (Radiance has Samba Grill up there) and will charge a fee for every meal.

 

On our cruise there was no indication that the burger was free at any time (I would have grabbed one there if it was!) The program just said, I think, "Burgers and Brews, Seaview Cafe, 11AM - 10PM, $10" Don't know about if the "free" items are ever charged for.

My wife and I just got back from the Jewel. Overall, I'd judge the cruise to be slightly below average; we didn't like a higher-than-normal proportion of the food (and I lost track of how often the food was not hot), many ship features were either off-line or only open for very limited hours, and I sensed a lot of "We'll just take care of it in drydock in a few months" as far as the general condition of the ship goes. The service was fine.

 

My question has to do with the "Seaview Cafe". This was advertised daily in the Compass as offering a $10 "Burgers and Brews" thing. There was never any additional information. I stopped in and asked if that meant the $10 included beer; the waitress said "no".

 

What does your $10 actually get you? It doesn't appear to include anything other than a fancy burger. (Or, should I say, an edible one... the burgers in the dining room, room service, and the buffet were all inedible due to not being anywhere near hot.)

 

Why is it advertised as "Burgers and Brews" and not include "Brews"?

 

Even if you are going to charge for the beer, why make it part of the name of the offering if you only offer the same bottled/canned beers that can be purchased from any bar on the ship (or room service, or the buffet, etc.)? (It doesn't even look like the place is equipped with a single tap.)

 

We saw somebody eating in there ONCE. And that customer was eating one of the free offerings, which was a Cesar salad. (They also offered a Ruben, and one other thing I can't remember.) I think the people forced to staff it have possibly the 2nd-most-boring job in the travel industry, after the poor TSA employees that sit on a stool all day ensuring nobody tries to enter through the terminal exit.

The process you describe (several pages of forms to fill out, including medical records, credit card statements, etc.) is standard no matter which insurance company you go with. Everything is on standard forms because they contain all the information needed to process a claim in a format that's easy for the insurance company to evaluate. A self-produced letter from your doctor is likely to be missing required information, and I'm sure those forms are asking for a lot of things that weren't discussed on the phone.