Baby_Bear

1 hour ago, nho9504 said:

 

I am told by the Customer Relations rep on how the refund is processed when I asked why cruises behind ours in Mid to Late Apr, even the first week of May, have seen FCC / Refunds while our Apr11 still being "In Process".  He explained to me the handling is by sailing, all independently.   The more competent / more thorough employees would get things done correctly on first attempt, versus those who are less competent / less detailed minded counterparts.  Also when mistakes were made, it meant start all over and therefore delayed the process.

 

Obviously whoever is responsible handling our booking, made a major mistake by "forgetting" a particular step which prevents the refund being processed.  Actually he said it prevented him to further assist me - until that particular step was done.  He did not tell me exactly what step it was.  Our booking cannot be simpler as it is a straight forward cruise only booking, nothing add-on, no prepaid, no air - just the cabin only.  I cannot see anything simpler than that - yet, the person who handled it still managed to mess up...  Go figure.

Your post makes me glad I chose to dispute the charge on my credit card. Mine was a plain vanilla cruise only booking as well. Cancelled on March 9th, no action on refund yet. I am amazed that something like a refund which should be straightforward, apparently takes months to figure out in the Princess world and key steps are missed along the way. Capital One credited my account for the full amount of the cruise fare (including the $200 deposit) within 48 hours of filing the dispute. If Princess does refund me in this lifetime (we were booked for May 16), I know Capital one will take care of any reconciliation required. 

31 minutes ago, dan4182 said:

 

 

I spent about 15 minutes on the phone with a Princess rep yesterday AM.

Two things from our little chat:

They are processing CC refunds based on the scheduled date of sailing. They are issuing refunds for May sailings currently and the refunds are being “hand done” on a case by case basis so everything is going really slowly.

It was a HUGE mistake on their part to ever have mentioned 60 day refunds and Princess’s public image is going to suffer some serious long term damage over this whole SNAFU.

A few random, out of order refunds may have been issued but month by month, sailing date by sailing date is the norm.


Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

 

If they are processing May sailings, then what happened to all the people sailing in March and April that are reporting no refunds? Surely all of them can't be random out of order cases.

I'm not challenging what you are saying, just what Princess is telling you. 

At this point, I'm happy to let Capital One handle the dispute. Maybe they'll be more responsive to the big credit card companies than an individual customer. 

11 hours ago, nho9504 said:

 

Any credit card payment refund to original form of payment IS AUTOMATIC as soon as the vendor agrees on the refund.

 

Have you not returned a merchandise bought from store?  Online?  Have you?

 

How long it takes for you to receive the credit on your credit card once the store took back the return and scanned your receipt?  I bet no more than 3 to 4 days.  

 

2 days ago I called Geico about if there is a reduction for lowering our yearly driving mileage which is already at the low For Pleasure only rate.  Rep said yes there was,  she lowered our 5,000 a year mileage to 3,000 a year.  Refund hit my AMEX in 36 hours. 

 

The way to NOT let this happen automatically processed by the system if the merchant ACTUALLY agree to issue the refund, would require Manual Intervention as mentioned by PescadoAmarillo in post 102.

 

I am truly amazed by some of you be so zealous to find excuses to defend Princess, with the unethical, dishonest company took your own money and willfully delaying the refund on services not rendered. 

 

Why some people think number matters more than the ACTUAL processing / issuing refunds? 

 

The excuses of those folks keep finding to defend Princess are being repeated gazillion times, with the most favorites being the number game and the work at home game.

 

Funny the person who questioned me demanding to know how many refunds DL  have processed,  as if the number process is more important than the fact that DL or any airline provides refund when passenger requests it instead of accepting the voucher...  The same argument was posted weeks ago when claiming how many passengers were affected on the cruises canceled - without any idea how many flights a SINGLE AIRLINE IN US Operates PER DAY...  DL has over 5,000 daily flights, fwiw.  Also the basic fact that a cruise lasts for days while a flight lasts for hours - the number of airline passengers are much much much more than cruise line passengers... 

 

So what is the "gotcha" question again?  Oh, I dont know the number of refunds DL has processed since March...  And numbers matters, all in capital letters...

 

Yeah, right, so Princess' number must be so huge that is the reason why it cannot process it timely -

 

Thankfully 2 other posters ahead of me quickly tell the person that show that the number of refunds DL has processed - Over One Million since March, and over $500 million Dollars...   That includes those passengers who are not happy of the default vouchers issued and wanted refunds instead.

 

And what Princess has processed so far?  can anyone provide a number?  double digits?  triple digits?  Princess would not even issue FCC automatically like the airlines do...

 

How many passengers Princess carries in a full year?  I do not know but I would bet any $ that it is LESS than one million.

 

Is it such a hard concept to grasp?  That you are owed money, being fed lies after lies on when you would get back YOUR OWN MONEY,  and you try to find all sorts of "reasons" why you should be owed that money,  without any time line on when you would get back your own money? 

 

This. I'm amazed how anyone would continue to defend Princess for these excruciating delays, when there are examples all around us of other travel providers getting it right. Your Delta example could be me - was supposed to fly to Asia end May with family. Flight got cancelled April 3rd, I called the same day and they immediately processed the refunds which showed up in 7 calendar days. Four tickets totaling $11,000 and refunded with no fuss. Our hotel bookings were refunded by Expedia in 72 hours. Cruise lines don't operate in some alternate universe where everything takes longer. They are quick enough to charge us for taking bookings, same as airlines and hotels, but refunds? Not so quick. 

For myself, just decided to not wait any longer and filed a  credit card dispute Monday morning. This should not have been necessary. But I'm not willing to keep trusting this company to do the right thing when there's been precious little evidence so far that they are doing so. 

Speaking for ourselves- my mom and I were cruising partners. We have done several cruises and enjoyed every one, some more than others. My dad and sibs would laugh at us for liking to cruise and pretty much always compared cruise ships to floating cafeterias. We were trying to convince them to come on a cruise, well, now that the Covid crisis has occurred, they are now dead set against the idea more than ever and are convinced that cruise ships are giant petri dishes of infection! And honestly, can't really blame them with all the news the last few months. My mom has just turned 70 and there's no way any of us will let her on a cruise ship absent a vaccine. And even then, she would be in a higher risk category. What's disturbed me the most is the thought of thousands of people marooned just offshore and not allowed to disembark on land. I'm sure lots of people who aren't high risk will be back and lots of new cruisers will join, but for us, it may be land trips only from now on.

We were supposed to sail on May 16th on the Caribbean Princess. I had canceled our cruise on March 9th and was supposed to get back all but the $200 deposit as a refund on my card. Zero movement on my case along with most people here. I called Capital One this morning to file a credit card dispute. Capital One told me I could dispute my $200 deposit as well since my cruise was subsequently canceled.  Not sure how that'll play out (if that's rejected, I'll claim on my credit card insurance) but definitely want the rest of the refund which I am entitled to.

Its kind of sad that it had to come to this, but the way Princess has been dragging its feet has been pretty disappointing. As a point of comparison, we had an end May trip to Asia booked, and got prompt refunds for international flights and hotels within 3-7 calendar days - and these guys are dealing with far more cancellations in terms of volume and sometimes amounts than Princess. Rather than call Princess to be given vague timelines, I figured to just let the credit card company deal with the hassle and I'm happy to give them any documentation they need. Good luck to everyone waiting on their refunds. 

We were booked on the Caribbean Princess on May 16. Cancelled the booking on March 9 and are in the neverending line for refunds. At the time of cancellation, since it was more than 57 days out, Princess confirmed we would get back the full amount less the $200 deposit which would become an FCC. Now that the cruise itself has been cancelled, can we get the $200 deposit refunded as well?

I followed the link to the online request form, and when I punched in the Princess booking code, it just said information not available - which makes sense I suppose if the booking has been cancelled. The FCC is not showing up in my account, so they haven't processed that yet, I assume it would be done the same time that the refund is issued. Is there a way to request refund for that ?

30 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

Delta never had to cancel every flight they operate.  They were only required to cancel international flights.  Domestic flights were not shut down by the Government.  Any domestic routes or flights being cancelled by Delta are being cancelled because hardly anybody is using those flights so there are few refunds to issue.  Please don't try to make it look like Delta is comparable to Princess.  Princess has had to cancel every passenger on every cruise.  Delta only had to cancel their international flights.  Delta is also getting bailed out by the stimulus package, Princess is getting no government help at all.  There is really no comparison.  (BTW I like Delta but please don't use Delta as a hammer to bludgeon Princess - they're both good companies working under a world wide crises with different problems and available solutions.)

Ok, I dont even understand this. You say that domestic flights are getting cancelled because hardly anyone is flying so refunds are fewer? The reason why so many flights are either empty or are being cancelled due to low load, is because so many people have already cancelled. And so there are a ton of refunds to process. 

Look, I like Princess. But I'm also not a cheerleader who's going to defend them no matter what. I commended them for doing a fantastic job with the Diamond Princess in very difficult circumstances.  But this current situation where there are such long waits for refunds is not right. And there are examples all around us of companies doing a much better job with refunds. Another example? I had hotels booked in Asia thru Expedia.  I called Expedia to cancel and the refunds showed up in 10 days. 

47 minutes ago, sunnysunshine said:

But ... with 5,000 DAILY departures... let’s say 100 passengers on a plane (which is low-balling) = 50,000 affected DAILY? I’d say Delta definitely wins that argument.

Actually, using your example, its 500,000. 

5 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

Apples and Oranges.

 

#1 - Delta was not required to cancel every flight they have between March 12 and sometime in late July.

 

#2 - When Delta cancels a flight, they need to do refunds for a couple of hundred passengers at most.  When a cruise gets cancelled, a few thousand passengers need to get refunds.

 

Reasonably it follows that it takes time to process that many refunds.

 

I'm glad Delta took good care of you.  I'm looking at cancelling 8 Delta flights in September.  I booked these flights last year and Delta is not offering any waivers, only a notice to keep checking their website.

Not apples and oranges at all.

Yes Delta didn't have to cancel every flight. But they have slashed 70% of their flights, or 3,500 departures per day. Assuming 200 pax per flight, that's 700,000 people's refunds to process (the actual number will be lower as many people would've booked roundtrips or one booking covering multiple pax). Either way its a stark contrast to Princess. 

For the record, Delta were amazing. If you are flying in Sep, chances are they did not cancel your flight. If you call to cancel, I think the only option you'll be offered is a future flight credit. On the other hand, if the airline cancels the flight ie. no fault of passenger, you are entitled to a full refund. If you don't want to fly in Sep, I'd wait a bit to see if your flight gets canceled in which case they will make you whole. And if the flight is running but you don't want to fly, you'll get a flight credit so you'll be no worse off. 

Voljeep: you are aware of how many flights Delta operated per day pre-Covid-19, right? That would be 5,000 daily departures, so 35,000 departures over the standard 7 day period for a cruise. Total passengers carried during that same 7 day period? Just under 4 million. With the crisis, virtually all international flights have been canceled and tons of US domestic flights. Now tell me why people shouldn't call out Princess for being so slow to put through refunds while companies carrying loads several times larger put through refunds in a week. Delta is considered top of the line among US carriers, but I thought Princess was also at the top of the heap. 

I'm also waiting for my refund. Canceled on March 9th for a cruise on May 16. But there's a big difference on how Princess is handling refunds vs other travel providers. We were booked on Delta to Asia at end-May. Delta canceled our flights on April 3. I called them immediately, after a 2 minute wait I was transferred to the refunds desk and was immediately offered a choice between future flight credits and refund to our cards (4 people were booked  and 2 cards were used). I selected a refund and was told no worries, refund will show up within 10-21 business days. On April 10, 7 calendar days after I called, the refunds showed up on our cards. Now I would argue that airlines have been every bit as badly affected as cruise lines, yet the way Delta handled it was impressive.  At a tough time like this its great to receive a prompt refund. I know that for future travel, we will always look to Delta first.  Cruises? Not sure if we'll look at Princess again. 

On 3/12/2020 at 3:59 PM, cruze610 said:

We called princess yesterday to inquire about our May 16th cruise on CB. If we cancel by March 21 we will receive a full refund back to our credit card minus the original deposit amount of $200 which will be given as a FCC. That is what we will do. We decided last night that we will cancel and plan a different vacation. We will probably end up going to an all inclusive resort somewhere in the Caribbean. Im extremely upset about the thought of canceling our cruise but we just can not take a chance of being quarantined on the ship for 2 weeks after our cruise.  
we will use our FCC and book a cruise for a later date.   I only hope we can get some of the perks they gave us for this cruise.  

We were on the same cruise as you, and also cancelled for the same reasons. We cancelled on March 9. So disappointed, but have to keep the bigger picture in mind. I really feel sorry for the Princess reps who are being inundated with cancellation requests right now. 

We were cruising just one day before you on May 16. One thing to keep in mind - I was advised by Princess on Monday when I called them that it was taking them up to 5 days to process cancellations as they are so backed up. Now I am not sure (and forgot to ask!) whether the cancellation stands effective on the day you send in the request, or the day that Princess actually processes it. Since we were more than 68 days out, I preferred to cancel within that 8 day window so we would get back the entire cruise fare, less $200 deposit, to my card. Once you go inside that 60 day window, its 50% refund to card only and the remainder as a cruise credit. Realistically, most of us will cruise again once the situation normalizes, but I'd prefer to have as little of my money tied up with Princess (or any cruise line). Just frees you up to spend that same amount on a good land based trip.

7 minutes ago, weedpindle said:

I am curious as to why people feel the need to tell everyone that they cancelled a cruise. Why not just cancel it, go about your daily life an be done with it.

Because this is a cruising community, where people discuss all aspects of the cruise experience, including reasons for booking and cancelling among other things. And particularly at this time, when lots of people are cancelling or reconsidering whether or not to cruise at the time, its helpful to share reasons, and also what the experience was like when cancelling. I personally have learned a lot from the posts of a lot of people here. For people not interested in the topic, nothing easier than just moving on to other topics. 

That's great to hear. Our deposit was also non refundable for $200. If Princess is showing flexibility on this, I will definitely call them. I assume you'd already received the balance of your payment as a refund?

@Guindalf I totally understand. It's hard to decide but if you do decide to cancel, just be super patient. The Princess lines and I'm sure all the TA lines are getting slammed right now with cancellations. I thought I'd call early today - the first time, the call got disconnected and the second time, it took an hour, 45 minutes. And you will probably get a tired and harassed rep who has dealt with 20 such requests already. This situation is putting so much strain on a lot of people. 

Thank you everyone for your kind words. Our fear right now is two fold: potentially getting quarantined, and above all, any health issues for mom. I do think seniors are more at risk, consistent with regular flu. If we were quarantined, I would have to miss an additional 2 weeks of work, which would not be well regarded by the bosses. But obviously the first priority is to try to stay healthy. 

@SanDiegoSue Our cruise was leaving on May 16, so 68 days out. We should therefore receive a full refund, except for the deposit of $200. As I mentioned, there's some confusion- the Princess rep seemed to think we could get that back as a future cruise credit in view of the temporary revised cancellation policy, but it was booked as a non refundable deposit, so I'm not sure at all. I guess we'll know if it shows up as an FCC or not. 

@DaveyCaper I totally agree. We are now looking at land based options. Just seems less fun than a cruise, although that's probably just my grumpy mood talking, lol! The other problem is, with this virus spreading all over the globe, it sort of limits where we can go. 

My mom and I were booked on the Caribbean Princess on May 16 out of Fort Lauderdale. In view of the increase in coronavirus cases across the US, we reluctantly decided over the weekend to cancel our cruise. My mom turned 70 last year and would therefore be at greater risk in the event she got the virus, although she has no major health concerns aside from arthritis. Both of us love to cruise and were super excited to be sailing again after all land-based trips last year, but recent events plus the CDC warning just tipped the scales in favor of playing it safe. Ironically, while I'm more worried about her getting the virus, she herself isn't worried so much about getting sick as opposed to getting quarantined (which is an additional worry for me too given work pressures, etc.).

So I called Princess early this morning. After a wait time of 1 hour, 45 minutes, I got through to an exhausted sounding Princess rep and cancelled. She noted it might take them up to 5 days to process the cancellation as their systems are so backed up. Is this what other people are hearing? She told me they have been swamped with cancellation calls all weekend. We are 68 days from sailing, so that should be fine. We will get back all but the deposit - not sure about that. She sounded confused about the deposit - it was booked as non refundable, but she thought that in view of the unusual circumstances, Princess might give me back the deposit as a future cruise credit. Maybe someone here can confirm? Regardless, its $200 and while I would much prefer not to lose it, if I have to eat it, I will. 

So that's my cancellation story. We are both so sad to cancel, we hope we did the right thing, but who knows?

As an aside, spare a thought for the cruise line reps and cruise TA's who are all getting hammered right now with calls. And prepare for long hold times!

Stay safe everyone and happy cruising. Now off to change flights!

Quick question...we are booked on the Caribbean princess in May. We usually eat dinner at home between 7:30 to 8:30 (that means we will start eating within that one hour time frame, not how long it takes to eat). Based on the feedback here, we should be ok if we go down at 7:30, right? Or should we plan for 8? We are in a mini suite but dont have Club Class dining. We are 2 of us and prefer the 2-tops. 

Alternatively- is it possible to call the dining room in the morning and book a time? IIRC, we did do that on Royal Princess, but that was in 2017 and in Europe, so not sure if we can do that here. 

Thanks everyone. @ryndam would love to stay at the properties you mentioned, but that may be bad for the budget! We have stayed at several RC's and Conrads both in the US and abroad and they were always great - but I was hoping to not pay more than $250 per night for the pre-cruise stay. I think it'll be between the Hilton in a Tower balcony and the RI Il Lugano (water view room). 

Thanks everyone for your replies. Lots of great information. I am definitely inclined towards booking under the BSE as it just means no hidden expenses when we board. Being covered in case of any subsequent increase in gratuities is important as well. 

The problem is that both of those properties seem to be getting very mixed reviews. Lots of recent complaints both here and on TripAdvisor about rooms not being in good shape, etc. Thats why I was thinking either Hilton or RI.

Thanks to everyone who replied.  I had a look at the map and it does indeed look like a 10-15 minute walk to most places. I'm traveling with my mom who has arthritis and walks slowly, so it may be even longer. I think we may have to Uber it everywhere - or maybe stay elsewhere?

Any thoughts on the Residence Inn Intracoastal Il Lugano? It gets great reviews and has the lovely water views the Hilton has, plus looked closer to restaurants, etc.  Its further out from the port but the Uber estimator says 15-20 minutes.  Am also considering the Riverside - would that work too? Thanks! 

Happy holidays to everyone! We are thinking about a Caribbean cruise in May on Caribbean Princess.  I was wondering if the Princess experts could help me with some questions:

1) The BSE promotion works out to $280 pp or $40 pp/pd for a 7-day cruise.  I was thinking that of the $40, $15.50 would be gratuities daily (mini-suite) and the internet would be around $8.50/day (comparing it to the pre cruise cost of $60). So that means the drinks package is effectively $16/day.  We usually drink no more than one adult beverage (cocktail/wine) per day each, but do like a fresh glass of OJ in the mornings and probably a couple of specialty coffees per day, so I figured we would still come out slightly ahead if we took the BSE promo.  Is this correct in your view?  I figured the juice and coffees would run $3-5 each.  

2) If we decided to pay as you go for drinks and pre-paid our gratuities and internet, do you think we could share one $60 net package across 2 devices?  It"ll be me and my mom on the cruise.  We would be using it for the usual stuff like social media posts, emails, etc. As long as one device is logged in at a time, its fine if we share that, right?  The cruise we are thinking about has 2 full sea days and access to fast internet is a definite nice-to-have.

3) Finally - it has been over 2 years since we were last on Princess - any key changes we have missed?  Besides the Ocean Medallion which looks like a great innovation, that is.

Thanks!  Looking forward to returning to Princess.  We were on the Carnival Horizon last year and while it was a great experience to sail out of our home port of NYC, the cruise experience itself was.....lets just say, we plan to stick to Princess for now!

Are there restaurants and grocery stores nearby? Thinking of staying here pre cruise for 2 nights, but would prefer not having to Uber it every time we wanted to go out. Thanks.