tulefogg

We booked with a travel group, that we belong to.  I noticed that we were given a guarantee state room.  When I talked to the group leader he said that we were the only ones that were not assigned a room. He felt that  that we were guaranteed a room.  So not problem. We shouldn't worry about it.  We have had 10 cruises on Princess and have NEVER requested a guarantee.  We leave in 4 days and still no assigned room. I understand that the ship will put us wherever they feel they want to and it  may not be an upgrade.  They guarantee we will have a stateroom  which may be somewhere a little more undesirable, a little more noise or  ship movement.    I signed up  to bid for a mini suite.  My bid wasn't very high - so I may or may not get it.   My travel group says I should just wait and see.  

I am a cynic and  wonder why Ruby Princess would cancel October sailings in July because of a dry dock schedule.  Wouldn't they know about going into dry dock months ago?  Seems strange that we made our reservation in January 2021 and now end of July they say oooops, we have to re schedule the Oct 24th sailing, but you can go the following week, Oct 31st .  They will refund the money for cruise, tours and everything.  But from what I read we won't get reimbursed immediately, so it will be another $4,000 out of our pocket.  (they say the price won't affect us, even though it went up $300 in that timeframe).  What happens if  we make new reservations for the following week and they again say, sorry still in dry dock.  that would be another $4,000 out of pocket.  We could go broke spending, then waiting for refunds from Princess  

We  always book with a travel agent.  She has provided many suggestions and in this one particular case, called us when Ruby Princess cancelled the Oct  24th 2021 sailing due to dry dock issues.  We are still waiting for the cruise ship to notify us. I wonder how we would have found out on our own.   She rescheduled us for the following week, and we are hoping that refunds appear without any problem.  If we have a problem, she is right there to help us.  In fact in Sept 2022 she is planning a river cruise and we signed up .  We have less stress.   Do we save money?  I don't actually know, I do know that she has saved us time and guided us in the right direction on many issues of travel.  

We made reservations on Oct 30, 2015 with hotelnparking.com and received a confirmation saying that they received our request and it would later be confirmed??? On Nov 3rd, we decided to call the hotel and found that hotel and parking didn't have a contract with the hotel we wanted. So we immediately made reservations directly with the hotel. Even got the room a little cheaper. I called the hotelinparking 800 number and cancelled the reservation we had with them. They asked me why and I said because you don't have a contract with the hotel. They said yes that is correct, but we expect to get one in a few days. I immediately requested a cancellation, confirmation number and that the deposit we paid be returned. I seriously think we will have problems getting a refund right away, but if not in a few days we'll notify the bank and get the refund .

Don't use this company, call the hotel directly and either you get the reservation or you don't. This company shouldn't even be in business.