OMG booked RC Cruise then found out Atlantis Events booked the rest of the ship!!!!

[alohanails]

You should have waited to change your sail date. We are booked on the same cruise. I have been in constant contact with the redeployment department. If you would have waited until that department called they do offer compensation. They will not do that now that you have re-booked. I have been posting as such on the roll call for this sail date.

 

Ditto to this...we were booked on the Liberty for January of 2013....charter took over and I was told to please wait for the redeployment office to call. We were offered $100 per cabin Obc....also they offered us a 5day for the price of a 4day...in the end we both win....we wound up saving the airfare and going out of Galveston instead on the Mariner....7days instead of 4!

[travelplus]

If Atlantis chartered the ship then its their responsibility to pay the customers displaced as part of their charter. I think that it should be against the law to allow passengers to book a cruise and then let a charter book the whole ship and displace paying customers.

 

Lets say there were no cruises that fit the customer's schedule. Now if this were a mechanical issue I can see them cancelling but this is a charter.

 

Lets see so I call a hotel and book a block of rooms for an event I won't be displacing people because this is what they held when I called a year before.

 

If I were chartering a plane the airline would pull a plane from inventory without displacing customers.

 

Al Anolik Travel Rights Lawyer would say this is a shady practice to accept bookings for regular passengers and then have someone like Atlantis book the whole ship after the regular passengers booked the cruise.

 

You could get money from Atlantis and RCCL as Atlantis voided your contract. I don't see anywhere in the contract saying RCCL can cancel for a charter booking the whole ship its not an act of god its an act of greed. Take RCCL/Atlantis to Small Claims Court and tell the Judge that you planned this trip to work around your work vacation schedule and kids schedule. You do have a case.

[gardenkat3]

Has this happened to anyone????

We booked RC "Independence of the Seas" sailing February 2 - 10, 2013, thought we were being proactive by booking a year in advance, friends of ours went to book and were told (from their travel agent) the boat was booked by an alternate carrier, Atlantis Events", an all gay cruise. I am totally fine with the gay lifestyle; however, I'm not sure I want to 8 nights with 4000 gay guys:) seeing as my husband and I are a straight couple. Should Royal Caribbean have called to inform us of this?

 

I just received a call yesterday from RC advising that our cruise was chartered and that we needed to change to one of four options. We changed to Jan 19, but were unable to get the same room...They did give an additional $100 onboard credit per room though (we have two rooms).:rolleyes:

[storm1of4]

We were on Allure. I'm sorry to hear people were throwing items off the ship. Being loud, not sure I mind that. On that day we arrived on our balcony just as Mariner was pulling out of port so we missed the fun with our neighbor ship. . On previous cruises the passengers on our ship and the ones across the dock always enjoy a collective celebration, though I grant you our ship usually has the drag show. :-)

 

When we first left Allure that morning in Cozumel I met so many nice people from Mariner inquiring about our ship and/or the Atlantis charter. That day we enjoyed a great day at Nachi Cocom with passengers from Allure, Mariner, a Carnival ship and a NCL ship. At first we were all a little reserved, not socializing with one another. Once we started talking the group realized that we all had a lot in common. It was a wonderful day.

 

As Mariner pulled out of port later that evening I was a little disappointed to see people on their balconies giving us the middle finger, putting their finger down their throat or using the gesture where you put one fist near the opposite inner elbow and raise the arm up up. I think it is the same as the middle finger, not sure. This was by far a minority of Mariner passengers. The overwhelming majority were waving, laughing and enjoying themselves.

 

I hope you enjoyed your vacation as much as we enjoyed ours. Maybe there is always an extreme minority we won't understand.

 

 

This is truely unfortunate. Ignorance.

I wish I could remember that Mark Twain quote regarding traveling!

[mdj101]

And what if you had booked transatlantic non-changeable or refundable flights?

[MadManOfBethesda]

I wish Royal would show a bit more loyalty to their customers, don't they realise that once we make a booking it's set in stone and everything falls into place around that so we don't need them taking it away once they see the dollar signs from another company.

 

Yeah, because passengers never change their minds about a booking and ask for their deposit back, right? After all, if you can change your mind before final payment and get your deposit back, why shouldn't the cruiseline be able to change its mind and give you your deposit back? Or would you rather that deposits become nonrefundable?

 

I think that it should be against the law to allow passengers to book a cruise and then let a charter book the whole ship and displace paying customers.

 

Should there also be a law against passengers changing their mind about a cruise and requesting their deposit back?

 

You could get money from Atlantis and RCCL as Atlantis voided your contract. I don't see anywhere in the contract saying RCCL can cancel for a charter booking the whole ship its not an act of god its an act of greed. Take RCCL/Atlantis to Small Claims Court and tell the Judge that you planned this trip to work around your work vacation schedule and kids schedule. You do have a case.

 

I was also going to comment about this part of your post, but I can't stop laughing long enough to explain how ridiculous it is.

[travelplus]

And what if you had booked transatlantic non-changeable or refundable flights?

 

Exactly MDJ101 I agree with you if you had booked a non-refundable-non-changeable ticket then RCCL would be responsible to change that and pay any difference.

 

Once you paid the down payment you signed a contract and booked the flight under the assumption all is good. Then comes the final payment and then if RCCL says"Sorry we have booked a charter you could take them to court to get a refund of the airline ticket".

 

RCCL had to price match the base fare no matter what. RCCL signed a contract with Atlantis and displaced passengers. The same goes for an airline overbooking they have to get you on the next cruise and pay for any expenses.

 

Furthermore RCCL should be obliged to pay you for taking additional Paid Time Off At work. What if you planned this vacation in advance and put in for your vacation?

 

I would want at least $1,000 in OBC+ a suite+ comped Wine Package and a few dinners at Chops/Portifinos. I would not take a measly $400 in OBC for their mistake.

 

If it means them booking me in First Class to make the ship then thats on RCCL.

 

Please pursue this further you deserve more. Al Anolik is a good source Google Travel Rights and his website will come up and you can e-mail him. He is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and appears on the local tv stations "Consumer Travel" when things go wrong.

 

As I stated before Al Anolik would say"RCCL sold you space on a ship with a valid itinerary. A few months later they say "We have scheduled a charter and need to reschedule you". Al would continue by saying the cruise was not cancelled for safety issues rather they cancelled for more money. If RCCL wanted to charter the cruise in the first place they should have never advertised it for the public.

 

You planned on those dates and booked non-refundable/non-changeable tickets. Even if you did not book with Choice Air RCCL needs to pay the difference in ticket price. They left you stranded without a cruise.

 

Please take my advice and let me know what comes of it. Keep pursuing it. Again $400 in OBC is nothing for me considering how much time it took to plan the itinerary, shore excursions, picking a good cabin etc.

[reallyitsmema]

Exactly MDJ101 I agree with you if you had booked a non-refundable-non-changeable ticket then RCCL would be responsible to change that and pay any difference.

 

Once you paid the down payment you signed a contract and booked the flight under the assumption all is good. Then comes the final payment and then if RCCL says"Sorry we have booked a charter you could take them to court to get a refund of the airline ticket".

 

RCCL had to price match the base fare no matter what. RCCL signed a contract with Atlantis and displaced passengers. The same goes for an airline overbooking they have to get you on the next cruise and pay for any expenses.

 

Furthermore RCCL should be obliged to pay you for taking additional Paid Time Off At work. What if you planned this vacation in advance and put in for your vacation?

 

I would want at least $1,000 in OBC+ a suite+ comped Wine Package and a few dinners at Chops/Portifinos. I would not take a measly $400 in OBC for their mistake.

 

If it means them booking me in First Class to make the ship then thats on RCCL.

 

Please pursue this further you deserve more. Al Anolik is a good source Google Travel Rights and his website will come up and you can e-mail him. He is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and appears on the local tv stations "Consumer Travel" when things go wrong.

 

As I stated before Al Anolik would say"RCCL sold you space on a ship with a valid itinerary. A few months later they say "We have scheduled a charter and need to reschedule you". Al would continue by saying the cruise was not cancelled for safety issues rather they cancelled for more money. If RCCL wanted to charter the cruise in the first place they should have never advertised it for the public.

 

You planned on those dates and booked non-refundable/non-changeable tickets. Even if you did not book with Choice Air RCCL needs to pay the difference in ticket price. They left you stranded without a cruise.

 

Please take my advice and let me know what comes of it. Keep pursuing it. Again $400 in OBC is nothing for me considering how much time it took to plan the itinerary, shore excursions, picking a good cabin etc.

You can dream.:rolleyes:

[addicted2]

Please take my advice and let me know what comes of it. Keep pursuing it. Again $400 in OBC is nothing for me considering how much time it took to plan the itinerary, shore excursions, picking a good cabin etc.

 

The originally booked cruise is still 11 months out so we had not booked airfare or shore excursions yet. So we aren't out anything there. They did ask about airfare when they called so they probably would have offered us something if we had booked flights. We changed the date but am still doing the same ship and itinerary. Because we booked so far in advance it did not mess up any of our plans, other than we would have been cruising on my b-day. No big deal to change things I just wanted them to offer us some sort of compensation for having to do so, which they did. In the end we are very happy with the $400 OBC.

 

We had a conflict before when we had booked the Mariner out of LA for Feb. of last year. Then they decided to move the ship. We were offered $200 OBC per person and they matched the price to book an earlier cruise before the ship left LA. Again we thought the offer was great and were very happy.

 

In the end when bookings open up over a year in advance there will probably always be some situations that will come up. I personally think RCL was very generious with there offer. We knew about the charter, which if you think about it Atlantis did charter the ship a year out, we were just waiting to hear from RCL to see what they were going to offer.

[MadManOfBethesda]

Exactly MDJ101 I agree with you if you had booked a non-refundable-non-changeable ticket then RCCL would be responsible to change that and pay any difference.

 

Once you paid the down payment you signed a contract and booked the flight under the assumption all is good. Then comes the final payment and then if RCCL says"Sorry we have booked a charter you could take them to court to get a refund of the airline ticket".

 

RCCL had to price match the base fare no matter what. RCCL signed a contract with Atlantis and displaced passengers. The same goes for an airline overbooking they have to get you on the next cruise and pay for any expenses.

 

Furthermore RCCL should be obliged to pay you for taking additional Paid Time Off At work. What if you planned this vacation in advance and put in for your vacation?

 

I would want at least $1,000 in OBC+ a suite+ comped Wine Package and a few dinners at Chops/Portifinos. I would not take a measly $400 in OBC for their mistake.

 

If it means them booking me in First Class to make the ship then thats on RCCL.

 

Please pursue this further you deserve more. Al Anolik is a good source Google Travel Rights and his website will come up and you can e-mail him. He is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and appears on the local tv stations "Consumer Travel" when things go wrong.

 

As I stated before Al Anolik would say"RCCL sold you space on a ship with a valid itinerary. A few months later they say "We have scheduled a charter and need to reschedule you". Al would continue by saying the cruise was not cancelled for safety issues rather they cancelled for more money. If RCCL wanted to charter the cruise in the first place they should have never advertised it for the public.

 

You planned on those dates and booked non-refundable/non-changeable tickets. Even if you did not book with Choice Air RCCL needs to pay the difference in ticket price. They left you stranded without a cruise.

 

Please take my advice and let me know what comes of it. Keep pursuing it. Again $400 in OBC is nothing for me considering how much time it took to plan the itinerary, shore excursions, picking a good cabin etc.

 

Please....stop.....you're killing me.

 

I haven't laughed so hard in ages.

[Aquahound]

Once you paid the down payment you signed a contract and booked the flight under the assumption all is good. Then comes the final payment and then if RCCL says"Sorry we have booked a charter you could take them to court to get a refund of the airline ticket"........

 

As much as we all wish you were correct, the fact is you're not.

[GGBNJ130]

Has this happened to anyone????

We booked RC "Independence of the Seas" sailing February 2 - 10, 2013, thought we were being proactive by booking a year in advance, friends of ours went to book and were told (from their travel agent) the boat was booked by an alternate carrier, Atlantis Events", an all gay cruise. I am totally fine with the gay lifestyle; however, I'm not sure I want to 8 nights with 4000 gay guys:) seeing as my husband and I are a straight couple. Should Royal Caribbean have called to inform us of this?

 

Wonder if their will be any drag queens onboard...

[honeybee85]

Glad it worked out...knew you would get the call eventually. I wonder if you had pushed it to the resolutions dept if you could have got them to honor the price? I can understand why you might not, I'm not real aggressive like that myself, but I'm sure some would have pushed them ( hey, you cancelled my cruise!)but getting2 cruises in sounds good to me;)

Thanks for following up!

 

It is Resolutions that handles this. They are also the Redeployment Desk.

 

You could get money from Atlantis and RCCL as Atlantis voided your contract. I don't see anywhere in the contract saying RCCL can cancel for a charter booking the whole ship its not an act of god its an act of greed. Take RCCL/Atlantis to Small Claims Court and tell the Judge that you planned this trip to work around your work vacation schedule and kids schedule. You do have a case.

 

Nope. The Cruise Ticket Contract explicitly states they can change or cancel your cruise at any time for any reason without any obligation to compensate you.

 

Section 6: Cancellation, Deviation or Substitution by Carrier states

 

"Carrier may for any reason at any time and without prior notice, cancel, advance, postpone or deviate from any scheduled sailing, port of call, destination, lodging or any activity on or off the Vessel, or substitute another vessel or port of call, destination, lodging or activity. Carrier shall not be liable for any claim whatsoever by Passenger, including but not limited to loss, compensation or refund, by reason of such cancellation, advancement, postponement, substitution or deviation.

 

That they choose to compensate when they cancel or change a sailing is at their discretion. Rest assured that these contracts have been tried in law many times and have come out affirmed by the courts.

 

Exactly MDJ101 I agree with you if you had booked a non-refundable-non-changeable ticket then RCCL would be responsible to change that and pay any difference.

 

Nope. See above.

 

 

Once you paid the down payment you signed a contract and booked the flight under the assumption all is good. Then comes the final payment and then if RCCL says"Sorry we have booked a charter you could take them to court to get a refund of the airline ticket".

 

RCCL had to price match the base fare no matter what. RCCL signed a contract with Atlantis and displaced passengers. The same goes for an airline overbooking they have to get you on the next cruise and pay for any expenses.

 

Furthermore RCCL should be obliged to pay you for taking additional Paid Time Off At work. What if you planned this vacation in advance and put in for your vacation?

 

I would want at least $1,000 in OBC+ a suite+ comped Wine Package and a few dinners at Chops/Portifinos. I would not take a measly $400 in OBC for their mistake.

 

If it means them booking me in First Class to make the ship then thats on RCCL.

 

Please pursue this further you deserve more. Al Anolik is a good source Google Travel Rights and his website will come up and you can e-mail him. He is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and appears on the local tv stations "Consumer Travel" when things go wrong.

 

As I stated before Al Anolik would say"RCCL sold you space on a ship with a valid itinerary. A few months later they say "We have scheduled a charter and need to reschedule you". Al would continue by saying the cruise was not cancelled for safety issues rather they cancelled for more money. If RCCL wanted to charter the cruise in the first place they should have never advertised it for the public.

 

You planned on those dates and booked non-refundable/non-changeable tickets. Even if you did not book with Choice Air RCCL needs to pay the difference in ticket price. They left you stranded without a cruise.

 

Please take my advice and let me know what comes of it. Keep pursuing it. Again $400 in OBC is nothing for me considering how much time it took to plan the itinerary, shore excursions, picking a good cabin etc.

 

Again. No. See above.

 

Yes, you signed a contract. And that contract explicitly gave RCCL this right. There is no case.

 

But good luck wasting your time and the court's time and a lot of money.

[foxesden1]

Is it possible to book airfare this far in advance? I looked into buying plane tickets for next February and they haven't yet opened the reservations. I looked on USAirways, Continental, American and JetBlue.

 

One comment about the Atlantis party boat- While there are people on board who stay up all night, there are a lot of us who are asleep by midnight, too. :)

 

331 days in advance

[uksimonusa]

I wish Royal would show a bit more loyalty to their customers, don't they realise that once we make a booking it's set in stone and everything falls into place around that so we don't need them taking it away once they see the dollar signs from another company. We had a similarish experience onboard Oasis last year, we got on and suddenly realised there was a 'quacker cruise' taking over a lot of the ship too, couldnt escape it or the constant quacking, although once we'd booked airfare etc it would have been too expensive to change.

 

Yeah, because passengers never change their minds about a booking and ask for their deposit back, right? After all, if you can change your mind before final payment and get your deposit back, why shouldn't the cruiseline be able to change its mind and give you your deposit back? Or would you rather that deposits become nonrefundable?

 

 

 

Should there also be a law against passengers changing their mind about a cruise and requesting their deposit back?

 

 

 

 

Welshrich is based in the UK, and in the UK your booking is set in stone, you do not get your deposit back if you cancel your booking or change ship sail date etc

[Ocean Boy]

I have seen pictures of Allure when it was chartered. The crowds would be way too much for me. I just would not enjoy that aspect of the atmosphere at all.

[Ocean Boy]

I called Royal last night and they said that they may be sending out letters to people already booked, no compensation or OBC.....got stuck paying $50 pp more to sail on Feb 16, same cruise just different dates. Maybe I will see you on our Feb 16 cruise:)

 

I cannot believe they are not at least comping you for the price difference. :eek: I think I would say "no thank you, you can return my deposit". There are plenty of cruise lines and other vacation options. I have a Allure cruise planned and I'm still shopping...for instance WDW is offering 30% discounts on rooms ( even the good ones!) this April, if the same deal is in the table next year, RCL is not compelling me to keep this booking with this sort of behavior.

 

WOW, that's beyond arrogant! It's really bait and switch...heres this cheap cruise, "oh wait, we are canceling that, but we have this more expensive one for you.". I might add that your new dates fall during the winter break that most schools in NorthEastern USA have near the Washington Birthday weekend, so expect lots of kids.

 

I'm sorry you were treated this shabbily!

 

I agree. There seem to be too many threads popping up these days about RCI just not treating their customers as if they value them.:rolleyes:

[JMG]

Exactly MDJ101 I agree with you if you had booked a non-refundable-non-changeable ticket then RCCL would be responsible to change that and pay any difference.

 

The cruise documents state that "the carrier may , for any reason, at any time and without prior notice, cancel, advance, postpone or deviate from any scheduled sailing or port of call..."

 

This is standard clause that the cruiseline can use for many things that cause them to have to change their schedule. We were booked on the Enchantment when Hurricane Wilma struck Cancun and south Florida. We had to be on our way to Florida and the airlines got us into Tampa, we drove to Miami. All the time we were in contact with RCI finding out about our cruise. RCI ended up cancelling our Enchantment cruise because they sent the ship to Cancun to evacuate Americans from Cancun. The airlines could not get in due to runway damage. We were compensated and transferred to the Majesty. A shorter cruise than planned but RCI made up for the difference. Yes, it was very sad to be on the Majesty and watch the Enchantment sail empty but it was necessary...(Carnival also sent a ship to the area).

 

This clause also obviously allows them to take a charter. You may call it greed but it is a business and the object is to make money. Sad, that it rains on someone's parade but if you wait and allow the process to work...RCI will work with you.

 

The OP unfortunately acted on the news without allowing RCI the opportunity to work things out. A reservation agent would not know about the charter arrangements or have the authority to do anything for anyone that makes the change before they have been officially contacted by the cruiseline.