Grand canceled May 1st from Vancouver

[sunshine nana]

I just got a call from our TA that Princess has canceled the Grand's May 1st cruise r/t Vancouver. They are giving us whopping $30 for our trouble. We planned to fly to Vancouver from Toronto, take the cruise for 3 days and then board the train back to Toronto. We booked the dome sleeping car on the train several months ago to work with the cruise. The only good thing is we have not bought our plane tickets.

Princess did offer to let us take a longer cruise, but it won't work with the train. The train cannot be changed. I am very disappointed with Princess.

[Loonbeam]

Your insurance should cover the train as a sunk cost...

 

I just got a call from our TA that Princess has canceled the Grand's May 1st cruise r/t Vancouver. They are giving us whopping $30 for our trouble. We planned to fly to Vancouver from Toronto, take the cruise for 3 days and then board the train back to Toronto. We booked the dome sleeping car on the train several months ago to work with the cruise. The only good thing is we have not bought our plane tickets.

Princess did offer to let us take a longer cruise, but it won't work with the train. The train cannot be changed. I am very disappointed with Princess.

[Thrak]

Was there any specific explanation as to why the cruise was cancelled or was it simply put down to "operational reasons"?

[sunshine nana]

The main purpose of our going to Vancouver is the train trip, so we are still doing that.We never buy insurance until final payment. If we had known the Grand was not sailing, I could have changed the train date, but that is not possible now. I asked if it was being chartered and the Princess rep. could not say. Thanks for your concern. We left Princess several years ago to try Celebrity because the Ruby canceled Istanbul a month before departure. We were not on that cruise, but decided to go to Istanbul on Celebrity. We have loved all 5 of our Princess cruises, but I don't like this deal!

[islandatsea]

The main purpose of our going to Vancouver is the train trip, so we are still doing that.We never buy insurance until final payment. If we had known the Grand was not sailing, I could have changed the train date, but that is not possible now. I asked if it was being chartered and the Princess rep. could not say. Thanks for your concern. We left Princess several years ago to try Celebrity because the Ruby canceled Istanbul a month before departure. We were not on that cruise, but decided to go to Istanbul on Celebrity. We have loved all 5 of our Princess cruises, but I don't like this deal!

 

Why not call back and ask another rep or supervisor. They should be able to give you a good explanation why this occurred.

[Loonbeam]

The rep may not be aware, if the trip was just removed from the database. The most likely reason if that's the only one canceled in that time frame is a charter.

[Love.II.Cruise]

Oh my! That really sucks! I hope you get this resolved to your liking. We also do not by insurance until final payment.

[senior lady]

very interesting, as I''m on the cruise before. Getting back to vancouver on May 1st:confused:

[Urban trekker]

"very interesting, as I''m on the cruise before. Getting back to vancouver on May 1"

 

Me too - might be time to talk to my TA and see if he knows anything.

 

Cheers!

 

Dennis

[likeadisguise]

The rep may not be aware, if the trip was just removed from the database. The most likely reason if that's the only one canceled in that time frame is a charter.

Princess is generally upfront about the reason when cancelling a cruise due to a charter. It's likely this is for some sort of technical/maintenance reason.

[Tweedy]

I know my TA is selling it as a "Cruising with Hope" sailing in support of breast cancer on that particular sailing and will be hosting events. Maybe it has gotten bigger then they originally thought and changed this into a charter cruise.

[sunshine nana]

It's really too bad they can't accommodate those of us who booked in good faith months ago and made other plans around the cruise to go even if they have a large group going also. I am really disappointed and wary of booking another cruise which will involve overseas airline tickets, hotels and other travel connected with the cruise.

[Colo Cruiser]

It's really too bad they can't accommodate those of us who booked in good faith months ago and made other plans around the cruise to go even if they have a large group going also. I am really disappointed and wary of booking another cruise which will involve overseas airline tickets, hotels and other travel connected with the cruise.

 

 

Did you purchase trip insurance?

Why should they accomodate you?

Edited September 11, 2014 by Colo Cruiser

[Tweedy]

It's really too bad they can't accommodate those of us who booked in good faith months ago and made other plans around the cruise to go even if they have a large group going also. I am really disappointed and wary of booking another cruise which will involve overseas airline tickets, hotels and other travel connected with the cruise.

 

I was just speculating on the reason the cruise was cancelled for other passengers based on the fact that the cruise is still showing on my TA's website. There still could be another reason why they have pulled this particular cruise from the schedule and my TA's website hasn't been updated to reflect that.

 

The sailing is a year out and sometimes particular sailings are cancelled for a number of reasons. Don't get discouraged because of this one occurrence.

[sunshine nana]

This is an update to the supposed cancelation of the Grand out of Vancouver May 1st. I found out on CC that the cruise was not canceled, but chartered and the cabins were being resold on line by an online TA. A buyer did not have to belong to a special group to buy. I did not find this out until our cabin had been resold and most of the categories are waitlisted.

The details are on the thread about the Grand, but to update new readers, our TA was told by Princess that the cruise was canceled and would not give a reason. We were offered $30 or we could switch to another cruise. We have already booked a train trip and could not change the date to a day later.

If I had been told I could buy the cruise from the online TA, (for the same price by the way), I would have taken most any other cabin. Princess did not offer the correct information.

Be wary, Princess may cancel your reservation and let an online TA resell it.

I am writing this because CC is a great place to learn what can happen.

[geoherb]

I saw this being offered as "Cruising with Hope" in support of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. It looks like they started out with having group space on the ship, but apparently they had enough demand for this sailing that they chartered the whole ship.

 

I've seen similar complaints about other cruise lines when they've canceled cruises way in advance for full-ship charters.

[MCC retired]

Keep in mind that if the ship is chartered , the Chartering company has total control of itinerary & onboard service /events .

Most everyone may not like the changes to what they originally booked .

Hence, the cancelations .

[todd-r]

The cruise hasn't been cancelled; the ship has been chartered. And the charter is open to the public.

 

Just re-book through one of the specific travel agents selling the cruise. It is not sold out, they are just not publicly advertising the price. You would need to call the TA to book. Follow the link above.

[AKman2495]

I am not sure if Princess has the ability to advise customers of the charter. I don't know why, except perhaps that the group does not want a flood of passengers from the cancelled cruise filling up its charter.

 

Imagine, you charter a whole ship for a purpose and soon after bookings open it is 1/2 or more "sold" by the passengers from the canceled cruise.....

 

I guess the lesson is if you get canceled like that, check to see if the cruise had been chartered. As has been mentioned, some of those charters are filled with groups that may not particularly like, so be careful what you ask for when you say ""Just sign me up!!!

[peety3]

This is an update to the supposed cancelation of the Grand out of Vancouver May 1st. I found out on CC that the cruise was not canceled, but chartered and the cabins were being resold on line by an online TA. A buyer did not have to belong to a special group to buy. I did not find this out until our cabin had been resold and most of the categories are waitlisted.

The details are on the thread about the Grand, but to update new readers, our TA was told by Princess that the cruise was canceled and would not give a reason. We were offered $30 or we could switch to another cruise. We have already booked a train trip and could not change the date to a day later.

If I had been told I could buy the cruise from the online TA, (for the same price by the way), I would have taken most any other cabin. Princess did not offer the correct information.

Be wary, Princess may cancel your reservation and let an online TA resell it.

I am writing this because CC is a great place to learn what can happen.

Princess DID give you the correct information. The publicly-available cruise that you had booked, as offered BY PRINCESS, has been cancelled and is not available for sale through Princess or its network of agents. That's a pretty obvious fact. It so happens that ONE online TA has chartered the ship for this particular cruise and is selling it, so they are the ones undertaking the costs of marketing the trip as well as the wholesale booking. Princess has, IMHO, every right to not aid that TA with marketing the cruise, and possibly has contractual prohibitions against referring canceled customers to that TA, which is IMHO entirely reasonable.

[COMBOY]

Here is an article written by Cruisecritic on the whole subject of charters. I think might explain things in better perspective.

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=760

[geoherb]

One of the good things about booking late is never having to worry about a ship being chartered. After a certain date, the cruise line won't do a full-ship charter. In the case mentioned in the Cruise Critic article that ComBoy gave a link to, it was over a year before the scheduled cruise. In the OP's situation, it's more than seven months.

[AKman2495]

One of the good things about booking late is never having to worry about a ship being chartered. After a certain date, the cruise line won't do a full-ship charter. In the case mentioned in the Cruise Critic article that ComBoy gave a link to, it was over a year before the scheduled cruise. In the OP's situation, it's more than seven months.

 

I also imagine longer cruise are less likely to be cancelled by a charter. I doubt if they would want to book for more than a week.

[Hlitner]

I will reiterate a pet peeve that cruise lines should be penalized (by law) from chartering out a cruise less then 11 months prior to the cruise date. This is because customers will, in good faith, book a cruise far in advance which is something the cruise line's all encourage. Once inside of 11 months, many of these folks will opt to purchase their own air (airlines do not generally accept a reservation prior to 11 months). Most of these air fares are non-refundable and involve fees for changes. So when a cruise line charters a cruise and cancels inside of 11 months, they are "screwing" some of their best customers who often book far in advance. I would love to see a US Federal Law/regulation that requires a cruise line to reimburse any such passenger double the cost they have spent on trip arrangements (such as air fare).

 

Hank

Edited September 12, 2014 by Hlitner

[sunshine nana]

I agree the customer needs more protection. A cruise that is supposedly canceled should not be sailing but with other people who pushed aside those who had paid in good faith and paid for many other arrangements. For many reasons, we need to make all our plans months ahead. We cannot wait until the last 3 months to make sure Princess hasn't chartered our cruise.