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Windstar cancels all Star Pride Itineraries through April 9


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It seems to be an "industry standard " type of questionnaire. There are several questions about crew performance plus an additional area for comments which would give ample opportunity to express anything good or bad about the crew or anything else one might have in mind.

 

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AIS is an acronym for Advanced Identification System, used for tracking the location of ships (among other things). A google search leads to the link for this site:

 

http://www.marinetraffic.com/

 

where you can enter a ships name or port into the search box on the upper righthand corner.

 

Thank you! You are correct. I should have used Google.

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For anyone who has been trying to get in touch with Windstar Guest Relations via the email or telephone listed on Windstar's website with no luck, here is a direct email address for the guest relations person: jillian.wikstrom@windstarcruises.com. She did reply to emails at that address reasonably quickly on Friday.

 

For anyone who was on Star Pride who is trying to find out about shore excursion refunds, they will not be included in the refund check you will be receiving. The reason given was "We haven’t received the onboard billing yet. Any shore excursions that had to be cancelled will be refunded from onboard billing." This apparently applies even if you had booked the shore excursions before leaving home instead of onboard.

 

For anyone wanting to know what is going on with missing belongings, the response was "I am presently waiting for the shipment to come to Seattle for me to sort through and mail out to our guests. Everything found was placed in bags marked with the room number, so I will be able to know who gets what. I will be taking pictures of the belongings and emailing it to the guests to make sure their belongings are correct before I send the shipments." She was unable or unwilling to provide any time frame for when they expected the belongings to arrive in Seattle, or how long she expected it to take once they arrived.

Edited by ChalupaMama
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ChalupaMama,

 

You guys that were on the ill-fated, Star Pride when she ran aground, have my sincere condolences! I was on a future sailing of the Star Pride that was canceled and the poor treatment that I received doesn't compare at all to the run around that you have evidently experienced. I got tired of posting information on this blog because of all the "cruise experts" (none of which had any skin in this game) that wanted to chastise all of us that were dealing with Windstar about how we were not being patient and that our insurance should cover everything or if we didn't have insurance then we were just stupid! The vacation planners at Star Pride were the only ones that would take our phone calls, answer our emails and at least seem sorry that our cruise had been canceled. However, they did not have the power to make things right and the people with the power would not communicate in a timely fashion if they did at all. After 12 days of waiting to talk with someone from Guest Services and never hearing back from them, I canceled my future reservation on the Star Breeze that had been offered as a substitute to my original reservation. I was told I would get my deposit back, but I will still lose money on the change/cancellation fees with flights, hotels and tours as well as the higher costs of the re-bookings for these venues at this future and more pricey date. I am sailing on the Holland America, Eurodam for 14 nights to Italy and Spain for a lower rate than the Star Pride, 8 night sail from Lisbon to Barcelona. I will not get to experience my first small ship but "Fool me once same on you - Fool me twice shame on me". One last thing, on 1/19/16, the day after I canceled my reservation with Windstar, I did hear from guest relations. I was told to contact Vacation Planning and they would help me with my cancellation?! It is tough dealing with incompetence!

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We received our refund check yesterday, but no future cruise credit information. Did anyone else receive anything in writing about the future cruise credit? I'm interested in the terms & conditions, like how long we have to use it.

 

Did you book directly or through an agent? We were told that since we booked with a TA the refund would go to them, not us.

 

Did the check arrive with any terms attached? In particular, was there any language along the lines of "by cashing this check you agree to..."

 

About the future cruise time frame, one correspondence I have refers to "within the next 12 months" and another to "during 2016." I'm a stickler for T&Cs and to date have nothing from WS but an email correspondence that is totally non-specific.

Edited by milepig
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Did you book directly or through an agent? We were told that since we booked with a TA the refund would go to them, not us.

 

Did the check arrive with any terms attached?

 

About the future cruise time frame, one correspondence I have refers to "within the next 12 months" and another to "during 2016." I'm a stickler for T&Cs and do date have nothing from WS but an email correspondence that is totally non-specific.

We booked directly. The check did not come with any terms.

 

I am at the point where I'm inclined not to use the future cruise certificate. It's a shame since it is all their after-the-fact customer service issues that have made me feel that way, and not the ship grounding itself.

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We were booked on the Panama Canal cruise that was canceled. We were notified about a week ago, and the cruise line offered to give us our money back .

We informed them that we had taken off for that cruise and paid for our airline tickets. We checked other cruises and decided to take another Windstar Cruise to the Western Caribbean. We decided this even though we are scheduled to travel to Cozumel in May.

When we originally booked airline tickets to Panama we got very good rates. When we tried to book new tickets for this Caribbean cruise we could not get good rates ; in fact our new cruise is going to cost us about $1,100 more.

Windstar credited the individuals 100% for those individuals that were on the boat that had the accident and gave them 75% off their next cruise. and Windstar gave a 75% off discount on their cruise and a 75% discount on their next cruise for those who were on the boat that came to assist . Our cruise to the Panama Canal was cancelled and we were also inconvenienced and Windstar gave us nothing. Somehow that does not seem fair...

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We were booked on the Panama Canal cruise that was canceled. We were notified about a week ago, and the cruise line offered to give us our money back .

We informed them that we had taken off for that cruise and paid for our airline tickets. We checked other cruises and decided to take another Windstar Cruise to the Western Caribbean. We decided this even though we are scheduled to travel to Cozumel in May.

When we originally booked airline tickets to Panama we got very good rates. When we tried to book new tickets for this Caribbean cruise we could not get good rates ; in fact our new cruise is going to cost us about $1,100 more.

Windstar credited the individuals 100% for those individuals that were on the boat that had the accident and gave them 75% off their next cruise. and Windstar gave a 75% off discount on their cruise and a 75% discount on their next cruise for those who were on the boat that came to assist . Our cruise to the Panama Canal was cancelled and we were also inconvenienced and Windstar gave us nothing. Somehow that does not seem fair...

 

Add: and people who were booked on the 12/26 departure (the one after the one that picked up the displaced pax) were offered the full refund and 50% credit toward a rebooking, which is sort of like the 75%/75%. I've not yet heard of a case where WS has come through on that offer. (The poster above, for example, received their refund check, but nothing but silence about the future cruise credit.)

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We were told all those whose cruise was cancelled and rebook get up to $500 per person to cover rebooking of airlines tickets. I was told by WS after submitting our expenses for rebooking that they were approved for $500 each and we should be receiving a check for that amount in the next 3 weeks. Of course, that didn't cover the full amount because as you said, the tickets sky rocketed from what we first paid. I still think it would be good PR for WS to at least give us some on ship credit to make up for the difference. We could at least use it to cover an excursion or their over priced drinks.

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Add: and people who were booked on the 12/26 departure (the one after the one that picked up the displaced pax) were offered the full refund and 50% credit toward a rebooking, which is sort of like the 75%/75%. I've not yet heard of a case where WS has come through on that offer. (The poster above, for example, received their refund check, but nothing but silence about the future cruise credit.)

 

I don't know how Windstar is handling the future cruise credit for this situation, but when I received one in the past for a chartered cruise, I never got any actual certificate. It was just a "credit" attached to my name in their system, that they could see when they pulled my booking history up.

 

All cruise lines have "overpriced" drinks, don't they? Actually, Windstar prices for drinks are in line with any restaurant in the Seattle area.

Edited by 6rugrats
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In checking flights, I find using Google Flights often finds us good fares (it incorporates the ITA Matrix software); the problem is if you have a nonrefundable itinerary originally, you'll get hit with the change fee and any fare differences.

 

Sometimes it can pay to take a voucher, generally good for one year from when you purchased the original ticket, minus the change fee, and find another airline or partner to fly to your rescheduled cruise on.

 

I've found the Seattle staff so-so at dealing with issues, so with the Pridevdebacle and cruise rebooking and cruise bookings on the other five ships they're up to their, er, waists in caimans ad the dates for checks are wishful. Persist! (We had similar issues with Lindblad a couple of years ago when our scheduled Amazon River cruise had to be cancelled when the boat caught fire - and we ad begun our journey to get to Iquitos; it took several communications, plenty off polite but firm assertiveness and self-advocacy, but after some time we did get our issues acknowledged and get served properly. Ilegitimi non carborundum! ;) (Don't let the, er, "illegitimate ones, wear you down!)

 

Good luck, all!

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I just thought of this. For those receiving a future booking credit, perhaps make sure you understand the expiration date of this credit. When my first cruise was chartered, I had a large onboard credit, and received a credit toward rebooking. Used the credit to rebook, and that cruise was cancelled. Usedmthe credit to rebook again, and that cruise had the ship and itinerary changed so we cancelled.

 

I eventually lost my cruise credit and my OBC. Make sure you understand the terms and conditions of your credit so it is used before it expires, because as I stated in my other post, I never had an physical paper that discussed my credit.

 

Good luck.

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Hope your post wasn't meant to be snarky. It's hard to tell. I for one have been following 6rugrats posts for a very long time and never thought that he (or she) was biased in any regard and has contributed over 1300 posts, many of which have been really helpful to me. Seattle is a big city!

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Fortunately, when I explained our plight to both JetBlue and United, they both did not charge us the rebooking fees. That gesture was REALLY good PR for both companies and we will definitely fly with both in the future. Also had a flight with Frontier and we lost the entire ticket. Sounds crazy to book a trip with 3 different airlines, but how we got the good deals back in November.

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The above is the first post from 6rugrats that didn't make me think he was on the Windstar payroll - he is from Seattle! Nice post!

 

I'm a "she" and I'm not from Seattle, though I live in the area now. I have never worked for Windstar or any other cruise company or in the travel industry at all.

 

I just try to be fair and see both sides. I realize the world does not revolve around me and my needs. Sometimes, when frustrated and angry, people forget things take time to resolve. I am sure Windstar wishes this incident never happened. I'm just glad no one was injured.

 

I have been very unhappy with Windstar in the past, and in fact, have not cruised with them for some time. I'm giving them another try in a couple months and we'll see.

 

monicajax - Wonderful news about no airline change fees; you never know until you try.

 

Thank you for your kind words, sb44.

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Good for Jet Blue and United. Did Frontier give you a future credit? I had to cancel with them once and they gave it to me to be used in a year. Of course I never used it but at least they offered. If you charged the tickets through a travel credit card you might have some benefits there if not thru the cruise insurance. This entire event has made me reexamine all of my various cruise insurance policies that I've purchased over the years and found I had a couple of gems and a couple that would've done ok for illness or death but that's about it. Then we just received a new travel card this month with their built in travel insurance. It's pretty good but would not have covered WS cancelling the trip so I guess we'll continue to purchase through the travel insurance specialist that I've been buying through. Disclaimer : I am in the insurance business but we do not sell travel which is a whole different animal.

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I figured anyone who goes by 6rugrats is female. Mine are grown and are relatively sane adults now. My hope is that the crew was reassigned to other ships while the ship is being repaired. They are a nice group and certainly can't afford to lose jobs. And it took WS some time to get crews up to standards on the new ships and would hate for that to have to start over again.

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Got our future cruise credit certificate in the mail today. It is good through 1/11/2018. Here are the terms and conditions for anyone who is interested:

 

"This certificate entitles you to a credit against your cruise fare [not to include NDAs or taxes] for travel on any Windstar Cruises passenger vessel. In order to redeem this certificate, you or your travel agent must present the original certificate to our Vacation Planning Dept. for prompt application to your booking; deposit must be made before certificate can be applied. In the event of subsequent cancellation of the booking, you will be issued a replacement certificate if cancellation occurred outside of penalties or prior to the Expiration Date.

 

This certificate is not transferable and has not cash surrender value. It is valid through the Expiration Date and is subject to space availability. Guest must travel by the Expiration Date. If this certificate has been issued to more than one person, either or both of you may redeem it; however, the Credit Value is the aggregate amount to which both of you are entitled. FCC amounts are calculated based on cruisefare programs for the completed voyage. FCCs will be applied as post-deposit cruisefare discount for similar price programs only. Contact a Windstar Vacation Planner for more details. This certificate will only be valid if signed by a duly authorized employee of Windstar Cruises."

It appears from the terms that the credit cannot be used for the deposit, so even if I pick a cruise for the same amount as the one we were on, I still have to pay Windstar money and will lose some of my credit. Is that everyone else's read on this?

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Got our future cruise credit certificate in the mail today. It is good through 1/11/2018. Here are the terms and conditions for anyone who is interested:

 

"This certificate entitles you to a credit against your cruise fare [not to include NDAs or taxes] for travel on any Windstar Cruises passenger vessel. In order to redeem this certificate, you or your travel agent must present the original certificate to our Vacation Planning Dept. for prompt application to your booking; deposit must be made before certificate can be applied. In the event of subsequent cancellation of the booking, you will be issued a replacement certificate if cancellation occurred outside of penalties or prior to the Expiration Date.

 

This certificate is not transferable and has not cash surrender value. It is valid through the Expiration Date and is subject to space availability. Guest must travel by the Expiration Date. If this certificate has been issued to more than one person, either or both of you may redeem it; however, the Credit Value is the aggregate amount to which both of you are entitled. FCC amounts are calculated based on cruisefare programs for the completed voyage. FCCs will be applied as post-deposit cruisefare discount for similar price programs only. Contact a Windstar Vacation Planner for more details. This certificate will only be valid if signed by a duly authorized employee of Windstar Cruises."

It appears from the terms that the credit cannot be used for the deposit, so even if I pick a cruise for the same amount as the one we were on, I still have to pay Windstar money and will lose some of my credit. Is that everyone else's read on this?

 

That's not my reading. The deposit is a fraction of the total cost, certainly far less than 50%, with the total due 90 days out.

 

So, let's say you book a cruise for August now.

 

You'll be charged the normal deposit, which IIRC has been less than $1000 in all my previous cruises.

 

Then you can apply the credit against the balance due, and whatever else you owe beyond that will then be due 90 days before the cruise.

 

If the total new cruise cost is $9,000 and your credit is $3,500, the billing should look like:

 

today = $1,000 deposit

tomorrow = $3,500 credit applied

90 days before sail = $4,500 balance due

 

If your refund was $9,000 you can use $4,500 of that to pay the balance, leaving you with $4,500 in the bank.

 

I'm in a more complicated situation, where my replacement for the original itin was less that 90 days out and they applied the entire REFUND DUE (not the future credit) to that, even though it was less expensive. This means, that unless something changes I won't be able to use the future credit against that booking and I've lost the advantage of the lower-priced itin.

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