Do Cruise Lines Overbook?

[dluetje1]

Do the cruise lines overbook like the airlines do? Is so, how do they resolve the problem? Has this happened to any one? I assume the cruise lines will try to reschedule you. How do they select who to ask to reschedule? What if they don't get anyone willing to reschedule? This raises all kinds of questions in my mind. Would appreciate any info on this subject. Thanks

[tomc]

Is the Pope Catholic? Do bears (*) in the woods?

 

You bet they overbook. A percentage of pax change their minds and cancel, so the company gambles on a small overbook to guarantee a full ship. What apparently happens is that *their* idea of a small overbook and *reality* is often not quite the same. Then the TAs' phone lines start ringing with deals: will your pax cancel this trip in exchange for this other date + this comp package. If it looks fairly good to you, you can bargain for a better package and see if the line will up the ante.

[montekat]

Quite a few people had to be bumped from the Carnival Miracle out of Baltimore last September. They did not realize how many people were serious about sailing from a local port and had no intention of cancelling. As I understand it, they offered the people who lived closest to the port the option of an 8 night cruise out of New York on the Legend instead and provided transportation from Baltimore to NY. Our reservations remained untouched.

[BaumD]

Carnival had a big problem out of Baltimore in 2004, they guessed many people would cancel reservation and it turned out very few did. They ended up bumping hundreds of people that had made reservation 9 months or a year in advance.

[tomc]

My Boston-Montreal HAL cruise at the end of June was overbooked and they were calling all kinds of people, including California just days before sailing, asking if they would take a comp package. I'm near NYC and got The Call and my TA told them to take a walk; I'd booked over a year in advance, my work schedule was inflexible and I'm HAL-exclusive with 15 cruises under my belt already.

[deadzone1003]

May I assume that the overbooked cabins are largely the "guaranteed" cabins? And who has priority, the ones with a cabin number over the guaranteed?

[racephoto]

They can overbook categories too.....on my '98 Eclipse Cruise on the Dawn Princess we were booked with an outside guarantee. I think it was about a month before the cruise when we got the first call from the TA.....they had overbooked outside cabins. They offered something, whatever it was wasn't all that appealing, to switch to an inside cabin. We declined. About a week later we got another call, switch to an inside cabin, we'll refund the difference between that category and the outside guarantee fare and give you a $250 PER PERSON shipboard credit! Well, we went for that one. It was great, it paid for every shore excursion we took plus some drinks! And the cabin was great, we got a cabin at the aft end of the ship, only three or four cabins from the end. Why was that so great? Cause at the end of the hall was a little used deck and it was just steps to being outside. And most times we went out there we were by ourselves. That whole cruise was just incredible, but having all that extra spending money was a real nice perk.

[Nitemare]

No real priority list that anyone has discerned. They start calling folks and offer more and more to entice them to give up their cabin. I don't recall ever seeing anyone "kicked off" of a ship because it's overbooked.

[DEL67]

A couple of years ago RCCL overbooked the balconies on the Serenade repositioning. My sister and brother-in-law were offered 50% of their cruise fare back to take an outside cabin on an upper deck or 100% for an outside on a lower deck.

[tomc]

I don't recall ever seeing anyone "kicked off" of a ship because it's overbooked.

I think that's what happened in Baltimore. Carnival had to take a big p.r. bath on that one because nobody wanted to cancel or switch. It had no other choice but to call and say, "We're really sorry, but we overbooked you."

[momofmeg]

When I was on the Statendam in 2001 I had a tablemate from Seattle. She had orginally booked a roundtrip Alaska cruise from Vancouver. That cruise was overbooked so she was offered a northbound and southbound cruise on the Statendam so she actually got to cruise 2 weeks. Because she agreed to this she also got a suite and a free excursion in Seward, Alaska where most of us left our cruise. She was not the only person. We ran into others who also were taking the northbound and southbound cruises so I guess HAL had really overbooked that one ship. I forget the name of the ship that was overbooked but it was in port in Juneau the same day we were and our tablemate told us that that was the ship she was supposed to be on.

[Big Al B.]

We were booked on the Statendam for an HAL cruisetour to Alaska which was overbooked in an outside (no balcony) cabin. We were offered a deal that if we would go out a day early we would have the same tour only one day longer and it was fully escorted with just about all meals and tips, etc on land included. We thought about 1/2 second before accepting :). When we boarded the ship at Skagway for the leg to Vancouver (3 nights) we were given notes to present to out steward and waiters that their tips had been taken care of. We had met a couple on the tour part who wound up being moved from an outside cabin to a penthouse suite (with all its amenities).

[cruzincurt]

Several years ago we we booked on a 4 day on RCCL. Two days before the cruise they called and offered us a 7 day on another ship, a day later and $200 a person ship credit.

 

On our upcoming cruise, months ago we were told it was sold out. We were lucky to get a guarantee two months ago. Yesterday, while talking to the TA she indicated there were now rooms available in our guarantee level if we wanted to change rooms.