What would you do?

[CruiseCat99]

A co-worker suggested I join these boards and I am finding them to be a wealth of information! So, I am hoping for some advice.

My husband and myself are (were) booked on consecutive SS cruises to the Caribbean in March for my husband's 70th birthday. We found out the 1st week had been chartered and is now canceled. Silversea is offering to move us to another cruise, but with all the damage and uncertainty going on in the Caribbean, we are unsure of the best thing to do. We have considered the following options:

1. Move to a February Caribbean cruise and change our flights and hotel (non-refundable and booked just before we knew of the cancellation/hurricanes) to match this. Silversea has offered to pay change fees since they canceled our plans.

2. Pick an entirely different cruise destination (we are thinking Europe next fall), and hope Silversea honors the discounts we have on our current cruise.

3. Cancel all together and start from scratch and eat the $1600 in airfare and hotels that we already have booked.

 

We keep going back and forth, and if we knew more about how the islands might be faring, we might just take the February cruise, but there are so many unknowns.

What would you do?

[UKCruiseJeff]

Hi, welcome to CC. Sympathies with your dilemna.

 

Can you clarify whether you have checked with SS wheter they reimburse all of your airfare and hotels due to the first charter?

 

The answer to that question will give you materially further clarity to the costs of your different options.

[CruiseCat99]

Since I did not book through Silversea, they are being generous to reimburse change fees but not anything beyond that. The airlines and hotel are willing to work to change dates/times but not reimburse. So we either move it or loose. it.

[UKCruiseJeff]

Hi,

 

Whether you booked via a TA or not your treatmeant with respect to what you should expect by compensation should be pretty neutral although arguably the chances of you being treated better if booked through a TA should be if anything better. You should expect to be reimbursed for all of your out of pocket expenses as the cancellation is due to them exercising a purely commercial decision to boot you off the cruise in favour of a charter which presumably they feel is better for them. You should not be left out of pocket. Your consumer protections depend on where you live and where the booking was made.

 

In any event you ask for what others would do. In my view you need to go through three stages before deciding.

 

1. Establish what the total cost of not proceeding is.

 

2. Based on those costs and all other factors do you wish to proceed - or not.

 

3. If it is "or not" then decide what else you want to do to replace the cruise.

 

Because of both recent events and the cancellation of the first leg. on balance I would minimise my losses but do something else and not proceed as planned and try the same thing perhaps in a year or two. I simply do not like that number of unknowns and tommorow is another day.

[Emtbsam]

Just a thought - If you are looking for a warm weather get away, consider the first one or two segments of the 2018 World Cruise on the Whisper leaving in January 2018. I believe there is still availability, and if you love sea days, that is a wonderful voyage. Air New Zealand has some wonderfully low business class fares right now.

[CruiseCat99]

After spending a lot of time on the phone with the wonderful people at SS, we have decided to go with the following:

Book Silversea Mediterranean for next September. They were more than generous with discounts and OBC, plus airfare is included in the cost of the cruise we booked. We actually get money back from our previous booking. We are going to keep our flight/hotel for our originally scheduled cruise in March, and change the hotel/return flight for a small fee, and enjoy a week in Old San Juan (assuming the hurricane damage is not too bad or things have been re-built and are safe for tourism). I think this is the best of both worlds and does not put too much of a dent in our pocketbook!

So, it is almost like 2 vacations for the price of one at this point. Couldn't be happier with the results.

Thanks for the quick advice and warm welcome to the boards!

[UKCruiseJeff]

Great result, well done!

 

You're also welcome to join us on the Cooler for more idle and aimless friendly chat, and also particularly if you wish to discuss what to do in some of the Med places you will be visiting next September. Some of us know most of them well and will be happy to help you get the most out of your cruise.

[MBP&O2/O]

Out of interest - which cruise/s have been cancelled? In February the Wind had quite a few cancellations.

 

I was told - via my TA - that it was 2801 to 2807.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2472804

[CruiseCat99]

We were booked on the March 4th sailing and the March 11th sailing. They offered to move us to the February 25th sailing which was a 7 night but became a 10 night.

With all that is going on there, we just didn't feel like it would be a safe or enjoyable place to vacation next year. We will be back once things recovery. Praying for the islands!

[seaver]

We were booked on the March 4th sailing and the March 11th sailing. They offered to move us to the February 25th sailing which was a 7 night but became a 10 night.

With all that is going on there, we just didn't feel like it would be a safe or enjoyable place to vacation next year. We will be back once things recovery. Praying for the islands!

We just booked February 25th sailing, Pretty sure it will be safe,enjoyable? Not sure but we will go with the hopes of showing our support, spending some money and /or perhaps lending a hand in some kind of service project. Tourism is how most make there living and not knowing about hotels, cruise ships might be there only hope for a while.

[wripro]

After spending a lot of time on the phone with the wonderful people at SS, we have decided to go with the following:

Book Silversea Mediterranean for next September. They were more than generous with discounts and OBC, plus airfare is included in the cost of the cruise we booked. We actually get money back from our previous booking. We are going to keep our flight/hotel for our originally scheduled cruise in March, and change the hotel/return flight for a small fee, and enjoy a week in Old San Juan (assuming the hurricane damage is not too bad or things have been re-built and are safe for tourism). I think this is the best of both worlds and does not put too much of a dent in our pocketbook!

So, it is almost like 2 vacations for the price of one at this point. Couldn't be happier with the results.

Thanks for the quick advice and warm welcome to the boards!

 

You nay have to rethink that week in San Juan now after Maria.

[CruiseCat99]

We are watching closely. We have a backup plan if things aren't looking recovered by then.