Change of Itinerary in advance of the cruise: Is this info held back on purpose?

[Vagabond Knight]

We will be on the Silhouette in March, and one of the ports was changed a few weeks ago from St. Thomas to St. Croix.  A number of people on our roll call were very disappointed because they'd been to St. Thomas a number of times and specifically booked that cruise because they'd never been to St. Croix.  Now, we all know that itineraries are subject to change, but those who booked through travel agents seemed to get the information just after their final payments were due, and those who booked directly through Celebrity, whose final payment was due a little later, didn't get the info until after their payment was due (and it wasn't very obvious).  Most have not been officially notified at all.  Of those who booked through Celebrity, one couple reported simply getting a new invoice from Celebrity with no mention of the change.  The new itinerary WAS on the second page of the invoice, but they wouldn't have even gone looking for an itinerary change if it hadn't been mentioned by others in the roll call.

 

Is it likely that the "too late to make a change" timing of the itinerary change was on purpose?  Is it customary for Celebrity to make itinerary changes in advance and not notify the guests already booked for that cruise?  We're kind of feeling like the whole thing was done in a rather "sneaky" manner.

[chemmo]

In our experience cruise lines usually make changes for good reasons including poor reports back from guest reviews, issues with docking and tendering or issues with the ports infrastructure.

 

They are unlikely to make any gain from a port change so have little reason to do it for their own benefit....

 

When you book a cruise you do have to be aware that port changes are common owing to the length of time from the original itinerary being released to the cruise itself....Anything from hurricane damage to political upheaval can intervene. Then there are always  last minute changes owing to the weather...

 

Whilst it is disappointing to miss a new port would you want to be visiting if, for example, there were extensive dirty and noisy building works taking place dockside?

 

I don’t think the cruise company were being ‘sneaky’, I think to them it is just a quite common occurrence, highly unlikely guests would want to cancel for one port change.

[cruisestitch]

I think you are confused about Final Payment -- it's the same date for everyone, whether they booked through a travel agent or not.  Now, many travel agents set an artificially early date so that they can make sure that the client credit card goes through without a hitch, in order to have time to fix it if there is any problem.  But the Final Payment date is set by the cruise line and it is the same for all.

 

Second, the OP wrote this "and one of the ports was changed a few weeks ago from St. Thomas to St. Croix.  A number of people on our roll call were very disappointed because they'd been to St. Thomas a number of times and specifically booked that cruise because they'd never been to St. Croix."

 

But I think it has something backwards.  Was the cruise itinerary changed from St. Croix to St. Thomas?  What was written doesn't make sense.

 

 

[Tapi]

I know that many of us jump into “conspiracy theory” mode when things like this happen, but it doesn’t seem to me that Celebrity withheld this change until after final payment on purpose so that people wouldn’t cancel. Even though this change may annoy some passengers, Its not the kind of change that would cause massive cancelations. Now, if this was supposed to be an immersion cruise to Cuba and it got changed to Nassau and Freeport, I could envision a lot (if not most) booked passengers canceling because of the drastic change and the significant downgrade in destinations.

 

As far as when the cruise lines make changes to itineraries, I’ve experienced everything from months in advance to after having boarded the ship. I don’t know why cruise lines are sometimes slow to announce changes though. Last year, after hurricanes devastated the lesser Antilles and Puerto Rico, we figured on our own that our Disney Cruise to St Thomas and Tortola would suffer an itinerary change, but the cruise line waited to make a statement about it. A few weeks later, we learned what our new itinerary would look like because our ship started popping up on individual ports of call websites during the week of our sailing. But even then, Disney waited to post the official itinerary a few more weeks. I guess that they wanted to make sure that everything was ironed and confirmed before making an official announcement. We knew that it was a tough year and cruise lines scrambled to  find alternate destinations. We were grateful that we actually went somewhere. 

 

But the one that truly truly baffled me was when we took a short Bahamas cruise on the Enchantment of the Seas. We had been monitoring the weather since a tropical storm had formed a few days prior over the Bahamas. As we drove to port, I checked the storm’s movement and the 24 hour forecast for the Berry Islands (where Coco Cay is) and it showed 100% probability of heavy rain and winds gusting over 50mph. So we knew that there would be no way that we’d make it to Coco Cay. 

 

But we got onboard and the cruise director was excitedly telling passengers over the loudspeakers to book their shore excursions for the next day in beautiful and sunny Coco Cay. Not a single word about the forecasted weather. I scratched my head and thought that maybe they knew something we didn’t know. We woke up the next morning and we were going very slowly in stormy seas. We couldn’t see more than a few feet out our window due to the very heavy rain. And that’s when they finally announced that Coco Cay would be canceled due to the weather and we headed south instead to wait things out and docked in Nassau later that day once the storm moved through. So I don’t know why they waited until the last minute to cancel, or why nothing was mentioned beforehand. It sounded to me like the cruise director was going through the motions and reciting his canned speech without knowledge of what was going on. 

[hcat]

Maybe St Croix is not ready after the hurricane...and the cruiseline felt St Thomas was in better shape for visitors????

 

We did not enjoy St Croix before the storm...little to do near the rundown pier area in Fredrikstad..long  long ride to the other City Christianstad..a bit nicer but not what we expected... Snorkeling was quite rough  at that side of the Island...

 

Much better everything at St Thomas

Edited December 31, 2018 by hcat

[justcrusn]

We’ve had our itinerary changed DURING a cruise. Mostly due to weather.

It happens. Why would it be a conspiracy when about the same number of folks would consider it a positive as would consider it a negative.

This is just part of cruising I’d say.

Someone once sail, if you HAVE to get to a certain place, DO NOT travel by cruise ship lol

[Slugsta]

We did a med cruise with Celebrity this September, booked more than a year in advance, and were twice notified in advance about itinerary changes. Mind you, in the UK we would lose our deposit if we cancelled, so maybe Celebrity had less to lose!

[downsmead]

We sail on Saturday on the Summit and have found out via the roll call that 5 ports have been rearranged - now calling in a different order. We have had no notification what so ever from Celebrity (we booked direct). We are now trying to rearrange the private tours we have booked. Not sure when Celebrity are actually planning to tell us!!! In addition, I cannot print our Xpress pass as Celebrity has a glitch in their system 🙄. 

[Lastdance]

Sometimes ships change their itineraries while at sea.  We had to miss Lisbon due to their dock workers going on strike.  It just is what it is, and sometimes it a very disappointing...

[downsmead]

On 3 out of my last 4 sailings we have missed a port! Usually due to weather conditions.

[Vagabond Knight]

8 hours ago, cruisestitch said:

Second, the OP wrote this "and one of the ports was changed a few weeks ago from St. Thomas to St. Croix.  A number of people on our roll call were very disappointed because they'd been to St. Thomas a number of times and specifically booked that cruise because they'd never been to St. Croix."

 

But I think it has something backwards.  Was the cruise itinerary changed from St. Croix to St. Thomas?  What was written doesn't make sense.

 

 

You are correct.  I wrote it incorrectly and the change was FROM St. Croix TO St. Thomas.  Also, I am certainly not suggesting that the change of port was sneaky, just questioning the timing of the notification (or lack thereof).  Shouldn't a change of itinerary, which we all understand can happen for various reasons, be communicated in a timely manner to guests who are booked for that cruise... especially when the final payment date is fast approaching?

[Marelaine]

After the last hurricane season, our itinerary was changed four time. Celebrity sent us updates twice a week. At one point, St.Croix was on our itinerary. I was disappointed after reading reviews on that port and was happy when it was changed to Martinique. 

On our first Celebrity cruise, our itinerary was changed during the cruise. When we ported in St. Thomas, the captain announced we should stay within ear shot of the ship's horn because we might need to leave quickly. Our stop in St. Maarten was cancelled because the dock was under water. We ended up in Jamaica instead. The cruise director worked overtime putting together excursions.

We all know when we send in our $$ that the itinerary can change. But you've piqued my curiosity. I'm going to read up on St. Croix port conditions, crime, weather etc....From what I remember, the logistics at that port weren't great. And there weren't many up and running excursions.

[downsmead]

We are sailing on Saturday on a b2b and have a stop in St. Croix on both legs. There were a number of excursions available so the port appears to be up and running again.

[lovecruzin]

Our TA final payment date is a few weeks before the cruiseline.  I believe the cancellation deadline is set by X at 90 days (?) and is the same regardless of when the TA requires final payment. Just because you've made final payment via the TA it doesn't mean you are within the non refundable cancellation period.

 

[Littlechit]

I agree with the original poster!  We are sailing on this March cruise, booked directly with Celebrity and have yet to be officially notified of the port change! Is the port change a big deal?  Not really, but we specifically booked this cruise because it would have been our first visit to St Croix.  

 

Just wondering why everyone isn’t notified of the change simultaneously? Our final payment documents still list St Croix on the itinerary.  Had it not been for our Cruise Critic roll call, we would have assumed we would be visiting St Croix. As Sunset Point stated, it seems less than above board to me too.

 

As always, my husband and I are still looking forward to a fabulous cruise! 

Edited December 31, 2018 by Littlechit

[Covepointcruiser]

Both St. Thomas and St. Croix are both of the U.S. Virgin Islands.  The liquor, tobacco, etc. have the same prices.   St. Croix is less crowded with fewer hucksters on the street trying to drag you into their stores.   The cheapest prices on both islands can be found in the grocery stores.    

 

We we have also had changes in itinerary on our last four cruises.   If you won’t be happy with the ship, without ports, don’t take the cruise.   If you book private tours make sure they can be refunded if you miss the port or change days.   If going to a particular island is required it would be best to fly there and have a land vacation.

[RDC1]

Keep in mind that Celebrity is not the only cruise line out there and that they do not control the ports where they dock.

 

In addition to short term weather issues, and things like port security/passenger safety issues, there may be other items such as port conflicts (too many ships in port for the available docking space), port maintenance issues, tour vendors indicating that they have insufficient capacity due to other ships in port, etc.

 

Not unusual for cruise lines to have to make changes to their schedule due to things totally outside of their control.  Unfortunately there is no way for us to find out what the driver is.  One thing would be to check the cruise ship schedule for each port if there are other ships in port for the day you were originally scheduled to be there and if the ship traffic is unusual for that port.

 

If you were scheduled to be in St Croix on March 27th, there is something unique showing up in that it is the only date on the schedule for 2019 that has two Celebrity ships in St Croix, the Silhouette and the Summit. If that is the night there might be an issue that only allows them to have one ship there.

 

There is only 1 other day in 2019 with two ships in St Croix and that is December 4th with 1 Celebrity and 1 Royal Caribbean.  St Thomas on the other hand often has 5 or 6 ships in port on the same day.

Edited December 31, 2018 by RDC1

[ratherbtruckin]

Why is it at least 1/2 of the responses are telling the OP to quit complaining about a change in itinerary and that the cruise line has every right to do that.  Did you even read the original post.  He/she isn't complaining about the itinerary change.  The purpose of the post is to wonder why Celebrity seems to hold back info. which the OP feels he/she is rightly entitled to.  I agree with the OP that it definitely seems like Celebrity is slow in putting out info., such as an itinerary change, and wondering, and rather annoyed because of it.  Again for all the posters with 1 million posts who are just going to respond that they have every right to change the itinerary, it isn't about that.  For instance, we showed up last year and were greeted at check-in with a note letting us know St. Lucia was changed to Martinique.  I find it very difficult they made that decision the day of embarkation, but I'm sure all these "helpful posters" won't hesitate to let me know they are sure that Celebrity made the change minutes before I reached the check-in desk.  Even letting us know the night before would have given me a chance to spend an hour and come up with a new plan.  Surely they have the ability to send out an email/text to everyone sailing on that ship.  They can certainly send out email blasts for every upsell/new sale out there.  

[gold1953]

13 hours ago, cruisestitch said:

I think you are confused about Final Payment -- it's the same date for everyone, whether they booked through a travel agent or not.  Now, many travel agents set an artificially early date so that they can make sure that the client credit card goes through without a hitch, in order to have time to fix it if there is any problem.  But the Final Payment date is set by the cruise line and it is the same for all.

 

 Final payment date is not the same for everyone as some of us still have a couple bookings under the old 75 day pan that we are floating around. New bookings are 90 days. I personally still have 2. Last cruise I got notices for payment but my date was actually 15 days later. 

 

[mom says]

All this angst over one port change! With accusations if sneakiness,  underhandedness and other nefarious motives on Celebrity part. Why would Celebrity care enough to do that? I highly doubt that even 1% of the guests would be upset enough by the itinerary change to go to the extreme of cancelling their cruise. So the lack of prompt notification must be for another reason. Which we don't know.

 

Maybe they were waiting as long as possible in the hope that whatever problem existed with the original port would be rectified. Or, geez here's a thought: it's Celebrity- since when does one hand know what the other hand is doing? It's not the itinerary planners' job to notify cruisers of changes, is it? Wouldn't that information have to be passed on to another department (maybe reservations?) who have access to the passenger lists? And wouldn't their systems have to be actually functioning properly in order to do all this in a coordinated and timely manner? Remember,  this is Celebrity we're  talking about. I think you're asking too much of them, given the mess their systems currently operate in. Nothing nefarious,  I think. Just poor operating procedures. 

[villauk]

22 hours ago, downsmead said:

We sail on Saturday on the Summit and have found out via the roll call that 5 ports have been rearranged - now calling in a different order. We have had no notification what so ever from Celebrity (we booked direct). We are now trying to rearrange the private tours we have booked. Not sure when Celebrity are actually planning to tell us!!! In addition, I cannot print our Xpress pass as Celebrity has a glitch in their system 🙄. 

 

 

Yes, we’ve had a mixture of pax on previous cruises of which half have been notified and half that have no idea what’s going on as they’ve never received any notification from either X or their TAs.

[downsmead]

19 minutes ago, villauk said:

 

 

Yes, we’ve had a mixture of pax on previous cruises of which half have been notified and half that have no idea what’s going on as they’ve never received any notification from either X or their TAs.

In addition, they have now rearranged 9 of the 12 days on the second part of the b2b. Lucky we were not doing anything for NYE as another evening was spent contacting tour operators. With one of them our emails crossed as they emailed me to say about the changes!! Absolutely no word from Celebrity 🙄. 

Still we fly on Friday and am looking forward to the sunny, warm Caribbean, although it is not particularly cold here for the time of year.

[BosoxI]

On ‎12‎/‎31‎/‎2018 at 4:31 AM, cruisestitch said:

 

 

Second, the OP wrote this "and one of the ports was changed a few weeks ago from St. Thomas to St. Croix.  A number of people on our roll call were very disappointed because they'd been to St. Thomas a number of times and specifically booked that cruise because they'd never been to St. Croix."

 

But I think it has something backwards.  Was the cruise itinerary changed from St. Croix to St. Thomas?  What was written doesn't make sense.

 

 

Am I glad to read your comment.  I read the OP's twice and thought 2019 was to be the year of my complete mental decline

[cruising cockroach]

I cruise to get from A to B and don't generally care about anything inbetween.  In 2017, I sailed on the Millennium TPAC autumnal westbound repo.  Cruise was scheduled to stop at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians but after final payment, it was cancelled due to unfinished dock work (fair enough if true) and Sitka was substituted.  Might have been nice as the weather was rather inclement in Dutch Harbor when the ship sailed by.  Lots of people here cruising for the itinerary were disappointed though. 

 

Found out that X cancelled Dutch Harbor for the 2018 repo.  Not sure about the reason or timing as I was not following the thread.

[ABoatNerd]

Some cruise patrons are rather indulgent of their cruise product service providers.

 

Hiding behind the cruise contract is bull.

 

If my landscaper decides to do something different than contracted by me, they better advise me in advance of why.

 

My cruise line reports to me, the customer. If there is a change required from what I paid for, they better tell me what is the change, why and what were the alternatives that could not be arranged to conform as closely as possible to the original product.

 

I remain amazed at the leniency that cruise patrons treat their cruise lines.