Why is NCL still letting you book May/June Canada cruises knowing they won't happen?

[JamieLogical]

I am supposed to be on a cruise right now. I was supposed to cruise on the 15th and right up until my cruise was canceled on the 13th,  I was determined to sail as long as the ship did. I considered myself "low risk". I was very slow to take this thing seriously and I fully admit that I was very very wrong. But no one has the luxury of that level of self-delusion now. Especially not heads of state! We will hit a half million cases world wide today. The global death rate is still 4.5%. Even if that is artificially high due to lack of testing, the fact that there are many thousands dead already is undeniable.

 

I am desperate to go on another cruise ASAP. When the cruise lines open back up, I will not hesitate to board. But if you think that is happening by the end of May, you are deluding yourself (and potentially millions of Americans depending on the range of your influence).

[Jobeth66]

I'm on an Alaska CruiseTour scheduled to leave  Fairbanks on 6/23 (land portion) and Seward 6/29 (cruise portion), docking in Vancouver on 7/6.

 

I'm still slightly hopeful that our cruise will go on as scheduled, but not overly optimistic.

 

As for why people may be booking now?  Maybe they really want to go next year and are looking for the 120-125% increase to their funds to maybe get a better cabin or some more freebies or who knows.  If I knew I could pay $1000 for a cruise for next week and it would actually give me $1250 or more for a cruise next year that I was planning to take anyway, is that a good gamble?  Maybe.

[thesmiths]

28 minutes ago, Jobeth66 said:

 If I knew I could pay $1000 for a cruise for next week and it would actually give me $1250 or more for a cruise next year that I was planning to take anyway, is that a good gamble?

 

That is not Gambling.  Basically lets screw over the Cruise Lines and it will cost the people with a conscious  more money.

Thinking and following through like this is wrong, in my mind.

 

Why not just save the $250.00 over the next year and feel better about yourself?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[phillyguy31]

The entire thought of the main reason that they haven't canceled the may cruises yet because they want people to take the FCC and not wait for the refund. I have to believe that no one out there doesn't believe the May cruises will be canceled. The few that may be hanging on to hope, but they really want to go. What I believe is that NCL are already overwhelmed with refund requests and to add another month to it may be more than their system can stand. Everyone is already complaining about a 90 time frame, what does everyone think will happen when you add all of May's cruises as well as June's for AK in the mix. When these reservation applications were developed it would be a good guess that nobody planned for a complete shutdown of the entire fleet for several months. As I said in another post I think we all need to take a breath and realize we are all in the same boat.

[Love my butler]

2 hours ago, phillyguy31 said:

The entire thought of the main reason that they haven't canceled the may cruises yet because they want people to take the FCC and not wait for the refund. I have to believe that no one out there doesn't believe the May cruises will be canceled. The few that may be hanging on to hope, but they really want to go. What I believe is that NCL are already overwhelmed with refund requests and to add another month to it may be more than their system can stand. Everyone is already complaining about a 90 time frame, what does everyone think will happen when you add all of May's cruises as well as June's for AK in the mix. When these reservation applications were developed it would be a good guess that nobody planned for a complete shutdown of the entire fleet for several months. As I said in another post I think we all need to take a breath and realize we are all in the same boat.

You are naive if you think NCL could not pump out the refunds in 30 days or less.  NCL does not want to refund cash.  NCL needs money right now.  NCL needs cash.  NCL needs your cash.  NCL has found a semi-legal but very unethical way to keep your cash for months.  Some people are happy to give NCL their money for months or years but please don't carry water for NCL by claiming they couldn't possibly give refunds before 90 days.  It's ludicrous. 

[phillyguy31]

1 hour ago, Love my butler said:

You are naive if you think NCL could not pump out the refunds in 30 days or less.  NCL does not want to refund cash.  NCL needs money right now.  NCL needs cash.  NCL needs your cash.  NCL has found a semi-legal but very unethical way to keep your cash for months.  Some people are happy to give NCL their money for months or years but please don't carry water for NCL by claiming they couldn't possibly give refunds before 90 days.  It's ludicrous. 

 

All refunds are being done manually, you have to submit a form remember. So every refund request needs to be confirmed that your reservation actually is real. How many people per ship are requesting refunds? If the average is 1500 per ship per week you can do the math and how many people do they have processing the refunds, keeping in mind the number of people normally required is probably fairly small and you may not want to put just anybody in handling refunds.  Plus to add more issues, hopefully all the processors are working from home. I am not carrying water for NCL,  I am just being realistic. If this was a normal situation I agree 30 days would be more than enough, but this is not normal. Also if they said within 30 to 45 days and it was later than that then there would be complaining about that.  If you say 90 and it comes sooner then people are happy. 

[mugtech]

1 hour ago, phillyguy31 said:

 

All refunds are being done manually, you have to submit a form remember. So every refund request needs to be confirmed that your reservation actually is real. How many people per ship are requesting refunds? If the average is 1500 per ship per week you can do the math and how many people do they have processing the refunds, keeping in mind the number of people normally required is probably fairly small and you may not want to put just anybody in handling refunds.  Plus to add more issues, hopefully all the processors are working from home. I am not carrying water for NCL,  I am just being realistic. If this was a normal situation I agree 30 days would be more than enough, but this is not normal. Also if they said within 30 to 45 days and it was later than that then there would be complaining about that.  If you say 90 and it comes sooner then people are happy. 

RCI must be way ahead of NCL, RCI cancelled my cruise and 5 days later I had my refund in full.  RCI recently got a $2.2 billion loan, might be a factor.

[bedfordmom]

On 3/24/2020 at 10:39 PM, kristinp36 said:

We are booked on the Joy re-positioning cruise from LA to BC embarking on 04/19. Still being sold yet CA isn't going to allow embarking and BC is not allowing debarking during that time frame.  They are just holding our money hostage hoping we will cancel for FCC instead of waiting for them to cancel so we can get a refund.

That should be an interesting cruise. My TA on the same day is still selling with the NYC And Spain lockdowns. I suspect today will be making an announcement for another 30 Day extension. In terms of switching Alaska for Canadian drops again that would be quite the cruise from NYC or Boston lol. 

[graphicguy]

13 hours ago, phillyguy31 said:

 

All refunds are being done manually, you have to submit a form remember. So every refund request needs to be confirmed that your reservation actually is real. How many people per ship are requesting refunds? If the average is 1500 per ship per week you can do the math and how many people do they have processing the refunds, keeping in mind the number of people normally required is probably fairly small and you may not want to put just anybody in handling refunds.  Plus to add more issues, hopefully all the processors are working from home. I am not carrying water for NCL,  I am just being realistic. If this was a normal situation I agree 30 days would be more than enough, but this is not normal. Also if they said within 30 to 45 days and it was later than that then there would be complaining about that.  If you say 90 and it comes sooner then people are happy. 

Not buying that.  NCL CHOSE  to do the refunds via paper.  It’s an added layer of complexity that allows them to hold your money longer.  Reservations are all done electronically.  Payment is made electronically via credit card.  You immediately see your reservation on line, once payment is cleared, which takes seconds.

 

To say it takes 90 days to issue a refund because it’s done manually, is a thinly veiled insult to their customers.  Once you tell them you want a refund, it’s a matter of key strokes that cancels your reservations and refunds the fare back to your CC.

 

NCL, at best, is being disingenuous.

[phillyguy31]

1 hour ago, graphicguy said:

Not buying that.  NCL CHOSE  to do the refunds via paper.  It’s an added layer of complexity that allows them to hold your money longer.  Reservations are all done electronically.  Payment is made electronically via credit card.  You immediately see your reservation on line, once payment is cleared, which takes seconds.

 

To say it takes 90 days to issue a refund because it’s done manually, is a thinly veiled insult to their customers.  Once you tell them you want a refund, it’s a matter of key strokes that cancels your reservations and refunds the fare back to your CC.

 

NCL, at best, is being disingenuous.

I was actually going to agree with you for some of your points until I did some math.

First if they didn't already have their cancellation/refund process online it isn't as easy as just adding it. Since you need to tie it to the reservation system and to the refund software as well. As we all know NCL inst the best when it comes to their website and software glitches are very common with them. So would I trust the same people to do all of this at a moments notice...hell no! So I can understand the need for it to be done manually. OK now for the math .......lets say 1500 people per ship asks for refunds (actually I think this number may be low) X 17 ships X 4 weeks that come to 102,000 requests for refunds. Since this is a manual operation let's say 10 minutes per request, that is 6 per hour. That comes to 17,000 man hours to do the refunds divide that by 8 hours per day that number comes out to 2125 days. Well you get the picture, if I made a mistake in my math somewhere I am sure someone will point it out.

[mugtech]

6 hours ago, phillyguy31 said:

.....lets say 1500 people per ship asks for refunds (actually I think this number may be low) X 17 ships X 4 weeks that come to 102,000 requests for refunds. Since this is a manual operation let's say 10 minutes per request, that is 6 per hour. That comes to 17,000 man hours to do the refunds divide that by 8 hours per day that number comes out to 2125 days. Well you get the picture, if I made a mistake in my math somewhere I am sure someone will point it out.

2125 days assumes only one person is working on it, would certainly represent job security for that person.  Hopefully NCL has at least two people working on refunds.

[Lancer1568]

On 3/26/2020 at 12:42 PM, thesmiths said:

 

That is not Gambling.  Basically lets screw over the Cruise Lines and it will cost the people with a conscious  more money.

Thinking and following through like this is wrong, in my mind.

 

Why not just save the $250.00 over the next year and feel better about yourself?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't think Norwegian doesn't know people can do that.  My bet is that they would just love everyone to take advantage of them by paying them money now.  They have to need cash now so that's a good way for them to get people to buy cruises ahead of time even if they have to give the bonus 25%.  Also, it looks like the prices are higher than they were so you may not get that much out of the 25% extra.

[scifimonkey]

Most definately a cash grab.
I am in for a deposit of £1000s which though they cancelled my cruise to Asia in early February before the main shutdown they tell me I cannot have my deposit back for 90 days........... work out the interest on a cruise ship worth of deposits held for three months after THEY cancel, gross that up by the number of ships and you can see why landing all those deposits is lucrative even if the cruises never leave.......

Will never book with a deposit of more than a few hundred pounds again!

 

[scifimonkey]

11 hours ago, mugtech said:

2125 days assumes only one person is working on it, would certainly represent job security for that person.  Hopefully NCL has at least two people working on refunds.

I don’t think it’s much more than 2 given my experience as I attempt to get my money back.

[graphicguy]

Again....some are claiming that there is no vehicle for NCL to provide refunds.  They give them all the time, like during hurricane season.  If there’s a way to book and bill (immediate), there’s a way to cancel and refund.

 

Don’t be fooled.  All NCL is doing is forcibly taking a short term loan from you.