Australia New Zealand closed. How Can They Take Bookings

[alwaysonaship]

How can Celebrity sell cruises for Australia and New Zealand when they are closed. I know they want our money, but this is wrong.

Edited August 26, 2020 by alwaysonaship

[Bo1953]

It is only 'wrong' if they are booking while knowing the countries are closed for a particular sailing.

 

If the sailing is six (6) or more months out, then there may not be a problem at that time who knows for sure?

 

What are the dates you are referring to?

 

Is it your thoughts that no bookings should be taken until "All Clear" is given?

 

Not only does X want our money, they want healthy bodies aboard their ships, as well.

 

This goes for all cruise lines, to be sure, not only X.

 

bon voyage

Edited August 26, 2020 by Bo1953

[alwaysonaship]

We are Booked Jan 2021 and Everything I read says that they will not be open. Currently they are booking for October and that is highly unlikely that ships will even be sailing then. I admire Cunard for being proactive. 

Edited August 26, 2020 by alwaysonaship

[alwaysonaship]

So how would people get there for an October cruise. I just read this from Quantas

 

Qantas says: “All scheduled international flights, including flights between Australia and New Zealand, are suspended until at least the end of October 2020, due to government restrictions.

[ORV]

How are they booking cruises for anywhere? 

 

My point of view is that when they have a product that they can actually deliver I'm ready to go, until then my money will stay in my pocket.

 

Everyone is free to see it however they choose though, even if almost every post is in defense of everything Celebrity does. 

[Yoshikitty]

You could make a similar complaint for selling cruises on ships that are still in the shipyard....

[jelayne]

I can purchase  October flights  to many countries that are closed to non-residents .  Like the airlines,  hotels and  tour operators the  cruise lines don't want to wait until a place opens and then try and fill the ship.

[ORV]

35 minutes ago, Yoshikitty said:

You could make a similar complaint for selling cruises on ships that are still in the shipyard....

I think that would depend on whether the other existing ships in their fleet are operating or not. Kind of an apples and oranges comparison. 

[mahdnc]

2 hours ago, alwaysonaship said:

We are Booked Jan 2021 and Everything I read says that they will not be open. 

 

Same here.  We are booked on a Jan 3 2021 sailing out of Sydney.  We even have our plane tickets purchased as well.  I don't see this cruise happening.

[alwaysonaship]

1 hour ago, mahdnc said:

 

Same here.  We are booked on a Jan 3 2021 sailing out of Sydney.  We even have our plane tickets purchased as well.  I don't see this cruise happening.

We are right after you..don’t see it happing either . They need to be more transparent 

[upwarduk]

4 hours ago, alwaysonaship said:

. I admire Cunard for being proactive. 

At least passengers know where they stand, as Cunard cancelled World Cruises and   re arranged itineraries. They announced them yesterday.

[jelayne]

3 hours ago, mahdnc said:

 

Same here.  We are booked on a Jan 3 2021 sailing out of Sydney.  We even have our plane tickets purchased as well.  I don't see this cruise happening.

We had a similar situation with aB2B booked for October.  Final payment was due departure port was closed, ships weren’t sailing and virus going strong in the US?
We cancelled the cruises and got our deposit refunded in about 2 weeks.  The airline gave us a credit for our air fare good to Dec 2021.  
 

If you don’t believe the cruise will happen ( I think your right) you can cancel or lift & shift.  

[gerelmx]

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[DrKoob]

2 hours ago, upwarduk said:

At least passengers know where they stand, as Cunard cancelled World Cruises and   re arranged itineraries. They announced them yesterday.

 

Let’s be real about Cunard. They have THREE ships. And since one of them pretty much just does trans-Atlantic’s, what they do will not affect anywhere near as much as other, larger cruise lines.

 

I have no problem with X selling late 2021 or any cruise in 2022. If we are still locked down by then, there will be NO cruise lines. They just can’t survive that long with no revenue. There is only so much you can save with layoffs. If you do buy, get independent travel insurance that will pay you back if the cruise line goes out of business. 

That said, cruises for the last half of 2021 and most of 2022 are filling up. On some cruise lines (Viking Ocean) even cruises in 2023 are sold out. If you really want to go in 2022 or the last half of 2021, get a reservation in now...and buy travel insurance that at least covers your deposit (and up it when you make final payment—did you know you can do that: just insure your deposit? You can with some insurance companies.)

 

Jim

Edited August 27, 2020 by DrKoob

[Arizona Wildcat]

Australia could decide to open its borders in November.   Not likely but possible.

My question would be if you are concerned about the border being closed and/or the cruise not happening - Why would you book that cruise?  Why bother to post here?

If you are worried cancel or lift&shift.

We have cruises from the US in July and UK in September and October.  As of today NONE of those cruises could sail.  We will decide when final payment date arrives what to do depending on what cruising looks like then and IF then cruises happen.  I personally give the July cruise about 50/50 chance of happening and likely if it happens that we will go.

Things are changing rapidly.

[mahdnc]

2 hours ago, jelayne said:

We had a similar situation with aB2B booked for October.  Final payment was due departure port was closed, ships weren’t sailing and virus going strong in the US?
We cancelled the cruises and got our deposit refunded in about 2 weeks.  The airline gave us a credit for our air fare good to Dec 2021.  
 

If you don’t believe the cruise will happen ( I think your right) you can cancel or lift & shift.  

 

We will unwind this trip by simply cancelling the cruise when I can bring myself around to doing it.  Lift and Shift is not an option because we already have a cruise booked a year later which my family prefers more. 

 

Plane tickets are award tickets through United so the financial damage is limited to the redeposit fee which won't be too bad for us since some of it will be waived.  

[alwaysonaship]

20 minutes ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

Australia could decide to open its borders in November.   Not likely but possible.

My question would be if you are concerned about the border being closed and/or the cruise not happening - Why would you book that cruise?  Why bother to post here?

If you are worried cancel or lift&shift.

We have cruises from the US in July and UK in September and October.  As of today NONE of those cruises could sail.  We will decide when final payment date arrives what to do depending on what cruising looks like then and IF then cruises happen.  I personally give the July cruise about 50/50 chance of happening and likely if it happens that we will go.

Things are changing rapidly.

We booked it prior to covid ...that’s why

[Blackduck59]

I think this has been discussed before. We booked our January 2021 cruise while on Eclipse in June 2019. It had become such a stresser for us wondering whether it would go that we decided to move the trip to 2022. The lift and shift didn't work so we cancelled and changed to a longer cruise with mostly the same itinerary but adding 2 ports and changing the disembarkation port. We had all the land accommodation booked and the flights. Now we have cancelled all the accommodation which was easy but the flights aren't that staight forward. They want a rather large cancellation fee and I am waiting for clarification from my TA.

Whether Celebrity is still selling the cruise you booked or not isn't really the issue. What each customer does with their booking is up to the individual. Take charge of your own plan, we moved, others may wait before changing and may find cabin selection is limited. Others will wait until Celebrity cancels expecting some extra compensation. Everyone has their own threshold of risk.

[Shadow9612]

I agree with celebrity still taking bookings to try to fill up ships for when they do get the go ahead to sale.

 

What would be nice is if celebrity changed when final payments were due, so that it was closer to the sail date.

 

I don't agree with any cruise line knowingly waiting until after final payment date to cancel sailings and then not refunding your money. 

 

 As other posters have mentioned though, there are many options available to us with respect to how we plan and book trips in this pandemic.

 

With the way things are, I'm not investing any more money in bookings.

[Davidc5412]

44 minutes ago, Shadow9612 said:

 

I don't agree with any cruise line knowingly waiting until after final payment date to cancel sailings and then not refunding your money. 

 

 

That’s exactly what celebrity are doing in Australia. They have just cancelled october sailings but are still pretending November will go ahead because final payment isn’t due yet.

[Bo1953]

4 hours ago, Shadow9612 said:

I agree with celebrity still taking bookings to try to fill up ships for when they do get the go ahead to sale.

 

What would be nice is if celebrity changed when final payments were due, so that it was closer to the sail date.

 

I don't agree with any cruise line knowingly waiting until after final payment date to cancel sailings and then not refunding your money. 

 

 As other posters have mentioned though, there are many options available to us with respect to how we plan and book trips in this pandemic.

 

With the way things are, I'm not investing any more money in bookings.

I understand, yet if any of us do not think that a sailing will or should take place, then we do have the advanced option of cancelling before final payment and not waiting for X to cancel or using our travel insurance to make a claim.

 

Cancellation before the final payment date is clearly in our toolbox of things we can do, use it or gamble like X.

 

As pre-pandemic, money would be 100% lost due to the cancellation policies at that time, now there are at least two (2) more options for cancelling up to 48 hours in advance...

 

Who knows for sure if there will be additional options provided going forward, soon.

 

bon voyage

Edited August 27, 2020 by Bo1953

[Shadow9612]

10 minutes ago, Bo1953 said:

I understand, yet if any of us do not think that a sailing will or should take place, then we do have the advanced option of cancelling before final payment and not waiting for X to cancel or using our travel insurance to make a claim.

 

Cancellation before the final payment date is clearly in our toolbox of things we can do, use it or gamble like X.

 

As pre-pandemic, money would be 100% lost due to the cancellation policies at that time, now there are at least two (2) more options for cancelling up to 48 hours in advance...

 

Who knows for sure if there will be additional options provided going forward, soon.

 

bon voyage

I certainly agree that X has afforded us more options than pre-pandemic.  Also, I agree with all your points @Bo1953. 

 

I just don't think they should be taking money for final payment knowing a cruise will be cancelled.    I get it's a business (and buyer beware).  It just seems disingenuous to intentionally "capture" customers' money and then hold onto it.

 

If this wasn't their goal, they'd have extended final payment deadlines by now as we are atill in the pandemic.  So, while I understand why they need to do it, I don't like it. 😉.   

 

[alwaysonaship]

I agree...they know exactly what is going on, and they want us to “float their boat”. Honestly after the way so many cruise lines have treated their customers I may not cruise again. 

[Texed]

I believe Celebrity cancelled a lot of the Australia and New Zealand cruises this morning. 🙂

[alwaysonaship]

10 minutes ago, Texed said:

I believe Celebrity cancelled a lot of the Australia and New Zealand cruises this morning. 🙂

They are still booking November and December 2020, and I would bet a large amount of money that those cruises will not sail.