December Cruises Cancelled

[mrlevin]

Here is report:

 

Quote

MIAMI, Nov. 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. ( NCLH) (“Norwegian” or “the Company”) , a leading global cruise company which operates the Norwegian Cruise Line ( NCLH ), Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises brands, today announced an extension of its previously announced suspension of global cruise voyages to include all voyages embarking between December 1 through December 31, 2020 for its three cruise brands. The Company will continue to work in tandem with global government and public health authorities and its Healthy Sail Panel expert advisors to take all necessary measures to protect its guests, crew and the communities visited.

 

Guests who are currently booked on cancelled voyages on Norwegian Cruise Line ( NCLH), Oceania Cruises or Regent Seven Seas Cruises are asked to contact their travel advisor or the cruise line for more information.

Edited November 2, 2020 by mrlevin

[loriva]

Thanks for posting the news, mrlevin.  Regent's website still shows cruises (albeit all waitlisted) for December, the Travel Health Advisory has not been updated since 05 Oct, and my reservation on Explorer on 20 Dec is still showing as current.  All in good time, presumably.  At least the public announcement allows me to cancel flights and start moving forward.

 

[Pcardad]

Regent can be a little slow - they have not let the TA know yet either. At least not officially.

Edited November 2, 2020 by Pcardad

[tripperva]

they kept the money for as long as they could get away with it.

[anniesh]

I rang Regent UK a week before Final payment date for my Dec 20 asking about any itinerary changes .I was told no changes had been made.

I was then offered the opportunity to move the deposit.

I was reluctant to do this .

Then I was offered ,without any prompting ,a full deposit refund.

I informed my agent who double checked with Regent and confirmed a full refund which I was pleased to accept.

 

Regent UK  took the worry out of this situation  but I am at a loss as to why it has taken so long to publicly cancel.

[Anchorbuoy]

The January 5, 2021 Voyager cruise was included in the cancellation.

[Oh2Bcruisin]

The RSSC website has the notification it’s just not on the home page. Click on the Menu icon in the top left corner. At the bottom of the list is this link: https://www.rssc.com/coronavirus-statement  It has the notice and a link to the FAQs. Also, we had a December 2020 trip. We contacted our agent to rebook to a later time. Initially the RSSC agent did not have the formal notice but our agent just told us the formal notice has been issued. 

[pappy1022]

Is anyone surprised? 

[loriva]

The new FAQs for cruises cancelled today say "Q) Can Future Cruise Credits be applied to multiple reservations?
A) No, Future Cruise Credits earned off one booking may only be applied against another singular booking."  I believe this is a change from previous iterations of cancellations, where the 100 percent from the cancelled cruise could be split, but the 25 percent bonus FCC could not.  At least this is a change if I'm expressing correctly what I remember Pcardad stating.

 

So, the cruise Regent just cancelled would actually leave us FCC left over after paying for either of the two cruises we have booked for Sep 2021 and Jan 2022.  We'd actually have FCCs left over if we paid off BOTH from the FCC from the newly cancelled cruise.  Does anyone think there is any flexibility on this?  The Jan 2022 cruise is already waitlisted for all of the categories above us, so upgrading does not appear to be an option.  What about adding air?  Can FCC be applied to it?  (That would increase the price to equal out the 125 percent FCC.)  And, yes, I know we could just ask for a refund instead.

 

Many thanks for your insights.

 

[Pcardad]

The last I heard this was still true....you can split a 100% FCC one time and you cannot split a 25% FCC. You, or your TA, should call Regent. In theory, they should know what is going on.

[fudgbug]

6 hours ago, loriva said:

Thanks for posting the news, mrlevin.  Regent's website still shows cruises (albeit all waitlisted) for December, the Travel Health Advisory has not been updated since 05 Oct, and my reservation on Explorer on 20 Dec is still showing as current.  All in good time, presumably.  At least the public announcement allows me to cancel flights and start moving forward.

 

We received an email today (11/2) that the cruise was canceled.  When I checked the Regent website, our booking had been deleted.  Requested a cash refund and received in writing from Regent that we would have it in 60 days.

[SusieQft]

2 hours ago, loriva said:

the cruise Regent just cancelled would actually leave us FCC left over after paying for either of the two cruises we have booked for Sep 2021 and Jan 2022.  We'd actually have FCCs left over if we paid off BOTH from the FCC from the newly cancelled cruise.  Does anyone think there is any flexibility on this?

 

I applied my FCCs (100% + 25%) to a combination of an existing booking and a deposit on a new booking.  This was less than 2 weeks ago,  long after the new wording was placed in the FAQ.

 

As Pcardad said they would, they allowed me to split the 100% FCC, and they made sure that I understood that I would not be able to split it again.  However, before we did that, they pointed out that my DH and I each have our own separate FCCs.  So we could have applied mine to the new booking and his to our existing booking.  Both the 100% and the 25% FCCs are already split per passenger.

 

For us, the amounts involved were close to the same, but I was not sure how this might affect the insurance on each trip which itemizes the cost separately for each of us.  This may not have made a difference, but Regent still allowed me to split each of our 100% FCCs one time.  So now instead of four separate FCCs from one booking we have six.

[loriva]

Thanks to all for your insight.

 

TA spoke to Regent yesterday, who said we could split our FCCs.  Regent is projecting 60 days for the FCCs to be created (it was slightly less than that for the creation of the FCCs from our other Regent cruise, about 45 days).  Will hope the answer is still the same when the FCCs are created--the TA did note Regent's response in our reservation records.

[Pcardad]

They will create them in a day or two if you are using them on another cruise....they get pushed to the front of the line.

[mrlevin]

1 hour ago, Pcardad said:

They will create them in a day or two if you are using them on another cruise....they get pushed to the front of the line.

 

Not necessarily true; I have forthcoming FCC from a cancelled November cruise that I asked to be applied to a cruise next May; still in process. I am not concerned; I know it will happen eventually.

Edited November 4, 2020 by mrlevin

[Pcardad]

Maybe I am meaner when I call....... 😃

 

[tert333]

Did they give you any option to do a "lift and shift" similar to other cruiselines, so that you can protect you benefits and get a cruise of the same number of days/ship at the same price you paid for the cruise cancelled?

[loriva]

On 11/4/2020 at 8:26 PM, tert333 said:

Did they give you any option to do a "lift and shift" similar to other cruiselines, so that you can protect you benefits and get a cruise of the same number of days/ship at the same price you paid for the cruise cancelled?

 

Yes, they did.  We received an email from Regent the day following the latest round of cancellations noting their decision to cancel our cruise and offering an "Exclusive Price Match Offer."  The language on this is:  "And if you book a suggested voyage below, we'll honor the lower fare you paid for your suite on your canceled voyage*.  *For full pricing Terms & Conditions and Guest Ticket Contract, visit RSSC.com/legal."

 

In our case--a cancelled Singapore to Sydney cruise on Explorer from 20 Dec 2020-06 January 2021, we were offered a Singapore to Sydney sailing departing 02 Dec or a holiday Sydney to Auckland cruise departing 20 December, both on Explorer.  We'd already considered both itineraries when it became apparent several months ago that our sailing would not go.  We opted not to take either as the Singapore to Sydney itinerary left out Komodo Island, which was the highlight of that itinerary for us, and the holiday option was a completely different itinerary--so neither option ticked all the boxes the cancelled itinerary did.  Thus, we had already opted for and booked a leg on the World Cruise on Mariner in January 2022 from Papeete to Auckland to which we'll apply our FCCs when they are available.  My sister, her husband, his brother, and the latter's wife were also booked on the cancelled sailing and they are opting for the reverse Sydney to Bali itinerary in January 2022, which includes Komodo but drops a couple of port calls in Indonesia in favor of additional stops in Australia.  Her TA told her yesterday Regent had already created their FCCs from the cancelled cruise, while Regent told us it would take up to 60 days.

 

Since none of us opted for one of the official "lift and shift" cruises, I cannot answer the question of whether benefits would have been protected.  The language in the Regent email only cited "cruise fare."  My sister's new booking is under the current Regent promotion--two-category upgrade--not the $500/pp OBC on offer when we booked our alternative booking.

[tert333]

9 hours ago, loriva said:

 

Yes, they did.  We received an email from Regent the day following the latest round of cancellations noting their decision to cancel our cruise and offering an "Exclusive Price Match Offer."  The language on this is:  "And if you book a suggested voyage below, we'll honor the lower fare you paid for your suite on your canceled voyage*.  *For full pricing Terms & Conditions and Guest Ticket Contract, visit RSSC.com/legal."

 

In our case--a cancelled Singapore to Sydney cruise on Explorer from 20 Dec 2020-06 January 2021, we were offered a Singapore to Sydney sailing departing 02 Dec or a holiday Sydney to Auckland cruise departing 20 December, both on Explorer.  We'd already considered both itineraries when it became apparent several months ago that our sailing would not go.  We opted not to take either as the Singapore to Sydney itinerary left out Komodo Island, which was the highlight of that itinerary for us, and the holiday option was a completely different itinerary--so neither option ticked all the boxes the cancelled itinerary did.  Thus, we had already opted for and booked a leg on the World Cruise on Mariner in January 2022 from Papeete to Auckland to which we'll apply our FCCs when they are available.  My sister, her husband, his brother, and the latter's wife were also booked on the cancelled sailing and they are opting for the reverse Sydney to Bali itinerary in January 2022, which includes Komodo but drops a couple of port calls in Indonesia in favor of additional stops in Australia.  Her TA told her yesterday Regent had already created their FCCs from the cancelled cruise, while Regent told us it would take up to 60 days.

 

Since none of us opted for one of the official "lift and shift" cruises, I cannot answer the question of whether benefits would have been protected.  The language in the Regent email only cited "cruise fare."  My sister's new booking is under the current Regent promotion--two-category upgrade--not the $500/pp OBC on offer when we booked our alternative booking.

Thanks for your detailed response.   That answered my question.   🙂

 

[cruiseluv]

On 11/2/2020 at 8:50 AM, tripperva said:

they kept the money for as long as they could get away with it.

Yep, yet people keep giving them their $$$$ for new bookings

[Pcardad]

6 hours ago, cruiseluv said:

Yep, yet people keep giving them their $$$$ for new bookings

 

Yep - And will keep doing so because Regent has been true to their word with regard to refunds and because we know that, unless there is a change in CDC policy, that cruising is much closer than you think.

[Anchorbuoy]

On 11/2/2020 at 10:04 AM, Anchorbuoy said:

The January 5, 2021 Voyager cruise was included in the cancellation.

 

Add January 6, January 21 and February 4, 2021 voyages aboard Seven Seas Explorer.  Cancelled as of today.