Carnival canceled SEPTEMBER cruise

[IntrepidFromDC]

I got an email from Carnival this morning that they canceled our SEPTEMBER 5 cruise on the Legend.  Waited 1 hour, 12 minutes to get someone on the line.  Carnival should know to staff phone reinforcements when they send out these emails.  Last covid-related cancellation they did, I waited over four months for my refund.  I finally got it handled by working through my credit card company.  I won't wait four months this time.

[kwokpot]

5 minutes ago, IntrepidFromDC said:

I got an email from Carnival this morning that they canceled our SEPTEMBER 5 cruise on the Legend.  Waited 1 hour, 12 minutes to get someone on the line.  Carnival should know to staff phone reinforcements when they send out these emails.  Last covid-related cancellation they did, I waited over four months for my refund.  I finally got it handled by working through my credit card company.  I won't wait four months this time.

They have a form which you can do everything on line. I canceled two Mardi Gras and one Legend cruise. Took full refund for 2, FCC for the 3rd. Easy as pie.

https://www.carnival.com/request-forms/cancellation-preference-v2?icid=advisory_canceledcruises_10232020

[ProgRockCruiser]

17 minutes ago, IntrepidFromDC said:

Carnival should know to staff phone reinforcements when they send out these emails. 

Well, they probably do.  For all we know, there are normally x number of folks staffing the phones, but when stuff like this happens, they call everyone in for some extra hours and they have 1.5x or maybe 2x people.  But they can't just go hire triple the staff for a week during the period after mass cancellations.

[jsglow]

Intrepid, perhaps a 'go with the flow' approach might make things easier for you.  There was no need to call.  And there will be no need to agonize over the timing your refund.  As the great Bob Uecker jokingly said at the start of the last baseball season in July/August, "We're all 'day to day'.... every day."

[cruisingguy007]

Were you able to get an immediate refund by calling? I have heard some horror stories about refunds taking many months. I'm hoping the auto form will reduce this. I'd be frustrated having to wait months as well, especially if you have many grand tied up.  

[bitemyfly]

25 minutes ago, IntrepidFromDC said:

I got an email from Carnival this morning that they canceled our SEPTEMBER 5 cruise on the Legend.  Waited 1 hour, 12 minutes to get someone on the line.  Carnival should know to staff phone reinforcements when they send out these emails.  Last covid-related cancellation they did, I waited over four months for my refund.  I finally got it handled by working through my credit card company.  I won't wait four months this time.

Ugh sorry to hear that .. was that a med trip ? I was hoping to take a land based trip to Italy at the end of September 

[IntrepidFromDC]

42 minutes ago, bitemyfly said:

Ugh sorry to hear that .. was that a med trip ? I was hoping to take a land based trip to Italy at the end of September 

Yes, ours was a 26-day trip starting in August... land-based trip (Paris, Salzburg, Venice, Cinque Terre, Florence and Rome) followed by the 10-day cruise to Athens, Santorini, Mykonos, Kotor, Sicily and Napoli (Pompeii).  On the bright side, this gives us flexibility to do an all-land-based trip earlier if Italy and France open to US tourists earlier than September.  Good luck with your land-based trip!  There's a reasonably priced overnight train from Paris to Venice if you want to add "the most visited city in the world" to your Italian trip.

[IntrepidFromDC]

51 minutes ago, cruisingguy007 said:

Were you able to get an immediate refund by calling? I have heard some horror stories about refunds taking many months. I'm hoping the auto form will reduce this. I'd be frustrated having to wait months as well, especially if you have many grand tied up.  

Yes - last time I used the online refund link they sent and it took four months.  Today I phoned and the agent confirmed the refund "went through" and the money should be refunded to my credit card in "10 to 20 days".  Much better.

[40yearcruiser]

Intrepid, sorry to hear your Legend cruise was canceled. We were planning to book that cruise but fortunately hadn't done it yet. We have FCC from previously canceled cruises but every time we think we have something we want to book it gets canceled. We booked the May 29 Mardi Gras cruise last fall when our New Years cruise was canceled and now it is the next to go. Still hoping we will actually be on what will now be the inaugural Mardi Gras cruise, but not counting on it. Hope your refund comes through soon.

[BlerkOne]

The refund process has much improved and only takes weeks not months. The refund form couldn't be easier and doesn't waste my time.

[bitemyfly]

1 hour ago, IntrepidFromDC said:

Yes, ours was a 26-day trip starting in August... land-based trip (Paris, Salzburg, Venice, Cinque Terre, Florence and Rome) followed by the 10-day cruise to Athens, Santorini, Mykonos, Kotor, Sicily and Napoli (Pompeii).  On the bright side, this gives us flexibility to do an all-land-based trip earlier if Italy and France open to US tourists earlier than September.  Good luck with your land-based trip!  There's a reasonably priced overnight train from Paris to Venice if you want to add "the most visited city in the world" to your Italian trip.

We are so hoping it’s opened by end of summer , we try to go to Italy every year and always wind up in Venice for 3days and fly out of Marco Polo .. 

good luck with yours

[IntrepidFromDC]

Just now, bitemyfly said:

We are so hoping it’s opened by end of summer , we try to go to Italy every year and always wind up in Venice for 3days and fly out of Marco Polo .. 

good luck with yours

I never fly to/from Venice because I can never find non-stop flights.  But I often find value-priced non-stop flights home from Rome so that's where we usually finish/start our trip.  You may already be aware, but London, Rome and Paris offer non-stop flights from the US (we live in DC) for less than other European cities offer flights with layovers.

[bitemyfly]

Yes we live in nyc in the summer months but most of the year in the tampa Bay Area.

we fly into rome , do Amalfi , Rome , Florence then   Venice and home .. all non stop direct flights ..

I have no idea what flights will look like .. but just can’t wait to get back to both land and sea vactions

 

[VentureMan_2000]

On 1/22/2021 at 8:21 AM, cruisingguy007 said:

Were you able to get an immediate refund by calling? I have heard some horror stories about refunds taking many months. I'm hoping the auto form will reduce this. I'd be frustrated having to wait months as well, especially if you have many grand tied up.  

I did the Auto form last April 1.  It took 5 months for all my money to be refunded.

 

[sailingships]

Yes the Legend is not going to Europe this year. She was suppose to leave Tampa on March 26 for a 15 day TA to arrive in Barcelona on April 19 and then dry dock until May 17. The TA from the US was cancelled weeks ago.  My Med/TA cruises in October were also cancelled. The  Legend was due to arrive back in Tampa on November 14. Now she doesnt sail until that 1st US cruise in November. 

 

Next year the Pride has much the same itineraries in Europe that the Legend did this year.

[Cruisesfun65]

2 hours ago, sailingships said:

 

Next year the Pride has much the same itineraries in Europe that the Legend did this year.

 

Not really. Our Radiance May 2020 was canceled and now our Legend Med.

Next year's itineraries are not the same and not appealing to us, so we'll wait until 2023 to retry.

[BlerkOne]

13 hours ago, VentureMan_2000 said:

I did the Auto form last April 1.  It took 5 months for all my money to be refunded.

 

Response time has improved since then.

[kwokpot]

I used the online form to get full refunds for 2 cruises and FCC for one cruise. How will we know that the FCC has been issued? Will we get an email confirmation with some confirmation#? Is it under the original booking #? Will it show up somewhere on our online account? This is the 1st time ever for us in requesting FCC on a cancelled cruise. Thanks for any information!

[Stockjock]

My cruise for November 2022 was cancelled today, so you're not the only one.

[ScratchTheRat]

On 1/25/2021 at 8:49 PM, kwokpot said:

I used the online form to get full refunds for 2 cruises and FCC for one cruise. How will we know that the FCC has been issued? Will we get an email confirmation with some confirmation#? Is it under the original booking #? Will it show up somewhere on our online account? This is the 1st time ever for us in requesting FCC on a cancelled cruise. Thanks for any information!

I filled in the form for my cancelled cruise on Friday. I booked a new cruise, then on Monday my FCC and OBC had all been moved over 🙂

[IntrepidFromDC]

On 1/24/2021 at 11:09 PM, VentureMan_2000 said:

I did the Auto form last April 1.  It took 5 months for all my money to be refunded.

 

I also did the online form they link from the cancellation email, it took 4-1/2 months despite me calling them 10 times.  One agent said "check with your bank the money was already sent", a week later an agent said "I don't know why the agent said that, I can see it's still being 'approved by accounting' on our side (these calls were after two months of periodic calls).  I guess I should be happy, 4-1/2 months is a 10% improvement over 5 months.

[MRVEGAS711]

On 1/22/2021 at 11:06 AM, kwokpot said:

They have a form which you can do everything on line. I canceled two Mardi Gras and one Legend cruise. Took full refund for 2, FCC for the 3rd. Easy as pie.

 

The poor Mardi Gras will be a rust bucket by the time it takes its maiden voyage!