This is ridiculous, on phone over 2 hrs!!

[edgeman61]

I am on the phone now for over 2 hours.  On hold for 45 minutes before a very nice lady attempted to cancel my cruise for November '22.

 

Was on the phone with her for over an hour while "the team" evaluated my refund options.  She tried to process the refund but ended up transferring me to "the resolutions department" where I am now... ON HOLD!!

 

Checking the time, its past Carnival's business hours back in Miami, not sure anyone will answer until 9:00AM EST tomorrow 😠

 

Approaching 2.5 hours, must be allot of folks cancelling before the 2/15 deadline.

[my kids mama]

Im sorry you are on hold so long.  Next time, book with a PVP.  So much easier to make changes, or cancel. 

[EZ1]

8 hours ago, edgeman61 said:

I am on the phone now for over 2 hours.  On hold for 45 minutes before a very nice lady attempted to cancel my cruise for November '22.

 

Was on the phone with her for over an hour while "the team" evaluated my refund options.  She tried to process the refund but ended up transferring me to "the resolutions department" where I am now... ON HOLD!!

 

Checking the time, its past Carnival's business hours back in Miami, not sure anyone will answer until 9:00AM EST tomorrow 😠

 

Approaching 2.5 hours, must be allot of folks cancelling before the 2/15 deadline.

Yep, I called last week to cancel a July sailing n/c until Feb15.. She just did it, didnt transfer me.(Better to call 1st thing in am, after 9am.)  Decided to cancel, instead of getting off Princess, & going on Carnival the same day. Too much stress with having to test that day.

[ontheweb]

13 hours ago, my kids mama said:

Im sorry you are on hold so long.  Next time, book with a PVP.  So much easier to make changes, or cancel. 

Or book with a TA, and let the TA be the one holding the phone with the cruise line.

[kdr69]

its not exclusive to just Carnival and i doubt it will change for a long time to come.  I know its frustrating.  Took me 5 days on hold 3-4 hours per day just to get through to my Visa company, 3 days for an Airline, Phone company, etc etc.  Bottom line these days is if you want to reach a live person to change anything or even just ask a question its gonna take some time to get through.

[Bostwick girl]

And the other problem when you do get thru, the person you are likely talking to is a new contracted person, not really up to speed.

 

[Drazil65]

To be expected at this point.  

[TNcruising02]

1 hour ago, Bostwick girl said:

And the other problem when you do get thru, the person you are likely talking to is a new contracted person, not really up to speed.

 

This was my experience.  It took three calls to Carnival to resolve an issue I had with a cancelled cruise.  I was on hold for over three hours on the last call.  I called first thing in the morning, thinking that would help.  It didn't.  However, the third time was a charm because the issued was resolved.

[UAGuy2021]

I had read about the long hold times when calling CCL, but I decided to call at 10 AM CST yesterday to upgrade my room on the Valor for my March trip. I was shocked when my call was answered after being on hold about 30 minutes. 

[edgeman61]

The booking no longer appears on my account so it has been canceled, now to see what amount they want to refund me.

 

Just received the email from Carnival telling me that there is no penalty but nothing about the amount to be refunded.

 

I had things to do, so once I saw the cancellation letter and the time was after CCL's operating hours I hung up.

 

I had to forfeit the $600 OBC for the original cruise that was cancelled in 2020.  With so many of our cruises cancelled in the past two years I have FCC with at least two other cruiselines that need to be used by the end of this year.

 

I'll get back with them to finalize the refund ammount.

[cruiserbrianj]

That's why we book with a PVP.  She either answers or gets back to us really fast.  

[mslhb]

I also was on the phone for 2 hours with Carnival yesterday. An hour was waiting on hold and another hour with the agent helping me. I called at prime time and was mentally prepared for it to take awhile. Just happened to be a time when I was home with nothing else going on so I just put my phone on speaker while working on other stuff. I was taking one reservation and moving the sailing date and splitting into two reservations for adjoining rooms on hold. Took them awhile but they got all money transferred with no penalty. Which was nice since the booking was after COVID started and should have required a penalty. Lady was super great and very apologetic about the long time it took. Told her NO worries. I feel for any call center worker right now!!

[LakeWobegon]

I was on the phone with Carnival for 3 hours this morning. First rep told me I couldn't change the cruise rate to the much lower one now offered. Called back and second one gave me a cruise rate that was half the rate of my previous one! Well worth my time. I just multi-task with my wireless earbuds in.

 

[McFU]

On 2/6/2022 at 7:38 AM, ontheweb said:

Or book with a TA, and let the TA be the one holding the phone with the cruise line.

My travel agent has been trying to get a hold of Carnival for 4 days now, trying at all kinds of different hours.  She either can't get through or gets hung up on after waiting on hold.  Pretty sad when even travel agents are getting ignored.

[Momma1980]

Yep. Prepare for a looooong wait time. Place the call and put your phone on speaker so you can hear when someone picks up. Plan to do other things while you wait. My last call was picked up after almost 2 hours on hold. 

[ontheweb]

2 hours ago, McFU said:

My travel agent has been trying to get a hold of Carnival for 4 days now, trying at all kinds of different hours.  She either can't get through or gets hung up on after waiting on hold.  Pretty sad when even travel agents are getting ignored.

In the long run, poor customer service cannot be in the best interest of any company, especially one dealing with such a non-essential service as cruise travel.

[sammee]

3 hours ago, Momma1980 said:

Yep. Prepare for a looooong wait time. Place the call and put your phone on speaker so you can hear when someone picks up. Plan to do other things while you wait. My last call was picked up after almost 2 hours on hold. 

That's what I did this morning, Called at 9am, done by 925. I was only on hold for 5-10 minutes. Key is calling at opening and like you said, speaker on and do other things.

[dianef]

Probably after February 15 when people can’t cancel just because they don’t want to go the phone lines should be much better,I assume.

[scpirate]

3 hours ago, dianef said:

Probably after February 15 when people can’t cancel just because they don’t want to go the phone lines should be much better,I assume.

I am sure it will be but i am one of those wanting to cancel. They mentioned the link like the january cancellation but after trying it three times it does not work either.

[Virga]

So I've been trying to make sense of the book by date for my cancelled Australian cruises - the email says I have until 31 July, but my PVP says I only have until 31 March.  So far:

 

*Asked John Heald online, his assistant said they don't know, and that I'd have to contact the call center folks.  I replied asking for an email address, but haven't received a response yet.

*Called the number I usually call my PVP at, but don't enter his extension.  I'm put on automated hold, answered by a sales rep who transfers me to a department that is asking people to please call back later/tomorrow. 

 

*After this happens twice, I pick another Carnival number and am able to start the process on hold with customer service - better than being hung up on, at least!  After 97 minutes, I am connected.  To a gentleman who has been on hold two and a half hours waiting for a Carnival representative.  We chat for a bit in the hopes of a representative noticing what they've done, but no dice - we wish each other luck, and I'm twenty minutes deep again.  That poor guy!  

[camper49]

On 2/5/2022 at 6:22 PM, my kids mama said:

Im sorry you are on hold so long.  Next time, book with a PVP.  So much easier to make changes, or cancel. 

Not always true. In our case , once I sent our pvp an email saying that we wanted to cancel our cruise , I never heard another word from her! She was happy to book our cruise & and again happy to book another so we had a b2b . I left her very many messages…and sent many emails. I know this is not always the case with a pvp.

 

[my kids mama]

3 hours ago, camper49 said:

Not always true. In our case , once I sent our pvp an email saying that we wanted to cancel our cruise , I never heard another word from her! She was happy to book our cruise & and again happy to book another so we had a b2b . I left her very many messages…and sent many emails. I know this is not always the case with a pvp.

 

That's a bummer!  My PVP is great.  I usually call instead of email.  She often answers, but if she doesn't, she calls back the same day. 

[goracer6]

Since Carnival is requiring kids to be vaccinated to cruise, we will be canceling our upcoming family cruise this summer. I see people are saying to call when they open at 9am, is that 9am Eastern time? And in the email I did not see a phone number posted, does anyone have a good number to call? 

 

Thank you and happy sailing to those who are cruising! 

[luckybecky]

I think this is happening with many other cruise lines and services.

 

I was on hold today for almost 2 hours today with a big box retailer's travel site, trying to make a room change on an upcoming cruise I had booked with them. By the time I finally got to speak with an agent, the cabin I wanted to change to was gone. 😞

 

My best advice is to call when you have plenty of time to spare and have things to do while you wait. When my call was answered, I was informed that my hold time would be "greater than one hour."

I did a complete workout while waiting. Painted my toenails. Worked on a jigsaw puzzle. Organized some papers for getting my taxes done. Straightened up some clutter. Just put your phone on speaker and keep it close enough that you can hear when the representative comes online. 

 

All anyone can do at this point is just to try to make the best of it.

[joelheather]

On 2/5/2022 at 6:18 PM, edgeman61 said:

I am on the phone now for over 2 hours.  On hold for 45 minutes before a very nice lady attempted to cancel my cruise for November '22.

 

Was on the phone with her for over an hour while "the team" evaluated my refund options.  She tried to process the refund but ended up transferring me to "the resolutions department" where I am now... ON HOLD!!

 

Checking the time, its past Carnival's business hours back in Miami, not sure anyone will answer until 9:00AM EST tomorrow 😠

 

Approaching 2.5 hours, must be allot of folks cancelling before the 2/15 deadline.

Aren’t we a bit entitled!.  They, like most every other company are UNDERSTAFFED. Give them a break