Excursion Cancellation But No Notification from Princess

[wishIwascruising]

We are cruising on the Regal in May 2022.  On March 8th, I booked an excursion through Princess to Cinque Terre.  Today, March 18th,  my husband noticed a credit on our credit card account for the exact amount of that excursion.   Evidently Princess cancelled our reservation and this particular excursion is no longer shown as an available tour. After we booked, there were 4 slots left.  There is another tour (same day) to Cinque Terre for 10 hrs for $199.95.  The cancelled tour was only 8 hours which was more desirable for us.  I can see that same tour available on other dates so it's not like they cancelled the vendor.  I am annoyed that if my husband hadn't been paying attention to the activity on our credit card we might not have become aware of this change until much later, and probably not at all from Princess.  I called Princess twice today but after waiting for over 1 hr. 45 min for one call and over 1 hr for another, I gave up for today. 

 

Has this happened to other Princess cruisers? 

[dog]

23 minutes ago, wishIwascruising said:

We are cruising on the Regal in May 2022.  On March 8th, I booked an excursion through Princess to Cinque Terre.  Today, March 18th,  my husband noticed a credit on our credit card account for the exact amount of that excursion.   Evidently Princess cancelled our reservation and this particular excursion is no longer shown as an available tour. After we booked, there were 4 slots left.  There is another tour (same day) to Cinque Terre for 10 hrs for $199.95.  The cancelled tour was only 8 hours which was more desirable for us.  I can see that same tour available on other dates so it's not like they cancelled the vendor.  I am annoyed that if my husband hadn't been paying attention to the activity on our credit card we might not have become aware of this change until much later, and probably not at all from Princess.  I called Princess twice today but after waiting for over 1 hr. 45 min for one call and over 1 hr for another, I gave up for today. 

 

Has this happened to other Princess cruisers? 

Yes, rarely get notices anymore. Not even when they change my cabin 

check your account/ reservations frequently 

[venussuz]

The same thing happened to me for an excursion in June. It's odd because I was refunded $49 for an excursion that cost $99. After spending hours trying to contact them several times, I simply gave up, figuring I'll get it straightened out on board the ship. It was an excursion to see a master chocolatier, something that sounded interesting but was hardly vital to the trip. 

It worked out well, as not having to worry about that overbooked excursion allowed me to cancel and rebook the cruise last month at a nice discount. I certainly would have appreciated notice from Princess about the cancelled excursion, either through email or the silly app, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

I've taken notice from what others have posted here and now check my booking every few days to be sure nothing has been changed.

[Coral]

I had been waitlisted for an excursion. At lunch yesterday - I saw there were 2 openings. I had not been notified. So glad I looked frequently.

[manunia]

i have 2 cruises cancelled on Diamond (one for June and second one for December), found it out from Facebook posts, still no email from Princess about it😢

 

[Ombud]

3 hours ago, Coral said:

I had been waitlisted for an excursion. At lunch yesterday - I saw there were 2 openings. I had not been notified. So glad I looked frequently.

I got an email yesterday that I had booked 2 cruises  ..... forgot I had waitlisted them. Apparently its automatic if there's enough available OBC

[Coral]

2 minutes ago, Ombud said:

I got an email yesterday that I had booked 2 cruises  ..... forgot I had waitlisted them. Apparently its automatic if there's enough available OBC

I had a backup tour booked (as all the tours in this port are full now) - so it wasn't automatic for me. I had OBC and didn't have to pay. Maybe if I didn't have a tour booked?

 

I think Europe bookings have major issues technology wise lately. I have run into so many issues.

[ontheweb]

21 minutes ago, Coral said:

I had a backup tour booked (as all the tours in this port are full now) - so it wasn't automatic for me. I had OBC and didn't have to pay. Maybe if I didn't have a tour booked?

 

I think Europe bookings have major issues technology wise lately. I have run into so many issues.

Are you saying that the very people who created the medallion and its technology are incompetent at their tech jobs? Have you not read the ads they send or your Princess Circle magazine to see how it is the greatest invention since the wheel? 😢

[Coral]

21 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

Are you saying that the very people who created the medallion and its technology are incompetent at their tech jobs? Have you not read the ads they send or your Princess Circle magazine to see how it is the greatest invention since the wheel? 😢

As strange as this sounds - I have had zero medallion issues on this trip so far! I had plenty in December. This is purely website and programming issues with the website.

 

I was going to include this in my review. I booked this cruise about 40+ days out. It is (3) 7 night cruises booked as a 21 night cruise in Europe. From the moment I booked this trip - I could not book any excursions. I would get a red circle with a line through it and "unknown error" though it was spelled improperly some how. I probably spent 10+ hours on hold over 5 days trying to get anyone at Princess to acknowledge it was an error (which was a huge challenge). I was told by countless individuals who answered the phone that maybe excursions were not open in Europe yet, maybe I will just have to wait until I am on the ship, no one can book excursions yet (though I could see excursions sell out during this process or go to a point where only 2 were available)..... I was transferred multiple times and spent hours upon hours on the phone. No one knew who to transfer me to or their supervisors via text told them they could not escalate my issue. Eventually I got someone at Princess who had taken a cruise before and had been with Princess for more than a few months and she knew who to contact. It still took 4 more days (2 more working days) to get fixed. And yes - several tours were then sold out.

 

In the end it turned out those who had booked the trip as 7 night cruises or 14 night cruises could book excursions but the handful of us who booked it as a 21 night excursion could not.

 

My TA has been telling me she spends hours on the phone on hold with Princess each day. I have a new appreciation for her and what she does (I thought highly of her before) because the people answering the phones really had no clue what to do or who could fix this. I am thankful for the one individual who did help me. I have her name and will send it to Princess after the cruise saying that this woman was a rock star for acknowledging that it was a real issue and finding the right department that could fix the issue.

 

I still have a port with no tours - go figure. I did get escalated to Customer Relations last week (after 1.5 hours on hold) and I really think this woman tried to help me but every office she tried to call - she said they were not answering the phone. She said she would follow up - my guess is that her intentions were good and that she was competent but she had individuals with far more pressing issues. Hopefully this will be resolved on the ship.

Edited March 19, 2022 by Coral

[marden1970]

We have a similar situation - we are on an Alaskan cruise on the Ruby at the end of July.  We booked and paid for a scenic lake cruise in Haines. ( $100 each) which was charged to our credit card on 1/25/22.  If I go into that booked cruise I can see that we booked and paid but if I click on the excursion details it says "OOPS page not found" and the excursion is not listed on the page for that port anymore and it's not even showing if I look on the general excursion page for that port (not using my booking).  We have not received anything from Princess and have not received any credit to our credit card.  It's a ways off so I'm not going to anything at this point but keep an eye on it.