Booking cruises to "mystery" destinations. ?

[bazzaw]

By "mystery" , I mean it is a mystery as to whether the destination will be open. We were VERY disappointed to not get to Japan in May 2020 - and my son is now residing/working in Tokyo. BUT there is no way I will book a cruise to Japan until I see the ports open to cruising. I guess a deposit in the "cruiselines bucket" is not too much to worry about - but deposits lead to final payments eventually. We were burned badly in 2020 , - especially in the disappointment Department, so we don't want to go there again. 

[OzKiwiJJ]

Even when you do book a cruise to destinations that are mostly open there is no guarantee that cruise will actually happen. The current shock cancellation of the 22nd August QLD and Conflict Islands cruise is a perfect example of that.

[MicCanberra]

4 hours ago, bazzaw said:

By "mystery" , I mean it is a mystery as to whether the destination will be open. We were VERY disappointed to not get to Japan in May 2020 - and my son is now residing/working in Tokyo. BUT there is no way I will book a cruise to Japan until I see the ports open to cruising. I guess a deposit in the "cruiselines bucket" is not too much to worry about - but deposits lead to final payments eventually. We were burned badly in 2020 , - especially in the disappointment Department, so we don't want to go there again. 

I here you, so far we have had 16 cruises cancelled, 8 of which were rebookings as far in advance as we could rebook at the time,  that have subsequently been cancelled.

[MicCanberra]

2 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Even when you do book a cruise to destinations that are mostly open there is no guarantee that cruise will actually happen. The current shock cancellation of the 22nd August QLD and Conflict Islands cruise is a perfect example of that.

Even pre covid this happened occasionally but now it seems to be open slather.

[GUT2407]

Even in good times we have missed at least one port on half of all our cruises, so you could say cruising is always a bit of a lucky dip.

[NSWP]

32 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Even when you do book a cruise to destinations that are mostly open there is no guarantee that cruise will actually happen. The current shock cancellation of the 22nd August QLD and Conflict Islands cruise is a perfect example of that.

Hope you are imbibing a few adult beverages to counter the  shock, Julie.

 

[arxcards]

There is an element of crystal ball gazing.

 

We booked what we thought would be a safe first cruise back over 2 years ago - a QLD coastal in October 2021. Yes, cancelled but were able to switch to a nominated replacement itinerary in November 2022. They cancelled the ship, but we were able to move to a nominated alternate ship/itinerary for October 2022, and even scored an extra night and OBCs along the way.

 

The health concerns about doing cruises longer than 8 nights is still apparent, so we there is still a risk that our safe October cruise will be broken-up into short ones, but for now our magical mystery cruise will still happen.

 

Through all of this though, they are only holding $198 of our money, and they are losing lots more money than the deposits they are holding. The extra perks and OBCs is what is keeping our booking in place, as we could have cancelled at any time for a refund.

[OzKiwiJJ]

1 hour ago, MicCanberra said:

Even pre covid this happened occasionally but now it seems to be open slather.

But in the past those sort of itinerary changes, other than ones that were affected by things like bad weather, were always changed months in advance, not less than two months.