Japan 2024 canceled…

[maryann2]

30 minutes ago, cruisestitch said:

Here is something I do not understand. We have seen involuntary cancellations for itineraries in September October November and then March and April. No reports from December January or February.

Are we to conclude that the only

sold out (and thus possibly overbooked cruises) are the ones which are scheduled to visit Japan?  The others are not?  Seems odd.

 

The ship substitution would have affected all of those cruises, so why only the Japan cruises got double booked?

My theory is that Japan has requested a block of empty cabins to be available for quarantine.

This would possibly all be in the same area.

After what happened on the Diamond Princess in Feb / March 2020 I can understand this.

[sherylc]

1 hour ago, pukekolive said:

I have seen a number of people, fully paid and booked 14 months ago that have been cancelled, so booking date doesn't seem to make a difference. I wonder if Contact Centre reps are just grasping at the closest reason for who gets cancelled? There is also someone with 6 linked cabins, all booked at same time who has had 3 cancelled!

It might actually be based on booking date with all the lift and shifts that have occurred. Our March 2024 cruise was actually booked in August of 2021 (about 20 months ago) on the Millennium. We (so far) haven't been affected but just stating that many people booked these Japan cruises around that date since that's when they cancelled and allowed lift/shift.

[tscoffey]

If the “block of cabins” for possible quarantine contingencies is correct, and sounds like the best explanation so far, then I would expect the same cancellations to hit in later April, May, June,etc., sailings. (It also explains why similar cancellations are missing in winter - Millennium won’t be in Japan then)

 

I have one in May - inside cabin, deck 3, which sounds like a perfect place to quarantine an infected passenger (near the ship medical, away from the other decks, etc), unfortunately.

Edited April 19, 2023 by tscoffey

[pukekolive]

21 minutes ago, cruisestitch said:

That is what I am referring to. No oversold Cruises in December, January or February.  Why not?

Millennium goes to Alaska in November each year until the following March. When the March 2020 and later cruises were cancelled due to Covid, we were offered lift and shift to the 2022 Asia season on Solstice/ Millennium. Japan was not open in the 2022 season so these cruises were canceled in turn and 2023/ 24 cruises offered. Personally, I think it is this latter lifting and shifting that has caused the overbooking.

[pukekolive]

7 minutes ago, tscoffey said:

If the “block of cabins” for possible quarantine contingencies is correct, and sounds like the best explanation so far, then I would expect the same cancellations to hit in later April, May, June,etc., sailings. (It also explains why similar cancellations are missing in winter - Millennium won’t be in Japan then)

 

I have one in May - inside cabin, deck 3, which sounds like a perfect place to quarantine an infected passenger (near the ship medical, away from the other decks, etc), unfortunately.

It would be interesting to know which deck(s) the cancelled bookings are on ....

[EllaDuChien]

7 minutes ago, pukekolive said:

It would be interesting to know which deck(s) the cancelled bookings are on ....

My son's cabin was on Deck 2

[nwcruiselover]

Selfishly, I’m hoping they’re using the order in which booking occurred to determine who gets cancelled.  My initial booking was for the September 2020 TP cruise from Vancouver to Tokyo for 9/10/2020.  I made my deposit on 1/18/2020, so 3+ years ago.

[Tarwood3]

3 hours ago, RichYak said:

Or that one other person you are referring to has read, and is now spreading, the same claim, which was also posted on FB.

Love how people think Im making this up…we were told definitively. “ everyone is canceled”. “Millenium won’t be in Japan”.  And if she did lie to us….we have her name and will take it up the ladder…

[Tarwood3]

9 minutes ago, EllaDuChien said:

My son's cabin was on Deck 2

We were on 6

[WestLakeGirl]

21 minutes ago, pukekolive said:

Millennium goes to Alaska in November each year until the following March. When the March 2020 and later cruises were cancelled due to Covid, we were offered lift and shift to the 2022 Asia season on Solstice/ Millennium. Japan was not open in the 2022 season so these cruises were canceled in turn and 2023/ 24 cruises offered. Personally, I think it is this latter lifting and shifting that has caused the overbooking.

Thats not possible.  Alaska from November until March, I don’t think so.

[nwcruiselover]

Alaska cruises start in mid-April and continue till late September or even early October on some lines.  No Alaska cruising is done in November through March.

[pukekolive]

5 minutes ago, WestLakeGirl said:

Thats not possible.  Alaska from November until March, I don’t think so.

My mistake, it appears to be based in Singapore for that period.

[raananh]

We also got "oversold" on the April 12, 2023 cruise. Got a call from Celebrity. I asked "I booked a specific cabin. How can a specific cabin get sold more than once?" The Celebrity lady replied: "I can't explain that."

We booked directly with Celebrity long time ago and actually paid almost the whole amount in advance - a small balance of $500 was left. The reason we paid so much in advance is because we had a credit from another cruise that was cancelled by celebrity (corona virus) last year.

Also, the "oversold" happened after we already purchased excursions for $1000s almost 2 months ago.

We will probably switch to the October 6, 2024 cruise because, so we were told, we can get that cruise for the same price we paid. The prices actually went up. So we will get the 2024 cruise for less money.


 

[Judy Arthur]

27 minutes ago, Tarwood3 said:

Love how people think Im making this up…we were told definitively. “ everyone is canceled”. “Millenium won’t be in Japan”.  And if she did lie to us….we have her name and will take it up the ladder…

 

There’s only one person who thinks you’re lying.🙄.    But we all hope SHE was…

[RichYak]

21 minutes ago, Tarwood3 said:

Love how people think Im making this up…we were told definitively. “ everyone is canceled”. “Millenium won’t be in Japan”.  And if she did lie to us….we have her name and will take it up the ladder…

I don’t think you’re making this up. By your own admission upthread, the situation was explained to you two times. For whatever reason, that wasn’t enough. It wasn’t until the third request for an explanation that you were told everyone was canceled. I probably would have said the same thing to you by that point. 

[Northern Aurora]

On 4/18/2023 at 1:32 PM, Captain-John said:

I have read elsewhere (having waded through some rude and 'shouty' comments) on other threads that sailings on the schedule after a certain date are new additions and therefore those that were cancelled in previous years due to Covid wouldn't have had the opportunity to book onto the new(er) released sailings so they are less likely to be oversold etc…….

 

 

 

On 4/18/2023 at 1:32 PM, Captain-John said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also remember some “shouty” comments made by a poster who has not, as of yet, commented on the present situation.  Love to read what he thinks now.

[Tarwood3]

14 minutes ago, Judy Arthur said:

 

There’s only one person who thinks you’re lying.🙄.    But we all hope SHE was…

Yes for sure…I hope she was lying as well…I wouldn’t want that many people as disappointed as us!

[Tarwood3]

15 minutes ago, RichYak said:

I don’t think you’re making this up. By your own admission upthread, the situation was explained to you two times. For whatever reason, that wasn’t enough. It wasn’t until the third request for an explanation that you were told everyone was canceled. I probably would have said the same thing to you by that point. 

We asked 3 different ways because she was not answering the question directly…she was dancing around the question.  I love how you think Im in the wrong here…but whatever….im just trying to report everything said to me since I was one of the very first to post my experience and conversation…. I certainly don’t want them to be canceled, but thoughtI I should share what I was told.  

[mahdnc]

24 minutes ago, Northern Aurora said:

 

I also remember some “shouty” comments made by a poster who has not, as of yet, commented on the present situation.  Love to read what he thinks now.

 

It was un-bear-able.

[Northern Aurora]

@Tarwood3:  And I am so glad that you have shared what you were told.  
 

@cruisestitch and I were just on overlapping cruises on he Eclipse.  We have been concerned about these Japan itineraries so we both spoke with folks from the future cruise sales office.  Actually we spoke to two different persons.  No mention of a possibility of overbooking.  I was concerned about a full ship charter as that had happened to us before on a Japan itinerary.

[Northern Aurora]

17 hours ago, mahdnc said:

 

It was un-bear-able.

Obviously you remember it too.  But I would just love to hear his comments now.  Maybe he could use capital letters again.

[mahdnc]

4 minutes ago, Northern Aurora said:

Obviously you remember it too.  But I would just love to hear his comments now.  Maybe he could use capital letters again.

 

Actually I think to some extent, it was the kiss of death.

[cruisestitch]

I took a few minutes tonight to read back over old posts, starting with the first report of something unusual happening on Japan cruises which was a thread started on November 4, 2022. So there has been a lot of concern about this for quite a long time.

 

Various people tried to come forward and say that there’s nothing unusual going on, the Cruises are just sold out.

 

Now it turns out that it’s more than being “just sold out “and the oversells are causing people to be canceled.

 

But through it all, I remember a conversation I had with a future cruise sales staff on January 14 which I posted in one of the other threads.  
 

She said that if she was in my place, she would book a back-up reservation for 2025 because when she looked into the situation for April 9, 2024 she told me “ I don’t think you’ll be sailing on that cruise. “

I was derided for reporting that, but sadly, at least for some people, it has turned out to be true.

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by cruisestitch

[neverlaysup]

11 hours ago, cruisestitch said:

If you will read this thread you will see that that is NOT what  Celebrity is doing. They are canceling people — involuntarily bumping them from the cruise.

The US government has taken steps to protect airline passengers from this situation by forcing the airlines to pay up to 4x your one way fare up to $1550. They need to address the cruise industry as well and maybe force them to compensate at a somewhat similar rate, lets just say up to $10K for an involuntary bump. 

[neverlaysup]

8 hours ago, mnocket said:

Just wondering.... how does a cruise become overbooked?  Since most bookings are for specific cabins, I'm guessing the problem is that they sold too many Guaranteed cabins?  Is there some other possible explanation?

It was the mass of lift and shifts versus the GTY cabins already sold and continued to be sold. This along with a ship change from Solstice to Millie created this situation. Now, before some keyboard warrior chimes in to tell me they booked Millie last year and it's always been Millie, I have been booked on this cruise since 2019 for the May 2020 sailing when it was Millie, then changed to Solstice twice and now back to Millie.