Cancelation Charges on Transfers

[GrumpaTom]

The DW and I are taking a cruise on the Statendam in May and are making our own transportation plans since we live very close and have the option of using Amtrak to get to the cruise.

 

When we initially booked the cruise we were looking at an option of also taking a two night NCL cruise and would have to get from Seattle to Vancouver in the same day, so to prepare for it we paid for a transfer from Sea-Tac to Canada Place.

 

When all the planning was done we found that our best options called for us to not take the NCL cruise and just go straight to Canada Place, using Amtrak. So we would not need the precruise transfer. We figured we would just change it to a post cruise transfer (same price) so we could get home a little faster. So the cruise line would not have lost any money, just a change in times.

 

When we made the change the cruise charged us a 50% cancellation fee on the transfers because we were inside of the penalty window. I can understand the cancellation fee if we cancelled the cruise, and would have even been fine with a minor fee for the change, but chargeing us 50% seems outrageuos, especially since we did not even need to book the transfers in advance. We could have bought the transfers at the airport on the day of travel.

 

Basically, we are being charged a 50% ($62.00 total) fee for preplanning our vacation and making sure that verything that can be paid in advance is.

 

Has anyone encountered anything like this before, is there anything we could do about it? Heck, we'd be happy with OBC if they are worried about the money not going into their pockets, slthough like I said, with the change they would have suffered no loss since we changed from pre transfer to post transfer.

 

Tom

[Harry1954]

Tom,

Sorry to hear you got hit with the heft penalty, but this is pretty standard fare for cruise lines. They attempt to prevent folks from doing what we all use to do years ago with the airlines - book a trip that may not happen, but know that you have reserved the space in case you want to go. On cruises, since it is a bit of a hassle with differing cabins to make assignments, they want to prevent this type of activity - and it tends to manage itself fairly well. Be glad you werent on a 14 day cruise and did not understand about the cancellation clause - and lose say a thousand or two.

 

harry

[GrumpaTom]

Sorry to hear you got hit with the heft penalty, but this is pretty standard fare for cruise lines. They attempt to prevent folks from doing what we all use to do years ago with the airlines - book a trip that may not happen, but know that you have reserved the space in case you want to go. On cruises, since it is a bit of a hassle with differing cabins to make assignments, they want to prevent this type of activity - and it tends to manage itself fairly well. Be glad you werent on a 14 day cruise and did not understand about the cancellation clause - and lose say a thousand or two.

 

 

Hi Harry, Thanks for the input, however I don't think you read my post throughly. I didn't cancel the cruise, I would have understood the cancelation fee if I had. I changed a transfer, changed it from Airport to Dock, to Dock to Airport. The cruise itself remains the same. In none of the documents we have does it say they charge a cancelation on transfers or excursions before the cruise begins. It does say something about canceling an excursion the day before you would not get a refund, but nothing about weeks out.

 

I probably would not even have this beef if there was a penalty for taking the transfer at the last minute, but there isn't. My problem lies in charging me a cancelation charge for something I could have gotten as soon as I walked off the plane, something I was specifically told I could have done.

[Harry1954]

Sorry if i misread your post. In that case, I agree with you and suggest you write upper management as it is as much a principle issue as money one.

harry