Explorer of the Seas

[miriam]

RCCL Explorer if the Seas is scheduled to cruise Atlantic from Southampton  5th Nov 19.  Just had an Email advising of adverse weather conditions in the Atlantic ,the cruise will now start 9th , there fore cutting short cruise and missing 3 out of 4 ports of call in the Caribbean.  We are told we can cancel and take a refund voucher for a future cruise,  but, although booked as a package with Travel Agent, very unsure if we would get a refund for flights and accommodation..  Does anyone have any guidance please?

[J_Keeble]

1 hour ago, miriam said:

RCCL Explorer if the Seas is scheduled to cruise Atlantic from Southampton  5th Nov 19.  Just had an Email advising of adverse weather conditions in the Atlantic ,the cruise will now start 9th , there fore cutting short cruise and missing 3 out of 4 ports of call in the Caribbean.  We are told we can cancel and take a refund voucher for a future cruise,  but, although booked as a package with Travel Agent, very unsure if we would get a refund for flights and accommodation..  Does anyone have any guidance please?

im on this cruise too, I started another thread in the rumours topic area.

I think under ATOL you would be covered. but that is only going on previous experiences from others.

 

very sad times :(

[FionaMG]

1 hour ago, miriam said:

We are told we can cancel and take a refund voucher for a future cruise,  but, although booked as a package with Travel Agent, very unsure if we would get a refund for flights and accommodation..  Does anyone have any guidance please?

You need to contact your travel agent asap. It may depend on whether they sold you a package put together by the cruise line or whether they bundled the various components of your trip, i.e. booked the different parts from different suppliers and bundled them into a package which they created for you.

Your travel insurance may also help if you have some kind of cruise cover included.

[ChessE4]

On 11/1/2019 at 5:46 AM, FionaMG said:

On 11/1/2019 at 4:08 AM, miriam said:

RCCL Explorer if the Seas is scheduled to cruise Atlantic from Southampton  5th Nov 19.  Just had an Email advising of adverse weather conditions in the Atlantic ,the cruise will now start 9th , there fore cutting short cruise and missing 3 out of 4 ports of call in the Caribbean.  We are told we can cancel and take a refund voucher for a future cruise,  but, although booked as a package with Travel Agent, very unsure if we would get a refund for flights and accommodation..  Does anyone have any guidance please?

 

If you have travel insurance as mentioned by @FionaMG then there is likely coverage for "travel delay" or other affected parts of the trip.  Check your policy. (Assuming you choose to go on the trip as scheduled but need to wait a few days for the cruise to kick in.)

[Matt]

5 hours ago, miriam said:

We are told we can cancel and take a refund voucher for a future cruise,  but, although booked as a package with Travel Agent, very unsure if we would get a refund for flights and accommodation.

The cancellation offer has come from Royal Caribbean, correct? If so, your other travel plans (flights, hotel, etc) would not be included. In fact, many travel insurance plans likely don't kick in because technically the cruise isn't cancelled.

[WhiteSoxFan]

Just curious, would travel insurance help cover the expense of any additional nights of lodging between the times your ship was scheduled to sail and when it actually sails?

[AshleyDillo]

1 hour ago, WhiteSoxFan said:

Just curious, would travel insurance help cover the expense of any additional nights of lodging between the times your ship was scheduled to sail and when it actually sails?

It really depends on your insurance policy and what you insured.  Most travel insurance policies have different coverages for trip cancellation, trip delay, and trip interruption, all which have different definitions.  In this case it could fall under trip delay and trip interruption, but the caveat to that is that trip delay coverage doesn't kick in until you've actually begun the trip. 

It's almost like you have to knowingly begin the trip as scheduled and then incur the additional expenses in order to receive any travel insurance reimbursement.  If you make changes prior to the trip and push back your flight and incur expenses that way, travel insurance doesn't consider you as having started your trip until you take that flight.  So there's no recouping those change fees or anything prepaid that you cancel (hotels and such) since YOU are the one choosing to delay the start of your trip at that point. 

If you go as scheduled and are faced with the additional hotel costs once you get there because the cruise is delayed, then trip interruption coverage can be triggered because there is a delay by the common carrier (cruise line) for your next leg of your trip.  Trip interruption would cover anything prepaid that you didn't get refunded for (like if the cruiseline WASN'T giving you any reimbursement for missed days, non-refundable port excursions you miss, etc).  You can also get coverage for trip delay coverage in this case which gives you extra coverage for incidentals, the extra hotels, meals, etc, for the extra days..but there's a daily per person cap on that.

[Atlantix2000]

2 hours ago, WhiteSoxFan said:

Just curious, would travel insurance help cover the expense of any additional nights of lodging between the times your ship was scheduled to sail and when it actually sails?

Potentially yes.  It depends on what kind of insurance you purchased and what the fine print for that specific policy says.  (Sorry, I know that's not the most helpful answer.)

[miriam]

Although this was bought as a package?

 

[ChessE4]

6 hours ago, miriam said:

Although this was bought as a package?

 

When we buy a package, we generally insure the entire package.  But some people just insure part of the trip.  So it depends how you handled the trip insurance.

[miriam]

On 11/2/2019 at 3:48 PM, ChessE4 said:

When we buy a package, we generally insure the entire package.  But some people just insure part of the trip.  So it depends how you handled the trip insurance.

 

On 11/2/2019 at 3:48 PM, ChessE4 said:

When we buy a package, we generally insure the entire package.  But some people just insure part of the trip.  So it depends how you handled the trip insurance.

 

On 11/2/2019 at 3:48 PM, ChessE4 said:

When we buy a package, we generally insure the entire package.  But some people just insure part of the trip.  So it depends how you handled the trip insurance.

We were informed by our travel agent that if we chose not to take the cruise ( RCCL would give us $201 pp refund for lost days if we chose to go)  we would be given a future cruise certificate, but as our holiday window was extremely short, we were offered a fly cruise to the Caribbean then onward to Las Vegas.  If we'd wanted a Caribbean cruise it would have been booked.  If we chose to not book another cruise we would lose £1600 for flights etc.  So we have booked on a shorter cruise on  Rhapsody, in a downgraded cabin, an ocean view not balcony plus no Las Vegas stay and this has cost, for this downgrade, an additional £160.  We're not happy at all!

[Gizmomaven]

I am also on this cruise but all documentation from RCI informs me that the ship will now leave on the 8 November not the 9.

We have also lost visiting 4 Caribbean islands  (which is why we chose this particular cruise in the first place) and they have just added St Marten as an alternative. I appreciate that their concern is for safety of the passengers but they could have used  more imagination with the revised programme.

For example last year we were on similar Transatlantic cruise stopping at Boston and New York but because of bad weather  the stops were cancelled but they substituted Canary Islands,  Grand Bahamas & Cape Canavaral, although they tried to suggest visiting Bruges and Le Havre which of course all the Brits objected to.

The company have refunded us some money as on board credit and we are also to receive some next cruise vouchers but it does not make up for the disappointment of having lost 3 days of our holiday and not visiting the islands intended