Jump to content

Refunds?


Recommended Posts

Hi Ya'll!! I am NEW NEW NEW to cruising and have my first 'real' cruise booked for March 8, 2021 on Navigator ? It is a surprise Christmas gift for our son and scheduled for his Spring break. SO, my question is IF this is cancelled, how long does it generally take to get a refund. We will make a decision on refund or FCC as a family once everyone knows about it.. But if we choose a refund, I wonder if we would have it in time to use for spring break to go do something else fun & epic.

Anyways...I am so so hopeful that they'll have this all figured out by then (eternal optimist) but want to plan for reality. TIA!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It takes 30-45 days from when the request is made before you will receive any refund or FCC. If you opt for an FCC then you should know that the amount of the FCC will either be ?% if you volunteerly cancel the cruise or 125% if Royal cancels the cruise. FCC is not transferable if each person on the reservation that is 13years or older, but the parent or guardian can request (throughs their travel agent or by calling royal Caribbean) that any kids 12years or younger can have their FCC transferred to another adult aged 13 or older that is on the same reservation # that the FCC was issued under.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

52 minutes ago, Bakerette said:

It takes 30-45 days from when the request is made before you will receive any refund or FCC. 

Theoretically.

Part of the money from our cancelled May cruise is still outstanding, despite multiple calls to get it corrected. Refund request was made April 12. We are just a week away from it being 8 months when the promised timing was originally 30 days (since extended to 45 days).

BTW - that 30-45 days is not calendar days - it's business days, so 6-9 weeks is the theoretical timing not 4-6 weeks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Refunds of cruises is variable for me. 

In cases where I have a refundable deposit before final payment and I choose to cancel I have been getting refunds in 7 to 21 days.

Refunds of cruise planner purchases are back to pre-pandemic timeframes.

I had over 20 cruises booked with them going into this pandemic.   There have been enough WTF moments dealing with various cancellations that it has soured my opinion of the cruise line.  Around 75% of those 20 bookings cancelled gracefully.  I'm down to 4 cruises booked that are non-refundable and I'm hoping they eventually cancel so I go through the refund process as painful as that may be.   

Where I struggle with refunds is when Royal introduces shenanigans when cruises are cancelled.  I've had a couple of cruises where Royal is playing games.  In separate cases they have covertly changed refundable bookings to non-refundable and you only have 24 hours to catch when they do this or they refuse to switch it back.  Then the cruise is cancelled and they only allow FCC or change the options since it was not a refundable booking (which it was).

For two other cases where they cancelled the cruise and we requested the refund option they ignored that and proceed differently. 

One was issued as FCC despite requesting a refund.  Eventually this was resolved and a refund was issued 78 days later.

The other is pending resolution.  This time they chartered the ship for a 2022 cruise and they gave us three options.  The option for price protection was to a date that had no cabin availability for what we had originally booked.  How they thought this was equitable or doable remains a mystery.  We chose the refund option.  Following up several weeks later they claimed we were not eligible for a refund since we cancelled the cruise.  They chartered the ship and they cancelled the cruise.  After escalating they have stated they will refund our deposit in 45 days.  Time will tell.    

To be completely honest I've lost faith in Royal Caribbean.  I've cruised them a fair bit and up to this point they would always do the right thing when things went wrong due from everything like hurricanes or a crane fell on a ship. 

I get the company is struggling and navigating uncharted waters but that doesn't give them license to lie, cheat and steal.  All I want is honesty and fairness even if it takes months to do the right thing, the thing they say they will do but then they proceed in a different direction making false claims and refusing refunds that are clearly due.  

My personal approach right now is to book nothing more with Royal until the pandemic is clearly over and everything is back to normal.  Once bitten twice shy sort of thing.  

I like Royal in general but they've lost their way in this pandemic.  Once I see them getting back to the Royal I used to know I'll come back.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, TriToCruise said:

Hi Ya'll!! I am NEW NEW NEW to cruising and have my first 'real' cruise booked for March 8, 2021 on Navigator ? It is a surprise Christmas gift for our son and scheduled for his Spring break. SO, my question is IF this is cancelled, how long does it generally take to get a refund. We will make a decision on refund or FCC as a family once everyone knows about it.. But if we choose a refund, I wonder if we would have it in time to use for spring break to go do something else fun & epic.

Anyways...I am so so hopeful that they'll have this all figured out by then (eternal optimist) but want to plan for reality. TIA!

Welcome to the message board!!  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, twangster said:

One was issued as FCC despite requesting a refund.  Eventually this was resolved and a refund was issued 78 days later.

Exactly the problem we encountered with one of two staterooms from May. At least you had your money in 78 days - we're at 236 and counting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, twangster said:

My personal approach right now is to book nothing more with Royal until the pandemic is clearly over and everything is back to normal.  Once bitten twice shy sort of thing.  

I like Royal in general but they've lost their way in this pandemic.  Once I see them getting back to the Royal I used to know I'll come back.

I echo that.

On Monday I was generally positive. Today (Friday), that positivity has disappeared and has been replaced with the opposite.

The deal breakers, all the black Friday, extended to the weekend and then cyber Monday deals...only to outright cancel the cruises a day or two later they were advertising sales for. The continual marketing to buy-buy-buy only to announce more cancelations and say 'we don't know when' followed by more buy-buy-buy marketing...not a place I want to keep our money waiting.

We'll look at coming back when there are green lights across the board.

200?cb=20100523172400

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In fairness to Royal I don't know that any other cruise line is any better right now.  They all seem to be having money problems and can't pay out refunds that are due.  That's inevitable with no revenue for a year.

I'm hesitant to give money to any vacation company that requires 100% payment 3 months in advance right now.  The risk-reward isn't there.  If the cruise lines fail I don't want to be the one out of pocket for thousands of dollars. 

Hotels you can pay when you get there.    I can deal with that in 2021 once travel becomes a reality.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Twangster, you have always posted the best guidance and accurate info on this blog and your position on cruising is right on in my opinion. We, like so many others, dearly loved our cruising adventures these past years, and the heartbreak of watching one cruise after another cancel has definitely taken its toll on us. Rebooking, lifting & shifting, canceling hotels, airline tickets, shore excursions and loosing money on some has brought us to the same conclusion as others in this post. As the 8 cruises we had scheduled for 2021 are hitting the bricks one by one, it’s time to request refunds only and no looking back. We can take that $$ and look at other vacation options that are actually available even now. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, BarbieBell said:

Twangster, you have always posted the best guidance and accurate info on this blog and your position on cruising is right on in my opinion. We, like so many others, dearly loved our cruising adventures these past years, and the heartbreak of watching one cruise after another cancel has definitely taken its toll on us. Rebooking, lifting & shifting, canceling hotels, airline tickets, shore excursions and loosing money on some has brought us to the same conclusion as others in this post. As the 8 cruises we had scheduled for 2021 are hitting the bricks one by one, it’s time to request refunds only and no looking back. We can take that $$ and look at other vacation options that are actually available even now. 

My travel agent was able to shift some cruises today from 2021 into 2022.  I feel good with this approach because they were non-refundable so I didn't have to put out any new funds that weren't already at risk.  

I am really hoping and thinking that Royal will survive this unprecedented event.  If they do we will all have to give a lot of credit to their senior leadership team for an amazing display of business acumen.  This past week Royal proposed another $1B in stock to be sold so it seems to me they are well aware of the timing of how this will progress and they are taking steps to continue navigating through uncharted waters.  

I'll feel better when my next significant refund is received.  At that point I'll still be "loaning" some money to Royal, just a more reasonable amount to risk given the low chance that risk turns greater.

All this to say - I think Royal will be back to the great cruise company we have known.  I'm not sure when, but cruising will be back and safer than it was before which is still safer than most schools, churches, restaurants and entertainment venues in our hometowns.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...