Chester Posted October 28, 2023 Report Share Posted October 28, 2023 Can anyone kindly give any update as to when, or if the cruises to Israel and Egypt in 2024 are to be cancelled. I have contacted Celebrity and have just been given the company line of passengers and crew safety is paramount, but nothing to state if the cruises will be cancelled or a itinerary change. Extremely sad and distressing loss of life in the area at the moment ,which most if not all other cruise lines have cancelled all cruises. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atlantix2000 Posted October 29, 2023 Report Share Posted October 29, 2023 13 hours ago, Chester said: Can anyone kindly give any update as to when, or if the cruises to Israel and Egypt in 2024 are to be cancelled. I have contacted Celebrity and have just been given the company line of passengers and crew safety is paramount, but nothing to state if the cruises will be cancelled or a itinerary change. Extremely sad and distressing loss of life in the area at the moment ,which most if not all other cruise lines have cancelled all cruises. How can anyone predict the future? 2024 cruises to Israel and Egypt are months away. If you are booked and hoping to get your money back, I'd say it's way too early for the cruise lines to cancel. You'll have to weigh the pros and cons and possible financial penalties of canceling vs waiting to see what happens next year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chester Posted October 29, 2023 Author Report Share Posted October 29, 2023 There has been an error on my part in posting this . The cruise which I am booked on is scheduled to sail on 02 February 2024;I should have put the sail date in on the original post. Final payment is due on 24 November 2023, Sadly I can’t see the circumstances changing in Israel soon. I was only enquiring to see if anyone else is in the same position and if there were any rumours etc if the cruise was going to be cancelled or a change of itinerary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisellama Posted October 29, 2023 Report Share Posted October 29, 2023 7 hours ago, Chester said: There has been an error on my part in posting this . The cruise which I am booked on is scheduled to sail on 02 February 2024;I should have put the sail date in on the original post. Final payment is due on 24 November 2023, Sadly I can’t see the circumstances changing in Israel soon. I was only enquiring to see if anyone else is in the same position and if there were any rumours etc if the cruise was going to be cancelled or a change of itinerary. You can't know what will happen, but if you look back on Covid, they played a game of getting people to make final payments, then once in the window, cancelled the cruise. So if you let them cancel, you get a refund, if you cancel on your own by not completing final payment, they keep more. Plan on it going and put the burden on them to cancel. That's how I'd play it. (Had a similar situation during Covid - and that't how it played out- made final payment then they refunded everything once it was cancelled.) Additional thought, if Israel is only a stop and not an embarkation/disembarkation point, , they'll just change the cruise itinerary to stop at a different country and the cruise would not cancel - just change. WAAAYTOOO 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WAAAYTOOO Posted October 29, 2023 Report Share Posted October 29, 2023 2 minutes ago, cruisellama said: You can't know what will happen, but if you look back on Covid, they played a game of getting people to make final payments, then once in the window, cancelled the cruise. So if you let them cancel, you get a refund, if you cancel on your own by not completing final payment. They keep more. Plan on it going and put the burden on them. That's how I'd play it. (Had a similar situation during Covid - and that't how it played out- made final payment then they refunded everything once it was cancelled.) Not only that....but remember that during COVID they also paid a "bonus" FCC (50% of the cruise fare, I believe) for cancelling the cruise and those that cancelled on their own did not receive the FCC. I think it's highly UNlikely that Royal will be paying any FCC bonuses these days but it DID happen with COVID cancellations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chester Posted October 29, 2023 Author Report Share Posted October 29, 2023 Thanks for the replies,and the advice given. I would just wish for better circumstances in the region,and I am under no illusion that having a cruise cancelled is not the end of the world. Just hope things get better,and for someone in Celebrity’s head office to make a decision. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMOKEY0202 Posted October 31, 2023 Report Share Posted October 31, 2023 Celebrity has changed Israel cruises to Best of Greece itinerary. It's winter in Greece in February..... Many on blogs are cancelling for full refund. Rainy damp and cool in February and many restaurants and shops are closed. What would you all do? Cruise to be on ship or cancel? Given option full refund or $200 OBC and $400 OBC for suites Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khas Posted November 1, 2023 Report Share Posted November 1, 2023 We are booked for April 2024. We were only going for Egypt ports and unfortunately they got scrapped along with Israel. It’s an old dull ship and we have zero interest in Greece. We’ve planned an entire holiday around what was originally our bucket list cruise to see the pyramids and now trying to find an alternative cruise to somewhere we’re interested in for the exact same dates in Europe is proving rather difficult being the off season. We haven’t cancelled yet as a last resort we will keep it, but if we hadn’t booked 6 weeks away coming from Australia I would have cancelled instantly. $200 OBC is not enough compensation for changing 5/6 ports. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miket25 Posted January 1 Report Share Posted January 1 On 10/28/2023 at 7:56 PM, Atlantix2000 said: How can anyone predict the future? 2024 cruises to Israel and Egypt are months away. If you are booked and hoping to get your money back, I'd say it's way too early for the cruise lines to cancel. You'll have to weigh the pros and cons and possible financial penalties of canceling vs waiting to see what happens next year. Who in their right mind would book a cruise to Israel for 2024 or even 2025. Months away? Are you kidding? The shame of it is, the cruise line should admit the destinations are more important than the cruise ship itself. Swapping out Greek Islands for Jerusalem and Alexandria isn't a consolation. Celebrity, cancel the cruise, waive penalty, open up sister cruise line options, and keep your customers happy. OR, keep the $200 penalty, piss off your customer and get a black eye for short term greed!! Again. I booked the cruise for the destinations and on our Feb 2025 cruise it was a major selling point. Celebrity... do the right thing. 10+ Celebrity cruises already. Many more to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atlantix2000 Posted January 2 Report Share Posted January 2 5 hours ago, miket25 said: Who in their right mind would book a cruise to Israel for 2024 or even 2025. Months away? Are you kidding? The shame of it is, the cruise line should admit the destinations are more important than the cruise ship itself. Swapping out Greek Islands for Jerusalem and Alexandria isn't a consolation. Celebrity, cancel the cruise, waive penalty, open up sister cruise line options, and keep your customers happy. OR, keep the $200 penalty, piss off your customer and get a black eye for short term greed!! Again. I booked the cruise for the destinations and on our Feb 2025 cruise it was a major selling point. Celebrity... do the right thing. 10+ Celebrity cruises already. Many more to go. You do realize that I wrote "months ago", months ago? I believe the cruises in question still haven't started. The ships are still scheduled to be in the Mediterranean and that is unlikely to change for early 2024 cruises. They won't sail to Israel but the possibility of changing ports is part of the cruise contract that every passenger signed. For a 2025 cruise, there's simply no reason for any cruise line to change their schedule yet. There may be no active war there in 2025 and the cruise will go on as scheduled. At this point, only you can decide if you are willing to wait and see or pay to change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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