Canceled Excursions - 4 for 4!

[Chad in Tennessee]

I've been on 6 previous cruises, 5 Disney and 1 Carnival.  We just got back from a 7 night Southern Caribbean on our first Royal Caribbean cruise.

The months of reviewing excursions, waiting for online discounts, and preparations for our activities was all wasted.

All four of our excursions were canceled, usually the night before.  One was canceled due to weather (on a bright, sunny day in St. Thomas) and the others were canceled due to "lack of participation."

So....no trip to Trunk Bay, no Snorkeling and Maho Beach in St. Martin, no bus tour of Aruba, and no Semi-Sub in Curacao.  

Be warned, excursions on the ship are priced higher than on the online Cruise Planner.  Plus, we booked with 25% - 30% discounts.  RC wanted us to rebook new excursions at only 15% off the "cruise rate."  For instance, our canceled excursion in St. Thomas was listed as $84/person and our new excursion was listed at $74.  Guess what, they charged us $40 dollars to rebook a cheaper excursion after the cancelation!  The people at the excursion desk couldn't understand my issue (language barrier....) but their supervisor Adriane did give us some extra credit.  

All in all, we ended up doing 3 islands on our own and had a great time, but I much prefer what we originally had booked.  We ended spending quite a bit more out of pocket than we planned as well.  

I have never had an excursion cancelled on any other cruise line.  We even took an excursion with only one other family on my last Disney cruise, no cancellation due to "lack of participation."

Is this normal on Royal Caribbean?  Any chance it was "intentional" to get us to book at higher costs?  Either way, it was highly annoying but certainly didn't ruin our vacation.  It just added new levels of stress and uncertainty, along with a little disappointment that we never got do things we had been talking about for months.

[twangster]

Sorry for your difficulty.  For what it's worth I've yet to have Royal cancel an excursion while on board unless we skipped a stop all together.   

Frustrating I'm sure.

 I've seen others report Royal has been caught canceling an excursion that was sold on sale in advance to offer the same excursion at a higher price in advance but so far that hasn't happened to me.  

[bhageerah]

I only have about 8 cruises on RCCL and I have only had one excursion cancellation.  It was in Cozumel and we had a snorkeling excursion planned, unfortunately there was a thunderstorm rolling in so we had to change to something else.   We have done an excursion in almost every port on every cruise so I have to agree with @twangster that it is not the norm.  

[SolariumSnoozer]

The only excursion I've ever had cancelled was jet skiing at Labadee, and it happened twice.  Both times were for "safety" reasons ( waves were too high) and happened at the time of the excursion not the day before.  Once, we actually got as far as the starting waypoint and had to turn around.  In both instances my seapass account was credited the next day and I never had the feeling Royal was trying to scam us.  Once, on Cococay, Royal held the jet skiing excursion even though I was the only cruiser to sign up (two jet skis, 3 people).   

[cmdrfrag]

4 for 4 is really unlucky. We've only had 1 excursion cancelled on us but it was cancelled about a month before the cruise. 
Reason they gave us at the time was "Seasonal Weather Conditions" but when the day came the sun was splitting the trees. Shame but I can understand why they did it, if 90% of the time around that date its raining and blowing a gale then its probably for the best

[Matt]

Sorry to hear of your experience, but all those excursions being cancelled in one sailing is rather unusual.

[Chad in Tennessee]

Does Royal Caribbean cancel excursions for "Lack of Participation"  or do the "3rd Party Tours" cancel them?

I will be very upset to find out that the excursion took place but that RC didn't want to do their part in coordinating it.

[Matt]

1 hour ago, Chad in Tennessee said:

Does Royal Caribbean cancel excursions for "Lack of Participation"  or do the "3rd Party Tours" cancel them?

Not sure who ultimately makes the decision.  I'd guess the third party, since they are the ones who are running it.  RC is just taking a cut.

[tiny260]

15 cruises and I have never had an excursion cancelled by Royal, agree with everyone on here, 4x4 is very odd.

[Scatmanjack]

We had an excursion cancelled in St. Maarten last time we were there.   Some sort of protest had shut down part (Eastern?) of French Side of Island... Ended up doing a Jeep Excursion on mainly the Dutch Side with stop in Marigot in Western French Side.  Wasn't the beach day we had planned but ended up mostly enjoyable.   I think worst part was not finding out about cancellation until we got off the ship and were meeting guide at the Pier.  Was at the mercy of RC Staff for offerings...  Needed to have back-up already in place just in case...