Royal Caribbean announced on Wednesday it has simplified when guests can use their future cruise credits (FCCs) by extending the expiration date to April 30th, 2022, regardless of when the sailing suspension occurred..

This change means guests have until April 30th, 2022 to apply your certificate to a Royal Caribbean International cruise that sets sail on or before the same date. 

The change is automatic, and there is nothing extra guests have to do to have their FCC extended.

Prior to this announcement, most FCCs were set to expire on December 31, 2020.

Royal Caribbean informed travel agents that the continued cruise shutdown has lasted much longer than anticipated, and as a result, this extension made sense.

"We never imagined the pause in cruising to last as long as it has. At the onset of the pandemic, rebooking deadlines and opt-in dates provided ample time for future vacation planning and cruise credit redemption — however, as time has progressed, the window of opportunity has narrowed."

Last month, Royal Caribbean had extended Future Cruise Credits that were going to expire by the end of 2020.  Today's announcement moves everyone ahead again to the end of April 2022.

Emails have been sent to guests who had future cruise credits to inform them of this change.

What can I use a future cruise credit for?

Future cruise credits are vouchers that guests typically get when a cruise is cancelled in lieu of a refund. You can think of them as a kind of gift certificate.

Future cruise credits have become widely available due to the current voluntary cruise shutdown that Royal Caribbean is engaged in, which means while cruises are being cancelled due to the global health crisis, Royal Caribbean is offering guests future cruise credits.

Royal Caribbean allows guests to use their future cruise credits to pay their cruise fare, including the deposit.

It cannot be used towards add-on purchases, like drink packages, shore excursions, port fees or taxes.

Royal Caribbean is informing guests who have unused Future Cruise Credit (FCC) that were set to expire at the end of 2020 they will get an extra year to apply them to a new booking.

Royal Caribbean decided to extend future cruise credits that were issued before the global cruise shutdown began and were set to expire on December 31, 2020.

UPDATE: The extensions apply to all Future Cruise Credits that were going to expire between March 14, 2020 - December 30, 2021.

Instead, these credits will now be extended until December 31, 2021.

This change does not affect future cruise credits from the voluntary cruise suspension, as those future cruise credits are not scheduled to expire until December 31, 2021 already.

Emails have been sent to guests who had future cruise credits to inform them of this change.

"We know options have been more limited than normal and you may not have had the opportunity to use your Future Cruise Credit (FCC). Not to worry though! We want to make sure your credits don't go unused, so we've decided to extend your Future Cruise Credit until December 31st, 2021."

The FCC will automatically be updated no later than Monday, November 16, 2020 to reflect the new expiration date.

How do you get a future cruise credit?

Future Cruise Credits are given to guests and represent a certain value that can be applied to a new cruise reservation.

It most most often given as an alternative to a refund, although many times refunds may not be available.

Future cruise credits have become widely available due to the current voluntary cruise shutdown that Royal Caribbean is engaged in, which means while cruises are being cancelled due to the global health crisis, Royal Caribbean is offering guests future cruise credits.

In fact, the Cruise with Confidence program offers flexible terms for cancelling your cruise up to 48 hours before your sail date.  If you elect to cancel a cruise under Cruise with Confidence, you are eligible to receive a future cruise credit worth 100% of the money you paid.

Royal Caribbean has changed a rule about how guests can use their future cruise credits (FCC) to make it much easier if you have leftover credit.

If a guest uses their FCC for a sailing and has a leftover balance, they do not have to wait for the first sailing to complete before applying the remainder.

Prior to the change made this week by Royal Caribbean, guests had to wait until the first sailing was over before they could use any remainder credits from that voucher.

With this new change, Royal Caribbean allows guests to redeem a FCC on two active bookings.

Royal Caribbean alerted travel agents to this change this week:

"Enhancements have been made to the existing FCC process where any balance remaining on an FCC no longer has to await the return of the existing cruise vacation before applying the balance to a future/new reservation. That means the same FCC can now be redeemed on 2 active bookings! Once a portion of the FCC is applied to a reservation, the remaining balance FCC will be generated and, in turn, sent to your client for use as they wish. Please note that any FCC with a pending balance from the past few months will now be run through this process, with an anticipated completion date for all by end-of-October."

The old policy for only allowing an FCC to be used on one sailing at a time was a policy that originated well-before the current global cruise shutdown.

In fact, future cruise credits were fairly rare for guests to have before this year, but so many guests now have at least one FCC to use due to all the cancelled cruises in 2020.

Royal Caribbean has slowly changed some of the FCC rules because of all the cancelled cruises, including being able to use a FCC towards a deposit and even allowing guests to combine FCCs.

Future Cruise Credits are an option for guests who either choose to cancel their cruise up to 48 hours before the sail date via the Cruise with Confidence program, or have their cruise cancelled by Royal Caribbean. In either case, a voucher code is provided that can be redeemed for the value of the sailing.

When Royal Caribbean cancels the sailing, the Future Cruise Credit is worth 125% the value of the cruise fare that the guest paid.

Have more questions about a FCC? These stories will help:

• Royal Caribbean Future Cruise Credit: What you need to know
• Top ways you cannot use your Royal Caribbean future cruise credits
• What happens if I want to cancel my Royal Caribbean cruise?

Royal Caribbean has extended its Cruise with Confidence cancellation policy to now include sailings through November 30, 2020.

The popular program allows guests to cancel a cruise for any reason up to 48 hours before a sailing is scheduled to depart in exchange for a future cruise credit.

It was scheduled to end on September 30, 2020 prior to the extension.

In addition, the Lift and Shift option will be extended to November 30, 2020.  Lift and Shift allows guests to defer their cruise by a year.

The Cruise with Confidence program was introduced at the beginning of the health crisis, and provides significantly relaxed rules concerning canceling a cruise if the situation changes for a guest.

Royal Caribbean Group chairman and CEO Richard Fain thinks this extension makes a lot of sense for guests, "We want our guests to feel they can safely keep their existing cruise bookings or schedule new sailings, because this policy gives them more freedom and flexibility."

Ordinarily, guests would incur a penalty for canceling a sailing beyond the final payment date, which is typically 90 days before a sailing commences. Cruise with Confidence provides a great deal more flexibility to change minds with no penalty.

The extension applies to all cruises with sailing dates on or before April 2022, and applies to the company’s global brands Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, and Azamara.

Cruise with Confidence future cruise credits expire on December 31, 2021 or 12 months from the cancellation date, whichever is further out.

One of Royal Caribbean's most popular ways to move a booked cruise during the shutdown is about to expire.

The Lift and Shift program allows guests to take a booking they have and move to next year, while keeping the price they have locked in from this year.

Lift and Shift is set to expire as an option to use at the end of this month, and RoyalCaribbeanBlog has learned there are no plans to extend it.

An email from a Royal Caribbean Strategic Account Manager confirmed the program is set to expire, "Currently we do not have a plan to extend the Lift & Shift past this end of the month.  Should anything change with the Global suspension, dates will be adjusted accordingly. "

Since being offered as an option during the global cruise shutdown, Lift and Shift has proven to be a practical and lucrative option for guests who simply wish to push off their cruise until the same time next year.

Not only does it avoid having to cancel a reservation, get a refund, and then re-book and re-pay for everything, it also allows the guest to keep their current price, which is often lower than the price of a cruise next year.

Until September 30, guests can protect their original cruise fare and promotional offer by shifting to a future sailing on the same itinerary type, length, stateroom category and within the same four-week period of their original cruise date same time next year.

Guests are eligible to rebook under the Lift & Shift guidelines between now and September 30, 2020. After this point, Lift & Shift expires and is no longer eligible.

Note that while Lift & Shift is set to expire, the Cruise with Confidence program still allows customers to cancel their cruise up to 48 hours before their cruise and recieve a Future Cruise Credit for sailings that set sail on or before April 30th, 2022.

Guests with Royal Caribbean cruises scheduled for later this year are seeing check-in times that are later than usually offered by the cruise line.

A number of sailings for November and December 2020 are showing cruise check-in times that go as late as 5:30pm.

Check-in times for Adventure of the Seas December 4, 2020 sailing

Check-in times for Mariner of the Seas November 20, 2020 sailing

Check-in times for Oasis of the Seas November 29, 2020 sailing

Prior to Royal Caribbean suspending its sailings in March, the latest check-in time for most sailings was early afternoon.  Typically, Royal Caribbean ships would depart in the mid to late afternoon.

There has been speculation that one of the new procedures Royal Caribbean may adopt in order to foster social distancing during the check-in process is to spread guests out with more check-in times.

In the weeks before cruises shutdown, Royal Caribbean was already thoroughly sanitizing the cruise ship terminal before and after every sailing. They also added special sanitizing of high traffic areas onboard the ship.

The extra cleaning takes time, which may require cruise ships to push back their departure times in order to accommodate all of these (and other possible) changes.

Royal Caribbean has only hinted at a few possible changes it will embrace once cruises resume. The cruise line is still developing its full set of policies and procedures, which will not be announced until at least the end of September.

Thanks to RoyalCaribbeanBlog readers Thomas Bissland, Meagan Mapson, Joanne Griffith & Judy Carson for their assistance in this post.

Whether you are new to Royal Caribbean or struggling to get a resolution to your current situation, sometimes we all need a little more help to get pointed in the right direction for answers.

Months of cancelled cruises have not been an easy transition for any cruise line, including Royal Caribbean, but there are some easy steps for getting answers if you are trying to sort out options, or get an update on your refund status.

Getting basic questions answered

Your catch-all place to get questions answered is by contacting Royal Caribbean directly for reservation updates, status questions, and other customer service inquiries.

The most straightforward method of contacting Royal Caribbean is to call them on their toll-free number at 800-256-6649. 

If you have taken at least one Royal Caribbean cruise in the past, you should call the Crown and Anchor Society number for (sometimes) faster service at 800-526-9723.

If you have a question about a specific reservation and booked with a travel agent, you will need to contact your travel agent for those concerns.

While phones are easy, contacting Royal Caribbean on social media has proven to be a very effective and quick way to get answers too. 

You can send the cruise line a message on their Twitter and Facebook pages for answers as well. Not only does this save you a phone call, the social media team is very responsive in providing answers to a myriad of questions.

Refunds and Future Cruise Credits

Refunds are not an instant process, but many cruisers have reported it taking a number of weeks to be processed.

The good news is refunds are flowing and being processed, but some of the older cancellations strangely take the longest to get through. It is far from perfect, but they are getting better and better at it.

According to Royal Caribbean's website, in most cases, refunds will post to the original form of payment about 7 to 10 days after they’re fully processed. However, some refunds may take up to 30 days to post. 

Work with your travel agent

First and foremost, if you booked your cruise with a travel agent, be sure to work that person to get things sorted out.

Your travel agent has new digital tools they can access to check on the progress of a refund request, as well as be able to reach out to the right person at Royal Caribbean for further inquiries, such as if the refund amount is incorrect.

Contacting Royal Caribbean directly

If your cruise was booked directly with the cruise line, then you will need contact them for status updates.

If your cruise was cancelled by the cruise line, you can avoid waiting on the phone to cancel by using an online form. If you want a FCC, there is nothing extra to do, as it will automatically be selected for you by a certain date. 

If you want to cancel, request a refund, or rebook under Lift & Shift, use the online form to process it.

You can always call Royal Caribbean's Crown and Anchor Society number at 800-526-9723 to also get updates and questions answered.

More helpful information

If you have more questions about canceling your cruise (or if Royal Caribbean cancels it for you), here are some helpful resources:

• Royal Caribbean Cancellations - Updates, Refunds & FAQs
• What happens if I want to cancel my Royal Caribbean cruise?
• Five lessons I've learned from all these cancelled cruises

As a result of so many cancelled cruises, guests have the choice of turning their cruise deposits into future cruise credits that can be redeemed later, but you should be aware of a few important limitations on how these vouchers can be used.

For most people, future cruise credits are a flexible and lucrative way to hold onto their deposits and cruise fare costs, and turn them around to be used on a Royal Caribbean cruise in 2021 or beyond. Royal Caribbean has even given guests bonus credits when they cancel a cruise.

While future cruise credits work well for most people, you should be keenly aware of the FCC rules to ensure you know exactly if a future cruise credit is the right choice for you.

You cannot get more Future Cruise Credit if Royal Caribbean cancels your cruise later

In order to put traveler's minds at ease with so much uncertainty, Royal Caribbean introduced the Cruise with Confidence program where guests can cancel their cruise at any point up to 48 hours before the cruise in exchange for a 100% future cruise credit.

If you choose to cancel on your own, and later on Royal Caribbean cancels that sailing and offers guests 125% future cruise credit, you cannot take advantage of that more lucrative offer later.

Credits taken from the Cruise with Confidence program are not refundable at any point in time, even if Royal Caribbean subsequently cancels the cruise.

Additionally, Cruise with Confidence Future Cruise Credits have no cash value and cannot be exchanged for a refund.

So you can either cancel with the Cruise with Confidence offer, or see if Royal Caribbean will cancel your cruise later.

You cannot use future cruise credits between brands

While Royal Caribbean International is one of many cruise lines owned by the Royal Caribbean Group, your cruise credits cannot be used on another sister cruise line.

Cruise credits from a Royal Caribbean International sailing cannot be used towards a sailing on Celebrity Cruise Line, Silversea or Azamara.

You cannot use more than one future cruise credit per guest

This is the most surprising caveat for many guests, but you are limited to one FCC per guest.

At this time, only one FCC can be applied to each guest in a reservation. Future Cruise Credits are not stackable.

Royal Caribbean now allows guests to combine FCCs.

You cannot use future cruise credits towards taxes or fees

When Royal Caribbean calculates your future cruise credit, they based it on the total cruise fare paid by the guest, minus taxes and fees (those extras get refunded).  Similarly, you cannot apply a FCC towards those extra costs.

FCCs do not cover taxes & fees or other booking components - such as prepaid gratuities or transfers. Taxes/fees must be paid using another form of payment.

You cannot convert a Future Cruise Credit into onboard credit

Another common question is if you can apply a future cruise credit to a reservation, and use any leftover credit for onboard credit for that sailing.

If the value of your FCC exceeds the cruise cost, any remainder credit will be re-issued for the remaining balance in a new voucher. You cannot convert it to onboard credit.

With so many guests having a future cruise credit (FCC) now from cancelled cruises, some guests are curious if the expiration date will be extended.

Future Cruise Credits are issued at the time of cancellation to be used within a certain timeframe, but with more and more cruises being cancelled, there is concern guests might run out of time to redeem them.

During a travel agent webinar, Royal Caribbean spoke on this topic after the question was raised.

Royal Caribbean Director, Post Cruise Guest Relations & Shared Services, Laly Rodriguez,said Royal Caribbean is looking at this issue, but has not made a decision on it yet.

"We have been looking at that in plenty. The reason I started looking at that is because some of our Pinnacles are starting to say, 'Hey, I have all these future cruise credits and it seems like I'm not going to have enough time to use them.'"

"We're reviewing, discussing, and while we don't have an answer yet, we're keeping that top of mind to make sure that everybody has ample time to use them."

Lots of guests have taken FCCs

Since the global cruise suspension began, many guests have opted to take Future Cruise Credits, even in lieu of a refund. The bonus 25% credit for opting for a FCC when Royal Caribbean cancels a cruise has been a lucrative option.

During Royal Caribbean Group's earnings call with investors on Monday, it was revealed the company has about $900 million in future cruise credit value, with about 40-45% of those being non-refundable.

A Future Cruise Credit from a cancelled cruise must be redeemed on-or-before December 31, 2021 on a Royal Caribbean International sailing through April 2022.