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.

In the wake of Royal Caribbean suspending all of its cruises for many months to come, the cruise line offers guests more flexible cancellation terms under the "Cruise with Confidence" program.

Cruise with Confidence has proven to be very popular with guests, because it covers most sailings and gives peace of mind that they can change their mind later on.

The premise of Cruise with Confidence is it allows anyone free cancellations, where you can cancel a cruise up to 48 hours before the sail date and get a 100% Future Cruise Credit that is good for 12 months or more.

Cruise with Confidence is applicable to guests booked on-or-before January 31, 2021 on sailings departing through April 2022. This encompasses essentially all Royal Caribbean sailings available to book currently.

This includes refundable or non-refundable cruise fares.  You are able to take advantage of either booking type with no penalty or change fee for opting into the Cruise with Confidence program.

Chartered sailings do not qualify for Cruise with Confidence.

When opting for the Future Cruise Credit that Cruise with Confidence offers, all rate codes apply, with no restrictions.  The exception is if you prefer to take advantage of Lift & Shift of the Best Price Guarantee programs, which have restrictions on Net rates, Casino rates, Travel Agent Friends & Family rates, Travel Agent Reduced rates, and complimentary staterooms.

Before you cancel your cruise, you may want to consider using Lift & Shift to price protect what you have booked for a similar sailing the following year.

More helpful information

If you have more questions about cancelling 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

Following up on Royal Caribbean's commitment to process guest refunds for cancelled cruises significantly faster, they announced today they have not only cut down the amount of time guests must wait for a refund, but the super long waits are also nearly gone.

Vicki Freed, Royal Caribbean's Senior Vice President, Sales, Trade Support and Service, proudly informed travel agents on her weekly webinar that there are just 100 reservations left that are waiting more than 30 days for a refund.

"We're pretty much caught up to date. We have about a hundred bookings that are still over the 30 day mark that we have not refunded," Ms Freed said. 

Just last week, Ms. Freed said there were about 1,000 bookings that are still over 30 days waiting for a refund. While she said they aimed to process them all by this past Sunday, they have been able to process nearly every single one.

Currently, Royal Caribbean is averaging about 23 days to process a new refund request

If any travel agent has a client who is waiting more than 30 days for a refund at this point, she asked the agent to personally contact her via email to get a resolution immediately.

Moreover, Ms. Freed added that phone call wait times are significantly down, which means no more crazy long phone hold times.

"And by the way, with the exception of groups and service, the phone lines are pretty much under control and even groups of service, maybe the wait time is 15 to 20 minutes."

Getting refunds processed quicker has been a high priority for Royal Caribbean, which was inundated with refund requests following wave after wave of cruise cancellations due to the global health crisis.

The growing pool of refunds waiting to be processed became a black eye for the company, and they quickly made knocking those numbers down a top priority.

A combination of introducing new self-service tools, along with hiring back laid off workers, have contributed to greatly reducing the processing times.

Royal Caribbean informed travel partners on Wednesday they have extended its popular Cruise with Confidence policy by another two months.

Cruise with Confidence now allows cancellations up to 48-hours prior to sailing, in exchange for a 100% Future Cruise Credit (FCC) on sailings through April 2022 for bookings made on or before September 30, 2020.

There is no change to the policy parameters, which was originally announced on March 6, 2020 in an effort to give consumer a higher level of trust that they could change their mind later if they do not want to cruise.

Under the program, should you change your mind about a booked sailing, Cruise with Confidence offers the flexibility to cancel up to 48-hours prior to the sail date in exchange for a 100% Future Cruise Credit.

Cruise with Confidence is applicable to guests booked on-or-before September 30, 2020 on sailings departing through April 2022 (all open deployment as of July 22, 2020).

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.

In addition to Cruise with Confidence, guests can still take advantage of "Best Price Guarantee" and "Lift and Shift."

• Best Price Guarantee: Guests can choose to change the price and promotional offer on their reservation up to 48 hours before their cruise.
• Lift and Shift: This option is ideal for those guests wishing to move their vacation plans to next year. Eligible between now and September 30, 2020, guests can protect their original cruise fare and promotional offering by shifting to a future sailing on the same itinerary type, sailing length, stateroom category, and within the same 4-week period of their original cruise date same-time-next-year.

“Guests are reacting positively to our Cruise with Confidence policy,” says Royal Caribbean Group chairman and CEO Richard Fain, “because it enables them to make informed decisions and to better manage complicated travel plans during this unprecedented time of uncertainty.”

Currently, Royal Caribbean has cancelled all of its sailings through September 30th, 2020.

Helpful resources:

• Royal Caribbean Cancellations
• Royal Caribbean Future Cruise Credit: What you need to know
• Top 10 Royal Caribbean Lift and Shift questions
• How Royal Caribbean will let you take advantage of a price drop up until 48 hours before your cruise

Royal Caribbean has made great strides in getting the average time it takes to process refund time, getting the average under a month.

Ever since Royal Caribbean suspended its global sailings in March, the cruise line has been swamped with refund requests, resulting in significant delays processing refunds.

Royal Caribbean's Senior Vice President, Sales, Trade Support and Service, Vicki Freed, told travel agents that the average refund request is now 23 days.

Moreover, there are about 1,000 bookings that are still over 30 days waiting for a refund, but all of them should be processed by this Sunday.

"We also want to report some great news, and that is that our average refund is twenty three days," Freed said in a webinar.  "Now, we do have about a thousand bookings that are over 30 days waiting for a refund. And we should have those process by Sunday this weekend.

Tackling the problem

Processing refunds has been a sore subject for Royal Caribbean, with refunds taking much longer than expected.

Refunds were originally expected to take 30 days to process, but some refunds were taking up to 45 days or longer. 

In April, Royal Caribbean apologized to guests for the delays after hearing from so many guests how long things were taking.

To help speed things up, the cruise line rehired over 100 employees that were laid off in April 2020 in order to help with the significantly long phone hold times.

With so many cruise cancellations these days, Royal Caribbean devised a new way for guests to easily defer their cruise vacation with the Lift and Shift program.

This new policy makes moving an existing cruise vacation to next year much simpler than having to cancel a reservation, get a refund, and then re-book and re-pay for everything. Plus, it has the added benefit of protecting the price you paid for the original reservation.

Considering the typical year-over-year price increases, Lift and Shift has proven to be a very lucrative and popular choice for guests.

Naturally, new policies tend to have lots of questions associated with them, so here is a look at the most commonly asked Lift & Shift questions readers have been asking.

Who is eligible to use Lift & Shift?

The Lift & Shift option is available to guests with existing bookings, as well as someone who has had their cruise cancelled by Royal Caribbean.

If you have a cruise booked currently, you can elect to Lift & Shift that sailing between now and August 1, 2020. After this point, Lift & Shift expires and is no longer eligible (although Royal Caribbean could potentially extend it).

If Royal Caribbean cancelled your cruise during the sailing suspensions departing June 12 - September 15, 2020, as well as Bermuda sailings and those sailings visiting a Canadian port through October 2020. Likewise, Odyssey of the Seas departures between November 5, 2020 and April 17, 2020 are also eligible.

Sailings previously impacted by cancelled cruises prior to June 12, 2020 are unfortunately ineligible.

Can I use Lift & Shift with any cruise fare?

Lift and Shift works with most fares, but there are a few restrictions on select rates that are ineligible for Lift and Shift.

These include (but not limited to):

• Net rates
• Casino rates 
• Travel Agent Friends & Family rates
• Travel Agent Reduced rates
• Complimentary staterooms

Do I have to book the same ship or ship class when using Lift & Shift?

No, you do not have to rebook on the same ship or even the same class of ship.

The requirement for Lift & Shift is to ensure it is the same itinerary, stateroom category, sailing length, and timeframe. You can move between ships without an issue, provided those other requirements are met.

Will add-ons (such as air, transfers, and hotel) and pre-cruise purchases (such as beverage packages, shore excursions, etc.), follow to the future ship/sailing?

No, all add-ons and pre-cruise purchases will be cancelled and refunded when opting to Lift & Shift.

These add-ons can be added to the future reservation, as desired, at prevailing rates.

Keep in mind that while Royal Caribbean's promotions carry-over with the reservation, any promotions or incentives your travel agency may have provided will likely not carry over.

Are there any sailings that I cannot Lift & Shift my cruise to?

There are a few dates that you cannot Lift & Shift to, unless you are already booked during this time of year.

This includes Christmas, New Year’s, and Chinese New Year’s cruises.

If you are already booked on one of these holiday sailings and want to take advantage of Lift & Shift, you can move to the same sailing next year (assuming all other qualifying criteria is met).

Can I Lift & Shift a 2021 sailing to 2022?

This is a gray area of the rules, where I have heard from numerous readers they have been able to Lift & Shift their reservation to 2022.

It seems in general it is possible, but it may require talking to the right person to get it done. 

It seems the only caveat is that is allowed as long as there are sailings in your date range (currently Royal Caribbean only has 2022 cruises available to book through early 2022).

Is there a limit to the number of times I can Lift & Shift a reservation?

Yes – throughout the life of your client’s booking, you can opt to Lift & Shift only one time during the designated opt-in period.

Can I Lift & Shift if I have only paid deposit, and not made final payment date?

Yes, all that is required to take advantage of Lift & Shift is for names and full deposit to be on the reservation.

This includes refundable or non-refundable cruise deposit. Either one will work.

When you complete Lift & Shift, your deposit type remains the same, so a refundable deposit remains a refundable deposit.

Can I Lift and Shift if I am past Final Payment and now within the cancellation penalty period?

Yes, provided all required criteria are met, your client can opt to Lift & Shift to a qualifying future sail date.

Since your current reservation falls within the cancellation penalty period, the applicable penalty amount (as indicated on the
day the booking is re-accommodated) will follow your reservation to the new ship and sail date.

Assuming that you sails as planned, there is no impact. Should you decide to cancel in the future, the assessed penalty amount
from the original reservation will be withheld, as well as any additional cancellation fees as indicated by the payment schedule on the new ship and sailing.

Once I decide to Lift & Shift my reservation, can I change my mind later for a refund or Future Cruise Credit?

No, once you decide to Lift & Shift , reverting to a Future Cruise Credit or requesting a refund at a later time is not an option.

Lift and Shift Tips & Tricks

Here are a few bonus tips to keep in mind if you opt to Lift and Shift!

You cannot pick a room with the self-service form. When you decide to Lift and Shift, if you use the self-service form online, you cannot specify a specific room. If you want to pick your room, you will need to call.

Beware of inconsistencies. Royal Caribbean has been inconsistent with enforcing certain Lift and Shift rules, such as the exact same itinerary. Going between Western and Eastern Caribbean is technically not allowed, but some people have been able to do it by simply talking to a different agent.

Your cruise-add on pricing does not carry over. It is worth noting again that your drink package, shore excursion, or specialty dining purchases will be refunded when you Lift & Shift. You certainly can re-purchase them for your new sailing, but it will be at the prevailing rates.

Have you used Lift & Shift?

What has been your experience using Lift & Shift? Is there a question you still have about the process? Share your questions and advice about Lift and Shift in the comments!

Royal Caribbean has made it easier to manage Future Cruise Credits in a situation where a guest uses a Future Cruise Credit towards another sailing.

In a scenario where a guest uses a Future Cruise Credit to pay for their existing cruise, but now wishes to cancel under “Cruise with Confidence” terms, the cruise line aims to simplify the process.

If a Future Cruise Credit was leveraged to pay for either all or a portion of the existing reservation, Royal Caribbean will make it easier by combining all funds into one voucher. This is an alternative to having multiple FCCs, one from each cancelled booking.

The value of the original FCC will now be added to the new FCC at 100% of its original value, plus the addition of any amount paid by the guest.

Regardless of the original FCC’s expiration date, the new FCC is valid through December 31, 2021, at which time all unused funds will expire.

Prior to this change, Royal Caribbean would have issued a separate FCC for each cruise instead of combining the value into one.

This is another change Royal Caribbean has made to its Future Cruise Credit program, which has evolved since the start of the current global cruise suspension in order to meet the needs of guests.

Earlier in June, the cruise line began allowing guests to use Future Cruise Credits to pay for a new cruise deposit.

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.

Royal Caribbean has updated its policies to allow guests to use a Future Cruise Credit towards the deposit on a new cruise booking.

The cruise line updated its policy on Monday to allow guests to use a Future Cruise Credit to pay for the deposit owed on a reservation.

As long as the value of the Future Cruise Credit covers the full deposit amount, no additional funds will be owed until Final Payment, at which time any cruise fare balance and taxes/fees will be required. 

If the value of the FCC does not cover the full deposit amount, additional funds will be required to meet the total deposit needs and, thereafter, the remaining balance due at Final Payment.

Prior to this policy change, guests with a FCC would be required to put a cash deposit down first on a new reservation, and then apply a FCC to the reservation.