Update 3/13/20: More cruises now cancelled starting midnight tonight.
At my request, effective midnight tonight, Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, and MSC have all agreed to suspend outbound cruises for thirty days. It is a great and important industry – it will be kept that way!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2020
Update 3/13/20: Disney has cancelled all cruise departures from Sat 3/14 through the end of the month
Update 3/12/20: Viking & Princess cruises have now cancelled. Viking has cancelled all sailings through April 30th and Princess hasn’t set an end date as of yet.
Original post: The U.S. State Department has advised U.S. citizens that they should not be traveling on cruise ships due to COVID-19. Several readers have reached out with existing bookings asking if they are eligible for a refund/credit. This post will try to consolidate information on what each cruise line is offering as a result of COVID-19, some things to keep in mind:
- This is a fluid situation, I expect some cruise lines to change their policy due to the State Departments advice
- Often people book cruise liners through a third party booking agent, in those cases it’s recommended to contact your booking agent directly
Contents
Carnival Cruise Lines
For those that booked before March 6th you can receive a future cruise credit on sailings between now and May 31st, 2020 as long as the cancellation is 3 days before sailing. This credit must be used for a sailing by March 31st, 2021 and must be made by March 31st, 2020.
Celebrity Cruises / Royal Caribbean Cruises
Celebrity Cruises/Royal Caribbean Cruises is offering something called ‘Cruise with Confidence’ cancellation policy. As long as you cancel up to 48 hours before your sailing you’ll receive a 100% future cruise credit for all sailings until 7/31/2020. The future cruise credit must be redeemed on sailings departing on or before December 31st, 2021. If you cancel a Celebrity Cruises cruise then your credit is only good for Celebrity Cruises and not Royal Caribbean and vice versa.
Disney Cruise Line
All Guests scheduled to depart on the Disney Magic between now and May 8, 2020, and the Disney Dream, Disney Fantasy and Disney Wonder between now and May 31, 2020, can change their reservation up until the day before embarkation and receive a 100% cruise credit to be used for a future sailing within 12 months of their original sail date by calling us at 1-866-325-2112 or 407-566-3510 or contacting their travel agent.
Holland America Line
Holland America Line is also offering a ‘cruise with confidence’ program. They are allowing guests to cancel their cruise or Alaska Land+Sea Journey departing through May 31st, 2020. Guests receive a future cruise credit that can be used until December 31st, 2020 (for sailings until December 31st, 2021) as long as a cancellation is made with a minimum of 72 hours in advance of departure date. Cancellations must be made by March 31st, 2020. They are also offering incentives to keep your cruise plans.
Norwegian Cruise Line
For all voyages from March 10th through September 30th guests will have the opportunity to cancel up to 48 hours prior to the sail date and receive a 100% future cruise credit for use on any sailings through December 31st, 2022. This applies to both existing books and new bookings.
Princess Cruises
Princess cruises has a policy, but it’s somewhat complicated. I recommend reading the full policy on their site.
Silversea
Customers can their booking up to 2 days priort to departure and receive a future cruise credit. More information can be found here
Final Thoughts
For now I’ve only listed cruise lines with specific COVID-19 waivers, if you see any that I’ve missed then please let me know in the comments so this post can be updated. It might be worth holding off on cancellations to see if you’re able to get a refund instead of only a credit, although I guess there is also some risk that this credit program will end.
I recently got screwed by cancelling a couple of Celebrity cruises too early (I was supposed to be in Hong Kong at the moment, halfway thru 4 weeks of Asia cruises). They changed the itineraries and I cancelled for a future cruise credit. I ended up getting a 50% refund on the 2nd one since I was still within that refund period but only got taxes on the other one. Then Celebrity ended up cancelling the cruises a week later and offering a full refund PLUS future cruise credit, but it seems like I do not qualify because I cancelled before they got around to admitting that they could not sail to Asia and get refused at all of the ports. Lesson for everyone in this situation, do not cancel unless there is some deadline. In my case there was not and I was stupid to cancel the cruises and not wait them out.
Making matters worse, I still have not received the credit, and it’s apparently not going to be valid on a Galapagos cruise I have booked later this year (if it even sails).
Only good thing I can report is that people say that the credit is used for 2022 cruises, just has to be booked by the end of 2021.
Oh and I still have not received a refund for my flight to Singapore, Singapore Airlines refused it and as of now has refused to even give me a credit.
Call them even though the policy may not say so. Its competitor Princess retroactively applies the same policy to those who canceled their cruises themselves aftr Jan 20, on 100% FCC. The latest policy is for cancellation made by customer since Feb 04, automatically applied retroactively you just need to submit the online form on which refund option preferred.
Thanks for the info. Are you referring to Princess or Celebrity when you talk about the online form?
CLIA says all member cruise lines will cancel for 30 days. Some like Disney have not officially announced this but they are a member- as are all major cruise lines- so be ready if you think you’re sailing at the beginning of April.
https://cruising.org/news-and-research/press-room/2020/march/clia-covid-19-toolkit?utm_source=MagnetMail&utm_medium=email&[email protected]&utm_content=CEO%20Message%20on%20Suspension&utm_campaign=CLIA%20Cruise%20Line%20Members%20Voluntarily%20and%20Temporarily%20Suspend%20U%2ES%2E%20Operations
So the cruise companies have to cancel cruises to keep y’all off the floating petri dish? Have we learned nothing?
I had canceled my cruise with Norwegian earlier this week for a credit—cruise was to start on 3/13. Any chance I can get a refund instead based on their new policy?
Worth a call
Added, thanks
Smartours (boutique charter operator) is offering free rescheduling through next year:
https://smartours.com/safety/
Viking is allowing postponement (i.e., given travel voucher worth all you’ve paid) up to 24 months if you cancel up to 24 hours ahead of time.
Seems like a reasonable policy.
Link?
silver sea:
For cruises till may 31st, refund for future credits up to 2 days prior to sailing.
June/July, full CASH refund 30 days prior, future credits 29-2 days prior.
Aug-Dec, Full CASH refund 30+ days out, <30 days penalty.
https://www.silversea.com/temporary-amendment-to-cancellation-policy.html
Princess has a rather complicated, but more generous cancellation policy that also cover those who canceled their cruises before this policy, as long as it was booked after Jan 20.
https://www.princess.com/news/notices_and_advisories/notices/temporary-cancellation-policy.html
You can get back a combination of refund and credit depending on what cancellation penalty window you are in. The cancellation penalty part would be credit, and the penalty ranges from 25% to 100%. As an example, between 42 and 15 days to the cruise, the penalty would be 75% – it would mean if you cancel in that window, your FCC is 100% of the Penalty which is 75% of your cruise fare. The 25% is refund to original form of payment.
Our cruise sails on Apr 11 and is booked with UR pts. So we intend to wait till after Mar 28, before the deadline of Mar 31, to cancel for 100% FCC and not to have follow up with Connexions on the “refund” part because the payment is from Connexions CC.
We still need to work with Connexions to get back the corresponding UR pts equal to the taxes refund which would always 100% back to original form of payment.
Added, thanks
For a long time I had a small fear of being stuck on a cruise but we booked our first cruise months ago with Royal Caribbean (Navigator of the seas) 3 day Miami-Bahamas April 10-13
Is that a safe route or should we cancel?
LOL
3 day cruise I doubt anything happens. If you depart expect a normal cruise enjoy and have fun
They cancelled our cruise today and offered either a full refund or 125% credit for a future Cruise until 12/31/21