Thousands of passengers affected as Princess Cruises delays new ship

Table Of Content

• Newsfeed Now: President Trump campaigns in NC; Presidential …
• Norwegian Cruise Line cancels more than a dozen upcoming cruises
• Business
• Will the cruise industry shut down because of the omicron variant as it did in March 2020?
• Life at Sea Cruises was unable to acquire a vessel for the once-in-a-lifetime journey.
• Three-year cruise around the world canceled, passengers awaiting refunds

One passenger from the failed cruise, however, is feeling more than inconvenienced. “People got their hopes up once again only to be dashed a few days later – I’m surprised no one in the group has had a heart attack,” said one would-be passenger. "The minute I saw an ad, I thought, 'This is really right up my alley,'" Witman said. "I owned a house. I had needed knee surgery, so I expedited all of those things. I sold my house. Got rid of most of my things." "How did I feel about it? Devastated, disappointed, sad. I packed up my belongings, put them in storage, sent four boxes to Miray Cruises," Shay explained of her efforts before the trip was canceled. She holds an MBA from NYU Stern in finance and management and a BA in economics and creative writing from Columbia University.

Newsfeed Now: President Trump campaigns in NC; Presidential …

A couple who sold almost everything they owned to go on the three-year Life at Sea cruise have been living in a hotel room in Istanbul, Turkey for the past month after its operators failed to find a ship. “As we navigate these challenges, we are actively working on creating alternative plans for the future, ensuring an unforgettable experience for our valued community,” it concluded. Leading up to the cancellation, the cruise line kept passengers informed with frequent webinars.

Norwegian Cruise Line cancels more than a dozen upcoming cruises

The 3-year Cruise to All 7 Continents Has Been Canceled — Here's Why - Travel + Leisure

The 3-year Cruise to All 7 Continents Has Been Canceled — Here's Why.

Posted: Mon, 27 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

The company would get a temporary ship to sail for three or four months, she said, while purchasing a permanent vessel for a longer voyage to start next year. If Life at Sea passengers didn’t take up the offer, she said, they’d also be looking to launch a long-term cruise in October 2024. But now the dream is over for passengers who’d signed up for Life at Sea Cruises’ inaugural three-year voyage. After weeks of silence, the company has acknowledged to passengers that it has no ship, and has canceled the departure, vowing to refund those who’d signed up for cruises costing up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Business

When the cruise missed its planned departure date, the company promised to resolve lingering issues. The company said this month that it had called off planned trips on three ships — Serenade of the Seas, Symphony of the Seas and Jewel of the Seas — and delayed the return to cruising of another, Vision of the Seas, to March. As of December 28, the Youssefs had been living in a hotel in Istanbul for a month — paid for by the cruise company — and were still waiting for their $80,000 refund, The Times reported. The Life At Sea cruise was canceled last minute after the owners failed to find a ship and said that investors withdrew. Life at Sea Cruises and Miray Cruises did not respond to specific questions from CNN, but sent a statement from Ugurlu addressed to passengers citing “investor withdrawal” causing “challenges” to the project. The letter was sent to CNN November 21 and spoke about a potential upcoming cruise date – despite the cruise having already been canceled.

Norwegian Cruise Line said affected passengers will receive a full refund and a 10 percent discount that can be used on any sailing through Dec. 31, 2025. The February Norwegian Epic sailing was set to depart from Port Canaveral. Norwegian’s website shows a new sailing on the Epic is scheduled for Feb. 15 to Feb. 22, 2025. Passengers may be able to transfer their booking to another cruise in place of a refund, Kuther said. If they are rebooked on a voyage that costs less than their original sailing, they would be refunded the difference, but if the new sailing costs more, they would need to pay the remaining balance.

Terms of the deal help illuminate the would-be passengers' financial and logistical plight. Under its 12-month payment plan, the first draw came due one month ahead of the sail date. Those customers are now scrambling to make new plans for where they will live for the next three years — and to extract refunds from the cruise line. The intense fallout is drawing comparisons to infamous debacles such as the Fyre Festival — the "luxury" music festival that was more like a "disaster relief area." When the Life at Sea cruise line failed to purchase the German cruise ship AIDAaura, seen here in 2020, its plans for a worldwide cruise embarking in November began to unravel.

In his message, Ugurlu also confirmed that the cruise was canceled because the company could not afford the ship. The company said that anyone requesting a refund will get one, and that it will reimburse travel expenses related to the cruise. On Sunday, Miray Cruises issued a statement in Turkish, denying that the cruise is canceled. Instead, the company said the voyage is postponed — and it blamed a lack of enough passenger bookings, rather than problems finding an appropriate ship.

Three-year cruise around the world canceled, passengers awaiting refunds

According to the outlet, the cruise was postponed to Nov. 11 and relocated from Istanbul to Amsterdam shortly before its original Nov. 1 departure date. And rather than portioning the cruise for sale in smaller stages, the company required customers to commit to the full three years. The cheapest packages started at $196,000 for a single traveler, and $231,000 for couples, according to the company's website. "Still waiting for my refund. And now you've gone belly up?" a woman who identified herself as a Life at Sea customer said recently on the company's Instagram account.

Life at Sea's three-year cruise canceled; passengers awaiting refunds - USA TODAY

Life at Sea's three-year cruise canceled; passengers awaiting refunds.

Posted: Fri, 24 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

MORE: Taylor Swift fans to set sail on a 4-night Bahamas cruise next year

Alexandra has a decade of experience in journalism, specializing in online newsrooms. She previously served as the senior editor of digital for ABC News, where she directed daily news coverage across topics through major events of the early 2020s for the network's website. Before that, she pioneered politics and election coverage for Elite Daily and went on to serve as the senior news editor for that group. By this time next year, it would be swinging through Asia on its way to Australia, with stops around the Pacific. By the end of 2025, it would be nearing a tour around Africa, which would eventually get it back up to Europe.

“I had the next three years of my life planned to live an extraordinary life, and now [I have] nothing. That’s little comfort to some passengers who did not renew leases, or sold their homes or rented them out to travel the world for three years. The company told passengers it will repay them in monthly installments, as well as cover accommodation until December 1 and flights home for those in Istanbul.

The family made the most of their planned time off anyway, renting an Airbnb in Orlando, Florida, and going to Disney World instead. Life at Sea Cruises had been planning to buy the AIDAaura, a ship retired this summer by AIDA Cruises, a German subsidiary of Carnival Corp. The company had originally slated the sale to go through by the end of September, before working on the ship in dry dock in Germany, then renovating it before sailing to Istanbul to start the cruise. The company also told ABC News that anyone who wants a refund will receive it, including money spent on acquiring visas and other travel expenses. They also said people who have already paid will have a cabin when they set sail in May 2024.

According to Cruise Industry News, the canceled cruises were set to visit the Western and Eastern Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the Adriatic Sea, the Middle East, the Red Sea, Asia and Northern Europe. “That's the more common scenario (to result in a cancellation) where a ship has to be pulled from service for one-plus weeks,” said Feldman. “We were all upset because we were like, ‘How the hell can you cancel a cruise (around) two weeks out? "We tried everything to find a solution, but at the end of the day we couldn't get the investors and we couldn't sell enough cabins," Vedat Ugurlu, Miray's owner, told The Times.

Princess on Friday said passengers booked on the canceled Star Princess sailings can switch to any other Princess sailing. If they do, they'll get a future cruise credit and onboard credit in an amount that varies depending on the sailing they choose. Cruise lines may cancel sailings for a variety of reasons, forcing passengers to change their travel plans, sometimes with little notice. The company had previously said it would offer buyers alternative departure dates or "expedited refunds" if it was unable to sail on December 1, Business Insider previously reported. The Times reported that Miray asked passengers to sign an agreement spreading refund payments out between December and February.