A cruise line is giving passengers who were booked on a canceled seven night cruise to the Caribbean a full refund and a 100% credit towards a future cruise.
Holland America Line canceled yesterday’s sailing on Nieuw Amsterdam due to an issue with one of the cruise ship’s azipods. The cruise line released the following statement regarding the canceled cruise and compensation that passengers will be receiving:
“Due to an unexpected technical issue with one of two Azipod propulsion systems on Nieuw Amsterdam the roundtrip Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Dec. 14 Caribbean cruise has been canceled. While the ship can safely sail with one Azipod, to do so requires approval from several regulatory authorities which is still in progress. Given the impact of the delay on delivering a satisfactory itinerary for guests, a decision was made to cancel the cruise at 2 p.m. EDT today.
All guests have been notified of the cancellation and will have the choice of remaining on board overnight tonight alongside in Port Everglades or disembarking the ship this afternoon. Holland America Line is working with guests to assist with travel arrangements and provide support. Several guests have been re-booked on other Holland America Line cruises departing Fort. Lauderdale today.
Guests will receive a full refund of cruise fare and taxes paid, hotel package costs, prepaid shore excursions and amenities, and any additional travel fees resulting from rebooking air tickets. They will also receive a 100% Future Cruise Credit equal to the amount of the cruise fare paid.
All of us at Holland America Line are incredibly sorry to disappoint our guests and impact their vacation plans in this way. While these types of incidents are incredibly rare, we never cancel a cruise unless we have no choice.
It is not known at this time what impact there may be on upcoming Nieuw Amsterdam sailings. For the cruise scheduled to depart on Dec. 21, booked guests and their travel advisors will be notified no later than Tuesday, Dec. 17, at noon PDT/3 p.m. EDT if any adjustments are required.”
Except give us our refund, its now 2019/12/26, and I am still waiting for the credit to appear on my credit card, they have $1500 of mine locked up. A call to customer service got me nowhere, they said it would appear on the credit card I used and the fuure cruise credits on my account, sent email, got a polite reply that they were backed up and would get back to me And no credit as promised, or at least nothing on my Holland account, that I can see
Mechanical breakdowns happen everywhere in life. It’s not the passenger disappointment, it’s the way a company deals with it. HAL did absolutely everything correctly.