Cruise Value Center closed its doors yesterday and are not answering the phones. They took with them over $17,000 in my group's final payments for a Jan. 2009 Royal Caribbean cruise. We are filing disputes with our credit card companies, but the outcome is uncertain. http://www.thisworldtraveler.com/ http://www.professionaltravelguide.c...px?id=TW182350
I have spoken with them before and they always seemed a bit shady to me. I hope that Jennifer, Marsha, and Roger (pronounced Rojay)land on their feet somewhere else and I do hope that you are able to get that financial mess straightened out. That is a lot of money to worry about.
I have used them 4 times booking groups of friends from our ski club, the last 2 times with Roger. I was very happy with his service and even spoke well of them on this website. We just returned from a 2 week Eastern Med cruise in October and everything went well, including the promised amenities. Hopefully the credit card companies will take care of it and recoup the money, and Royal Caribbean will give us time to repay the balance due. Ironically, RCI answers the phone with a message saying we encourage you to book through your travel agent.
The message here is to bookk directly through the cruise line.
Originally posted by calesso:
Cruise Value Center closed its doors yesterday and are not answering the phones. They took with them over $17,000 in my group's final payments for a Jan. 2009 Royal Caribbean cruise.
Were the payments made to RCCL?
I would check first before you dispute them
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Lyn
FORMER CRUISES:
Alexandr Pushkin, Carnival-Holiday, HAL-(old)Westerdam, Orient lines-Marco Polo, Royal Olympic-Olympic, NCL-Dream, Dawn-Princess, ACCL-Grande Caribe, Oceania-Insignia (3), Regatta(4) Marina (1) St Lawrence Cruise Lines-Canadian Empress
The message here is to bookk directly through the cruise line.
Not necessarily true. Cruise lines can go bankrupt too. Have you ever heard of Renaissance and Premier Cruise Lines?
CVC was sold by the original owner Jeff Kivet approxiamately a year ago. At that time the company was solid. There is no reason to not trust a Travel Agency that is in good standing. You need to do some homework first. I wouldn't even buy a $30 shore excursion without checking out the company first.
Before you get all stressed out you need to contact the cruise line. However; they are going to need a little time to sort through all their accounting and bookings to see if in fact they received all monies from CVC.
I immediately contacted Royal Caribbean when I couldn't get an answer on any of CVC phone numbers and my personal agent replied by email that he was no longer with the company. RCI had just received word of CVC's failure themselves and were scrambling in meetings to try to figure out how to proceed. In subsequent calls since yesterday to RCI, they still don't have an answer except that our bookings are solid but the balance has not been paid. We are being advised to take legal action or dispute the bill with our credit card companies. Hopefully, the credit card companies will recoup the money eventually and we will be issued a credit. For now we will probably have to repay the balance if we want to go on the cruise.
I have used CVC 4 times in the past 3 years, and today there they still have a satisfactory rating by the Better Business Bureau. Unfortunately, only one of the 5 couples took out trip insurance. I had done it for the 2 week Med cruise, but skipped it on this less expensive one. Another lesson learned.
RCI had just received word of CVC's failure themselves and were scrambling in meetings to try to figure out how to proceed.
That, to me, is a good sign. The agency was so large that there must be thousands of pax affected. The cruise lines don't want to lose those bookings, either. Keep us posted as you can.
I have gotten a quick education in the past two days about taking certain precautions to guard against losing a deposit when booking a trip.
Luckily no one in my group paid with a check, cash, money order or PayPal because they would have no recourse. Even charging with some debit cards wouldn't be protected. The Fair Credit Billing Act guarantees only your purchases made by credit card for insolvency of the biller.
Make sure you have the cruiseline's booking numbers, not the travel agency's, so that you can check that your deposits and final payments were received by the cruiseline.
And you should not buy travel insurance from either the travel agency or the cruiseline itself since it will not protect you if agency or cruiseline goes bankrupt. Insurance should be bought from an independent company, and you need to check its list of covered agencies, airlines or cruiseships. Any with shaky financial standings are usually not covered.
I'm not aware that the insurance policy would be invalidated if you went through a travel agency that closed before your trip. I assumed the policy is between you and the insurance company once purchased. But then, I know that if you buy a policy through a cruise line and the cruise line goes out of business, that policy is no longer valid. Hmmm.
I've asked my contact at a travel insurance company, but she's out of the office today.
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