Just got notification that Norwegian has cancelled our 14 day East & West Caribbean sailing on the Pearl in February 2011. Their explanation is that they have chartered the Pearl. Meanwhile, we have booked hotels, airfares, vacation time off, etc. Norwegian encourages us to re-book on another sailing, but as there were 14 of us going, that will not be an option for all of us to change everything to accommodate Norwegian. Pretty poor of Norwegian to offer a back-to-back cruise, advertise it, accept our booking, then pull the rug (or the ship) out from under us.

This isn't the first time it's happened. They did it this year for a February cruise, and I wouldn't doubt it's the same event that chartered the ship. However; They aren't the only cruise line that charters out ships that already have individual bookings that are then displaced.

Sorry to hear the news, cantwait2go. With this much advanced notice, you should be able to find another cruise or two to fill the void. Maybe even a b2b on another ship, maybe even another cruise line.

As Cruise Fanatic stated, this does happen with all cruise lines. It's just a sad thing. I am so sorry it had to happen to your cruise!

I hate to hear this happened. Carnival has done it in the past as well. I personally think they should have a further out time frame rule of some sort for accepting charters.

Dwayne

Money talks, especially if the cruise wasn't selling well.

Yep, that is the bottom line. Pun intended. http://cruise-chat.com/groupee_commo...icon_smile.gif

Dwayne

What would be unethical, if not illegal, would be if a cruise line continued to accept individual bookings for a cruise they already knew was going to be chartered. I hope that isn't the case here.

Well definitely unethical, but I'm sure all the small print in that multi page cruise contract covers them for the illegal part. They do in fact take bookings after a ship has been chartered out. This happened to my brother. They were suppose to be on the NCL Dawn Feb 21st and they got bumped off because the ship was chartered. You Dave, actually found out who that ship was chartered to. It was Sixthman for the yearly "Cayamo" cruise. I did further research and found where Sixthman had announced that cruise, and it was way before my brother booked. So the cruise line indeed continued to take individual bookings. I just checked and "Cayamo" is scheduled for next Feb 13, 2011 on the NCL Pearl.

I thought this was familiar to me. And NCL got the use of the deposit money for the individual bookings until finally announcing they had chartered the ship. I find that very sleazy.

I remember HAL doing that, as well. Their rationale was that they wouldn't know if they had enough for a charter, so they'd leave open to individual bookings until that point, just in case. I agree that it's unethical and sleazy. It should be that the chartering organization needs to fill the stated number of cabins by a stipulated date, and if that's not met, they lose the charter and it gets opened up to all.

Question for cantwait2go -- did NCL offer a credit that would cover air rebooking fees if you opt for an NCL cruise on a different date?