Oversold? Not On A Cruise Ship

A headline on a Cruise Critic article caught my attention recently. It had to do with what might happen if your cruise was oversold. Oversold? I'd never heard of such a thing. It turned out that it indeed was a headline to catch your attention. The article explains very nicely why this might happen on airlines but would rarely, if ever, happen on a cruise ship.

One of the reasons is that you have to make a deposit and as it gets closer to sailing, you need to make payment in full. If you should happen to cancel, the closer you are to your sailing date the less money you can get refunded. Therefore the cruise lines have a better idea of exactly how many guests they will have on board.

What may happen however, is that you could book a room with a guarantee meaning you are paying to get a room in a certain category--say a room with a veranda. If those rooms are selling well and as it gets closer to sailing, the cruise line may ask you to upgrsde in order to have the room available for another guest who has requested it. Usually upgrades happen to those who have some past experience cruising with that line.

There was one time when we were asked to change our plans for a cruise. Some very large group had actually booked the whole ship. The cruise line gave us some nice perks and savings on our cruise to have us change to another week. When you're retired, it's not as difficult to make those changes. Remember, when you are asked to make changes, the cruise line is eager to keep your business so usually they will go out of their way to make it reasonable.

The article on Cruise Critic is: What Happens if Your Cruise is Oversold? It would be worth your while to take a look at it.