Line canceled shore tour, charged cancellation fee
In August ’07 my husband, Robert, and I booked a 14-day South America cruise on the Norwegian Dream; we would leave Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Feb. 3, 2008. At the same time, we booked a shore excursion, “Antarctic Flightseeing,” online for $2,199 per person. We received written confirmation from Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) that same month.
In November ’07 we made our final payment on the cruise, and in December we received our itinerary and confirmation of the shore excursion.
Well, we got on the ship in Buenos Aires, and a few days later we received a letter stating that if the Feb. 11 shore excursion should be canceled due to bad weather, we had two options: take a tour of Torres del Paine National Park priced at $999 per person or be charged a 10% cancellation fee ($220 per person). We were to return this form by noon on Feb. 7.
“Tickets for this excursion will not be issued if this form is not returned to Shore Excursion Desk,” we read.
The main reason we went on this cruise was to take the Antarctica landing tour, so we signed the form.
On Feb. 11 we all met in the lounge at 7:15 a.m. in order to leave at 7:30. At 8:00 they called for the Antarctica tour participants and we were told that the tour was canceled due to weather conditions.
Robert and I did not take the Torres del Paine excursion.
NCL refunded our money minus $220 each as a cancellation fee.
We made several attempts to rectify this problem on the ship, but they passed it on to the corporate office.
After returning from the trip, we contacted the corporate office in Miami, Florida, several times, talking to four representatives and leaving a voice-mail message for another. All promised a return call, but we received no call.
Why didn’t NCL inform us of this policy and have us sign the form upon confirmation of the tour and not wait until we were on the ship?
JUNE DIEHL
Franklin, MA
ITN sent a copy of the above letter to Norwegian Cruise Line (7665 Corporate Center Dr., Miami, FL 33126) and received no reply.