Our Low Carb Cruise Group scheduled for March 1, 2010 was informed by Carnival that someone had filled up the cruise ship for the date we had originally chosen. We were told that we had ONE week to pick a new date or port.
The "favor" that Carnival did for us was to allow us to keep our same rate.
Well... I contacted all of our guests who had already registered so far, and for the most part it is early enough that they were okay. A couple of guests had already booked their flights and it will cost them an additional $150 to transfer to the new date -- March 6th. I only had one guest who had to cancel.
Just interesting... I didn't know they would do this.
Regandy, how many people are in your group and when did you book?
It's amazing something like that can happen when you book over 10 month in advance.
We are expecting between 75-100 in our group. Odd that a ship of 2500 people can be completely booked by ONE group? Who knows. We didnt' lose anyone in the changeover thought. We are going on March 6,2010 .. same port, same ship.
I know last year we were looking at booking on the Legend for our 10th wedding anniversary.
Luckily, it got completely booked a few weeks before we tried to book it.
A nudists group had it completely booked for the entire week and even had a personalized itinerary.
We wound up on the Freedom instead and docked next to the Legend in Key West.
We did have some fun on our balcony, hearing the poor Captain of the Legend having to keep making announcements that their passengers had to put clothes on while in port. LOL....
I also remember a Mother/Daughter christian group completely booking the old Celebration out of Jacksonville.
Their cruise stipulated no alcohol on board and the casino being closed the entire cruise.
Usually when a group books the entire ship, they are paying a rate that is above and beyond what was being charged previously. (the Mother/Daughter group had to pay much extra for the lost revenue in alcohol and the casino, from what I had read.)
So obviously, Carnival will take the higher rates and make more and a completely sold out cruise, many months in advance and move on too trying to sell out the other cruises.
Hope the cruise you switch to, goes well for your group.
Bill
Carnival Freedom - Key West, Grand Cayman, Ocho Rios - February 2009
Regandy, how many people are in your group and when did you book?
It's amazing something like that can happen when you book over 10 month in advance.
This happens sometimes. It's not frequent though. Bill in his post above describes the scenario under which these cruises get bumped.
Booking the entire ship is called a Full Ship Charter and this happened last year when the Caribbean Princess and Carnival Victory were Chartered as floating hotels for the Summit of the Americas in Port-Of-Spain, Trinidad. Guests who were booked on cruises were offered later cruise dates at reduced fares.
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