Cruise lines offer various cancellation policies, with some offering no refunds within 30 days or less of the sail date, while others offer a 14-day or less benchmark. The general rule is to cancel a cruise as soon as possible, and the specific time frame for cancellation varies depending on the cruise line and the fare type purchased.
Guests can cancel existing orders for pre-cruise products, including Shore Excursions, Beverage Packages, Specialty Dining, and Spa services via My Royal Cruise. For guests 31-60 days, 75% of the total fare is refunded, while those 31-60 days or less receive 100% refunds. Carnival Cruise Line has cancellation policies that apply to cruises and related travel purchases.
From 14 days prior to sailing to the day of the cruise, the penalty is 100% of the total fare. No refunds will be made if you do not show up for your cruise or interrupt or cancel. Guests currently have up to 90 days before the sailing to make their final payment. Once the final payment is made, guests can be subject to cancellation fees.
For 15 nights or longer cruises, cancellation charges are 100% of the total fare. Cancellations within 24 hours of the reservation are free, but those up to and including 90 days of departure will pay a cancellation fee. Refunds will post to the original form of payment about 7 to 10 days after they are fully processed.
For 1 to 4 night cruise vacations, final payment must be received at Royal Caribbean’s offices at least 75 days prior to the sailing date. If you cancel a voyage or delay embarkation by three days or more and choose not to sail on the delayed voyage or substitute voyage, your deposit will be refunded.
📹 WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CANCEL A CRUISE? THINGS TO KNOW (& what we’ve planned)
THINKING OF CANCELING YOUR CRUISE? We’ve canceled our cruise (sad face)! This was a tough decision & I’ll let you know …
📹 Carnival Cruise Lines Cancellation Policy
I had to cancel my January 26, 2023 cruise the day before and lost almost everything but my port charges and taxes. See how you …
It absolutely is a hard decision to cancel your cruise, we decided there are just way too many hoops to jump through right at this time…we are thinking about a land vacation until everything gets more stable with the cruise industry, Hope your New Year’s cruise is great! Thanks for your article Ilana!
We are booked on Carnival Legend out of Baltimore on 11/28/21. I’m a bit leery about the 2-day testing protocol, since we have to drive 4 hours to the port; however, we plan on testing Friday or Saturday and then we have a hotel booked at the port the day before embarkation. We will just be happy to be on a ship again! 🛳 Thanks for the great content, I just recently discovered your website and am really enjoying it!
Thanks for your information. It was very helpful. And btw my family & I just sailed on the Majestic Princess to Alaska in August. We all got the Princess Plus and absolutely loved it. To us it’s well worth the money because they do combine fancy coffees, alcohol beverages, sodas/pops, and non-alcoholic drinks too.
So glad to hear about your up coming Princess cruise excited for you and you’ll love it for sure. It’s very hard to be sure now a days if things are a go for sure for anyone. I was planning on an Alaska cruise tour but the one I selected disappeared from the web page. So now I still have an one NCL cruise on books for Mexican Riviera 7 days in April. I don’t think I want to chance anything yet for a while. In December will be able to get a booster shot. So I’m going to look for cruisetour for 2023 May then. You’ll love the drink package I got premium one and of course didn’t drink all I could. But was wonderful not to have to worry about anything I wanted to drink.
California Linda says 🥳🥳 for rebooting a cruise. Holiday cruises are some of our favorites as a New Year’s cruise is especially magical. 🥂 You will enjoy this ship and perhaps Ron Goodman will be your cruise entertainment director. He is engaging, energetic and on the wake show he always shows off his daily socks. 🧦
RC needs to be more flexible about rebooking. You must rebook by April. Not sure if this will happen. Why dont they just hold your credit until you wish to rebook. Princess will give you 2 years and return your entire payment. I guess RC will keep my 300 if I do not sail with in THEIR time frAME. I may have taken my last RC cruise if they hold fast to this policy
When covid first started, I was told I wouldn’t be allowed to board, diabetic. Month later RCCL cancelled the cruise. I didn’t get 125 or even 100%. FCC. They finally came up with a almost fair FCC. A year later, they adjusted the FCC downward. After a couple months of our travel agent arguing it is back to clos to what we paid. I will never travel again with RCCL. Even if they manage Noah’s Ark 2.
Sorry about your Oasis cruise but happy you booked Princess for New Year’s. Sadly, I just had to cancel my December Sky Princess cruise due to a family member’s health situation. But I did want to mention that it took only one quick phone call to Princess and I got my refund the next day! Very easy. This was the first time I cancelled but I’ve been cancelled by Princess, NCL, and Royal during this COVID period and I must say, Princess was the most attentive to their customers. I had much longer waits on NCL and Royal to get my refunds.
Thank you for the information. I booked my 10 day Princess cruise to the S.Carib in March of this year but it doesn’t sail until March 30th of next year year so it’s been a long wait with almost 7 months to go.😞 I know the protocols will continue to change but I’m hoping that my cruise doesn’t get canceled because I’m really looking forward to Aruba and Curacao.🤞
Our situation is a bit different than yours, but being first timers it eased our minds knowing we had an option. That said, we pushed our cruise out until November 27th. Carnival made it so easy. No cancellation fees. Now we are facing the challenge of finding a facility on Thanksgiving to do the test. We are celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary on the Panorama. Thank you for your informative article’s.
We were forced to cancel our cruise for October this Saturday. MSC sent out an email saying all passengers 12 and older had to be vaxxed because of the Bahamas travel restrictions. Before this vaxxing was optional on MSC Cruises. Our cruise was stopping in two Mexican cities so I was confused by this restriction. So I called and spoke to a rude customer service representative that without explaining argued that my cruise was certainly stopping in the Bahamas. I pushed for an explanation and she finally told me that their private island is in the Bahamas, even though no one from the Bahamas would be there. When you dock the workers on the ship go and work the island for the day. But since the island is located in the Bahamas they had to abide by the rules of that country. She tried to charge us a $200 fee for canceling, but after I pointed out that I was not the one changing the rules of their contract and was told in the email I received that unvaxxed people could cancel without penalty she finally let it go. I get it…. the Bahamas can regulate visitors to their country for the safety of their citizens and MSC had to follow those regulations, but I also have the right to do with my body as I choose and must deal with those consequences. I am still mourning the loss of my husband’s and my 20th anniversary plans though. Now 5 weeks before our scheduled trip we are scrambling to find an alternative. So bummed! This was going to be our 1st cruise.
We have cancelled several cruises due to the uncertainty surrounding covid travel regulations in non US ports. We opted for a cruise to Hawaii which follows most mainland US covid guidelines but still has a tropical/exotic feel. Some cruise lines are now accepting self testing under the supervision of telehealth providers. Not ideal, but might be a good option for some who find the 2 day test window too close for comfort.
It’s a great article. And so reassuring. I’ve just made my final payment for my Jan cruise. I still don’t think it’ll be going but I’m trying to keep hopeful. I’m going if it goes unless I’ve got the dreaded lurgy of course. If they cancel, then I’ll get FCC and rebook a different cruise. So really I’m not going to lose on this. But I wish we knew more. So far cruising in Australia is off until 17th Dec which makes my 12th of Jan in doubt. The sad thing is I’d booked this holiday way back in 2019 before this all hit.
I never realized you were out of the US, thanks for sharing. We’re looking at Oasis (again!) for Spring 2022 out of Miami, maybe see you onboard if you don’t reschedule this Fall! I’m tentatively perusal things, having October (Freedom) and November (Harmony) already booked and feel comfortable canceling if we decide to, with their CWC program. (As well as having a great TA who handles things for me!)
Ilana, have you been on the Regal Princess before? We sailed on her in 2017 and loved it. We have two cruises booked in the next 4-5 months- Virgin Scarlett Lady in December for my birthday and January 2022 on the Celebrity Apex. Keep up the awesome content, we love perusal your articles and learn a lot from you! 🙏🙏🙏
Thanks Illana, I am carefully about the cancellations policies. Already one of my travel mates once to cancel but not me! Princess has the Book with confidence policy. I am sure you saw this since you booked Regal. As you know i am going on the Christmas cruise on the SKY . I wanted the new years cruise. Originally it was on the sky for new years. That was 2020. They did put me on the Regal but when i could i changed it back cause i wanted the Sky Princess…so i missed my chance of saying hi to you and your family☹️. Have a blast! I here it is nice Lynn
Great info. Thanks, Ilana. My hubby and I are also Canadians, living in the Niagara Region. We are booked on Oasis of the Seas out of Miami on December 5. Westjet flights booked through Air Miles, fully refundable for any reason with our insurance. Hotel for the night before booked and paid for in Miami, fully refundable by December 3. Transfers to/from Pearson also booked and paid for, fully refundable up to 24 hours before our scheduled departure. Despite the 2 day testing requirement, we’re good to go as both Westjet and RCCL accept the Antigen test, which we can get at our local pharmacy and get results within minutes. So far so good! Have we forgotten anything in your opinion?
So sorry you had to cancel. When Princess canceled my cruise for April 2022 I was so disappointed that I did a two week split stay at two Sandals resorts in Jamaica. Protocols were simple and they made the process seamless. Had a wonderful trip. Princess made me so upset as the Travel Planner hounded me to rebook only to have it canceled.
Thanks Ilena. Looking forward to your info on insurance. As a Canadian, we have to jump though more hoops to go on a US-based cruise, as we normally have to fly in and stay one night at embarkation city, which is challenging on the testing front. Then we fly back the day of disembarkation which is another challenge, as Canada requires PCR test which needs to be taken on the ship, and that is not guaranteed to be available. We have a Celebrity cruise planed for mid-Nov 2021 out of FLL and are on the fence on cancelling. We’ll wait until early Nov to decide. What were your plans regarding testing requirements?
We really struggled with whether or not to go forward with our Oceania Cruise on September 20. The week before we needed to cancel which was a 15 day timeline prior to the embarkment, we had decided to cancel. We decided to wait until our last cancellation day September 3 to send our email to our Cruise Advisor. On the morning of September 3, my travel partner and I both independent of each other woke up and were already regretting the cancellation. We talked on the phone and decided to go…so here we are moving forward. We are both wierdly afraid of one of us testing positive and unable to get on the plane for Amsterdam. We are both vaccinated but it is like waitng for the other shoe to fall. If either of us tests positive at the last minute we will get a refund for the whole amount of the cruise. We are looking forward
I had to cancel my Feb 23, 2023, Carnival cruise 4 days before embarkation day because I cam down with COVID. $150 penalty (which the travel insurance I purchased through Carnival covers). But, there was no cruise credit or refund for me because I was sailing with a friend who had not been exposed. I would have been out my part of the cruise cost if she had not been able to find another friend to sail with her, or if she did not cancel due to “close/recent exposure to COVID” (she had not been). Do you have a article on choosing the best trip insurance? From what I can tell, purchasing through Carnival was not a great choice.
RC refunds the taxes and fees portion of your cruise cost and only the remainder goes to the “Future Cruise Credit”. We are considering to cancel our late October RC cruise due to testing hassle, high covid rates, and masking policy. All of these were not in place when we booked. But, we still have not made up our mind.
Thanks for your info. I gather you’re from Canada as are we. We recently cancelled our November Holland America cruise from San Diego to Hawaii and return. We cancelled outright and got a full refund including OBC and excursions. It was a tough decision as we were to celebrate our 48 anniversary. We also have a celebrity cruise in may from Hawaii to Vancouver, but will be cancelling that as well. For us the virus is still just to prevalent in the USA and there are still too many cases aboard cruise ships despite all of the protocols. Hopefully by our 50th we will feel safe enough to sale again.
Thank you for this…we have a cruise booked in November with Carnival, and I broke my leg a week ago in Vegas. The urgent care stabilized it and said to get with doctor for a cast when I get home, so I go tomorrow and after researching on the internet, I am thinking I might need to push cruise out a little bit? Gonna ask doctor about what I should do?
I got a cruise in april 2022, and i’m thinking about cancelling. I live in Montreal and I would have to fly to Florida, the issue I have, it’s the testing requierement to get back on the flight. With Carnival, they don’t offert testing for vaccinated on their ship anymore, so I would need to stay longueur in Florida and find a place that do PCR test so I can get back to Canada.
Thank you for this article. My question is, I booked a cruise for the first week in July. I planned on taking both my daughter and granddaughter. I gave all of the information to my then, travel agent. I expect that the travel agent would know what questions to ask. My granddaughter’s passport would expire in September. She needed to have 6 months left when she returned as she’s only 8 years old and her passport was only good for 5 years. The travel agent took the liberty of canceling all of us despite me telling her that I still wanted to go. I’m already invested $4,000 and she advised me that she could get me back on the ship if I were willing to pay an additional $2,200. I was so upset that I didn’t want to deal with her. Royal Caribbean wasn’t much help. I had to have my daughter write a letter to Royal Caribbean with her ID in order to get control of the cruise credit. They still have not sent me any proof of having the cruise credit despite asking them several times. Is it possible for me to just get my money back? Thanks
Thank you for that information. We have a Carnival cruise booked for April 2022. Due to our ages and health we are not confident cruising until the Covid numbers go way down. I called Carnival and they told me I would lose my entire deposit. It was hard enough to make the decision not to cruise and then to be told we would lose our deposit. Any suggestions?