Dear Tripped Up,
In early January, my partner and I took a Holland America Line cruise in Baja California, Mexico. Months earlier, we had put our names on a waiting list for a $400-a-person whale-watching shore excursion that was scheduled for the fourth day of the cruise. Holland America confirmed our spot on the waiting list and told us that if spots opened up, it would notify us by email “on how to complete the purchase,” giving us 72 hours to do so. As the sailing date approached, we gave up hope and arranged a whale-watching trip on our own. But a couple of days into the cruise, we noticed that our credit cards had been charged $800 total when we boarded. We then found a note at our stateroom door (along with various announcements and coupons) explaining we had been booked on the excursion and instructing us to call or visit the shore excursion desk if we had made other arrangements. We went immediately, but the desk was closed. We returned the next morning, only to be told we had apparently missed a 48-hour post-purchase deadline to cancel. But the notice did not mention any deadline — and more outrageously, we had never agreed to the purchase in the first place! Appealing to the manager did not help, nor did a 53-minute call to guest relations after the cruise. Can you help? Gabriele, Oxnard, Calif.
Dear Gabriele,
I took a look at Holland America’s “Know Before You Go” page to see whether there was any related policy you should have, well, known before you went. There was a lot to take in: You can bring up to six liters of water on board with you, but no soda or energy drinks. Distressed jeans are not permitted in table-service restaurants. And more relevant, passengers are required to create an account to use for onboard purchases, and it will be charged automatically for a daily “crew appreciation gratuity” as well as for 18 percent tips on food, drink and spa purchases.
There’s no mention of charging your account for shore excursions without your approval, so I understand your exasperation.
But after hearing from Holland America and a cruise expert, I’d say the greater offense was the shore excursion manager’s refusal to back down by stretching the deadline a few hours — especially considering it was a deadline you had not been informed of, applied to a purchase you did not explicitly authorize.
Holland America quickly admitted fault on this last point and has now refunded you each $400. Guests who choose not to take an excursion in this situation are owed full refunds, and that should have happened when you made the request, said Jeanine Takala, a spokeswoman for the company, via email. “This was our error, and we apologize for the mistake,” she added.
Ms. Takala explained that your card was charged because once passengers board the ship, the cruise line uses a different system: charging them and then notifying them through the onboard Navigator app and stateroom letters, and in some cases by trying to call them, giving them a chance to cancel.
But the cruise line has now changed its policy, she wrote in a follow-up email. As of this week, when excursion spots open up after the ship has set sail, wait-listed passengers will be notified and given a short period (often 24 hours, depending on when the excursion is scheduled) in which to accept the spot, or they lose it and won’t be charged. Of course, that would still require passengers to pay close attention to their onboard and online correspondence.
In your case, this communication system broke down, though who’s at fault for that gets a bit foggy. You later told me that you elected not to use the Navigator app. But your partner did, and did not receive (or recall receiving) a notification and did not see that the excursion had been added to your schedule. You also said in your initial email that you two did not carefully go through the mail delivered to your stateroom, noting that it included coupons and other announcements.Not being a cruise fanatic myself, I spoke with Chris Gray Faust, U.S. executive editor of the cruise news site Cruise Critic, via video call from — where else? — her stateroom aboard a cruise ship.
She was surprised, and maybe a little appalled, that the manager you spoke to on board hadn’t given you an immediate refund. She was even more baffled that your post-cruise follow-up phone call hadn’t resolved the problem.
But she was far less bothered by Holland America’s former system of automatically placing wait-listed passengers on shore excursions — and charging their credit cards — when spots opened up, since a system that waited for people to opt in might leave empty spots and disappointed customers. “They’re trying to make everybody happy,” she said. “So they think the way to make the person happy is to say, ‘Hey, we got this slot. We’re going to put you in it.’”
She noted that such a policy serves the cruise line’s interest, too: It has already committed to pay the contractor organizing the excursion, so it needs to fill the spots. (The new system might end up leaving more spots empty.)
Of course, she said, a cruise line should make an effort to explain the process to wait-listed customers, alerting them to look out for notices at their door and on the app. But passengers on any cruise line should also remove themselves from the waiting list once they have made alternative plans, both to protect themselves and to speed the process for others. Sounds reasonable.
In an odd twist that sure makes it seem to me as if members of the shore excursion staff weren’t at the top of their game, you told me that they repeatedly offered you a printed letter titled “For Insurance Purposes” verifying that you had not participated in the excursion but had paid. (You said you did not even have a travel insurance policy.)
That was inappropriate, wrote Ms. Takala. Those letters are meant to help in “situations where an unforeseen event has disrupted the guest’s trip” and might prompt reimbursement from a travel insurance provider.
Alas, the unforeseen event in this case — a cruise line making a surprise charge on your credit card — would almost certainly never be covered.
If you need advice about a best-laid travel plan that went awry, send an email to [email protected].
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Seth Kugel is the columnist for “Tripped Up,” an advice column that helps readers navigate the often confusing world of travel.
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