What are our chances on a waitlist?
 

My husband booked a last minute cruise for our anniversary next week on Golden Princess leaving from San Juan, PR and going to the Southern Caribbean. Right before booking we spoke to a TA who said the Princess system was down and they weren't even able to answer their phones - so we decided to book online since it was still allowing that. Everything appeared fine when we booked online and we immediately received a "Congratulations" page with a confirmation number. After seeing that we had a cruise to go on, we immediately bought our tickets to San Juan, PR. About an hour later we received an email saying they put us on a waiting list!! After calling to see what was going on, they told us that the ship was sold out and too bad, so sad. We are on the waiting list and they said they moved us up to #4. Has anybody experienced this and what are the chances of more than 4 people cancelling? I know nobody knows how many people might get sick or die before a cruise, but is it very often that people cancel only 6 days prior? We're getting a little nervous that we might be stuck in Puerto Rico for the week (which wouldn't be the end of the world I guess, but just not what we were looking forward too).

Get on the phone now and call a TA, call princess, enlist someone to help you. I have no idea what the chances are on the waitlist but talk to someone about getting priority. Check out Carnival or any other lines that may be sailing that day. I would not want tos pend a week in San juan

Serenade of The Seas still has availability for 01/14/06.

We've been on the phone - all night last night and all morning today. We've talked to several people, managers, etc. and they all say the same thing... wait! I will try to call a TA tomorrow and see if there is anything else I can possibly do. We've also checked into the Serenade of the Seas cruise and while it looks great, it's $350/per person more, which is a tad bit more than we planned on. Does anyone know if travel agents book a block of rooms and cancel them at the last minute when they can't find passengers? I'm just looking for an inkling of hope! :) Thanks.

Check with your airline what is the cancellation/ rebook penalty to travel a different week? I feel real bad for you, something like this is my nightmare. Also the online agency that gave you congratulations confirmation # should have some responsibility for this and should assist you to rebook/ reimburse you for the airline penalty. Check with Carnival, when we took the Golden 2 years ago there was a Carnival and Celebrity ship in port with us. Maybe you'll have better luck on Monday, its hard to get help on a weekend. Ask to speak to supervisors at the TA and Princess. Plead for their help

Don't you usually have 24 hours to cancel airline reservations? I know that is NWA's policy.
I would cancel the cruise and airline tickets and start over.I would be a nervous wreck being waitlisted so close to the cruising date!!
Good luck. What a bummer!

And if worse comes to worst, you could spend a lovely week in Puerto Rico. Check out Vieques on the Caribbean message board - it might just be even more enjoyable than the cruise. There are gorgeous untouched beaches there...

Mandy...You will have little to NO luck at all enlisting the aid of a Travel Agent who had nothing to do with booking your cruise in the first place.I wouldnt waste the time on that.Your best and probably only hope is to talk to the cruise line.It sounds like the online agency got you bumped to number 4.But I wouldnt stop there.Best of Luck!

Well, still no success today. We were hoping a travel agent would release a block of rooms or something on Monday morning. We call constantly. In fact, they probably don't want us on the ship at this point as they think we must be very annoying!! :) We considered paying the penalties for changing our airline tickets and going later, but for that price we might as well just book a more expensive cruise - there are still a couple rooms available on other ships, just quite a bit more than we wanted to pay. Thanks for the Vieques suggestion - that just might be where we end up for the week!

Travel agents release cabins several months before sailing, not days before sailing. Therefore your only chance is last minute cancellations due to health, death, etc.

MandyK...Maybe I have missed something..Is it for thsi Saturday Jan 14? I am online @ Princess.com and they are showing almost all categories available......Just curious

any progress made today? Thinking and wishing you the best of luck.

Nothing yet Hilda! We're still #4. Thanks for your good wishes though. Actually today was even worse, we saw that Carnival had opened up one stateroom on the Destiny, but I had to wait to come home from work before I could book it. Within 1.5 hrs. it was GONE!!! :(

BeachBoi, you're very right, it does appear that they have all kinds of rooms. But when you go to reserve one, you go about 4 or 5 steps before you see they are all waitlisted rooms.

We'll keep trying... that's the only thing left to do.

Pleae bring us up to date, Mandy!

Well I should be packing for a cruise instead of replying here so that's a good sign! We kinda gave up on Princess when we never budged from #4 and they really didn't give us much hope that we would. We also paid a deposit and got ourselves on the Carnival Destiny waiting list. I didn't really trust just sitting and waiting to hear back from them so we kept calling and I kept checking online to see if anything became available. Finally, Wednesday night I found a room on the Destiny on alaskaair.com and I called them up and took it immediately. I was told an auction ended earlier that day. My question is, why didn't anybody inform the people on the waiting list? Anyway, we're heading out at 5:00 a.m. tomorrow so I must get ready. Bon voyage!

So you're on the Destiny? It will be a wonderful cruise I'm sure. Keep us posted.