Cancellation Wasn’t the Problem — The Customer Service Was

My wife and I booked a cruise from Sydney around New Zealand to celebrate our wedding anniversary. The cruise was scheduled to depart on 27 January 2026. Late on the evening of 24 January, we received an email advising that the cruise had been cancelled due to engine problems. While we completely understand that technical issues can happen, the service we received afterwards was extremely disappointing. We had originally paid for the cruise from a bank account that was closed shortly afterwards. On 25 January, we immediately contacted Royal Caribbean customer service to explain the situation. After a very long wait, we eventually spoke to an agent who advised us that the refund first had to be processed back to the original account. Once the bank rejected the payment, Royal Caribbean would contact us to arrange an alternative refund method. Unfortunately, this process turned into a nightmare. After six very long phone calls and more than three months of waiting, we finally received our refund. As this trip was for our anniversary, we decided to salvage our holiday by flying to Hamilton Island for a shorter break instead. In Royal Caribbean’s cancellation email, we were advised that, in addition to the refund, we could claim up to: • $400 per person for flights • $400 for hotel accommodation (2 nights at $200 per night) • $100 per person for incidentals • A 25% Future Cruise Credit (FCC) valid for one year Originally, we had booked one night at an airport hotel before departure, but after the cancellation we extended this to two nights. Because the additional night was not immediately connected to the cancelled cruise dates, Royal Caribbean refused to reimburse the extra night’s accommodation. As we are from South Africa, we also lost approximately $600 due to exchange rate fluctuations caused by the strengthening of our currency during the refund delay. We attempted to claim this under incidentals, but this was also declined. In addition, we had already paid around $600 for New Zealand visas, which became completely unusable after the cancellation. This claim was also rejected. Our son emigrated to Australia in April 2025, and visiting him was the main reason for our trip to Australia. The cruise was intended as a special anniversary addition to the holiday. Our son will be visiting us in South Africa for five weeks in October 2026, so we do not plan to return to Australia until January or February 2027. We therefore asked Royal Caribbean if they could extend the validity of the Future Cruise Credit so that we could still do the New Zealand cruise in early 2027. Since it is extremely expensive for us to fly to the US, Europe, or Australia solely to use the credit within one year, we felt this was a reasonable request. Unfortunately, this too was denied, despite costing the company virtually nothing. Some people may feel we are being overly critical, but after the delays, poor communication, and lack of flexibility, we believe Royal Caribbean could have shown more goodwill and met us halfway on at least some of our requests. Although we have enjoyed cruising with them in the past, this experience has left us questioning whether we will choose Royal Caribbean again in the future.