Cruise Companies May Not Issue Passengers A Refund When Cancelling Because of Coronavirus
As we have been blogging for the past week or so, many cruise companies have been canceling cruises out of China due to the coronavirus outbreak. Royal Caribbean, MSC, and Costa have all announced that they would either cancel or postpone voyages originating in China due to the virus. But other cruise companies have decided not to cancel sailings, causing passengers to have to decide whether or sail and run the risk, or miss their cruises and potentially lose thousands of dollars they paid for their trips.
Newsweek.com reports that a Hawaiian family is set to lose $32,000 after canceling a cruise out of China next week. Pua Morrison and seven of her family members each paid $4,000 for the trip with Norwegian Cruise Line.
As the family originally booked the cruise through Costco, they initially contacted Costco for a refund. Costco directed them to talk to Norwegian directly. When the family talked to Norwegian and expressed that they did not want to risk traveling to China in the wake of the outbreak, Morrison says that Norwegian told her “bottom line is, if you cancel you lose all your money.”
The Newsweek.com report says that Norwegian recently told CNBC that none of the company’s ships will be calling on mainland China and that the company is not altering any of its itineraries due to the outbreak.
Attorney John H. (Jack) Hickey and his team handle a wide range of cases, including but not limited to cruise ship accidents, admiralty and maritime accident cases, medical malpractice, wrongful death, premises liability, railroad accidents and car accidents. We represent victims from all over the nation, the world and the state of Florida.