13 August 2020

Cruisin'

My wife likes to "cruise".
Me? I'm easy to please.
I'd be just as happy, (maybe even happier), to get in the car and point it to destinations with stuff I'm interested in... mostly historical sites.
We just spent three days in Vicksburg, Mississippi in a hotel overlooking the river there. I was mighty disappointed that many of the Civil War Museums there were closed to the public due to the Chinese virus. Nevertheless, I was edified to look at the terrain there and imagine General Grant trying to figure a way to take the city without getting his butt handed to him.

We had booked a cruise that was scheduled to depart Venice, Italy 10 October. Our gut has been telling us this trip wasn't gonna go because, 1- Venice ain't accepting tourists right now and,
2- The cruise lines are no doubt going to wait until they're more comfortable that this disease is under control.
Fine with us. We didn't want to get on the boat then have a bunch of folks test positive and have to be quarantined on the thing for an extended period of time.
Anyway, we were notified yesterday that the cruise was cancelled, and offered a list of options as to actions we could take now.

One of those options is to ask for a complete refund.
Another option is to leave that money with the line, take an upgrade in living quarters on the ship, or take a 125% credit to use toward a future cruise, booked before the end of the year to sail before the end of 2021. We took the 125% credit and booked a cruise similar to the one just cancelled that will depart Venice 20 April.

I'm trying to imagine how much the cruise lines are hurting. It's gotta be a HUGE financial hit.
Nevertheless, I'm a little miffed at the fact they've had several thousand of my dollars for a few months in their clutches, and offered no interest on it if I decided to take a full refund.
Oh well... they're not a bank, and banks ain't givin' crap for interest on money either.

So in April of '21 we hope to depart Venice and spend 11 days eating, relaxing, and visiting several Greek ports (and one in Turkey) before disembarking in Athens, Greece.
And this time I'll try not to compound fracture my right ankle on the cliff in Santorini!

1 comment:

Old NFO said...

That would be good... Just sayin...