Carnival Cruise Line has announced an extension of its suspended operations in the Australian market through 31 August 2020.
The following Australian sailings will be cancelled:
All Carnival Splendor cruises departing from Australia from 19 June to 31 August.
Carnival Spirit’s trans-pacific from Hawai’i departing on 6 October.
Impacted guests and their travel advisors are being notified by email, including options for a combined future cruise credit (FCC) and onboard credit (OBC) package, or a full refund. Booked guests can make their selection online, alleviating the need to contact Carnival’s customer service centre, which is still operating in a work-from-home status due to locally-imposed office closures.
The cruise line will phase in a resumption in its North American service, beginning on 1 August 2020 with a total of eight ships sailing from Miami, Port Canaveral and Galveston.
Carnival says it is committed to supporting all public health efforts to manage the COVID-19 situation and will use this additional time to continue to engage experts, government officials and stakeholders on additional protocols and procedures to protect the health and safety of guests, crew and the communities it serves.
In the interim, Carnival has also announced its ‘Onboard with You’ pledge to travel partners, designed to support and sustain them during ‘this unprecedented pause in operations’, and including an additional 1% bonus commission on new retail bookings made through GoCCL.com.au through June 30, 2020.
“Travel agents have always played a key role in Carnival’s success and we want to ensure that we are taking care of them and helping them to continue to grow and succeed now and in the future,” said Anton Loeb, Carnival’s director ofsales for Australia/New Zealand.
The new Onboard with You pledge further builds upon the company’s commitment to protecting travel agents’ commission on all fully paid bookings cancelled due to the voluntary pause in operations. Carnival is also offering full commission on the value of the future cruise credits (FCC), providing agents the opportunity to earn commission on their original booking and compensating them for working to rebook their clients using their FCC.
