Barbie and I have been saving for the last couple of years to take a Caribbean cruise. I've never had any desire to cruise on one of those huge floating hotels so I found a romantic cruise on a 196' sailing yacht out of Grenada with Windjammer Barefoot Cruises.
We paid for our cruise in full in June for a cruise leaving right after Thanksgiving. We searched and found some low cost air fare tickets leaving from Tampa, FL to St. George's, Grenada. The bad thing was the tickets are non-refundable. We bought trip insurance just in case. We also bought trip insurance for the cruise.
We received an email today from Windjammer Barefoot Cruises stating that our cruise had been canceled in Grenada but that they could rearrange our cruise to leave from Costa Rica. We didn't want to buy more tickets to fly to Costa Rica so we asked for a refund.
Come to find out Windjammer Barefoot Cruises has been in financial difficulties for the last several years and none of their ships has even sailed in the last couple of months leaving passengers and crews high and dry in the ports where their ships were. Groups were taking up donations to fly the crews left with no pay home.
When we asked for a refund they told us in so many words if we didn't rearrange to cruise out of Costa Rica it would be next April at the earliest before we will see a refund. Well they are still taking people's money telling everyone that their next cruise is set for Nov 3rd from Costa Rica but scuttlebutt has it they still don't have clearances to leave port. We are still going to fly to Grenada in November but we have found and made other arrangements while there.
I don't think we will ever see a refund from Windjammer Barefoot Cruises. As for the cruise trip insurance that we purchased through Windjammer Barefoot Cruises does not cover us if the cruise line goes out of business.
Windjammer Barefoot Cruises Ltd is still taking bookings and processing credit cards through PayPal, not letting buyers know that their ships have all been arrested and cannot leave the ports they are in until they pay their debts.
(Please read the attached comment regarding trip insurance.)
We paid for our cruise in full in June for a cruise leaving right after Thanksgiving. We searched and found some low cost air fare tickets leaving from Tampa, FL to St. George's, Grenada. The bad thing was the tickets are non-refundable. We bought trip insurance just in case. We also bought trip insurance for the cruise.
We received an email today from Windjammer Barefoot Cruises stating that our cruise had been canceled in Grenada but that they could rearrange our cruise to leave from Costa Rica. We didn't want to buy more tickets to fly to Costa Rica so we asked for a refund.
Come to find out Windjammer Barefoot Cruises has been in financial difficulties for the last several years and none of their ships has even sailed in the last couple of months leaving passengers and crews high and dry in the ports where their ships were. Groups were taking up donations to fly the crews left with no pay home.
When we asked for a refund they told us in so many words if we didn't rearrange to cruise out of Costa Rica it would be next April at the earliest before we will see a refund. Well they are still taking people's money telling everyone that their next cruise is set for Nov 3rd from Costa Rica but scuttlebutt has it they still don't have clearances to leave port. We are still going to fly to Grenada in November but we have found and made other arrangements while there.
I don't think we will ever see a refund from Windjammer Barefoot Cruises. As for the cruise trip insurance that we purchased through Windjammer Barefoot Cruises does not cover us if the cruise line goes out of business.
Windjammer Barefoot Cruises Ltd is still taking bookings and processing credit cards through PayPal, not letting buyers know that their ships have all been arrested and cannot leave the ports they are in until they pay their debts.
(Please read the attached comment regarding trip insurance.)
