Beware of Elegant Cruises- Adriatic--MS Monet

[tropicalia]

DO NOT, I repeat do not book, anything thru Elegant Cruises. We were booked to leave Venice on the 29 of April for a 7-day Adriatic cruise on the MS Monet. However, we received a call in Venice from our travel agent on the 25th of April that the cruise might be cancelled because the ship had "hit a sandbar or something." No valid reason to this day. On Monday the 27 the cancellation was confirmed. To this day, a month later we have not received a refund despite numerous calls. Excuses along the line of the dog ate the check, such as "The money is coming from Europe, the money has not been released" etc.
Not a reliable company, certainly not an elegant cruise company. Beware since they operate through an agent with another name, EuroRiver Cruises. You could get unknowingly stuck.

[Manuel]

Thanks for the advice.

TM

[tropicalia]

Two months later and still no refund...our calls to Elegant Cruises are not returned

[tolagirl]

It is probably only a matter of time until Elegant Cruises goes out of business. I am a travel agent, and a friend and I were booked on a fam (familiarization) trip on the Monet that was supposed to depart Venice on June 17. At 3:00 PM on Friday, June 13, I received an email from FAM News, the intermediary company that had booked the cruise, saying the cruise was cancelled for "technical" reasons. I called Elegant Cruises and was told that the cruise was cancelled because not enough people were booked on this sailing and that they were also cancelling all their sailings through mid-August because of low bookings. This was the second cancellation for us. We had been booked on the April 22 cruise, and that was cancelled two weeks before the departure date. At that time the cruise line told us they would pay all costs associated with changing our air tickets and also offered us a $200 onboard credit on the re-booked cruise. When I asked when I could expect to receive my refund, I was told that the people who chose not to re-book the April cruise had not received their refunds yet, and they had no idea when I would receive mine. Several days later I received an email from the people at FAM News saying that the owner of Elegant Cruises was trying to borrow money to pay refunds to all the people on the cancelled sailings. I sent all this info to the editor of one of the professional newsletters that I get, and she put a message out to their readers. A number of travel agents responded saying that Elegant is now only accepting checks for future bookings, which is not a good sign. This situation has echos of the Windjammer debacle of a couple of years ago, but at least Elegant doesn't seem to be leaving passengers stranded at the dock on the day of departure. Obviously do not book any future cruises with them. If you were booked on a cancelled cruise, contact your credit card company. If you purchased good third party (Travel Guard, Travel Safe, etc.) travel insurance, start your claim process. They do not usually pay a claim until the company actually declares bankruptcy, but it will be much quicker if you start the process now.

[travelphyl]

Does anyone know about Blue Danube Cruises who also is selling cruises on the MS Monet?

[Logan08]

We usually purchased travel insurance in the past because of this issue. This happened to some friends of mine and they ended up going to small claims court to get a "portion" of their money back. With travel insurance, our insurance will pay us for lost funds and then deal with the cruise line if need be. However, we have never had to file a claim.

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Logan
Penthouses of the High Seas

[Paul Motter]

This is a shame - I have never heard of this company, and along those lines we have often warned people NOT to book any cruises with any company that is not a member of CLIA.

There are too many quality cruise lines out there to take a chance on a fly by night cruise operator.

One simple rule of thumb - if you aren't sure get travel insurance. If a reputable company like TravelGuard won't give you insurance for this cruise line - then don't book it.

[Logan08]

That's a great point, our insurance rider wouldn't take effect unless the cruise line was a CLIA member.

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Logan
Penthouses on the High Seas

[sheilaaellis44]

Thank you for your advice. Elegant Cruise is a nice ship. They have a fastest services and costumer care. Our money was refunded on that day they was appoint. Elegant Cruise was a safely life insurance very nice.