Have you ever had to Cancel a Vacation?

[Kittyblue]

Not so far. Heading to the "hot zone" in Seattle this summer. I might have considered cancelling but I'm outside the airline/travel insurance limits. I think things will be better by then anyway.

 

[Rockette]

I work in pharmaceutical development and had to cancel a vacation because the FDA decided to pick a pre-NDA meeting during a vacation of mine. Of course they didn't want to allow me to call in either.

Long story short, it might have been better to not attend the meeting because all of our questions were answered.

 

[disykat]

oops, accidently double posted!

 

[disykat]

I have cancelled short trips and lost a cost of a night or two at a hotel and I even ate the cost of a single flight once, but never skipped an entire trip that involved a lot of prepaid expenses. I bought trip insurance for the flights of our upcoming trip because I felt it would be too expensive to risk losing, but fear of illness is not a covered reason for canceling at this point. We are still weighing our options and very carefully considering this. Rescheduling is not an option because our vacation budget will be gone regardless.

While emergencies happen and canceling a vacation is probably something most people have done at some point, most people don't easily just choose to stay home from an expensive, already paid for vacation.

Updated - both our airlines have changed their policies now and we might be able to change dates! I have some work to do tomorrow to figure this out! Official word would make this a lot easier.

Updated - our travel insurance held up. Money back on all the flights. Yay. We are losing the airbnb money, (except we got refunded the cleaning fee) but fortunately it was only six nights.

 

[Peanut]

Yes, my mom and I had a trip planned for WDW in May 2000 but canceled it. A day or two before our trip my mom got a call from the police that her mother had a fatal heart attack. We had just visited her for Mother's Day and had no idea this was coming. Terribly sad day!

 

[nene0182]

Yes but thankfully we had only paid the deposit on our cruise and hadn’t booked airfare yet. I ended up in the hospital for a week and had been sick off and on for 2 months prior so I wasn’t going to have enough PTO time.

 

[holden]

Yes. Once we had to cancel a trip to a Caribbean resort due to a health issue. Thankfully we purchased cancel for any reason insurance. I never book a trip without it now unless it’s an “inexpensive” trip (like using our DVC points for Disney).

 

[Renarr]

We did once when we were going to make our first trip out to Disney over the holidays. We didn't have travel insurance on it, but ended up only being out $225 since we cancelled eight weeks out or so, and most of that was on the flight change fee when we used it later.

 

[Julie's Haircut]

DW and I cancelled a non-Disney Florida vacation because my mother was admitted into the hospital two days before we were scheduled to leave. We were flying on Southwest so we used the reservation about 6 months later. I think we had to pay about $20 more each. Hotel deposits were refundable.

Back in the early 90's my wallet with driver's license and a few credit cards was stolen the day before a Seattle/Vancouver vacation. I must have carelessly left it somewhere. Ex-wife and I still went to Seattle for 4 days, but skipped Vancouver to come home early to deal with the hassle of replacing my license. (I brought along my passport for ID. Ex had some credit cards in her name only that we used.) Went to Vancouver and Victoria two years later.

About my wallet. I think I must have left or dropped it at a Wawa convenience store early on Friday morning. I didn't even realize it was missing until credit card companies started calling me early in the afternoon about unusual purchases being made. I cancelled the cards. When the billing statements came in there were about a dozen charges in quick succession at youth-oriented stores at the Deptford Mall that I didn't have to pay. Apparently the police arrested the person(s) using the cards. About a year later I get a call from the Deptford police saying they have "evidence" to return to me. I picked up 3 or 4 large bags of clothes and sneakers from places like Foot Locker and Merry-Go-Round. There were several pairs of those weird striped Zubaz pants that were popular at the time.

 

[marthachick]

In May 2013, we had to cancel WDW. DHs parents were in bad health and we cancelled due to that. We received all of our money back for the resort and tickets as we were in the cancellation window. Flight was with SW booked with points so we got all of those back.

In August 2013, both parents were doing much better (we thought) so we went to the beach for a few nights. Got a call that DMIL had passed so we had to rush home. My sister and her friend stayed so we only lost a few bucks on our part of the room.

 

[morgan98]

Yes - I was supposed to be leaving for Milan, Italy tomorrow. Needless to say, I cancelled.

 

[Kestryl]

Not yet, though I’m super nervous about our summer trips to DW and Ireland (separate trips) this summer.

I know the airlines are being “generous” to waive change fees, but the limitations are too, well, limiting for us. Husband is a teacher. We haven’t booked flights for Ireland yet (and maybe we won’t now), but all the Reschedule rules have stipulations that travel has to be completed within a year of issue date or by February/March 2021. Exactly when are we supposed to travel if we can’t fly this summer?

 

[Darcy03231]

Yes, a trip to St. Lucia. We had a series of financial setbacks - furnace & hot water heater needed to be replaced, had to get a new car, had a bad storm and needed a roof repair, plus some other smaller things that cropped up. While we had the money we just weren't keen on spending so much on a vacation after we'd already spent a lot on necessities. We ended up canceling and going the following year.

 

[Uncle Coaster]

I cancelled a week in WDW once. I was unemployed at the time and a couple of weeks before the trip I was offered a job that they wanted me to start immediately. I didn’t want to start only to take a weeks vacation two weeks later so I cancelled the trip.
I’ve also cancelled several 3-4 day trips at the last minute over the years including a trip to St Louis/Branson after Hurricane Sandy when I had to work because the office lost power for a few days and nobody else in my small company had power besides me. Ironically, I have a trip scheduled to St Louis next weekend that I’m afraid will be cancelled for any of a number of virus related reasons.

 

[pigletto]

DW and I cancelled a non-Disney Florida vacation because my mother was admitted into the hospital two days before we were scheduled to leave. We were flying on Southwest so we used the reservation about 6 months later. I think we had to pay about $20 more each. Hotel deposits were refundable.

Back in the early 90's my wallet with driver's license and a few credit cards was stolen the day before a Seattle/Vancouver vacation. I must have carelessly left it somewhere. Ex-wife and I still went to Seattle for 4 days, but skipped Vancouver to come home early to deal with the hassle of replacing my license. (I brought along my passport for ID. Ex had some credit cards in her name only that we used.) Went to Vancouver and Victoria two years later.

About my wallet. I think I must have left or dropped it at a Wawa convenience store early on Friday morning. I didn't even realize it was missing until credit card companies started calling me early in the afternoon about unusual purchases being made. I cancelled the cards. When the billing statements came in there were about a dozen charges in quick succession at youth-oriented stores at the Deptford Mall that I didn't have to pay. Apparently the police arrested the person(s) using the cards. About a year later I get a call from the Deptford police saying they have "evidence" to return to me. I picked up 3 or 4 large bags of clothes and sneakers from places like Foot Locker and Merry-Go-Round. There were several pairs of those weird striped Zubaz pants that were popular at the time.

View attachment 480267

Ok .. not funny about your wallet. But posing for the pictures in the pants is awesome!

 

[MarkLT1]

I've had to cancel 3 vacations in a row.. (though one was for a very happy reason):

1. Disney Cruise 2 years ago. Cancelled due to my dad being diagnosed with Lymphoma and beginning treatment (And thankfully, he absolutely kicked lymphoma's butt!!).
2. A ski trip with a cousin of mine in early Feb (this is the good one). I had to cancel because my wife was offered and accepted a fantastic position after 2-years of job-hunting. Her starting day was the same day I was supposed to leave on the ski trip. I didn't feel it would be right to go skiing, and not be here for her first week of work.
3. Our upcoming DCL cruise. My dad is going with us, and due to his age, recent cancer treatment, as well as an accident many years ago in which he lost half a lung, he is at high risk for bad stuff happening with COVID. After his docs advised us to postpone, we are doing just that. So I guess this one isn't a "cancel".. just a postponement.

Ultimately, a vacation is just that- a vacation. And if you're going to be worried (like this year's cruise regarding my dad's health), or feeling not-right (hopping out of town during a major life event, like my wife starting her long-sought job), its just not worth it. There will be plenty of fun trips in the future!

 

[smiths02]

DH and I were supposed to go on a short cruise for our first anniversary. (We eloped and only had a long weekend in a cabin a couple of hours away from home as our honeymoon, so this would have been our first vacation together.)
Anyhow, he was deployed. We didn't have trip insurance (which was actually okay because war would not have been covered), but the airline refunded us outright and NCL let us use 100% towards a future cruise. This worked out well for NCL because we were able to do a longer cruise a year later and give them a lot more of our money.

 

[smiths02]

We almost had to cancel or postpone our trip to Universal last month. First, my in-laws have been doing so well, healthwise; FIL was diagnosed with cancer about a week or two after I made our plans for the trip. We finally reached the point where we thought he would be stable enough for DH/me/our kids to take a vacation. Then DH's grandmother was very ill, so we were unsure what we were going to do, but she ended up passing away on a Monday, funeral on Thursday, we left for vacation on Saturday. FIL also had a procedure in the middle of our vacation that was causing some stress, but it worked out.

I have to say that I am glad we traveled then as I might not feel comfortable going for spring break.

 

[gillep]

Yes, we had to cancel our family vacation to the Dominican Republic when hurricane Maria swept through about a day before we were all supposed to fly there.

Our next family vacation is scheduled for May, in Hawaii, we will see if that stays or not.

 

[Julie's Haircut]

Ok .. not funny about your wallet. But posing for the pictures in the pants is awesome!

Not me in the photo. Unfortunately ALL of the clothes were too small for either me or my ex-wife. The women's clothes were a petite junior size. The men's were for a guy much slimmer than me. Even the sneakers were too small. Ex-wife gave a few things to her niece and the rest was donated.