Starting yesterday (March 6), Norwegian Cruise Lines came up with a new refund policy for the coronavirus:
For all new and existing individual and group bookings that embark from March 10, 2020 through and including September 30, 2020:
Guests can cancel up until 48 hours prior to vacation start date. Cancelled reservations that occur prior to 48 hours to vacation date will receive a 100% future cruise credit (FCC) to be used for ANY Norwegian sailing embarking on or before December 31, 2022.Vacation start date includes any pre-hotel or Cruisetour packages booked through Norwegian.
FCC will include all components of the reservation that have been paid, including but not limited to: shore excursions, beverage and dining packages (including associated gratuities), service charges and air or transfers pre purchased through Norwegian.Note any insurance purchased on existing bookings will not be included in the FCC amounT.
Basically you can cancel up to 2 days before and get 100% credit to use toward a different cruise until the end of 2022.
That's surprising, because cruise lines HATE empty cabins, and do all they can to avoid it. The industry has been pushing cancel dates further and further back. Last I saw, Norwegian's cancellation period for a full refund was 90 days (it may be even more now). So now they've reduced that to 2 days (!!), though this cancellation gives you only a credit instead of a refund.
It's possible they did this for a few reasons:
1) They're under tremendous pressure to allow cancellations from those afraid to cruise now, especially old people (who make up a large percentage of cruisers)
2) This encourages people to book cruises this year anyway, knowing that they're not as committed to go if the coronavirus is still an issue. So, for example, one might feel more comfortable now booking a cruise for August 2020.