Celestyal Cruises Travel Insurance - 2026 Review

Celestyal Cruises for 2025

Celestyal Cruises boasts being “the number one choice for travelers to the Greek Islands and Eastern Mediterranean.” Based in Greece, they focus on immersive cultural experiences. They have won over 60 major travel awards in the past 7 years. There are even special packages for themed cruises, group cruises, and solo cruising. They also have all-inclusive offers that include on-board entertainment, onshore excursions, and a menu of international and Greek dishes.

Celestyal’s ships (Experience, Olympia, and Crystal) are medium sized, which means they can visit ports that larger vessels cannot access.

Sample Cruise Itinerary

For our example, we chose the “Idyllic Aegean from Thessaloniki,” a 7-night all-inclusive cruise. This cruise visits Kusadasi, Rhodes, Crete, Santorini, Mykonos, Milos, and Athens. Cruise dates chosen were 11/11/2022 – 11/18/2022. Travelers are two adults aged 55 and 60. The cruise price starts at $1,250 per person, but after taxes and upgrade fees the price came to $1,659 per person. The total cost for both travelers is $3,318.

Since airfare is purchased separately, the cost of such travel expenses cannot be insured through the travel policies offered by cruise lines. For this reason, our comparison review only includes the cost of the cruise, instead of all pre-paid, non-refundable expenses associated with the trip.

Comparison Quotes

Celestyal Cruses offers travel insurance through a partnership with Allianz Global Assistance. Travelers can purchase policies at checkout. They currently offer three options, or plans. The basic plan (Complete) has medical insurance, medical evacuation, and baggage loss. The mid-range plan (Plus) has the same coverage as the basic, but it adds limited cancellation benefits and personal liability. Finally, the Premium plan includes the same benefits as the Plus, but it also includes increased medical limits.

All three policies are underwritten by Allianz, a quality insurer. Unfortunately, they supply weak coverage across the board. The benefits are in Euros, not US Dollars, and subject to currency exchange rate changes. In addition, they are subject to the laws of Greece, not the United States. As a result, the program lacks stronger consumer protections required in the US. In addition, all three plans are needlessly confusing.

Based on our sample couple, ages 55 and 60, we created comparison quotes using AARDY’s travel insurance marketplace engine. The trip cost used for the comparison is $1,659 per person for a total of $3,318.

When traveling outside the United States, we recommend a minimum coverage of $100,000 in Medical Insurance, $250,000 in Medical Evacuation, and a Pre-existing Medical Condition Waiver. We used these criteria to choose the selected quotes.

The least expensive plan with adequate coverage on our quote from AARDY is the Trawick First Class. We will compare this plan to the Complete plan that Celestyal currently offers.

This Trawick policy allows for cancellation for the most common reasons such as: unforeseen illness, accidental injury, or death of a family member. The Complete plan offered by Celestyal Cruises does not offer any cancellation coverage.

However, even though the most common reasons for cancelling a trip are covered by every AARDY policy, some travelers want the ability to cancel for any reason without forfeiting their entire investment. A Cancel for Any Reason (CFAR) policy allows the insured to cancel for reasons not listed and still receive a 75% cash refund. It’s also important to point out that Trawick allows you to insure all the pre-paid, non-refundable expenses (which can include airfare, tours, and excursions, etc). Celestyal’s plans will only cover the cruise portion of your travels.

The Cancel for Any Reason (CFAR) policy that we chose for this comparison is the Trawick First Class (CFAR 75%). This is the most affordable CFAR policy that also contains the medical coverage limits that we recommend. In our example we compare this plan to the Celestyal Plus plan, even though it does not have CFAR.

Next, we broke down the benefits of each policy in a side-by-side comparison.

Benefit	Celestyal Cruises Complete Plan	Celestyal Cruises Plus Plan	Trawick First Class	Trawick First Class (CFAR 75%)
Trip Cancellation	No	1,500 Euro Limit ($1,742.78 USD)	100% of trip cost	100% of trip cost
Trip Interruption	No	100% Only for new illness* or accident	150% of trip cost	150% of trip cost
Medical Insurance	150,000 Euros shared with Evacuation ($174,250.50 USD)	150,000 Euros shared with Evacuation ($174,250.50 USD)	$150,000	$150,000
Medical Evacuation	(see above)	(see above)	$1,000,000	$1,000,000
Baggage Loss/Damage	700 Euros shared with baggage delay ($813.17 USD)	700 Euros shared with baggage delay ($813.17 USD)	$500/article up to $2,000 per person	$500/article up to $2,000 per person
Baggage Delay	(see above)	(see above)	$400	$400
Travel Delay (Incl quarantine)	No	No	$1000 per person	$1000 per person
Missed Connection	200 Euros	200 Euros	$1,000 per person	$1,000 per person
Cover Pre-existing Medical Conditions	No	No	Yes, if purchased within 14 days of deposit	Yes, if purchased within 14 days of deposit
Cancel For Work Reason	No	No	No	No
Interrupt For Any Reason	No	No	No	No
Cancel For Any Reason	No	No	No	75% of trip cost
Accidental Death & Dismemberment	No	No	$25,000	$25,000
Cost of Policy	$111.60 (3.36% of trip cost)	$405.00 (12.21% of trip cost)	$182.49 (5.5% of trip cost)	$310.23 (9.35% or trip cost)

Cost Comparison

Overall, the Allianz plans offered through Celestyal Cruises are insufficient. They provide only a fraction of the recommended limits of $100,000 in Medical Insurance, and $250,000 in Medical Evacuation. Also, Celestyal Cruises does not offer a Pre-existing Medical Condition Waiver, which would waive any look back into your medical history. Additionally, it’s important to consider that Celestyal’s plans will only insure the cruise portion of your trip, not your flights or other pre-paid expenses.

By shopping for cruise insurance through AARDY, our two travelers received greater protection at a better value. This savings could be applied to airfare, additional tours, or shopping. More importantly, the policies offered through AARDY provide the support and protection you need when your health, finances, and safety are on the line. It’s true that you might not ever need to use your travel policy, but we encourage you to purchase a plan that would provide the coverages you’d want in the event of that worst-case-scenario.

In the following sections, we discuss what to look for when shopping for travel insurance for your Celestyal cruise.

Trip Cancellation

A significant concern for travelers is Trip Cancellation. If you became ill or had an accidental injury prior to your departure date, you may have to cancel your travel arrangements, resulting in financial losses. This makes Trip Cancellation a valuable feature if you’re keen on protecting your financial investment. The most common reasons for cancellation are covered with every policy Aardy offers.

However, Celestyal Cruises travel insurance is quite different.

First, only the Plus and the Premium plans allow cancellation. There are only two covered reasons for cancellation: injury, illness, or death of the traveler; hospitalization or death of a family member. The illness causing cancellation must be new. It doesn’t cover the injury or illness if it is a Pre-existing Medical Condition as defined by Celestyal Cruises. Additionally, the plans restrict illness cancellation to travelers under the age of 75. Any traveler 75 or older is not eligible for illness-related cancellation.

Also, Celestyal cruises defines Family Member as a spouse or minor children living at home. That definition is as narrow as possible. American travel insurance policies include extended family such as brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, adult children and grandchildren, nieces, nephews, uncles, aunts, step-family, and in-laws.

Keep in mind, both the Trawick First Class policy and the Trawick First Class (CFAR 75%) policy can cover all travel arrangements, regardless of where you booked them. In addition, they both offer a 100% refund for covered Trip Cancellations, a 150% refund for covered Trip Interruptions, and a broad list of covered reasons, including cancelling due to contracting COVID.

Trip Interruption

A Trip Interruption is a situation during your trip that causes you to miss some or the rest of your vacation. It’s like Trip Cancellation but happens during your travels. While most travelers recognize the significance of cancellation protection, many don’t realize that trip interruption is just as important.

The most common trip interruption is the injury or illness of a traveler. If you had an injury or illness on your vacation but can continue traveling after treatment, trip interruption reimburses the unused portion of the trip, and the cost to rejoin the trip in progress.

Trip interruption also includes a family member who had a sudden grave illness or passed away. If your covered situation requires curtailing the trip and going home early, Trip Interruption also reimburses for the unused portion of the trip, plus the added cost of going home early.

While American travel insurance covers 10-20 reasons for interruption, Celestyal Cruises permits only one: if your trip ends early due to the traveler’s covered illness or injury. Keep in mind, it won’t pay if interruption is due to a pre-existing illness or injury, and if age 75 or higher, illness (even if new) is not covered.

Travel insurance plans like the Trawick First Class also offer 150% of trip costs for interruption. Therefore, they cover up to 100% of the unused costs, plus up to an additional 50% to cover transportation costs to return home.

Cancel For Any Reason

Cancel For Any Reason cruise insurance provides the highest level of flexibility and reimbursement if you must cancel your trip for any reason not covered by the policy.

Unfortunately, Celestyal Cruises does not offer Cancel for Any Reason (CFAR), even as future cruise credit like many cruise lines do.

Alternatively, travel insurance policies like Trawick First Class with Cancel for Any Reason included pay a 75% cash refund of all prepaid, non-refundable trip costs including arrangements made outside of Celebrity Cruises. This could include flights, hotels, rental cars, excursions, and transfers.

Cancel For Any Reason policies have several stipulations:

1. Purchase the policy within 10 - 21 days (depending on policy), of your initial payment (ITP) or deposit date,
2. Insure 100% of the prepaid trip costs subject to cancellation penalties or restrictions. For additional prepaid non-refundable payments made after the purchase of the policy, insure within 10-21 days (depending on policy), of each subsequent payment added to your trip, and
3. Cancel your trip 2 days or more before your scheduled departure date.

Medical Insurance for Emergency Treatment

One of the most important factors in selecting trip insurance is having adequate Medical Insurance when you travel. Anything can happen, including accidental injuries or sudden illness.

If you have a medical emergency when traveling and don’t have proper medical insurance coverage while overseas, you could find yourself with huge, unexpected hospital bills. Many Americans mistakenly believe countries with universal health care will treat them for free, but this is not the case. Another misconception is that Medicare will pay for hospitalization overseas. Unfortunately, they won’t. Medicare does not pay providers outside the US. Some Medicare supplements do cover overseas, but have lifetime limits or reduced benefits, and pay for emergencies only. They can still require you to pay 20% of the costs. As a result, you could go on vacation and end up with medical bills in the thousands.

AARDY urges overseas travelers to take travel medical insurance of at least $100,000 per person. In a medical emergency, $100,000 provides ample health care and helps protect your retirement savings from unexpected financial burdens.

Celestyal cruise insurance offers up to 150,000 Euros for medical treatment, but it’s an aggregate limit shared with emergency medical evacuation. Because that limit is not exclusive to medical treatment, it increases your risk of financial loss.

Emergency Medical Evacuation

Medical Insurance isn’t the only potentially expensive part of a trip. Emergency Medical Evacuation transports you from the place of injury or illness to the closest hospital. Once you’re stable enough for transport, Medical Evacuation brings you home via commercial flight or, if necessary, private medical jet.

Medical flights can cost up to $25,000 per hour and regular health insurance does not cover it. In addition, the US State Department does not offer any medical treatment or evacuation assistance for US citizens. AARDY advises travelers to get at least $250,000 Medical Evacuation to assure there’s enough coverage to get them back home from almost anywhere if they experience a serious medical event.

The Medical Evacuation coverage offered by Celestyal Cruises is lacking in many ways. The Medical Evacuation amount is shared with Medical Insurance. Even if it were standalone, 150,000 Euros is not enough to get you home after a health catastrophe. In contrast, each of the Trawick policies offered through Aardy will pay up to $1 million per person for Emergency Medical Evacuation.

Additionally, the Medical Evacuation offered by Celestyal Cruises only covers transportation to a hospital. It does not cover the cost of returning you home after a medical emergency.

Pre-existing Medical Conditions

A significant concern for senior travelers can be pre-existing medical conditions. A Pre-Existing Medical Condition is one in which you’ve received medical treatment, testing, medication changes, added new medications, or received a recommendation for a treatment or test that hasn’t happened yet. Most travel insurance policies exclude pre-existing conditions unless you purchase the policy within the required time-period from your initial trip deposit date (called the Time Sensitive Period). Otherwise, the insurer will look backward 60, 90, or 180 days (depending on the policy) from the date you purchased the insurance to see if there are any pre-existing medical conditions they won’t cover. This is called the Look Back Period. Any medical conditions older than this Look Back Period, unchanged or stabilized with no medication dosage changes are covered, as are any new conditions that arise after you purchase the policy.

If you must cancel, interrupt, or seek medical treatment for a medical condition while traveling, travel insurance policies typically exclude claims related to Pre-existing Medical Conditions. However, if you purchase the policy within a few days of your Initial Trip Payment or Deposit date, many policies add a Waiver to the policy that covers Pre-existing Conditions. As a result, there is no Look Back Period and Pre-existing Conditions are covered. Both Trawick policies will cover Pre-existing Medical Conditions.

In contrast, Celestyal Cruises travel insurance does not cover any Pre-existing Medical Condition for medical treatment or cancellation and offers no Waiver. Even more problematic, Celestyal Cruises trip insurance defines a Pre-existing Condition as: Any serious or recurring medical condition which has been previously diagnosed, or been investigated or treated in any way, at any time prior to travel, even if this condition is currently considered to be stable and under control.

Price and Value

Celestyal Cruises travel insurance plans carry minimal coverage. The medical insurance and medical evacuation coverages are shared, and the limits may not be adequate for a serious illness or injury. Cancellation reasons are limited, and only offered on the more expensive plans. Cancel for Any Reason (CFAR) is not an option in any of Celestyal’s plans. Overall, they offer limited value for the price.

In contrast, by comparison shopping, we found the standard Trawick First Class policy includes superior medical and evacuation benefits, 100% refund for trip costs for covered cancellation, 150% refund for covered trip interruption, and a robust list of cancellation reasons.

Conclusion

Celestyal Cruises travel insurance plans provide travelers with minimal coverages for a high cost, and that could leave travelers unpleasantly surprised during an emergency. Medical coverage and medical evacuation limits are shared (and low), and there are a limited number of covered cancellation reasons. Though they have a strong partner in Allianz, the insurance itself is rather weak. Overall, we rate it a 6 out of 10.

Travelers planning a cruise with Celestyal will find the best value for their money and peace of mind when they shop for travel insurance at AARDY Travel Insurance Marketplace. There, you can review dozens of options and select the best policy to fit your needs.

To help you find the best policy, AARDY recommends having at least $100,000 in travel medical coverage and $250,000 emergency medical evacuation when traveling within 2-3 hours of the US, and $500,000 for further locations. And, if you purchase the policy within the 14-21 days of initial trip payment, please consider a travel insurance policy with the pre-existing condition waiver included to ensure the most coverage for your money.

If you are planning a cruise in 2022, be sure to pack insurance before you travel. You never know when you may need it.

Have questions? Chat with us online, send us an email at agent@aardy.com or alternatively call us at (650) 492-6298. We would love to hear from you.

Safe Travels!