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Coast ship was not there on scheduled boarding date


retired_to_cruise_215
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Here is the original plan: My wife and I booked a Costa neoClassica cruise to visit some exotic locations on the Indian Ocean off the East coast of Africa. The cruise was to start on Mauritius on January 12, 2015 and for the next 14 days visit the Seychelles, Madagascar, Reunion Island and back to Mauritius. To ensure that we did not miss the ship, we flew into Mauritius the day before, January 11, 2015.

 

Here is what actually happened: On the cruise scheduled day we took a taxi to the port where we discovered that the ship was not there! The taxi driver took us to the Coast Guard station where we were told that the Costa ship was not in port because it wanted to avoid cyclone Bansi; the guardsman had no idea what we needed to do to catch up with the ship in the Seychelles. We had the taxi take us back to the hotel where we had spent the night before. Due to the time change, we could not contact our travel agent, or the Costa office in the U.S., for another seven to eight hours. So, I asked the concierge to connect me with Air Seychelles; subsequently, I reserved seats on the next available flight to the Seychelles. The flight was not for another four days on Friday January 16. Eventually we had our daughter talk to Costa in the U.S. and she gave us a phone number of a company in charge of handling this issue for Costa in Mauritius. Since it was late evening by then, nobody answered their phone; however, when I called the number the next day, I was told that They had contracted a plane to fly 270 passengers on the night before and that we missed it; so, they needed to get guidance from Costa in Italy as to how to handle our situation. By the afternoon we were told that Costa wanted us to stay in our current hotel until Friday when we would take the flight we had booked. On Friday January 16 when we arrived at the Seychelles airport, nobody was waiting for us and I had to find out what company took care of the Costa business in the Seychelles so that we could be driven to the ship. When we arrived at the ship nobody was waiting for us and it was clear that nobody missed us or cared whether we ever got to the ship or not. When I asked for a statement from the ship explaining why we did not board as scheduled so that I could file it with our claims, to the insurance and to Costa when we returned home, I was told that I had to hand write an explanation and the ship crew would certify it. Even though, Costa had my cell phone number, my email address, and my daughter's phone number, they left it up to us to find out why the ship was not at the Mauritius port on the scheduled date, we had to book our own flight to catch up with the ship, we had to arrange for our own hotel for the four days we were left behind on an island with cyclone warnings and subsequent high wind and rain.

 

This is what we wish had happened: When Costa realized the ship was not going to be at the assigned port on the original boarding schedule, a text message, or email, with a phone number to call for instructions would have saved us great mental trauma and many sleepless nights.

 

NOTE: our scheduled boarding port was Port Louis, Mauritius, but actually boarded on Victoria, Seychelles.

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When I called the number the next day, I was told that They had contracted a plane to fly 270 passengers on the night before and that we missed it.

 

This is what we wish had happened: When Costa realized the ship was not going to be at the assigned port on the original boarding schedule, a text message, or email, with a phone number to call for instructions would have saved us great mental trauma and many sleepless nights.

 

Sorry to hear about your bad luck.

 

First I suppose you booked your flight not with the cruise company?

And second could you explain why all the other 270 passengers got on this flight, how were they informed? What was the difference between you and them?

 

You mentioned your travel agent, so I suppose you booked through an agent, then it was his responsibility to get the information to you; of course Costa Cruise should have given the information to him. That's the normal procedure, Costa is never informing the passengers directly but through your travel agent.

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The greatest number of passengers that were to board in Mauritius were from France and Italy. So, they could call back to their travel agent or Costa in Europe since there were only three hours difference. I actually witnessed other passengers in the hotel lobby calling their travel agents/Costa in Europe. I don't speak French or Italian so I could not make out any of the conversations; I asked a taxi driver if he knew what was going on and he said that they were all going to the airport to see if they could get a flight to Seychelles. I had no idea they were told about a charter plane; I thought they were going to try for a scheduled flight. With the time difference, I could not get a hold of anyone in the states until the charter plane had actually left.

 

Here are the facts as I see them:

1. Costa knew that the ship would not be there Monday, on Sunday afternoon.

2. Costa knew that the travel agencies and U.S. Costa offices would not open for business until Monday evening Mauritius time, Monday morning Central time.

3. Costa had my cell number, email address, and my daughter's phone number.

4. There were just a few U.S. passengers and contacting us would not have been too much of a burden.

Costa office personnel and Costa crew members have shown that they don't care and none of them has said the word sorry to us.

Costa can learn from airlines on how they text and email passengers when changes occur.

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Costa can learn from airlines on how they text and email passengers when changes occur.

 

That's probably not a Costa problem itself. I think that such things will happen on other cruise lines as well. And it's just not how Costa and this business works.

 

Sometimes it's not "only" under 300 passengers like on an airplane or in your case. Sometimes (as it happend when the ship of my parents was delayed) it's maybe 3000 passengers and that's something no company can handle by themself, that's why they inform just the local agent and the local agent informes all "his" customers.

 

I understand your anger completly, but they had other more important things in mind than reaching out to the few US passengers...for example organising the flight for the people who knew where to ask about it, apparently...I'm sure on your documents there was a local contact number.

 

And what I learned many times on my many trips around the world; go with the flow; if there were other costa passengers with the same problem you should have joined them as they looked as they knew what to do...If a bunch of people is going with their baggage to the airport than it's a good sign that they will catch a flight and not just go there to book one...

Edited by onyx007
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Costa can set up the same automated notification system as the airlines. The number of passengers is not a factor when it comes to computers. Costa has no problem notifying thousands of passengers that they can book excursions or buy drink packages. The notification through travel agents works when there is time for the notice to make it to the passenger. In my case the time difference prevented that set up to work and yet, Costa could have easily texted me. As far as what could have happened, that only applies for future incidents and does nothing to aliviate what already happened. If the time difference makes the notification system to NOT work, then Costa needs to only sell on the local time zone, or as the old saying goes... Buyer be ware!

By the way, tHere was no local number on my documentation. It had an emergency number, my daughter's!

Edited by retired_to_cruise_215
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Sorry to hear about your experiences. Can you help me to inderstand the situation more.

 

1. When you found that the Classica was not there, why didn't you take the taxi to the Harbour Master office instead of the Coast Guard? As Costa is the only cruise line thst has regular embarkation / disembarkation in Port Louis, the Harbour Master would have known the latest information, also the name and contact details of Costa's shipping agent there, so you could have contacted them while still in the harbour. The harbour has 24h operations.

 

2. Why didn't you try to find out Costa's agent in Mauritius? It is "Mauritius Ship Corp Ltd" contact details, name, telephone nos. mobile nos. email address, office address. It took me 4 minutes to find the information on the internet.

 

http://www.mauritiusshipping.net/ship-agency-services-2/

 

3. Mauitius is the embarkation / disembarkation for Costa ships, the neo Classica holds about 1300 passengers, 270 passengers flown from Mauitius to Seychelles. So was the ship only about 25% capacity or were others flown in to catch the neo Classica in Seychelles?

 

4. From a German cruise forum, states that passengers were flown to Seychelles on evening 12th. January and put in in the Constance Ephelia Resort at €250 per person per night:

 

http://www.constancehotels.com/en/hotels-resorts/seychelles/ephelia/

 

5. From another German cruise forum, it says they (group of 16) received information on evening of 11th. January about their flight as the ship was ordered to leave the harbour because of the approaching storm. About 300 passengers were flown to Seychelles. Here is the web link to the German forum, put it through a translator (note. year given as 2014 should be of course 2015). Says there were about 250 german speakers onboard.

 

http://www.shipedia.eu/forum/216-reiseberichte-costa-kreuzfahrten/32378-costa-neo-classica-indischer-ozean-januar-2015.html

 

6. You say you saw / heard French Costa passengers contacting their agents in Europe. French is an offical language in Mauiritius, about 70% of the population speak it. Why didn't you ask an hotel receptionist to act as a go between yourself and the French passengers?

 

A cruise to paradise truns into a cruise to hell.

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We were on the way to the port on a dirt road while it was raining and the taxi driver stopped the car and said there was no ship. I asked how do you know? He said that if the ship was there, it would be right in front of us. He said that the coast guard might know what is happening; so we drove there.

While at the coast guard station we called MSC and spoke to Anoop who was very nice but had no idea what we needed to do. So, we were in total shock in a foreign land where very few people speak English, it was raining, we were 10 hours jet lagged. So, we decided to go back to the hotel and stay there until we had contacted a Costa official.

The ship also boarded passengers on Reunion Island, other passengers were intercepted at the airport in Dubai, and the rest I don't know. I do agree with the ship's passenger relations officer who said that maybe Costa should not sell that cruise in the U.S. since there are so many time zone differences.

The local contact we needed was Coquille Bonhaire. If their number or name had been provided to us in the documentation, it would have helped a lot.

Bottom line, we had to call the U.S., we had to get a hotel, we had to book our flight to Seychelles. All Costa had to do was get thousands of dollars for a 14 day cruise, and yet only provide a 10 day cruise. It must be nice to be Costa!

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I'm sorry you had such a bad start to what should have been a great trip.

 

My first sailing with Costa several,years back was on this itinerary. I had bother on the day I was flying out to meet the ship. I found out from the member of staff delivering my breakfast that it had snowed overnight and the airport had no flights going out and that was likely to be the position all morning. My Air France provided by Costa was due to fly to Paris at 9am with a connecting flight to Mauritius only a few hours after landing.

 

After not being able to get on to Sir France (line constantly engaged) I decided to go over to the airport on the hotel shuttle to find out what was going on. Air France said there would be no flights until at least 13.00 and the Paris flight would be as soon as they could after that but there were dozens of flights all delayed from the morning. They have me a meal voucher and I went to get a coffee and sandwich. Had my sister look up times of other connecting flights from Paris, since it was certain that I'd be missing my connection. There were both Sir France and Sir Mauritius flights in the evening out of Paris.

 

Next I got my Vosta paperwork on and found the emergency number for them. Called them and they already knew that there problems at some airports. They were very helpful and told me that Sir France would sort me out when I got to Paris with another connecting flight. I'd get to Mauritius later than planned but as it was there overnight, I'd still make the ship with hours to spare. I asked how I'd get to the port as it is not very close to the airport. Again they said not to worry, there were 4 other passengers on the same Edinburgh flight and they'd get the arrival,time from AF and sent a mini bus for us.

 

It all worked out as they said. We didn't take off until after 14.00. When we arrived at the transit desk at AF, they had new boarding passes for is and vouchers for dinner and a drink. When we eventually arrived in MUritius, there was someone to meet us and show us to the minibus.

 

Ended up missing my first day in Mauritius but still had the following day to get into town. I do speak French reasonably well but found a lot of people spoke English.

 

I often make my own travel arrNgements, but in situations like this it sometimes works out better when you are on a cruise package. Either way, I always phone the number on my cruise tickets if anything hoes awry on the way to the ship. This number has staff who speak your language and can help you sort something out.

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I was told by my travel agent that for that sailing, Costa did NOT offer a flight package, in fact, they didn't even offer airport transfers. We flew Air France/Delta from Atlanta via JFK, Paris. We enjoyed the AF lounges very much, but had our excitement with the January 11 Charlie Ebdo mess on the way to Mauritius. On the way back we encountered snow cancellations in JFK. So, we got stuck in Paris for 10 hours and had to get rebooked to Atlanta, instead.

Airlines in general are very helpful when the system is interrupted for any reason. In addition, they do not distinguish passengers whether the reservation was made through a third party, or through their web site; the airlines see the passengers as their reason for being and subsequently take care of all passengers with rebooking, meal vouchers, and hotel vouchers. After talking to several sources, I see that Costa treated passengers different whether they booked through Costa or through a third party. Shame on them by not caring if any paying passenger is not informed in time of boarding changes!

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Amazing...you'll never forget that trip!

 

What continues to amaze me is the abysmal differences between CarnivalCorp lines. Carnival Cruises actually has a text based system to notify and update passengers about their sailings. And they use it a lot in the Caribbean when fog delays ship movements and boarding times.

 

I hope the balance of your trip was enjoyable.

 

Oh...and aren't you glad you had insurance? :D

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You are right on all accounts. I always get the insurance, God forbid we have to use an air ambulance. We will never forget this experience and will continue to tell it as long as someone is willing to listen. The rest of the cruise was not as enjoyable as other cruises. A text notification system would bring them up to the 21st century.

 

Thanks for your kind words.

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