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airline loosing luggage before cruise?


brymern
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I just had an awful thought. What if the airline looses our luggage and we don't get it back before we board for our cruise? Has this happened to any one of you? This will be our first time traveling by air to a cruise.

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It's a very good idea to fly in the day before. Many times luggage is put on a later flight.

 

For your flight make sure you pack your carryon with enough that you will have clean clothes for a day or two. Check the things that are easily replaced with a quick trip to the store. For me, I would pack all my pants because everything needs to be hemmed, shirts are easily replaced.

 

Many will carry-on going to vacation and check luggage for the return.

 

Here's one thread on packing light. It does take some commitment, change to your daily routine and a willingness to do a load of laundry.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1687293&highlight=stuff

Edited by SadieN
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I just take a carryon bag so I have no delays waiting at the carousel and no chance for it to be lost. If I need a bottle of mouthwash or other liquid greater than 3 oz., I'll purchase it at the arrival airport the morning of the cruise after I fly in.

 

The above suggestion about cross packing is a good one if you must check bags.

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SIL's luggage went missing on a change over flight to Orlando last month. The airline found it and delivered to the hotel in Port Canaveral later that night. DW had visions of having to share clothes or go shopping early Saturday before boarding.:eek:

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Last years cruise, our flight was delayed so we had a different connecting flight in Chicago. When we reached Miami, at midnight, and went to collect our luggage, it was not there! It was a super long day, and we were panicked. Another poor lady was also there looking for her luggage and the airline "helper" :rolleyes: was just so nonchalant about it, really ticked me off. Anyhoo, we finally found that our luggage had beat us there so was in a pile set aside. Such relief!! The things that were going thru my mind. To say just go to a store and buy what you need is just way easier said than done when you are in an unfamiliar city.

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Yes, it does happen. The "lost luggage" when found is forwarded to your first port of call. Then someone brings it to the ship. This is why it was suggested that you pack a day or 2 of clothing in your carry on. Of course if you are taking more than one suitcase it makes sense to pack items for both or all of the people in each suitcase. So if one gets lost at least all of one person's stuff is not gone.

 

Worst case situation, the airline does not find the luggage at all (this happen to a family on our cruise last summer.) They went through the whole cruise with whatever they could buy in the gift shop and when they got to port. Our meet and greet group pulled together and everyone donated toiletries and other things for them but it still was a hassle.

 

Another tip... all put your important medications in your carry on.. you can't easily replace those on a cruise.

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Ooooh yes it happened to us, and on our cruise to Alaska to make things worse! The airline (not to mention any names, but one that paints their airplanes "canyon blue" and prides itself for not charging for checked luggage), lost our big suitcase, with most of the family's wardrobe, formal wear, jackets etc.

 

Once we landed in Seattle, we had 24 hours before the ship sailed. We filed the claim at the baggage office at the airport. The airline told us that they would load the bag on the next nonstop (the next morning) and that we would most likely get the bag before we sailed the next afternoon.

 

The next morning, we called South... I mean the airline, and they informed us that the bag hadn't been loaded on the morning flight! [emoji16] To make things worse, they had NO clue where it was. My wife and I left the kids at the hotel with the grandparents and literally ran to the downtown Target, a few blocks from the hotel. I grabbed a shopping cart while my wife loaded it with whatever we could find, including a new suitcase. It felt like an episode of the Amazing Race.

 

We went on the cruise with our new wardrobe, and while we had an absolutely amazing time, the lost bag issue kept popping in our head souring the cruise a bit. I called the airline every time we arrived at a new port of call but each time they had no news.

 

We returned from our cruise and the bag was still lost. In fact, they lost it PERMANENTLY! It was NEVER found! We came home and filed an insurance claim both with the airline and with our insurance. Once we received a confirmation letter that the bag had officially been lost, we were fully reimbursed for all the contents in the bag, everything that we purchased in Seattle, and we received an additional $800 for our troubles. Morale of the story: GET TRAVEL INSURANCE! Had we traveled without it, we would've received a fraction of what we received!

 

Best piece of advice that I can give you is that you don't pack all of your clothes in the same bag. Put a bit in yours and a bit in someone else's suitcase, and do the same for other family members. That way, if one bag gets lost, everybody still has some clothes. We had packed a smaller bag with 2 days worth of clothes for all family members which was very helpful while we figured out what the do.

 

Finally, make sure that your suitcase has your contact information, not only on a bag tag, but also inside the bag. That way if the tags are completely ripped, they'll know that the bag belongs to you once they open it.

Edited by Tapi
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I have read stories about this happening to people, and their misplaced luggage was delivered to the next port that the ship was sailing to. So, it has been mentioned, always a good idea to pack a change of clothes or two in a carryon.

 

Also, to take it one step further...another tip I read is to, if you are traveling with a spouse or significant other, pack half of your stuff in your bag and half in theirs and vice versa. So if worst comes to worst and a bag is lost entirely, you'll both only be missing half of your clothes instead of one person missing all of theirs. Makes sense to me because I'm sure my husband and I can make do with washing clothes onboard if we have to.

Edited by bakersdozen12
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Ooooh yes it happened to us, and on our cruise to Alaska to make things worse! The airline (not to mention any names, but one that paints their airplanes "canyon blue" and prides itself for not charging for checked luggage), lost our big suitcase, with most of the family's wardrobe, formal wear, jackets etc.

 

Once we landed in Seattle, we had 24 hours before the ship sailed. We filed the claim at the baggage office at the airport. The airline told us that they would load the bag on the next nonstop (the next morning) and that we would most likely get the bag before we sailed the next afternoon.

 

The next morning, we called South... I mean the airline, and they informed us that the bag hadn't been loaded on the morning flight! [emoji16] To make things worse, they had NO clue where it was. My wife and I left the kids at the hotel with the grandparents and literally ran to the downtown Target, a few blocks from the hotel. I grabbed a shopping cart while my wife loaded it with whatever we could find, including a new suitcase. It felt like an episode of the Amazing Race.

 

We went on the cruise with our new wardrobe, and while we had an absolutely amazing time, the lost bag issue kept popping in our head souring the cruise a bit. I called the airline every time we arrived at a new port of call but each time they had no news.

 

We returned from our cruise and the bag was still lost. In fact, they lost it PERMANENTLY! It was NEVER found! We came home and filed an insurance claim both with the airline and with our insurance. Once we received a confirmation letter that the bag had officially been lost, we were fully reimbursed for all the contents in the bag, everything that we purchased in Seattle, and we received an additional $800 for our troubles. Morale of the story: GET TRAVEL INSURANCE! Had we traveled without it, we would've received a fraction of what we received!

 

Best piece of advice that I can give you is that you don't pack all of your clothes in the same bag. Put a bit in yours and a bit in someone else's suitcase, and do the same for other family members. That way, if one bag gets lost, everybody still has some clothes. We had packed a smaller bag with 2 days worth of clothes for all family members which was very helpful while we figured out what the do.

 

Finally, make sure that your suitcase has your contact information, not only on a bag tag, but also inside the bag. That way if the tags are completely ripped, they'll know that the bag belongs to you once they open it.

 

 

 

 

I do it one better, I put a strip of duct tape on the side, write in permanant marker the ship, cabin number and our name and contact info, then cover that with clear packing tape.. No chance of losing that. Of course, it won't help with losing the whole bag, but still...

Easy to peel off, and replace to come home, or on the next trip.

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I have read stories about this happening to people, and their misplaced luggage was delivered to the next port that the ship was sailing to.

 

Yes, it does happen. The "lost luggage" when found is forwarded to your first port of call. Then someone brings it to the ship.

 

This is NOT always the case. If your airline either flies to the next port of call, or has interline agreement with other airlines that fly there, they will deliver the bag to that destination. Most major airlines have this kind of agreement.

 

However, if you're flying on some smaller airlines or budget airlines (ahem, Southwest), they do NOT have interline agreements and will NOT deliver bags to a destination that they don't serve. In our case, Southwest didn't fly to any destination in our itinerary except for our port of embarkation so we had to suck it up for a week. At least they were honest about it from the beginning and told us that if the bag was found, that it would be held until we returned the next week.

 

We chose to fly on Southwest because we scored some ridiculously cheap nonstop flights from Atlanta, but the hassle associated with this lost bag, and their limited ability to recover from it, made us wish that we hadn't.

Edited by Tapi
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Hasn't happened to us, fortunately. We've always had direct flights when flying in for a cruise and that could be part of the reason and we normally fly in a day before the cruise. Last year when we were at the Carnival check-in that's set up inside Miami International Airport (flew in day of cruise - not normal for us), a couple in line with us just had their luggage lost. After checking in for their cruise (they were on our ship), the husband went back to the airline and told us after arguing with them, that the airline arranged to have their luggage shipped to Cozumel two days later. Cozumel was our first port after a sea day. We never saw them around the ship so we don't know if their luggage met them in Cozumel or not. I can't remember if the airline gave them an "allowance" of $$$ to buy necessities to tide them over or not, but I have heard of them doing that.

 

Flying for that same cruise I was worried about lost luggage since we were flying in day of that time. I brought a suitcase to check onto the flight, but packed most of what I'd need into my carry-on, leaving my snorkel gear and other items that I could do without on the cruise if it became necessary. On the return flight, I packed as I normally do. We also make sure we have secure identification attached to the outside of our luggage. We also have the luggage locked using the TSA locks and have identification (names/contact information/flight schedule/flight #'s/Cruise line name/contact information/ship name) packed inside with our belongings. I also take detailed pictures of the contents of both of our suitcases...just in case.

Edited by pghsteelerfan
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How does the airline know where to forward your luggage ?

 

 

When you fill out your lost luggage report, they'll ask for the name of the ship and itinerary.

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We've always had direct flights when flying in for a cruise and that could be part of the reason and we normally fly in a day before the cruise.

 

 

Our lost luggage experience above was also on a nonstop flight the day before the cruise.

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We met a couple last year on a Canada/New England repo cruise -- 12 days. They never got their bags.

 

At one point they had been found and would have been waiting for them in Halifax, if we didn't have to miss it due to high winds.

 

Here's where a lot of the missing stuff winds up - it is an awesome place

 

http://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/

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On my cruise on NCL Gem 2013 there was an accident with a member of the dining staff as we were leaving NYC. We got just under the Verazzano Bridge when we slowed and then stopped. Did a 180 and started back under the bridge.

 

Turns out 1st contract first day dining room crew member fell down the stairs and had to be immobilized and to safely transfer him we returned all the way back to Pier 88 in midtown Manhattan

 

Keeping a long story short, off went the worker, on came additional baggage that was lined up waiting on the pier waiting. Airlines had delivered the delayed baggage to the ship.

 

One of the reasons elegant night is never the first night, baggage issues from not reaching the ship to not reaching your cabin in time for dinner (not that the 2nd night is not after a port of call would it help).

FWIW

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I just had an awful thought. What if the airline looses our luggage and we don't get it back before we board for our cruise? Has this happened to any one of you? This will be our first time traveling by air to a cruise.

 

On our last cruise one of our table mates had this happen to her. They lady had actually flew in a day early and still the airline did not have it by the time we left. She had packed some clothes in a carry on so she was not SOL, but she was very upset because of the outfits she had wanted to wear and the jewelery she had thought they had lost. I remember her saying the airline had given her several hundred dollars to buy new clothes and by I think the fifth night they had flew it into the port.

 

DW and I drive more then we fly into the port to cruise. I could not imagine this happening to us. Seems to have taken a lot of time and effort on the ladies part to track down her stuff. She took in stride and had a good time all the times we saw her.

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Our lost luggage experience above was also on a nonstop flight the day before the cruise.

 

Wow. Even though we had the direct flight, I knew it was a possibility and that's the reason I packed everything I could into that carry-on and lugged it around and it had to have been about 30 pounds. I just know that my luggage would have been lost if I hadn't. I think we were both typing our first replies at the same time...so sorry that you never did get your luggage returned.

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Yes I have read many stories here about people have had the airlines lose their luggage. And many people came in a couple of days early and still no luggage by the time they left for the ship.

None of our cruises is less than 14 days. By the time we do a day at a hotel near our airport, 2 or 3 days in embarkation port, a day in a hotel at disembarkation port and lastly a day in a hotel before driving, we are usually gone 19 or 20 days. Thus we need 4 suitcases and we do cross pack.

Unlike some here, we have not had direct flights to any of our embarkation or disembarkation ports in many years. So we do worry about those connecting flights.

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One tip I read somewhere was to take photos of all your luggage before your trip. That way you can show it to the lost luggage people and they know exactly what they are looking for. I have no idea if that really helps or not, but I do it just in case.

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