BeachCatFan

Well, it's now 10:30 Pacific time and nothing! Why couldn't they have just left our reservations alone until they were up and running with their new system?? And why has nothing ever worked the first time with their app?!? This is really frustrating!

So why didn't all these people from the Tampa area get off the ship also? Hurricanes are very unpredictable.. no one thought about the pier in Tampa being damaged?

We were on that sailing. Why did we not get off the ship in Tampa? Because at that time, Hurricane Irma was predicted to hit Cocoa Beach and we were under a mandatory evacuation order. 279 passengers elected to stay, some from Florida and many from other places. People from Texas started yelling that since we were in the Gulf of Mexico, why couldn't the ship let everyone off in Galveston? Keep in mind, those people were in no way ever to be effected by Irma........it was just "convenient" for them. We were told that we would stay out to sea until probably Wed., when they would know more about where Irma had gone. Irma hitting Tampa was not even in the picture. All of a sudden, they decided that the ship would become a relief ship and would go to either Key West or the Caribbean. That was then they said we would go to Galveston on Sunday instead of waiting to see what was happening in Tampa. We could get off Sunday night or wait until Monday morning.They took us to Galveston and then shuttled us to Houston to the airports. From then on, we were on our own. Many of us in Florida or South Carolina, or Georgia, had our cars at the parking garage in Tampa, so no matter where we lived, we needed to go to Tampa first. Flights and hotels in Houston were extremely hard to come by.........most hotels there are filled with FEMA, insurance adjusters, contractors, etc. The one hotel we finally found was being used by Home Depot relief workers and we got the last room there. So, we ended up staying there from Monday until this morning when we flew back to Tampa to get our car and drive home. We just got power here last night and until 2:00 this afternoon, we had no water. We are still under a boil water alert.

So, no, many of us did NOT just stay on that ship to cruise longer or get more points!! We were in the eye of the storm at the time we had to make the decision to get off or stay on the ship. As it turned out, Tampa was fine, the port re-opened yesterday, and Irma turned and hit our barrier island when it turned and went across the state of Florida. The crew was very accommodating at first and then things sort of went downhill. They moved everyone to decks 8, 9, & 10 to make it easier for the staff, so anyone on another deck had to pack, move, and unpack. I have never packed and unpacked so much in my life on a cruise. Normal unpacking when you get on the ship. Then, when we got to Tampa we had to pack, take our bags and go through Customs and then re-board. Then, pack again and unpack when they moved us to another deck. Then, when we got to Galveston, even if we were staying until Monday morning, we were given 45 minutes notice Sunday at 5:15 that we had to pack, take our bags off, and go through Customs and re-board with our bags. Customs never looked at our bags and just said, "Did you buy anything?" So, that made a total of 4 times...........LOL. We lived out of the suitcases until we got off in the morning and did the same thing at the hotel or the number of times would have been even higher.

You could ask the same question to 3 different crew members......not talking wait staff or room stewards, here........and get 3 different answers. They would announce one thing and then do another. They were incredibly disorganized with each passing day. By the last night, only the buffet was opened for dinner and the food was less than mediocre. As of today, according to RCCL, Empress of the Seas "may" be used in the Keys after they assess the need there. So, there was absolutely no reason that ship could not return to Tampa. Besides, if you look at our itinerary, we sailed from Tampa to the Keys before we got to Havana. So, just sail back over from Texas, stop in Tampa, let us off, and go on to Key West....it's not like it was out of their way!! I'm not sure I will sail with RCCL again after this experience.