nanalolo

Yes, we have travel insurance and ultimately it is not the loss of the luggage albeit alot of valuable things lost that is really bothering me. It is the lack of customer care from Royal Caribbean. Just really disappointed. I guess I will go back to Norwegian!

:):)

That is the thing....we did book it all as a flight/cruise package.

I am just recently back from a “vacation” with Royal Caribbean. So I would like to share my story.

It all started out with us booking a cruise to the Caribbean from March 8 to 15th on the Adventure of the Seas. We paid the cruise out in full the day we booked – with cash. We then started looking for flights to get us to San Juan, Puerto Rico to catch the ship. We finally decided to go with the Royal Caribbean – Choice airlines because they guarantee that they will get you to the ship on time. We thought, great!!!

Says it right on their website: http://www.royalcaribbean.com/findacruise/transportation.do?cS=NAVBAR&pnav=1&snav=9

So here we go, we drive down to Seattle to get on United Airline flight 1111 to Washington, Dulles airport at 22:35 to arrive 07:31 and then to join United Airline flight 1660 at 08:15 to arrive in San Juan, Puerto Rico at 11:59. What actually happened: UA 1111 Seattle to Washington departs: 00:05 arrives at 08:35 – so we missed the connecting flight. According to the letter from United Airlines the flight 1111 was delayed to depart for 90 minutes due to late inbound arrival of the aircraft.

Okay – we call Royal Caribbean and say, “hey, help us out here”. So this lovely lady named Sabrina said “relax, we will find a flight for you”. So back and forth with RC Choice air and the United airlines – we are finally booked on a American Airlines flight 1137 to Miami leaving Washington at 17:20 to arrive at 20:11. But because we weren’t leaving Washington until after 5 pm, we were stuck in the airport in our shorts and flip flops and we had to take our luggage back from United and recheck it with American. So we PAID to check our luggage twice and had the pleasure of sitting in Dulles airport all day long. (I would like to point out here also, that not ONE of the flights fed us, so we had to eat fast food from the airport for several days. No one even offered a voucher or anything ). OKAY – so far a little inconvenient, but no big deal.

Well when we arrived in Miami and went to get our luggage to check into the hotel for the night before our next flight out at 9:50 to Barbados – OUR LUGGAGE was now missing. So an extra couple of hours in the airport trying to track down our luggage. We get to baggage claims and they ensure us that it is just coming in on the next flight and we will have it delivered to us at the Hilton. Okay, we go off to a very late dinner at the Hilton – which of course we had to pay for – and thank goodness, it was a really good meal!! However, when we wake in the morning and check to see if our luggage is downstairs – NO!

Crap, now we have to go back to luggage claims before getting on the next flight. The staff ensure us that the baggage will be in Barbados when we get there. So off we go to get our 09:50 flight to Barbados, at least we get to spend the day on the beach and relax while waiting for the ship to come to port the next morning. OH NO!!! AA1089 has mechanical issues, so after an hour and a half sitting on the plane, we are deplaned. We are told that they are going to have to replace the plane to get all of us to Barbados. Alright, fair enough, can’t get upset about mechanical issues. Better to get a new plane than to die!!!

Again, we spend the day in the airport waiting to hear when we might be able to get on another plane. We are told not to go far from the waiting area because we could be called to board at any time. I believe it was about 4:15 when we were finally told that we would be boarding a new plane that was at the complete opposite end of the terminals and we had to get there immediately. Of course 100 or so people go racing across the airport only to sit on the other end for another hour.

Yay! We arrive in Barbados, sometime around 9pm. We go to the carrousel to get our luggage and SURPRISE!! It isn’t there. So we find the lost luggage personnel and make a claim report with her. She feels it may arrive on the next flight and therefore it will meet us at the ship in the morning. So off we go to a very remote hotel and settle in for an extremely late dinner – did I mention that I am a diabetic and need to eat fairly regularly and keep myself hydrated. Did you know that even water costs 3$ in the airports. Anyhow, we have dinner, it is ok. I go to settle the bill and find out that they do not accept American cash – we don’t own a credit card. Their machine won’t accept our bank debit/visa. So now I have no choice but to be taken by cab to the nearest ATM to get Barbadian cash. At this point I am exhausted and a little more than frustrated. I just want to sleep. So off I go in what turned out to be a $40 cab ride to pay $198 Barbadian dinner bill. Holy Crap!!! But honestly, I was so tired, that I didn’t argue and I didn’t even really look at the bill until I got home over a week later. There was a charge on the bill for two strawberry daiquiris that we did not order – I know that because my husband doesn’t drink and I am allergic to strawberries!

Okay we go off to bed and figure alright, it has been a trial to get onto this cruise, but we should be fine by the time we meet the ship.

HAHAHAHAHA!!! Jokes on us!!! Sure we get picked up at 7 am to be taken to the port. The Adventure of the Seas is there and we are anxious to get on the boat and into our cabin. We want to shower and change our clothes, or get into our bathing suits and lounge. But guess what? Our luggage is nowhere to be found! So back to the customer services desk to put in a lost luggage claim. At this point I am so tired and “done” with this experience that when the lovely young customer service representative – Mia, asked me to fill in the form once more – I lost it. I just started to sob. I had to walk away and find a restroom to compose myself. Leaving my husband of course to deal with everything. I wondered back a little while later and Mia immediately apologized to me – that was nice. The CSR team offered us the standard “missing luggage” pack to help us get through until our luggage arrives. That consisted of two RC t-shirts each and a small tote with a tooth brush, tooth paste, a comb and razor and a minuscule tube of shave cream. Great, we head off to our cabin and figure at least we can shower. OH BOY! Really, can this dream be over?? We don’t have any complimentary shampoos or soaps in our cabin – silly us for booking the inside cabin – guess we should have a balcony to get shampoo and soap!!!

Aw well, we dump our carry ons and decide to go find our friends at some beach that they had planned to be at. So we did that. They were happy to see us after missing the first two nights on the ship. So we spent the day on a beach and tried to gather ourselves. We can still salvage a vacation out of this. After all, we have four days on the cruise and then three days in the Sheraton Old San Juan afterwards.

So we trundle back onto the ship after a short stint on the beach. But the fact remains, we have no clothes to change into and we don’t smell so pretty after this adventure. So we choose to leave our friends to their dinner in the dining room and we wonder down to the cafeteria just the two of us. Again, we are exhausted and emotionally drained. We will deal with no luggage again tomorrow. Next morning we meet up with our friends again and our friend, Adam Isfeld, owner and GM of Key West Ford (who has been cruising with RC for over 15 years) decides that he will have a little chat with one of the Managers on the Ship. Well, that was really sweet of him to come in along side of us and support us in our issues and explaining to RC that we need resources. But in the end, the Manager told us that the staff have followed protocol and given us the standard “lost luggage” supplies, he said, you should have told us that you needed shampoo and so on. Which we had done several times. Had we not had friends on the ship, we would not have received any toiletries that were useful. Each day we received new t-shirts and a new tote with toothpaste, etc. REALLY!!! So by the end of the cruise, we had 11 t-shirts between us and several toothbrushes whose bristles came out in our teeth. The funny thing was that only 4 of those t-shirts were our size.

The other issue that made this experience MUCH MORE EXCITING was that I had blister packed the majority of my meds and I had put one booklet into my carry on. But I put the sharps dispenser and my extra insulins along with my husband’s one bottle of meds into the big suitcase. So after day seven of our adventure, I was out of medication. Again, it was with the assistance of our friend Adam, explaining to the Hotel or Services Manager, whichever he was that the cruise line would either have to supply me with the medications necessary or they would have a diabetic without medications on their cruise. It was begrudgingly that they sent me down to the infirmary to see the Dr. Oh, he was a treat. He said, give me a list of your medications, which I had with me and he would see what they had in stock. Well according to him, the ship had none of my medications in stock except for one. He said, he would write a prescription for me to go out on the next port and see if I could have it filled.

I explained to him, that at home I have complete coverage for my medications and I that I don’t have the means to spend the hundreds of dollars that it would cost me to refill the prescriptions. ( As I mentioned, we don’t have a credit card) So after humming and hawing he said the only things he could write a prescription for would be my insulins. Everything else would not be accessible. After another chat with the hotel manager, they agreed to send the Port authority to find the medications at the next port and they ship would cover the cost. So that night, I was called back to the infirmary again. The Dr. was not happy. He said, they did not find anything in that port and so I have to give you this – this being a vial of Humulin N – one of the insulins that I use. He said, if I give you this, then I have to find a replacement for the ship because I am supposed to have it here for emergencies. I said: “I AM an emergency!” It’s not like I lost my luggage and medications on purpose. I honestly thought having one week in my carry on was enough. So I left the infirmary that night with that vial and a bunch of syringes. The Dr. told me to send my cabin attendant down to get a sharps container for me. Okay.

So the next day, I still don’t have my morning insulin and so I am not feeling great – but I don’t want to upset my husband or any of my friends. We go out and about and enjoy our day. Again when I reboard the ship that afternoon, I have a message to go back down to see the Dr. The port authority has found the other insulin. So I am sent away with the new morning insulin and a bunch more syringes to get me through the remaining days of my trip. Thanks!

Okay, we say goodbye to our friends and get off the ship in San Juan, early so we can just go to the hotel and find a spot to relax. The cruiseline did wash our clothes twice while we were onboard. However, we were very limited as to where we could go without clothing ;)

So we got to the Sheraton Old San Juan. Nice hotel. Nice little city. We walked and walked and just chilled. I sat at the pool a bit and we seemed to sleep a lot. It was nice. Until the final day March 18th we left the hotel all paid up and got into the taxi to the airport for our flight home. In the taxi there was a couple of lovely older ladies that started to tell us this story of this young couple on the cruise that they had just taken. How the woman was a diabetic and they had lost her meds in their luggage and how they never got their luggage, yadda, yadda. I was mortified, that some ladies on the cruise knew my story. I thought, was I that flamboyant in my dealing with the CRS desk that everyone around me could hear my story?! I can only hope that this was a coincidence and that they happened to be near the desk when we were explaining our issues.

Anyhow, we caught our flight home, spend 12 hours on airplanes to get back to Seattle and then drove home to our bed. WE STILL DON’T HAVE OUR SUITCASE!!!!

Essentially, why I am telling this story is because I am still in shock at the fact that Royal Caribbean International just didn’t care!!! They offered us nothing in compensation. They said, that the loss of the luggage was pre-cruise and therefore not their issue. We would have to deal with the airlines about that. Which of course I am trying to do right now. But since we booked our flights with the guarantee from Choice to get us to our ship on time, we feel that we deserve a little compensation somehow!

I don’t know if this is worth your while, but I sure hope so. This vacation turned out to be a nightmare and certainly didn’t give us any sort of relaxation to help us to come back to work all fresh and raring to go!

Thanks for reading,

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