Amsterdam crew member missing

It would seem useful to notify passengers in some fashion of such last-minute itinerary changes, even if only a slip of paper under the door or in the mailbox that there has been a delay and a fuller announcement will be made once people are awake. It might give people the time they need to alter their on-shore arrangements that do not involve ship's shore excursions. I see this sort of thing as a two way street: the cruise line does its best to keep us informed promptly, and we respond with easy acceptance.

I agree with you that good communications makes a difference. I've seen ships meet with various issues while I've been onboard ranging from missed ports to medical emergencies. In one instance onboard Minerva (Swan Hellenic line, now defunct), we could not make our scheduled port call into Civitavecchia due to high wind and heavy seas. The captain provided periodic bulletins throughout the morning and let it be seen that he was doing all that could be done to try to make it into the port. (Such as informing us that he brought the ship around to allow the pilot to get aboard, informing us that he would stand by to see if conditions would improve enough to allow us to get into port, etc.) Because of his proactive communication, I never heard a murmur of complaint among the passengers, despite it surely being a huge disappointment when the port authorities eventually closed the port (a fact which once again was communicated promptly) and we had to give up. For some of them it was probably their first and perhaps only chance to see Rome. And no one asked for any compensation that I ever heard of...

At other times, I've seen passengers become much more fractious when decisions were made without good communication around the reasons for doing so -- sometimes to the point of nearly 'storming' the main desk asking for compensation.

Surely it's much better to be proactive and give people understandable reasons. I like to think the best of my fellow man and assume s/he will be reasonable (even if a bit disappointed) given a decent explanation.

Just wanted to confirm that it was the Amsterdam. My DH and I were passengers. It was very sad to hear. Unofficially, we heard that there was video and that he was a new crew member (that he started the day we left Seattle). We heard them paging a crew member Thursday night a couple different times and then we found out about the time that we were supposed to dock in Ketchikan (7am) that the port call was cancelled, as we were still in Sitka waters, and that when we were released to leave the area by the Coast Guard we would be continuing to Victoria.