Close Call !! No Insuarance

[Juan C]

What has been your experience in getting resolution from the Cruise Company on a cruise refund? And explain if you had cruise insuarance or not.

 

Since I live near a port I do not have to contend with air and travel to get to the port, so I usually do not buy cruise insuarance. I had a close call 2yrs ago on RCCL EOS. Boarding started at 2pm, but everyone knows that you probabaly get on as early as noon. Well we woke up that day around 8am to get prepared and my 2yr old seemend like he was coming down with a cold so we took him to the hospital thinking we had plenty of time to board before 5pm. Long story short, the hospital told us that because we gave him medicine they can not be sure that after the medicine wears off that there could be something wrong and the effect will wear off around 8pm. We decided worst case scenerio that we will catch up with the ship next day in the Bahamas, small cost flying from Miami. We decided that I drive to the pier around 4:30pm (ship sets sail at 5pm) to get instructions on how to meet the ship the next day in the bahamas. We s/w agent and she said that the ship has 2 doctors and three nurses and not to worry. I called my wife and family (we are 20min away)and the ship leaves in 30 min and decided to go on the ship. I am super nervous waiting for the rest of my party to arrive and the pier is empty, everyone is on the ship. The agent is still there. My family arrives at 4:50 and at this point we can see everyone doing the life boat drill, we are really pushing it. We board around 5:05 and think that Wow, they waited for us. Turns out there was an immigration problem in the Bahamas and that we will not be going there. Our plans on catching the ship in the Bahamas would of been down the tubes. Thank God that the agent convinced us that the ship was able to handle medical emergencies. I felt better going down 4 flights of stairs to get to a Doctor than to drive 20min to get to the hospital at home. Turns out our son got real sick the first night, we rushed him to the on board clinic were a Swedish Doctor ( I swore I will never forget his name) looked at my kid and said "how long has your kid had asthma". He explained in 2 minutes what the other Doctors in the emergency room couldn't. He gave us medicine and 6 hours later my son was running around having a great time. We were lucky that day, we had no insuarance, would of missed the boat in Miami and in the Bahamas not known what was wrong with our son. Thank you Gunther (I think) and crew of RCCL EOS.

[1cruiselvr]

CLs do not provide refunds no matter what the circumstance.. You can only get your money back thru cruise insurance and even because of events specifically described in your policy as being covered. We always buy insurance because we do not have a crystal ball that will foresee problems such as you just described. Happy Sailing!

[Juan C]

Do you think if I had flown to the Bahamas to catch up with the ship they would of told me-- sorry, things happen.

 

I'm sure they would of given me some compensation or reduced cruise at a later booking. I am glad I did not find out the hard way.

 

I want to hear about those kind of stories.

[LittleBit]

[q]Do you think if I had flown to the Bahamas to catch up with the ship they would of told me-- sorry, things happen.

I'm sure they would of given me some compensation or reduced cruise at a later booking. [/q]

 

??

I'm not sure why you feel this way. You bought a ticket; if you did not use it for the date/time/place that was on the ticket, they have no reason to give you anything. If THEY cancelled or made a change, sure, I could see them offering you something, but not if you change your plans (for whatever reason). That is what insurance is for.

 

If you fly to another port to catch up, assuming that you are not violating the Jones Act, I'm sure they would say "Welcome aboard, we're glad you could catch up," but I don't see them giving you a refund/credit for the portion you missed.

[lorilea]

We recently missed our cruise and had to catch it 2 days later at our first port. It was the airline's fault and because we had booked everything through their company; cruise, transfers and flights, they took care of us. They flew us to our first port where we spent 2 days at an all inclusive resort at the airline's expense. We have also been reimbursed for the first 2 days of our cruise through our insurance company.

[CruiseAwayWithMe]

That sounds like a close call. Your lucky that you live right next to port. I remember my last close call clearly. Well, we have to fly to the port so it is longer to get there. We were on the plane and the plane was moving. Then, we were in the runway and the plane stopped for about an hour and our flight was already sorta late. It turned out that we had to wait in the runway because a storm was passing by and we could not fly in the storm. So, we took off around 11:45 and landed about 2:00. We rushed through the airport and we were in Orlando so we were going to Port Canaveral. Then, we got out luggage and there were still cruise representatives down in the airport. Well, we got on the last bus that was going to the cruise ship. It takes about 45 minutes to get to Port Canaveral from Orlando Airport so it was even longer. Also, we took time to get our luggage and everything at the cruise terminal. We got to the cruise terminal at 3:50 and the ship took off at 4:00. I heard the lifeboat drill beginning and we got on about 4:00. That was the closest call that i can remember. It was all because of the plane and the bad weather flying :rolleyes: But, it all turned out good and we had a great time. The ship we went on that year was Carnival Pride, I believe. It was fun though despite getting on. I guess we all have close calls but at least we got there.