watch out for lies

[Tjalex07]

An individual with 30+ sailings would certainly understand that things rarely go absolutely smoothly on the final day of a cruise. Never, never book an outgoing flight so early in the morning. My wife and I have been on several cruises, but know that an early afternoon or later flight will usually work well. I am not sure why the employees of Celebrity provided you with the information they did, but if I had been them I certainly would have informed you that you were misguided in booking a flight at the time you did. Celebrity is not responsible for your mistake. Plan better in the future and I am certain your current problems will be solved.

[Ma Bell]

I myself have been on over 25 cruises on all major lines.

 

Not as many as Mercury51 but still quite a few.

 

I have always called the guest relations desk the purser desk I guess I must be wrong as well according to Ma Bell that is.

 

But that is fine some people receive satisfaction from pointing out mistakes of others.

 

By the way after reading this board I can say I hope never to cruise with any of you why are all of you are so hostile and ill-tempered.

 

PS I have also been forced to book an early flight 10:15 to be exact due to personal reasons.

But I guess I am one of only a few that has had that problem wow it must be spectacular to lead such perfect lives.

 

 

 

Sorry if I sounded hostile and ill tempered. I'm not. This poster can't be telling the truth about being on 35 Celebrity cruises. I was just using the purser as one example. There are many cruise lines that do have pursers, but if he has been on 35 cruises with Celebrity he would know that. I hope you make your 10:15 flight. You probably will, but it's really best to book later if at all possible.

[Lois R]

Who said anyone lived perfect lives?:eek: :confused:

 

But when booking a cruise (or any vacation) for that matter, I always give myself a good amount of time on the return portion~just as I do on the arrival of getting in a day early.

[RodPat]

Joey, you should be okay in FLL with an 11 am flight. We were there last November and had a 12:30 flight booked but were able to switch to a 10:30 flight. This is what we usually do book a later flight and if we get there early we ask if we can get on a earlier flight. Works most of the time and I don't worry all morning waiting to debark. Besides what is the rush to get home, you are still on vacation. Pat

[tbelian]

Umm, in addition to what the others have (mostly) said, why would you ask the 'purser'. Unless you simply used this term as a generality to mean any 'desk' person? If it was in fact the purser (the count d' money...) you asked the wrong person.

[hajekfam]

If this person really had 35 Celebrity cruises I assume he or she would know there's no such thing as a purser on board and that there is always a written schedule that shows the different color tags and the order of disembarkation. If the tags were the wrong color he should have known when he received them that they were wrong. Since he justs walks off whenever he feels like it, maybe he doesn't bother to let them know what his scheduled flight is. I can't believe anyone with this much experience would book a 10AM flight.

 

What exactly would be the motivation for lying to this person? C'mon:rolleyes:

 

On our last cruise (Jan 04), we were not given a form to fill out asking about flight times. We also did not get a schedule with our tags - just a memo with time and place for our color tags to meet. We were with a group of friends all traveling independently (having different colored tags) and no one received a full schedule. Having received a full schedule with our 10/03 trans, I knew that the color tags we originally received were for a later time - (it seems Captains Club are broken down into a couple of groups and we were in the second Captains club group: the fourth or fifth off the ship after suites, early departures and then Captains Club groups) - and with hubby awaiting hip replacement surgery the following month and unable to move quickly, I went down to guest relations. They promptly changed our tags to the first group's color and our meeting place to the handicapped meeting place (different from the normal first-off group's place).

In Ft. Lauderdale, all the baggage is off-loaded before the first group comes off. As we were the actual first ones off the ship, we could see all different colors had a full compliment of luggage.

We have never disembarked in Vancouver - only sailed from there. The luggage handling might be different there.

[hdawson]

Does anyone attend the disembarkation lecture which explains the entire procedure?

[CruisingChick]

Does anyone attend the disembarkation lecture which explains the entire procedure?

 

On Celebrity ships you don't even have to attend. They replay it over and over again on your in cabin TV. So you can watch it at your leisure and know what's going on.

 

As for booking any flights before 11:30 AM on disembarkation day, unless the CRUISE LINE books that flight for you, I say don't do it. It's too risky and the cruise line does not guarantee you will make it.

 

Anne Maria

[Ma Bell]

Here is an Idea Book a Later Flight!!!!

 

 

Is this you or a hostile imposter?:D

[Desertbelle]

Ma Bell, Celebrity doesn't have a pursers desk or a purser? What do they have instead? I hadn't heard this before.

 

I agree with the majority here. I have only been on 8 cruises (we started late!! :) ) but I know better than to book a 10 am flight home on disembarkment day.

 

I will never understand peoples rush to leave the ship and get back home. I wouldn't mind being the last person off the ship, and I love having a few hours for that post-cruise glow before dealing with the hassle of airports and such. Whenever possible we stay a few days after a cruise in the last port city to relax and explore....a sort of cruise extender!! :D

[Ma Bell]

They're called Hotel Manager and Guest Relations.:) I guess I should have just left that out.

[Desertbelle]

Thank you, Ma Bell. Now you have me thinking if I have seen that before on previous cruises because it sounds so familiar. I bet people still call it the pursers desk even when they know it's the Hotel Manager/Guest Relations desk...old habits die hard! :)

[hdawson]

The purser's desk is now basically your banking center. Other functions are handled by Guest Relations.

[L11]

If indeed the OP was lied to by a Celebrity employee, that was wrong. HOWEVER, this story just does not make any sense.

 

If the OP does indeed have 35 Celebrity cruises, I cannot believe they have never been to Vancouver before. Celebrity just does not have THAT many different itineraries. I believe that all of their Alaska cruises either start or end there. So, while it is possible this was thier first Alaskan cruise, it is pretty implausible since that is one of X's most popular itineraries. AND, note that they are from California, so the Alaska itineraries are quite accessible from the left coast.

 

Now, if they have ever been on an Alaska cruise, they would know the location of the Vancouver airport. On a good day with no traffic it is a 1/2 hour drive. At least half of the trip is on surface streets--there is no other way. Disembarkation is NEVER a good time of day because it is smack in the middle of rush hour and taxis are scarce at best. Also, they would have known that Vancouver is NOTORIOUS for customs delays, both on embarkation and disembarkation. The customs officials are based at the airport and they often get delayed en route. We were on our second Celebrity cruise with no particular 'status' when we went to Alaska and even WE knew about this, just from chatting with shipboard personnel.

 

Bottom line, I agree with the posters who are taking this thread with a big, huge grain of salt. If any of this happened at all, I think you have a person who failed to do their research, made their flight arrangements way, way too early, couldn't locate their luggage in the very large terminal and wants to blame someone other than themselves.

 

Linda

[idssms]

X booked me on a 10:30 flight last week from BCN to JFK.

 

I was standing on level one where we disemarked for 30 mins to ensure I would be one of the first off the ship.

 

We hussled but made it to Barcelona airport and onto our flight. We finally got off the ship around 7 30 am.

 

I thought it may be close but it was easy.

 

I received a white tag but it didnt really matter, no one asked me for my color, I just left the ship right behind the wheel chairs folks.

 

idssms

[UnitedFlyer]

WOW I hope I am never on a cruise with Linda I would thrown myself off to get away from her.

 

Also I have only been on two Alaska cruise's out of over 30 just for your info So it is logical that it was Mercury’s first cruise why are the people on this board such as Linda so unintelligent and quick to judge?

 

[canderson]

None of you know why the women made the reservations for such early flights She may have had a very legitimate reason. It is hard to believe that someone as well traveled as she needs help from most of you (even those of you with 765,000 actual butt-in-seat miles with United alone). My point is that she has the right to accurate information from the purser desk. Also, having cruises with Celebrity 35 times, I think she has a right to disembark with the first group.

 

You originally noted that the OP didn't ask for an opinion of her scheduling abilities, but by appearing to blame X for her missed flight, such opinions as to the true cause of the problem were inevitable.

 

The pointedness of our replies stems from the fact that the OP implies that she believes that misinformation by Guest Relations was the cause of her missed flight. While we understand her problem with the accuracy of the information as she has described it, and will acknowledge this to be a problem at times, the primary cause of the missed flight was her own scheduling, and attempting to fix blame on Guest Relations for the end result appears to most of us to be inappropriate.

 

Given the cirumstances as stated by the OP, the most accurate information she could possibly have received from Guest Relations would still not have adequately mitigated her risk for missing her flight.

 

The OP raises two issues (intentionally or otherwise), and many of us have responded to both. Had the OP simply noted that departure schedules and information can be in disarray on the morning of disembarkation, we'd have all agreed with her and that would have been the end of the discussion.

 

Even given a timely and expeditious disembarkation and being #1 off the boat leaves a very high risk proposition for making a 10:00 Vancouver flight. So while we're sorry that she feels she was misinformed by Guest Relations about a disembarkation time, the end result was likely to have been the same in any case. Blame X for any perceived misinformation, but not for missing the flight.

[cechase]

I guess after reading three pages of this thread, that I will just throw in my "two cents" worth. First, booking a 10:00 a.m. flight on disembarkation day is just asking for serious trouble, and I agree with the vast majority who have posted here that the op was asking for serious trouble.

 

As to the "alleged lies" on part of X - they have absolutely no control when the vessel is cleared by immigration. On a prior cruise - they were paging four separate cabins to go and clear with immigration - and this went on for almost an hour!!

 

What's the hurry! On our last cruise on Century in February, we booked a hotel and stayed in Fort Lauderdale for the night of our return, so we could get an early flight out to the west the next morning [remember we lose three hours]. When they announced that they were commencing disembarkation, our wonderful butler Lawrence came to our Royal Suite and told us to relax and he would escort us out. We did relax, and after about an hour he came and escorted us off the ship, and we breezed through Customs, and when we got to the "grey" ticket area - there our luggage was standing out all by themselves. Voila! there was also a readily available cab - and we ended up with a very relaxing and unhurried and pleasant disembarkation.

 

Now, you might be wondering why we did that, and will do that on our next two cruises. In May of 2004, we had "white" tags and disembarked Century, and since we arranged the airfare through Century - were off the ship in a flash and spent a half hour trying to find our bags, and then got in the Century bus and waited 45 minutes, and were dumped at the FLL airport at about 10:30 a.m. for a 1:30 p.m. flight. The place was jammed, no place to sit, not even a place to sit on the floor. It was a mess - and we were frazzled. Never again! Oh, you mentioned about FLL cruise ships coming in on Sunday - just book a flight around 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. on that Sunday - and take a cab to the airport. If you would like wonderful accommodations and spend a little money for a wonderful view and terrace - try a tower room at the Hyatt Pier 66 hotel.