Galveston weather concerns

[setsail]

RCI had tons of options .

 

Would you mind listing the tons of options and how you know those to be factual

[brookie848]

 

 

 

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All I can say is WOW. I have absolutely no personal stake in any of this. I'm on the Royal and Carnival boards quite often because I'm always thinking about trying them out. But this absolutely cold and ridiculous official response gives me some serious pause.

 

One question -- are the people responding to social media US-based? Or are they overseas somewhere? Maybe if they are overseas, that gives them a bit of an excuse.

 

Royal handled this wrong from the beginning...and they haven't done anything to make me think that they care about their customers. Offering options would have been the smart thing to do. Ridiculous and very poorly handled.

[Cruiseathoning]

Again I emphasize that it is appropriate to give the organization a chance to conduct appropriate internal reviews and make the necessary changes as needed. BarryH I feel an immediate departure from Cozumel to Miami would have been prudent. They chose not to do that. I am always perplexed when I see top down decisions of no perceivable logic not get blocked or edited on the way down the pike. But mostly all you here from people anymore is "I am just doing what I am told," or "Just doing my job." At some point people at some level need to demonstrate courage and challenge hubris.

 

But I see these sorts of actuarial mistakes constantly.

[libertybelle41]

I cannot believe that string of messages! Those should be shared with the press in addition to Barry's letter. Outrageous and completely inexcusable.

 

For the record, I have no connection whatsoever to Carnival, have never sailed with them and probably never will. I have cruised with RCL once and have an Oasis cruise booked for December. I just get outraged when a company treats its customers poorly in a crisis, particularly when it would have been simple and inexpensive to give them the option to rebook.

 

 

Exactly! My blood just boils when I read those texts....Come on Royal, you gotta do better.

[BarryH]

Folks. I wrote what I wrote above because after thinking about this for a few days and now steaming further away from being able to get home I was angry. My missive was cathartic.

 

I cannot look back on any of this and find redemption for RCI. Not in the way they handled getting us on the Liberty home, not how they treated the passengers trying to board on 8/27, and not on their communication.

 

They could be judged less harshly if it weren't for the CCL parallel. Faced with the *exact* same circumstances and with three ships to deal with CCL handled all three of the above areas better. By a large margin.

 

Can anyone here point to anything RCI did or attempted to do that was in their passengers best interest? That RCI did as well or better than CCL? I can't.

[ducklite]

Only point I would like to make. CCL had 3 ships, two sailing on Saturday and one on Sunday. For the two sailing on Saturday, CCL game the same notice as Royal, one day prior.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

Before Friday the storm wasn't nearly the monster it ultimately became. As soon as it became apparent that it was going to be devastation, Carnival made the announcement. The Devil is in the details.

[MADflyer]

The notion that RCI should have somehow also headed for the Port of New Orleans is not well thought out.

 

RCI has a major operation in South Florida and a strong relationship with the port agent Intercruises. Intercruises can call in resources from Miami and Fort Lauderdale and easily handle the additional passengers for transfers, baggage handling and passenger services.

 

Taking the ship to Miami gives passengers many options for planning diverted travel. You directly have two major international airports that could handle the additional capacity and they are also out of the path of the same storm system.

 

Here affected passengers can be well taken care of rather than just being put in a location with limited resources that will most likely also soon be affected by the same storm system.

 

With Carnival adding 8000 passengers to the limited New Orleans market the rental cars and airline seats would have been very limited.

 

Carnival has a subsidized new terminal at New Orleans and only 3 cruise ship berths of which Carnival have exclusive use of 2 of them.

 

Just looking how the airlines responded when they closed IAH at 10:25 yesterday shows how important having a base is for diversion of aircraft. Two international flights turned around 2 hours into their flights and went back to London and Taipei. A flight about to land from Atlanta diverted to DFW. Air New Zealand from Auckland diverted to LAX as they have operations there. Flights from Peru and Buenos Aires diverted to IAD and KLM from Amsterdam headed to ATL.

 

The point is that the airlines know to never divert all aircraft to the same location and burden one single airport, especially where that airline does not already have their own operation.

[Husky1987]

Exactly! My blood just boils when I read those texts....Come on Royal, you gotta do better.

 

Yeah....I gotta admit that in deciding whether to do Anthem or NCL Escape to Bermuda in 2018 I was going to let the ship decide which one to do. That's probably not the case anymore.

 

I'll be on Adventure starting this coming Saturday....it may very well be my last RCI cruise.

[CRUISEFAN0001]

Bravo!!! I am sure cruisefan will still try to blame you for your horrible decision making EVEN THOUGH you made multiple attempts with RC to avoid the area and were denied.

Nope. Participating in the blame game is not desired on this end.

 

I actually commended EBFURR for taking the initiative/efforts to get more information and make his own decision, regardless of what that ended up being in his case.

 

It's those who continue to whine and complain as they were blindly following slow-to-evolve conditions and updates like sheep without taking EBFURR's approach. I also concede 2 other things...RCI was slower to announce final intentions (and also modified them as weather conditions changed), whereas Carnival took the easy "we're outta here" bailout approach (sooner). Again...no blame directed either way, rather, understanding that in such a major terrible event such as this...changes develop over time. There's way too much blaming going on on this topic. That helps no one.

[CruisingChick]

I guess I don't know enough about travel insurance but if the cruise was "on" even say for Monday and you decided I am not going into that area because I feel it's not safe, is that an allowable reason for you to collect if you cancel your trip 1 day or 2 days ahead of time? Doesn't something else have to happen in order for travel insurance to take effect?

 

Once we were stranded in the Madrid airport, our flight was delayed with no indication of when or if we would be leaving (all other flights had been canceled). We contacted our TA who told us our travel insurance wouldn't pay for us to stay in Madrid and book another flight unless our flight was actually canceled by the airlines. Our flight never got canceled but we had an 11 hour delay. So travel insurance would have not covered anything if we decided to stay and re-book another flight.

[Cruiseathoning]

One thing that has been overlooked-is that Liberty sitting in the Gulf made it vulnerable to water spouts, which could have been an unimaginable disaster, so no-it can not be credibly said that passengers were ideally positioned because even a cursory education in meteorology tells you that tropical storms bring tornadoes. Indeed, this has been a constant threat in the area.

[BarryH]

The notion that RCI should have somehow also headed for the Port of New Orleans is not well thought out.

 

Let's agree on that. They should have sent us to Miami when we left Cozumel. The wild goose chase to Galveston is what cost us onboard 5-6 days. Again, Carnival saw the same "window" as RCI and was on the same conference calls according to our Captain. Same information, very different decisions. Who made the right call(s)? Spoiler alert. It wasn't RCI. And the calls they made were all in their self interest.

[helen haywood]

I guess I don't know enough about travel insurance but if the cruise was "on" even say for Monday and you decided I am not going into that area because I feel it's not safe, is that an allowable reason for you to collect if you cancel your trip 1 day or 2 days ahead of time? Doesn't something else have to happen in order for travel insurance to take effect?

 

Unless you had "Cancel For Any Reason" insurance, (which does not reimburse you 100%), you are correct that you could not cancel because you felt the area unsafe and get a refund from an insurance policy. If all the flights were cancelled to the area, even though the cruise line was still sailing, then your travel insurance would cover you.

[BarryH]

Would you mind listing the tons of options and how you know those to be factual

 

Seriously? How about - 1) keeping us in Cozumel an extra day to better evaluate conditions in Galveston, 2) sail from Cozumel as scheduled to a position neutral to going to Galveston or Miami if neccessary, and 3) divert us earlier to Miami where we'd be right now. All very *factual* decisions made by CCL.

[CruisingChick]

Unless you had "Cancel For Any Reason" insurance, (which does not reimburse you 100%), you are correct that you could not cancel because you felt the area unsafe and get a refund from an insurance policy. If all the flights were cancelled to the area, even though the cruise line was still sailing, then your travel insurance would cover you.

 

What if you didn't have flights and were driving down? I wonder what you would have to provide to your insurance company in order to collect?

[ducklite]

Unless you had "Cancel For Any Reason" insurance, (which does not reimburse you 100%), you are correct that you could not cancel because you felt the area unsafe and get a refund from an insurance policy. If all the flights were cancelled to the area, even though the cruise line was still sailing, then your travel insurance would cover you.

 

Typically as soon as a state of emergency has been declared, you can cancel the trip and collect on the insurance.

[Aquahound]

Folks. I wrote what I wrote above because after thinking about this for a few days and now steaming further away from being able to get home I was angry. My missive was cathartic.

 

I cannot look back on any of this and find redemption for RCI. Not in the way they handled getting us on the Liberty home, not how they treated the passengers trying to board on 8/27, and not on their communication.

 

They could be judged less harshly if it weren't for the CCL parallel. Faced with the *exact* same circumstances and with three ships to deal with CCL handled all three of the above areas better. By a large margin.

 

Can anyone here point to anything RCI did or attempted to do that was in their passengers best interest? That RCI did as well or better than CCL? I can't.

 

I get it, but you put a lot of focus on RCI having NOLA as an option. It's one thing if you just said it here, but you sent that letter to several news sources proclaiming that Liberty could have gone to NOLA. That's what I'm asking about. How do you know that NOLA is an option for Freedom Class ships? If you don't know that, you just gave fake news to national news sources. Lord knows, they don't need anymore of that.

Edited August 28, 2017 by Aquahound

[setsail]

Seriously? How about - 1) keeping us in Cozumel an extra day to better evaluate conditions in Galveston, 2) sail from Cozumel as scheduled to a position neutral to going to Galveston or Miami if neccessary, and 3) divert us earlier to Miami where we'd be right now. All very *factual* decisions made by CCL.

 

Got any facts, why did they not stay in coz, or divert to Miami right away. I don't see "tons of options" at all, just speculation. I mean really, you must have these answers since you are writing letters and posting. Maybe you have been a personal guest of the captain on the bridge?

[kevdad]

It's those who continue to whine and complain as they were blindly following slow-to-evolve conditions and updates like sheep without taking EBFURR's approach. I also concede 2 other things...RCI was slower to announce final intentions (and also modified them as weather conditions changed), whereas Carnival took the easy "we're outta here" bailout approach (sooner).

EBFURR's approach was to head to the airport and get on flights to Houston. If not for the airlines canceling and because RCL didn't provide options, her honeymoon would be in Houston now... I guess RCL should thank the airlines for taking the "bailout" approach.

[ducklite]

Got any facts, why did they not stay in coz, or divert to Miami right away. I don't see "tons of options" at all, just speculation. I mean really, you must have these answers since you are writing letters and posting. Maybe you have been a personal guest of the captain on the bridge?

 

While I'm not arguing with the gist of your post, I'd say that the Captain didn't really have a whole lot of say as to where they were going, when they may or may not move, or much else. In this case it all came down from the corporate weasels, and the Captain on the bridge didn't have a whole lot of input.

[ducklite]

EBFURR's approach was to head to the airport and get on flights to Houston. If not for the airlines canceling and because RCL didn't provide options, her honeymoon would be in Houston now... I guess RCL should thank the airlines for taking the "bailout" approach.

 

And 500 SW passengers ended up stranded in flooded Hobby airport with only emergency power until SW airlifted them out on three flights off a flooded, unlit runway to Dallas last night. I wonder how many of them were Royal passengers? I'll bet a measurable number.

[Cruiseathoning]

Hold on-BarryH is trapped on a vacation he probably wanted to end 24 hours ago, no doubt concerned about career and property, so perhaps we should cut him some slack for making certain assumptions. I postulate that it is difficult for Freedom Class to enter NOLA, I don't know if it is possible one way or another.

 

Despite this, none of this changes the fact that he could have disembarked yesterday from Miami with different decision making. At the very least, it is important that as part of the aftermath of these decisions we know for future reference what is or is not viable. And as a corollary, perhaps it would be in everyone's best interest to design and develop more and larger ports if not for commerce, then for security. Building ships so large it can only dock in certain places has its drawbacks. Especially if those certain places are unreachable. BarryH might have been able to take binoculars and see his vehicle sitting outside Galveston and was told he has to go to Miami.

 

Consider context, people.

[scrotser]

I do hope that Royal makes the right (whatever that ends up being) and TIMELY call for the Sep 3rd sailing. We are supposed to be on the LOS Sep 10th cruise, and I wonder how this is all going to play out. My heart goes out to those dealing with all of this right now.

[ttown]

My wife and I were booked on the 8/27 Liberty sailing so I have skin in this game. We drove to Dallas Friday morning and listened to the reports coming out of Houston and wondered when we would hear from RCCL. I even called my travel agent and asked if our reservation could be transfered to a Florida sailing as it was already obvious that Galveston was going to be shut down for days to come. This was my first taste of truly bad customer service attitude from Royal to say nothing of horrible decision making. How can a major corporation fail so badly at the time a major disaster is happening in south Texas? What corporate culture causes this hazardous type of decision making? RCCL's corporate board needs to have an independent investigation and those responsible at the highest levels of the corporation need to fired. In is beyond incredible that as late as 9:30 am Sunday morning they sent an email to us stating we would sail Monday and that we needed to be to the port between noon and 3 p.m. Did no one in the Miami office bother to look at the live reporting on the Weather Channel, Fox News, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, etc and notice that Houston was flooding at a rapid rate. Finally the sent an email at 2 p.m. canceling the sailing. What possible explanation is there for that kind of decision making other than a complete focus on profit at all costs even when it means people potentially put their lives at risk? RCCL's senior management should be ashamed of themselves.

[setsail]

While I'm not arguing with the gist of your post, I'd say that the Captain didn't really have a whole lot of say as to where they were going, when they may or may not move, or much else. In this case it all came down from the corporate weasels, and the Captain on the bridge didn't have a whole lot of input.

 

The captain always has input when the safety of the ship, passengers, and crew is at hand. Other than that, I agree