For Amsterdam WC passengers getting off/getting home and beyond

[Krazy Kruizers]

So good to hear that more people are arriving home safely.

[swmissouritravelers]

Glad to hear others arrived home safely.  We were among the last to disembark on Monday  the 23rd.  We took a taxi to our hotel in Perth near the airport and got a good night's rest.   We checked out of the hotel Tuesday and had a 12 hour wait for our flight out of Perth.  We flew Perth to Sydney, Sydney to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Atlanta, Atlanta to Missouri, 37 hours in total.  Our flights were such that we could spread out a bit.  Breezed through customs at LAX.  No health checks.  We are home now and have groceries.   Life is good.  Kudos to Holland America for doing the best they could under very difficult circumstances. 

 

Maggie and Bill

[KAKcruiser]

I know that Holland America did not allow any passengers to stay onboard.  I was asking about HAL passsengers being transferred to the Pacific Princess for the transit home.

[3rdGenCunarder]

10 hours ago, Captain Ricky said:

44 hours and we are home, slept for 15 hours and now are finishing day 2 of 14 in quarantine.  Here is the blog post from our trip home.

 

https://www.rich.mcclear.net/2020/03/26/take-off-your-mask-for-the-border-guard/

 

Thanks for the blog link. Glad you're home in Sitka. That's my favorite Alaska port because it feels more like a "real" town instead of a tourist spot. 

 

3 hours ago, NormTheSailor said:

Norm and Paula made it home safely Tues night. Flight on ANA (Japan) Perth-Tokyo-Houston-FLL went well. Last leg Houston-FL was cancelled but United re-booked us on a flight only a couple of hours later. Luggage was already there ahead of our flight so they must have put it on an earlier flight. We used Enterprise car rental (excellent service and value) to drive home, arriving just after dark. Houston customs and immigration was a wave through with only scan of passports. In response to anything to declare, we said no and they waved us through without a slowdown. There were no lines since we were early off flight. Flight Houston to FLL had first class nearly full (with several pilots and upgrades) and only  about 15 people in economy on the 737. Now isolating for 2 weeks. So far we are feeling well other than jet lag. Friends brought in groceries but don't want money yet as they don't want to touch anything that we touch! Time will cure that. All folks in condo are self isolating ... with more walkers than normal. Can this be a new trend... walk vs shop?

 

Since this is a HAL thread, "walkers" made me wonder if your condo had recently had a change in residents to skew older. 😜  But I realize you meant people going out for a walks. Yes, that's the new trend. People want to get OUT and there are limited options with so many "group" locations closed. And people who normally go to a gym are looking for alternate exercise. I'm seeing more walkers and runners on my street than usual, lots I don't think I've seen before. 

[Retired Librarian]

Starting Day 3 of 14 day quarantine.  We are under the guidelines of our retirement community and our county public health office.  So far only one fight with DH.  Our flights were Perth/Sydney/Honolulu/Portland, OR.  Our son who had been keeping our car picked us up and took us to a hotel where we slept 14 hours before driving home to Medford.  That 5 hour trip included clouds, rain, snow in the passes, and a hailstorm.  But we are home and glad to be here.  Neighbors are picking up mail and offering to do pick up at stores are needed.  We are lucky that our community is providing 2 meals a day delivered to the door.  Talk about trained -- I now get hungry when the doorbell rings.  Minor complaints -- Weather - snow showers and I'm cold (what happened to summer?)  Questions -- How long do the disrupted sleep patterns last?  I'm still wide awake at 12:30 AM and a zombie most of the day.  When our luggage does arrive (thinking positive), how long should it be quarantined?  The full 14 or just 2 or 3days?

Glad for everyone that is home safe.  Now it is time to go take my temperature.

Bonnie

[Worldtraveler 27]

13 hours ago, Storylady said:

Dolly and several other older passengers had HAL escorts. I believe Dolly’s was the violinist from the Adagio.

We met Beverly age 88 in the DFW airport. She's been on several World cruises and was traveling alone. She lives in Sarasota and had no way home from TOA. We helped her get a limo and she is safe and we are now fast friends.

[Cruise Suzy]

24 minutes ago, Worldtraveler 27 said:

We met Beverly age 88 in the DFW airport. She's been on several World cruises and was traveling alone. She lives in Sarasota and had no way home from TOA. We helped her get a limo and she is safe and we are now fast friends.

Glad you are home. Kudos for helping Beverly. We all need to help one another get thru this. "Little things mean a lot."

[rafinmd]

Has anyone heard anything privately from Scrapnana.  She hasn't posted for several days which is not like her.

 

Roy

[Horizon chaser 1957]

6 hours ago, swmissouritravelers said:

Glad to hear others arrived home safely.  We were among the last to disembark on Monday  the 23rd.  We are home now and have groceries.   Life is good.  Kudos to Holland America for doing the best they could under very difficult circumstances. 

 

Maggie and Bill

So glad to hear you’re home and safe! We got off in that last ‘window’ too. We had a day hotel in Perth, then a night flight to Melbourne; Melbourne to LAX; LAX to Vancouver; ferry to Salt Spring; taxi home. Not even WANTING to leave the property until well after our 14 day isolation is over!

 

Laura and David Williamson.

Edited March 27, 2020 by Horizon chaser 1957

[PeterL6H2B5]

 

I was sitting in the aisle seat for 14 hours over the Pacific Ocesn yesterday and after they put the lights back on, was chatting with a lady who had been on the Pacific Princess with its 550 passengers on its Wolrd Voyage that was also cancelled abruptly.

 

We had quite an interesting conversation and when I have time, I will follow up with Cruise Specialists, Holland America and Carniva, the parent company who made the decision to cancel the cruise and force us all off the ship halfway around the wotld.

 

This couple live on Islamorada in the Florida Keys and are heading there to hopefully arrive today.  She is a travel agent and said that they are closing down all the  Keys to all non residents and look to closing all hotels and restaurants.

 

Her story is quite different from ours :

 

She said that Princess handled it all very well as compared to us and made very generous offers as well.

 

They, like us, boarded in January,  but on their much smaller world cruise ship that usually sails out of Los Angeles and were going to go through the Suez canal I believe and were not going to Antarctica as we were.

 

They were in Freemantle 20 days ago and had a lovely day there onshore and then set sail for Ceylon and got there, at least to the port. They left for a  leisurely 8 or 9 days for Ceylon,  but were refused permission to disembark passengers so they filled up with gas, got on supplies and left going very slowly until they got word from the captain that their world cruise was cancelled at the same time, as ours was as we were approaching Darwin. They in all took 19 days to leave and return to Freemantle yexterday the 22nd.

But It was handled much better.

As soon as an  announcement was made, there was a letter waiting in their rooms about it and also any further changes and promises unlike us where written notification were delayed.

 

With us, it sometimes  took 2 entire days to tell the 1,113 passengers in writing what was happening so the ship dealt in rumours for the past 8 days. Rumours everywhere made the worry and sometimes panic worse.

 

We received  our news and  messages from the captain over the PA system and  sometimes as on the 21st and 22nd with contradictory messages within an hour of each other. The captain did read us the letter from the Carnival president cancelling the cruise but we  never got got a copy of this letter.

 

We had a message from the Holland America President about 3 days ago on our televisions saying how it was impossible to safely bring ANYONE home from Freemantle on the Amsterdam and learned YESTERDAY  from a passenger on the Pacific Princess that 85 of its 550 passengers are sailing back from Frermantle while our ship is just leaving on the 23rd we ith the crew slowly  for South Africa and then on to Fort Lauderdale for May 12th with some of vhf our luggage !  It is costing me $ 260 to send just one suitcase back to Can.ada as I did not believe that I could handle two big suitcases on the many flights.

 

 

The 550 Princess passengers were given free internet access as soon as the cruise was cancelled.

The Amsterdam passengers were only all given free internet access two days later as many did not have access at all without paying. I did get a rebate to my ship account for the unused days.  ( We also received a credit on our account of  $ 995. For the port charges for the 24 ports of the 48 that we are not going to get to)

 

The Princess passengers were given free transportation to their homes and the ship arranged it it all at the Pricess` expense no matter how the transportation was first arranged to the West coast and embarkation in January.  Many  passengers on both ships are not computer savvy.

 

When we heard through the grapevine that a petition was  being organized to stay on the ship even though it meant no more ports, I went to the library to sign it at 10.00 P.M. and it was gone, so I went early to the front desk to add my name electronically and they said that there were 217 cabins on the list at 8.30 A.M. but not to expect to hear anything for 2 days as it was the weekend. 

The Captain did come over the P.A. system later in the day to acknowledge our petition but that it would take a day or two to get an answer back but that his orders were to keep on going to Freemantle and deposit all passengers on the dock on March 24th, later changed to March 21st and 22nd and later changed again to March 21st, 22nd and 23rd.

 

The Amsterdam passengers were told that the ship would get them home by air and arrange their transportation home  ONLY if they had booked their original flights to Fort Lauderdale via Holland America.

 ALL the other Amsterdam  passengers, and this was well over half the passengers, were told that it was completely up to them  how to get home  and only that we were arriving in Freemantle  on the 24th  and all  passengers had and to get off that day as the ship was leaving with the crew on the 25th.

The company would  reimburse those passenger for reasonable expenses up to $ 1,250

If we submitted them with  proper documentation and were given a form in our staterooms which we would have to fill in and submit to Head Office   with our receipts.

 

This caused a frantic attempt by many passengers to try to contact  their travel agents over the weekend from the ship other side of the globe or try to attempt to make reservations themselves with very slow internet. Being the weekend and on the other side of the world meant that many passengers could not get even a reply for two days.

 Any hotel reservations had to be made by the passengers themselves in Australia at various cities. Some passengers made reservations in Perth or Sydney as their flights were going on the 23, 24 or even the 28th. Some were going to stay for a week or more.

Some airlines and destination cities had shut down flights from Australia. passengers who had made reservations were getting e-mails saying their booked flights were cancelled and panic was setting in for many, as even Qantas was shutting down all flights out of Australia towards the end of the Month, which was narrowed down to March 29th and as of yesterday our Qantas pilot announced as we were flying over the Pacific that they were shutting down on  the 24th.

Some of the elderly passengers did nothing until the captain finally announced on the 20th over the P.A. system that they would help those passengers make hotel and travel arrangements if they would  go down to the excursion desk,

 

One first time world cruiser made her own first class reservation home to New Hamshire for over $ 7,000 for the 24th only to have to change them all when were told two days later that were arriving on the 22nd and all would have to be  off the ship that day.

Another couple who live in Sitka, Alaska had to make their own reservations to get home at a cost of $ 2,500 each.

Another lady by herself living in Northern New York said she was worried about U.S. West coast airports being closed and made her reservation via South Africa to Kennedy at much more than $ 1,250.

One man from London thought the best way was by Dubai airport to London.

The worst case we heard of was of a 93 year old lady we know with her daughter living in Idaho who has  a bad heart and who uses a walker all the time, who was told her doctor not to fly more 6 hours ever and was so worried that she actually went to Fort Lauderdale on the ship from Los Angeles in December.

Her flights to the U.S.A. were booked by her son in Canada  was over 14 hours for the longest leg and she went to speak to Henk Mensick, the ship's hotel director, about this and was told by him that she should take a shorter flight !   She was dumbfounded at the comment and went away.

The insensitivity of this was just apaling to me.

 

Many passengers simply did nothing as some did not know how to do it and the ship did not offer any help at all until the 20th as we were approaching Frermantle. Some were just hoping that the company would relent and waited to hear about the results of their online petition before starting to panic.

 

The Princess passengers were given free shuttle service from their ship docked  in Freemantle behind us to the airport in Perth.

 

The first thing the Amsterdam passengers were given was an order form for us to pay $ 59. for our shuttle which was quickly charged to out ship account on March 20th. It is not a lot of money  but shows how Holland America treats its customers compared to Princess.

 

The biggest difference between the ships other than providing no help to their often very long time passengers was in the  compensation offered for cancelling the cruise just before Darwin :

 

The Princess passengers were first offered in writing a  prorated cash credit of their full fare from  March 1st onwards which would amount to a little over half their fare PLUS a credit of 100 % of their cruise fare towards a future cruise.

This was later amended in writing to the same  cash credit PLUS a credit of  125 % of their cruise fare towards a future cruise.

 

The Amsterdam passengers were offered by the captain   over the P.A. system a choice of :

1) 50 % cash credit of our cruise cost and a credit of 50 % of their full cruise fare towards a future cruise.

OR

2) No cash credit at all  and a credit of 125 % of their full cruise fare towards a future cruise.

We had until Aptil 1st to decide. The letter confirming this was only finally delivered to our cabins two days after it was told to us over the P.A. system 

 

The captain did come over the P.A. system to tell us that the company had decided to let us have until June 1st instead of April 1st to decide which offer to take. This change did not come to us in writing. We wonder if this credit is transferable to out heirs?

 

So the Princess deal is significantly better than the Amsterdam deal !

 

The captain kept on repeating that we had no option at all about staying on the ship.

EVERYONE had to get off the ship on March 24th  Later on this was changed to March 21st or 22nd  and later changed again to the 21st,  22nd  and very early on the 23rd.

 

 News came over the P.A. system to say that the government had suddenly decided that no one from our ship could stay in any Australian hotel and if they did, they could be fined $50,000. so the ship had cancelled all the hotel reservations that they had made for passengers flying later and that all the other passengers had to do the same asap. We could thus stay on the ship if we had to until early  in the morning on the 23rd but could not go off the ship for any reason. Once we left the ship we had to take all of our belongings. We could not come back.

 

This caused a new absolute panic as many had booked hotels on their own and in fact had been at one point encouraged to do so even for a part day and there were a lot of flights leaving between 10.00 and 11.00 p.m. and others leaving at 5.00 A.M. We were shown where all the hotels were and normal rates etc etc.

People were trying to cancel desperately via slow or on down internet. If they had flights later, they had no idea what to do.

The captain came on later over the P..A. system that the Autralian government had  relented and that we could again stay in hotels if we wanted to. 

Many passengers just gave up. I know of one couple who were booked to fly to Sydney to stay there for 4 days before their flight over the Pacific home. Many got the dreaded e-mail from their airline cancelling their booked flight.

 

The people who could not fly were sort of told over the P..A. hat they might be taken care of somehow but the captain came on the P..A. system an hour later to say that many people people had rushed down to the doctor and even threatened her and for us not to go downtown the doctor except for a CD current emergency?

 This P.A.  call said that  ALL passengers were going to be put off the ship no matter what their condition.

 

The Pacific Princess had a meeting of all 550 passengers and they could opt to stay on the ship as it returned via Hawaii to the West Coast.  Many passengers could sign up to go back by ship and were called down one by one to the doctor and 81 of those were allowed to stay on the ship.  Many more were not. 

Plus another 2 couples who said that they had rented out their house until May and had nowhere to go until then, so they were allowed to  stay as well. So the ship was due to sail with 85 of the 550 passengers.  They were told that  absolutely no one from the Amsterdam would be allowed to come to their ship.  

 

Rumours abounded in the airport that some passengers from the Amsterdam were allowed to transfer to the Pacific Princess but I do not know if this is a fact ,

 

One passenger did say that every passenger from the Princess ship had to get off the ship for 5 hours with all of their luggage in the terminal on the 22nd but that the lucky 85 were allowed to reboard. this may be why we were delayed until 4 p.m. in anyone getting off the Amstedam. We were never told why.

There was an altercation when one passenger who was a lawyer on the Princess ship absolutely refused to get off the ship but was told that if he did not get off in 10 minutes they would call the police to remove him.  He left. He said that he was going to launch a class action against Princess when he got home.

 

I do hope that all the Amsterdam passengers will all get home safely somehow and that our settlement is as good as that for the Pacific Princess as our distress and uncertainty over the future was a good deal worse. They were at least given a choice on how to get home.

Our passengers were left in the lurch especially those who were afraid of flying, let alone flying for 14 hours and all those with medical worries. There were a lot of passengers with many walkers, canes and motorized scooters on the Amsterdam where the average age has to be in the high seventies range going up to the high 90's. Many including myself took the cruise because it was returning to its home port and there would be minimal or no flying.

 

 

 

Peter Fortin,

CABIN 3319

 

[NormTheSailor]

wow!!  That paints a black picture of how we were treated.

[PeterL6H2B5]

 

TO THE CEO and PRESIDENTS OF CARNiVAL CORP. AND HOLLAND AMERICA, ITS SUBSIDIARY.

 

I just looked at the Princess web site and under The Pacific Princess Updates,   dated  March 23rd, 2020.

It states that the ship has left for San Diego with 115 passengers out of 550  which is considerably more the the 85 we first heard about from another passenger from the Pacific Princess as we were forced to fly across the Pacific Ocean on a 14 1/2 hour long and crowded flight, one of three flights required to get home.

 

The Pacific Princess was docked immediately in front of the Amsterdam in Freemantle.

 

The plan is that they will take 23 days to get there.

 

We,  on the Amsterdam, were out and out lied to when the President of Holland Americam, Orlando Ashford,  came into our televisions in our cabins and said :

 

1) That it was uncertain that the Amsterdam could get sufficient fuel or provisions to make it back to the United States.

 

2) That it was medically unsafe for the Amsterdam to take a long route back.

 

THUS EVERYONE WITHOUT EXCEPTION WOULD HAVE TO DEBARK FROM THE SHIP IN FREEMANTLE ON MARCH 21ST AND 22ND.

 

SINCE  PRINCESS HAD ALLOWED 115 OF ITS 550 PASSENGERS OR OVER 20 % TO SAIL HOME ON THEIR SHIP., AN EQUAL NUMBER OF THE  1,111 PASSENGERS  OR ABOUT 225 SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO GO BACK AS WELL ON THE AMSTERDAM.

PEOPLE ON THE AMSTERDAM, WHO WROTE A PETITION LIkE MYSELF AND OTHERS WHO BEGGED THE COMPANY TO CHANGE THEIR MINDS WERE IGNORED. 

MANY WHO HAD HEALTH PROBLEMS AND WHO COULD NOT SAFELY FLY LONG DISTANCES WERE ALL IGNORED AND LIED TO..

 

 

 ALL 1,111 PASSENGERS ON THE AMSTERDAM HAD TO TAKE VERY LONG AIR TRAVEL ROUTES FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD TO GET HOME.

 

THIS WAS A MONETARY DECISION AND THE COMPANY SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF ITSELF FOR MISLEADING ITS LOYAL CUSTOMERS .

 

 

Yours  sincerely,

 

PETER FORTIN

.Cabin 3319, the Amsterdam,

[Tampa Girl]

36 minutes ago, PeterL6H2B5 said:

 

I was sitting in the aisle seat for 14 hours over the Pacific Ocesn yesterday and after they put the lights back on, was chatting with a lady who had been on the Pacific Princess with its 550 passengers on its Wolrd Voyage that was also cancelled abruptly.

 

We had quite an interesting conversation and when I have time, I will follow up with Cruise Specialists, Holland America and Carniva, the parent company who made the decision to cancel the cruise and force us all off the ship halfway around the wotld.

 

This couple live on Islamorada in the Florida Keys and are heading there to hopefully arrive today.  She is a travel agent and said that they are closing down all the  Keys to all non residents and look to closing all hotels and restaurants.

 

Her story is quite different from ours :

 

She said that Princess handled it all very well as compared to us and made very generous offers as well.

 

They, like us, boarded in January,  but on their much smaller world cruise ship that usually sails out of Los Angeles and were going to go through the Suez canal I believe and were not going to Antarctica as we were.

 

They were in Freemantle 20 days ago and had a lovely day there onshore and then set sail for Ceylon and got there, at least to the port. They left for a  leisurely 8 or 9 days for Ceylon,  but were refused permission to disembark passengers so they filled up with gas, got on supplies and left going very slowly until they got word from the captain that their world cruise was cancelled at the same time, as ours was as we were approaching Darwin. They in all took 19 days to leave and return to Freemantle yexterday the 22nd.

But It was handled much better.

As soon as an  announcement was made, there was a letter waiting in their rooms about it and also any further changes and promises unlike us where written notification were delayed.

 

With us, it sometimes  took 2 entire days to tell the 1,113 passengers in writing what was happening so the ship dealt in rumours for the past 8 days. Rumours everywhere made the worry and sometimes panic worse.

 

We received  our news and  messages from the captain over the PA system and  sometimes as on the 21st and 22nd with contradictory messages within an hour of each other. The captain did read us the letter from the Carnival president cancelling the cruise but we  never got got a copy of this letter.

 

We had a message from the Holland America President about 3 days ago on our televisions saying how it was impossible to safely bring ANYONE home from Freemantle on the Amsterdam and learned YESTERDAY  from a passenger on the Pacific Princess that 85 of its 550 passengers are sailing back from Frermantle while our ship is just leaving on the 23rd we ith the crew slowly  for South Africa and then on to Fort Lauderdale for May 12th with some of vhf our luggage !  It is costing me $ 260 to send just one suitcase back to Can.ada as I did not believe that I could handle two big suitcases on the many flights.

 

 

The 550 Princess passengers were given free internet access as soon as the cruise was cancelled.

The Amsterdam passengers were only all given free internet access two days later as many did not have access at all without paying. I did get a rebate to my ship account for the unused days.  ( We also received a credit on our account of  $ 995. For the port charges for the 24 ports of the 48 that we are not going to get to)

 

The Princess passengers were given free transportation to their homes and the ship arranged it it all at the Pricess` expense no matter how the transportation was first arranged to the West coast and embarkation in January.  Many  passengers on both ships are not computer savvy.

 

When we heard through the grapevine that a petition was  being organized to stay on the ship even though it meant no more ports, I went to the library to sign it at 10.00 P.M. and it was gone, so I went early to the front desk to add my name electronically and they said that there were 217 cabins on the list at 8.30 A.M. but not to expect to hear anything for 2 days as it was the weekend. 

The Captain did come over the P.A. system later in the day to acknowledge our petition but that it would take a day or two to get an answer back but that his orders were to keep on going to Freemantle and deposit all passengers on the dock on March 24th, later changed to March 21st and 22nd and later changed again to March 21st, 22nd and 23rd.

 

The Amsterdam passengers were told that the ship would get them home by air and arrange their transportation home  ONLY if they had booked their original flights to Fort Lauderdale via Holland America.

 ALL the other Amsterdam  passengers, and this was well over half the passengers, were told that it was completely up to them  how to get home  and only that we were arriving in Freemantle  on the 24th  and all  passengers had and to get off that day as the ship was leaving with the crew on the 25th.

The company would  reimburse those passenger for reasonable expenses up to $ 1,250

If we submitted them with  proper documentation and were given a form in our staterooms which we would have to fill in and submit to Head Office   with our receipts.

 

This caused a frantic attempt by many passengers to try to contact  their travel agents over the weekend from the ship other side of the globe or try to attempt to make reservations themselves with very slow internet. Being the weekend and on the other side of the world meant that many passengers could not get even a reply for two days.

 Any hotel reservations had to be made by the passengers themselves in Australia at various cities. Some passengers made reservations in Perth or Sydney as their flights were going on the 23, 24 or even the 28th. Some were going to stay for a week or more.

Some airlines and destination cities had shut down flights from Australia. passengers who had made reservations were getting e-mails saying their booked flights were cancelled and panic was setting in for many, as even Qantas was shutting down all flights out of Australia towards the end of the Month, which was narrowed down to March 29th and as of yesterday our Qantas pilot announced as we were flying over the Pacific that they were shutting down on  the 24th.

Some of the elderly passengers did nothing until the captain finally announced on the 20th over the P.A. system that they would help those passengers make hotel and travel arrangements if they would  go down to the excursion desk,

 

One first time world cruiser made her own first class reservation home to New Hamshire for over $ 7,000 for the 24th only to have to change them all when were told two days later that were arriving on the 22nd and all would have to be  off the ship that day.

Another couple who live in Sitka, Alaska had to make their own reservations to get home at a cost of $ 2,500 each.

Another lady by herself living in Northern New York said she was worried about U.S. West coast airports being closed and made her reservation via South Africa to Kennedy at much more than $ 1,250.

One man from London thought the best way was by Dubai airport to London.

The worst case we heard of was of a 93 year old lady we know with her daughter living in Idaho who has  a bad heart and who uses a walker all the time, who was told her doctor not to fly more 6 hours ever and was so worried that she actually went to Fort Lauderdale on the ship from Los Angeles in December.

Her flights to the U.S.A. were booked by her son in Canada  was over 14 hours for the longest leg and she went to speak to Henk Mensick, the ship's hotel director, about this and was told by him that she should take a shorter flight !   She was dumbfounded at the comment and went away.

The insensitivity of this was just apaling to me.

 

Many passengers simply did nothing as some did not know how to do it and the ship did not offer any help at all until the 20th as we were approaching Frermantle. Some were just hoping that the company would relent and waited to hear about the results of their online petition before starting to panic.

 

The Princess passengers were given free shuttle service from their ship docked  in Freemantle behind us to the airport in Perth.

 

The first thing the Amsterdam passengers were given was an order form for us to pay $ 59. for our shuttle which was quickly charged to out ship account on March 20th. It is not a lot of money  but shows how Holland America treats its customers compared to Princess.

 

The biggest difference between the ships other than providing no help to their often very long time passengers was in the  compensation offered for cancelling the cruise just before Darwin :

 

The Princess passengers were first offered in writing a  prorated cash credit of their full fare from  March 1st onwards which would amount to a little over half their fare PLUS a credit of 100 % of their cruise fare towards a future cruise.

This was later amended in writing to the same  cash credit PLUS a credit of  125 % of their cruise fare towards a future cruise.

 

The Amsterdam passengers were offered by the captain   over the P.A. system a choice of :

1) 50 % cash credit of our cruise cost and a credit of 50 % of their full cruise fare towards a future cruise.

OR

2) No cash credit at all  and a credit of 125 % of their full cruise fare towards a future cruise.

We had until Aptil 1st to decide. The letter confirming this was only finally delivered to our cabins two days after it was told to us over the P.A. system 

 

The captain did come over the P.A. system to tell us that the company had decided to let us have until June 1st instead of April 1st to decide which offer to take. This change did not come to us in writing. We wonder if this credit is transferable to out heirs?

 

So the Princess deal is significantly better than the Amsterdam deal !

 

The captain kept on repeating that we had no option at all about staying on the ship.

EVERYONE had to get off the ship on March 24th  Later on this was changed to March 21st or 22nd  and later changed again to the 21st,  22nd  and very early on the 23rd.

 

 News came over the P.A. system to say that the government had suddenly decided that no one from our ship could stay in any Australian hotel and if they did, they could be fined $50,000. so the ship had cancelled all the hotel reservations that they had made for passengers flying later and that all the other passengers had to do the same asap. We could thus stay on the ship if we had to until early  in the morning on the 23rd but could not go off the ship for any reason. Once we left the ship we had to take all of our belongings. We could not come back.

 

This caused a new absolute panic as many had booked hotels on their own and in fact had been at one point encouraged to do so even for a part day and there were a lot of flights leaving between 10.00 and 11.00 p.m. and others leaving at 5.00 A.M. We were shown where all the hotels were and normal rates etc etc.

People were trying to cancel desperately via slow or on down internet. If they had flights later, they had no idea what to do.

The captain came on later over the P..A. system that the Autralian government had  relented and that we could again stay in hotels if we wanted to. 

Many passengers just gave up. I know of one couple who were booked to fly to Sydney to stay there for 4 days before their flight over the Pacific home. Many got the dreaded e-mail from their airline cancelling their booked flight.

 

The people who could not fly were sort of told over the P..A. hat they might be taken care of somehow but the captain came on the P..A. system an hour later to say that many people people had rushed down to the doctor and even threatened her and for us not to go downtown the doctor except for a CD current emergency?

 This P.A.  call said that  ALL passengers were going to be put off the ship no matter what their condition.

 

The Pacific Princess had a meeting of all 550 passengers and they could opt to stay on the ship as it returned via Hawaii to the West Coast.  Many passengers could sign up to go back by ship and were called down one by one to the doctor and 81 of those were allowed to stay on the ship.  Many more were not. 

Plus another 2 couples who said that they had rented out their house until May and had nowhere to go until then, so they were allowed to  stay as well. So the ship was due to sail with 85 of the 550 passengers.  They were told that  absolutely no one from the Amsterdam would be allowed to come to their ship.  

 

Rumours abounded in the airport that some passengers from the Amsterdam were allowed to transfer to the Pacific Princess but I do not know if this is a fact ,

 

One passenger did say that every passenger from the Princess ship had to get off the ship for 5 hours with all of their luggage in the terminal on the 22nd but that the lucky 85 were allowed to reboard. this may be why we were delayed until 4 p.m. in anyone getting off the Amstedam. We were never told why.

There was an altercation when one passenger who was a lawyer on the Princess ship absolutely refused to get off the ship but was told that if he did not get off in 10 minutes they would call the police to remove him.  He left. He said that he was going to launch a class action against Princess when he got home.

 

I do hope that all the Amsterdam passengers will all get home safely somehow and that our settlement is as good as that for the Pacific Princess as our distress and uncertainty over the future was a good deal worse. They were at least given a choice on how to get home.

Our passengers were left in the lurch especially those who were afraid of flying, let alone flying for 14 hours and all those with medical worries. There were a lot of passengers with many walkers, canes and motorized scooters on the Amsterdam where the average age has to be in the high seventies range going up to the high 90's. Many including myself took the cruise because it was returning to its home port and there would be minimal or no flying.

 

 

 

Peter Fortin,

CABIN 3319

 

 

 

 

I don't envy you those last few days -  it sounds like total pandemonium.  I can only attribute it to HAL not having properly mapped out an efficient evacuation plan.  If so, it was unfortunate and perhaps inexcusable.  Princess, OTOH, by that point had considerably more evacuation experience under these circumstances. 

 

I hope that having gotten home safely, assuming you are following the dire straits that the Zaandam passengers are now in, that you feel somewhat better that HAL did not let you sail straight west to FLL.  Had any illness emerged during that sailing, it is quite likely, given the response on the Zaandam flu thread, that FLL might not have accepted you.  As bad as your circumstances were, the Amsterdam passengers are home and alive.  Nonetheless, I completely understand your disappointment with HAL and am sympathetic with your experience.   I hope that you will sign up for another WC on some line and that the next one will make up for this disastrous cruise.

Edited March 27, 2020 by Tampa Girl
Had mistakenly inserted reply into original post.

[Horizon chaser 1957]

Like everyone else, I wanted to stay on for the return to Ft. Lauderdale and not be forced off at Fremantle. It became more and more apparent that this was not feasible even if it had been allowed.

Now we are hearing about dead and dying passengers on the Zaandam. It could so easily have been us. I wish the passengers on the Pacific Princess safe travels and Godspeed home, and am thankful I’m not with them.

[Captain Ricky]

1 hour ago, Tampa Girl said:

 

 

I don't envy you those last few days -  it sounds like total pandemonium.  I can only attribute it to HAL not having properly mapped out an efficient evacuation plan.  If so, it was unfortunate and perhaps inexcusable.  Princess, OTOH, by that point had considerably more evacuation experience under these circumstances. 

 

I hope that having gotten home safely, assuming you are following the dire straits that the Zaandam passengers are now in, that you feel somewhat better that HAL did not let you sail straight west to FLL.  Had any illness emerged during that sailing, it is quite likely, given the response on the Zaandam flu thread, that FLL might not have accepted you.  As bad as your circumstances were, the Amsterdam passengers are home and alive.  Nonetheless, I completely understand your disappointment with HAL and am sympathetic with your experience.   I hope that you will sign up for another WC on some line and that the next one will make up for this disastrous cruise.

What is the URL for the Zaandam Fly thread.  I am terrible at navigating this site.  Thanks, Rich

[prescottbob]

Interesting posts Peter. I enjoy free and open discussion.

Well, we can’t change things at this point but I did note that one of the options on the ship distributed form had the 50% refund option and my TA sent me one with a 100% refund option (versus both having the 125% booking credit, etc.).

Funny also since you mentioned Princess (since I had plenty of airport layover time) I eyeballed the future Princess & Seabourn World Cruise itineraries and pricing’s.

I think the staff aboard did fine with the situation. However, it seemed the Seattle folks and the panicky bureaucrats kept moving the ‘goal posts’ on an hourly basis IMHO.

And so goes human nature...

Be well & future safe travels.

This ‘crisis’ too will pass.

Bob & the Mrs. 

[The Other Tom]

19 hours ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

I am in a condo with no source of power in the garage.   Is their one that can trickle charge off a large external battery?

Probably not for a 4 month cruise.  Instead I would get the power supply linked below and leave it plugged in an inside outlet, then use it to jump off my car when I returned.  It can also be used to power a lamp and/or TV during a power outage.  I have a similar item that I use for that.

http://www.searshometownstores.com/product/DieHard-71688-Platinum-Portable-Power-1150

[mame42]

1 hour ago, Horizon chaser 1957 said:

Like everyone else, I wanted to stay on for the return to Ft. Lauderdale and not be forced off at Fremantle. It became more and more apparent that this was not feasible even if it had been allowed.

Now we are hearing about dead and dying passengers on the Zaandam. It could so easily have been us. I wish the passengers on the Pacific Princess safe travels and Godspeed home, and am thankful I’m not with them.

Well put; I feel the same.

[The-Inside-Cabin]

I am happy with the way HAL and the crew managed an unprecedented event.   

 

I would caution comparing someone's recollection of events on a different ship with my own personal observations as they happened. 

 

I am glad to be back home and not still on a ship somewhere.   The current case of the Zaandam is instructive.

[KirkNC]

The two things that stick in my craw are charging $59 for the shuttle and even more no charter planes.  With all the empty planes in the world I can’t understand why you would dump people in Fremantle as opposed to cities in the US.   The Westerdam was provided charter planes as were some other cruise ships.  We had four flights cancelled on us during the process.

[mame42]

57 minutes ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

I am happy with the way HAL and the crew managed an unprecedented event.   

 

I would caution comparing someone's recollection of events on a different ship with my own personal observations as they happened. 

 

I am glad to be back home and not still on a ship somewhere.   The current case of the Zaandam is instructive.

Thank you; I feel the same.

[Jim9310]

2 hours ago, Captain Ricky said:

What is the URL for the Zaandam Fly thread.  I am terrible at navigating this site.  Thanks, Rich

Rick,

Four dead on Carnival-owned cruise ship (Zaandam) amid new coronavirus outbreak aboard

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/27/four-dead-on-carnival-cruise-ship-amid-new-coronavirus-outbreak-aboard.html

 

If that news is dispiriting, perhaps this upbeat news explains why cruising is so much fun:

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/cruise-ship-workers-describe-intense-hookup-culture-2019-2

 

 

Edited March 28, 2020 by Jim9310
clarity

[3rdGenCunarder]

3 hours ago, Captain Ricky said:

What is the URL for the Zaandam Fly thread.  I am terrible at navigating this site.  Thanks, Rich

 

 

If you aren't on CC a lot, I can understand that it's strange to navigate. For the current "hot" threads, just scroll down the first page and read the titles. Threads are ordered by most recent post. Since there probably are posts being added as I type this, the flu thread is high on the page. 

[Captain Ricky]

1 hour ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

If you aren't on CC a lot, I can understand that it's strange to navigate. For the current "hot" threads, just scroll down the first page and read the titles. Threads are ordered by most recent post. Since there probably are posts being added as I type this, the flu thread is high on the page. 

Thank you, I want to keep up on this. 

[NormTheSailor]

14 hours ago, PeterL6H2B5 said:

 

I was sitting in the aisle seat for 14 hours over the Pacific Ocesn yesterday and after they put the lights back on, was chatting with a lady who had been on the Pacific Princess with its 550 passengers on its Wolrd Voyage that was also cancelled abruptly.

 

We had quite an interesting conversation and when I have time, I will follow up with Cruise Specialists, Holland America and Carniva, the parent company who made the decision to cancel the cruise and force us all off the ship halfway around the wotld.

 

This couple live on Islamorada in the Florida Keys and are heading there to hopefully arrive today.  She is a travel agent and said that they are closing down all the  Keys to all non residents and look to closing all hotels and restaurants.

 

Her story is quite different from ours :

 

She said that Princess handled it all very well as compared to us and made very generous offers as well.

 

They, like us, boarded in January,  but on their much smaller world cruise ship that usually sails out of Los Angeles and were going to go through the Suez canal I believe and were not going to Antarctica as we were.

 

They were in Freemantle 20 days ago and had a lovely day there onshore and then set sail for Ceylon and got there, at least to the port. They left for a  leisurely 8 or 9 days for Ceylon,  but were refused permission to disembark passengers so they filled up with gas, got on supplies and left going very slowly until they got word from the captain that their world cruise was cancelled at the same time, as ours was as we were approaching Darwin. They in all took 19 days to leave and return to Freemantle yexterday the 22nd.

But It was handled much better.

As soon as an  announcement was made, there was a letter waiting in their rooms about it and also any further changes and promises unlike us where written notification were delayed.

 

With us, it sometimes  took 2 entire days to tell the 1,113 passengers in writing what was happening so the ship dealt in rumours for the past 8 days. Rumours everywhere made the worry and sometimes panic worse.

 

We received  our news and  messages from the captain over the PA system and  sometimes as on the 21st and 22nd with contradictory messages within an hour of each other. The captain did read us the letter from the Carnival president cancelling the cruise but we  never got got a copy of this letter.

 

We had a message from the Holland America President about 3 days ago on our televisions saying how it was impossible to safely bring ANYONE home from Freemantle on the Amsterdam and learned YESTERDAY  from a passenger on the Pacific Princess that 85 of its 550 passengers are sailing back from Frermantle while our ship is just leaving on the 23rd we ith the crew slowly  for South Africa and then on to Fort Lauderdale for May 12th with some of vhf our luggage !  It is costing me $ 260 to send just one suitcase back to Can.ada as I did not believe that I could handle two big suitcases on the many flights.

 

 

The 550 Princess passengers were given free internet access as soon as the cruise was cancelled.

The Amsterdam passengers were only all given free internet access two days later as many did not have access at all without paying. I did get a rebate to my ship account for the unused days.  ( We also received a credit on our account of  $ 995. For the port charges for the 24 ports of the 48 that we are not going to get to)

 

The Princess passengers were given free transportation to their homes and the ship arranged it it all at the Pricess` expense no matter how the transportation was first arranged to the West coast and embarkation in January.  Many  passengers on both ships are not computer savvy.

 

When we heard through the grapevine that a petition was  being organized to stay on the ship even though it meant no more ports, I went to the library to sign it at 10.00 P.M. and it was gone, so I went early to the front desk to add my name electronically and they said that there were 217 cabins on the list at 8.30 A.M. but not to expect to hear anything for 2 days as it was the weekend. 

The Captain did come over the P.A. system later in the day to acknowledge our petition but that it would take a day or two to get an answer back but that his orders were to keep on going to Freemantle and deposit all passengers on the dock on March 24th, later changed to March 21st and 22nd and later changed again to March 21st, 22nd and 23rd.

 

The Amsterdam passengers were told that the ship would get them home by air and arrange their transportation home  ONLY if they had booked their original flights to Fort Lauderdale via Holland America.

 ALL the other Amsterdam  passengers, and this was well over half the passengers, were told that it was completely up to them  how to get home  and only that we were arriving in Freemantle  on the 24th  and all  passengers had and to get off that day as the ship was leaving with the crew on the 25th.

The company would  reimburse those passenger for reasonable expenses up to $ 1,250

If we submitted them with  proper documentation and were given a form in our staterooms which we would have to fill in and submit to Head Office   with our receipts.

 

This caused a frantic attempt by many passengers to try to contact  their travel agents over the weekend from the ship other side of the globe or try to attempt to make reservations themselves with very slow internet. Being the weekend and on the other side of the world meant that many passengers could not get even a reply for two days.

 Any hotel reservations had to be made by the passengers themselves in Australia at various cities. Some passengers made reservations in Perth or Sydney as their flights were going on the 23, 24 or even the 28th. Some were going to stay for a week or more.

Some airlines and destination cities had shut down flights from Australia. passengers who had made reservations were getting e-mails saying their booked flights were cancelled and panic was setting in for many, as even Qantas was shutting down all flights out of Australia towards the end of the Month, which was narrowed down to March 29th and as of yesterday our Qantas pilot announced as we were flying over the Pacific that they were shutting down on  the 24th.

Some of the elderly passengers did nothing until the captain finally announced on the 20th over the P.A. system that they would help those passengers make hotel and travel arrangements if they would  go down to the excursion desk,

 

One first time world cruiser made her own first class reservation home to New Hamshire for over $ 7,000 for the 24th only to have to change them all when were told two days later that were arriving on the 22nd and all would have to be  off the ship that day.

Another couple who live in Sitka, Alaska had to make their own reservations to get home at a cost of $ 2,500 each.

Another lady by herself living in Northern New York said she was worried about U.S. West coast airports being closed and made her reservation via South Africa to Kennedy at much more than $ 1,250.

One man from London thought the best way was by Dubai airport to London.

The worst case we heard of was of a 93 year old lady we know with her daughter living in Idaho who has  a bad heart and who uses a walker all the time, who was told her doctor not to fly more 6 hours ever and was so worried that she actually went to Fort Lauderdale on the ship from Los Angeles in December.

Her flights to the U.S.A. were booked by her son in Canada  was over 14 hours for the longest leg and she went to speak to Henk Mensick, the ship's hotel director, about this and was told by him that she should take a shorter flight !   She was dumbfounded at the comment and went away.

The insensitivity of this was just apaling to me.

 

Many passengers simply did nothing as some did not know how to do it and the ship did not offer any help at all until the 20th as we were approaching Frermantle. Some were just hoping that the company would relent and waited to hear about the results of their online petition before starting to panic.

 

The Princess passengers were given free shuttle service from their ship docked  in Freemantle behind us to the airport in Perth.

 

The first thing the Amsterdam passengers were given was an order form for us to pay $ 59. for our shuttle which was quickly charged to out ship account on March 20th. It is not a lot of money  but shows how Holland America treats its customers compared to Princess.

 

The biggest difference between the ships other than providing no help to their often very long time passengers was in the  compensation offered for cancelling the cruise just before Darwin :

 

The Princess passengers were first offered in writing a  prorated cash credit of their full fare from  March 1st onwards which would amount to a little over half their fare PLUS a credit of 100 % of their cruise fare towards a future cruise.

This was later amended in writing to the same  cash credit PLUS a credit of  125 % of their cruise fare towards a future cruise.

 

The Amsterdam passengers were offered by the captain   over the P.A. system a choice of :

1) 50 % cash credit of our cruise cost and a credit of 50 % of their full cruise fare towards a future cruise.

OR

2) No cash credit at all  and a credit of 125 % of their full cruise fare towards a future cruise.

We had until Aptil 1st to decide. The letter confirming this was only finally delivered to our cabins two days after it was told to us over the P.A. system 

 

The captain did come over the P.A. system to tell us that the company had decided to let us have until June 1st instead of April 1st to decide which offer to take. This change did not come to us in writing. We wonder if this credit is transferable to out heirs?

 

So the Princess deal is significantly better than the Amsterdam deal !

 

The captain kept on repeating that we had no option at all about staying on the ship.

EVERYONE had to get off the ship on March 24th  Later on this was changed to March 21st or 22nd  and later changed again to the 21st,  22nd  and very early on the 23rd.

 

 News came over the P.A. system to say that the government had suddenly decided that no one from our ship could stay in any Australian hotel and if they did, they could be fined $50,000. so the ship had cancelled all the hotel reservations that they had made for passengers flying later and that all the other passengers had to do the same asap. We could thus stay on the ship if we had to until early  in the morning on the 23rd but could not go off the ship for any reason. Once we left the ship we had to take all of our belongings. We could not come back.

 

This caused a new absolute panic as many had booked hotels on their own and in fact had been at one point encouraged to do so even for a part day and there were a lot of flights leaving between 10.00 and 11.00 p.m. and others leaving at 5.00 A.M. We were shown where all the hotels were and normal rates etc etc.

People were trying to cancel desperately via slow or on down internet. If they had flights later, they had no idea what to do.

The captain came on later over the P..A. system that the Autralian government had  relented and that we could again stay in hotels if we wanted to. 

Many passengers just gave up. I know of one couple who were booked to fly to Sydney to stay there for 4 days before their flight over the Pacific home. Many got the dreaded e-mail from their airline cancelling their booked flight.

 

The people who could not fly were sort of told over the P..A. hat they might be taken care of somehow but the captain came on the P..A. system an hour later to say that many people people had rushed down to the doctor and even threatened her and for us not to go downtown the doctor except for a CD current emergency?

 This P.A.  call said that  ALL passengers were going to be put off the ship no matter what their condition.

 

The Pacific Princess had a meeting of all 550 passengers and they could opt to stay on the ship as it returned via Hawaii to the West Coast.  Many passengers could sign up to go back by ship and were called down one by one to the doctor and 81 of those were allowed to stay on the ship.  Many more were not. 

Plus another 2 couples who said that they had rented out their house until May and had nowhere to go until then, so they were allowed to  stay as well. So the ship was due to sail with 85 of the 550 passengers.  They were told that  absolutely no one from the Amsterdam would be allowed to come to their ship.  

 

Rumours abounded in the airport that some passengers from the Amsterdam were allowed to transfer to the Pacific Princess but I do not know if this is a fact ,

 

One passenger did say that every passenger from the Princess ship had to get off the ship for 5 hours with all of their luggage in the terminal on the 22nd but that the lucky 85 were allowed to reboard. this may be why we were delayed until 4 p.m. in anyone getting off the Amstedam. We were never told why.

There was an altercation when one passenger who was a lawyer on the Princess ship absolutely refused to get off the ship but was told that if he did not get off in 10 minutes they would call the police to remove him.  He left. He said that he was going to launch a class action against Princess when he got home.

 

I do hope that all the Amsterdam passengers will all get home safely somehow and that our settlement is as good as that for the Pacific Princess as our distress and uncertainty over the future was a good deal worse. They were at least given a choice on how to get home.

Our passengers were left in the lurch especially those who were afraid of flying, let alone flying for 14 hours and all those with medical worries. There were a lot of passengers with many walkers, canes and motorized scooters on the Amsterdam where the average age has to be in the high seventies range going up to the high 90's. Many including myself took the cruise because it was returning to its home port and there would be minimal or no flying.

 

 

 

Peter Fortin,

CABIN 3319

 

You stated:  "I did get a rebate to my ship account for the unused days.  ( We also received a credit on our account of  $ 995. For the port charges for the 24 ports of the 48 that we are not going to get to)."

Wondering. My paper statement showed $674.12 credit per person for taxes, fess, port adjustment but the online navigator statement amount was $995.18. I have not yet see a credit to my credit card on file for my statement credit balance. Has anyone seen a settlement of the on-board account? Did anyone else see the difference in the adjustment figure? Which amount is the real amount?