Extended vacation coverage

[skings]

Hi Steve, need your advice.  I have purchased cruise insurance with Royal Caribbean. This is a transatlantic ending in Southampton. Plan on flying to Barcelona for a beach vacation. 

Would the five days after my cruise ends be covered?  Trying to figure out "Scheduled Return Date"( the date you are originally scheduled to return to the point of origin or the original final destination of your trip). I live in Florida, flying to Newark to board Anthem. My return trip home is Barcelona to Fort Myers. Does "trip" refer to cruise only dates? Cruise begins 5/2/2022 ends 5/13/2022. My trip begins 5/1/2022 and ends 5/18/2022

[iamtrustworthy]

4 hours ago, skings said:

Hi Steve, need your advice.  I have purchased cruise insurance with Royal Caribbean. This is a transatlantic ending in Southampton. Plan on flying to Barcelona for a beach vacation. 

Would the five days after my cruise ends be covered?  Trying to figure out "Scheduled Return Date"( the date you are originally scheduled to return to the point of origin or the original final destination of your trip). I live in Florida, flying to Newark to board Anthem. My return trip home is Barcelona to Fort Myers. Does "trip" refer to cruise only dates? Cruise begins 5/2/2022 ends 5/13/2022. My trip begins 5/1/2022 and ends 5/18/2022

Hi skings,

 

I don't know for certain, but I think that the Royal Caribbean coverage ends 5/13/22. The only way to know for sure is to ask your travel agent or Royal Caribbean.

 

You can easily get insurance to cover the extra days.

 

Steve Dasseos

[skings]

Thank you

[Jersey42]

7 hours ago, skings said:

Hi Steve, need your advice.  I have purchased cruise insurance with Royal Caribbean. This is a transatlantic ending in Southampton. Plan on flying to Barcelona for a beach vacation. 

Would the five days after my cruise ends be covered?  Trying to figure out "Scheduled Return Date"( the date you are originally scheduled to return to the point of origin or the original final destination of your trip). I live in Florida, flying to Newark to board Anthem. My return trip home is Barcelona to Fort Myers. Does "trip" refer to cruise only dates? Cruise begins 5/2/2022 ends 5/13/2022. My trip begins 5/1/2022 and ends 5/18/2022

While I am virtually certain that Steve's educated guess is correct, I would be very curious what Royal Caribbean tells you. I find some of their wording to be confusing. I suspect you did as well, and that’s why you asked your question.  Here are some thoughts:

 

Cancelation benefits

All of the cancellation “insurance” is actually a “Penalty Waiver Program” provided by Royal Caribbean and is not an insurance benefit. This includes cancelation for a covered reason as well as the separate cancelation for any reason.  For a covered reason the program pays you the “. . . non-refundable cruise vacation-related costs prepaid to Royal Caribbean International . . .”. It does not say anything about any other costs such as a post cruise stay you booked on your own. It also says “cruise vacation-related costs”, so if you booked airfare through Royal Caribbean, is this covered or not? I am not sure.

 

For the Cancel For Any Reason section it says RCI ” will provide you a cruise credit equal to 90% of the non-refundable value (excluding AIR2SEA) of your Cruise Vacation prepaid to Royal Caribbean International, for your use toward a future cruise”.  This seems to be pretty clear you are on your own for air fare (no matter how it is booked) as well as any post cruise stays.

 

Other insurance benefits such as medical and trip interruption

This part of the plan is actual insurance underwritten by Arch and administered by Aon Affinity.  The language in this section is a little different, as it never refers to “cruise vacation” and only mentions Royal Caribbean once.  But look at the following definitions:

 

“Travel Arrangement(s)” means the following services arranged by Your Travel Supplier for Your Trip: transportation; accommodations; and other specified services for Your Trip.

 

“Travel Supplier” means Royal Caribbean International.

 

So whenever the policy refers to “Travel Arrangements” including in the beginning and ending dates section, it actually means those arranged by Royal Caribbean.  Without carefully reading the entire policy, including the definitions, it is far from obvious.

 

Conclusion

You are probably not covered and this is just one of the reasons it almost always makes sense to buy third party insurance from someone like Steve, rather than a cruise line plan. 

Edited January 31, 2022 by Jersey42

[skings]

Thanks Jersey, 

Ordinarily cruise ship insurance has been my go to,  when I booked cruise, automatically purchased it.

Now having second thoughts about covid related issues I will purchase an add on policy to ease my mind.

[Benthayer Gonbak]

For what it is worth, We’ve collected once on a policy from RCCL/Aon.  We got a call that a family member had had a medical emergency.  We opted to leave just before the 3 days at sea which was also a decent airport.  Because of the time we landed at the port where our car was we opted for a hotel stay., it was winter after all.  We were reimbursed for days lost on the cruise, airfare, but NOT the hotel. Clearly we were within the timing of the cruise.  What I remember was a sentence that said they didn’t cover hotel stays.  I don’t recall if that was meant to mean all hotel stays or not.  We were staying for safety reasons so weren’t terribly concerned about the coverage although I was hoping! 
 

This makes me wonder whether COVID hotels are now covered as this incident happened before anyone thought they would be hospitalized for more than a heart attack or stroke, which wouldn’t necessarily restrict travel home! 

[iamtrustworthy]

11 hours ago, Benthayer Gonbak said:

For what it is worth, We’ve collected once on a policy from RCCL/Aon.  We got a call that a family member had had a medical emergency.  We opted to leave just before the 3 days at sea which was also a decent airport.  Because of the time we landed at the port where our car was we opted for a hotel stay., it was winter after all.  We were reimbursed for days lost on the cruise, airfare, but NOT the hotel. Clearly we were within the timing of the cruise.  What I remember was a sentence that said they didn’t cover hotel stays.  I don’t recall if that was meant to mean all hotel stays or not.  We were staying for safety reasons so weren’t terribly concerned about the coverage although I was hoping! 
 

This makes me wonder whether COVID hotels are now covered as this incident happened before anyone thought they would be hospitalized for more than a heart attack or stroke, which wouldn’t necessarily restrict travel home! 

Hi Benthayer Gonbak,

 

The reason your hotel wasn't paid is that you voluntarily extended your trip. Your coverage ended when you got back to the port.

 

All our Trip Cancellation plans cover covid the same as any illness. This has never changed because epidemics and pandemics were never excluded. Here are my recent Blog posts about Covid and how you are covered:

https://tripinsurancestore.com/blog/are-quarantine-costs-covered-if-i-test-positive-for-covid/

https://tripinsurancestore.com/blog/this-little-known-benefit-is-important/

https://tripinsurancestore.com/blog/does-a-trip-cancellation-plan-cover-a-last-minute-positive-covid-test/

https://tripinsurancestore.com/blog/more-about-what-is-covered-for-covid/

https://tripinsurancestore.com/blog/how-is-a-positive-covid-test-at-the-cruise-terminal-covered/

https://tripinsurancestore.com/blog/does-a-licensed-nurse-definition-of-a-physician/

 

I hope these make sense.

 

Steve Dasseos

Edited February 4, 2022 by iamtrustworthy
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