Help! Anyone who’s had Covid on a RCI Ship please read

[xxHadleyxx]

We were on Jewel in June when my husband contracted covid.  For pro rated refunds we had three options:

 

1. Husband go to a quarantine cabin alone and I can continue the cruise (masked any time outside the stateroom, and having to dine/drinki  in my stateroom only).  Husband would get his fare as a prorated refund, I would not get anything back.

 

2. I choose to stay with my husband and go into a quarintine cabin with him.  we would both be isolated for the remainder of the sailing and both get a pro rated refund.

 

3. We both disembark in the port we were at (on day 6 of ten) and we would both get a prorated refund.  

 

We choose option three.  I also waited 30 days before calling as the letter said we did not need to.  It took another 12 after that before we saw the refund.  Our letter was the boiler plate, BUT it had BOTH of our names on the top for the refund.  I made sure we were BOTH listed before leaving the ship.  What names are on the heading of your letter?  It sounds to me like you had option number 2 (with port imposed limitations as well) which would not allow you or your kids to get a refund based on what we were clearly and repeatedly told.  Sorry. 

 

I am not surprised to hear there was confusion...we had confusion in other ways (like being told when to go off the ship, excorted down and then the gangway personelle said we could not disembark, even though 2 GS managers were there saying we had to....calls had to be made.  

 

 

Edited August 7, 2022 by xxHadleyxx

[xxHadleyxx]

I should add that there is no refund at all for the unused days for money spent on a successful Royal Up bid (so that suite ended up costing us quite a bit more per night).

 

We also had a dining package we had ony used 2 of 5 nights from.  They subtracted the FULL price for the two meals we had (not even letting those be BOGO, since we had dined on night one and are Dplus so would have used that coupon had we not bought a package) and then only refunded the 19$ per peron leftover...I think the fair way to do it would be to divide the price by 5 meals and refund 3/5 of it.  BUT all in all, given that they do not actually have to offer any compensation/refunds  we were ok with it.  Slightly frustrated, but ok.

[xxHadleyxx]

13 hours ago, xxHadleyxx said:

We were on Jewel in June when my husband contracted covid.  For pro rated refunds we had three options:

 

1. Husband go to a quarantine cabin alone and I can continue the cruise (masked any time outside the stateroom, and having to dine/drinki  in my stateroom only).  Husband would get his fare as a prorated refund, I would not get anything back.

 

2. I choose to stay with my husband and go into a quarintine cabin with him.  we would both be isolated for the remainder of the sailing and both get a pro rated refund.

 

3. We both disembark in the port we were at (on day 6 of ten) and we would both get a prorated refund.  

 

We choose option three.  I also waited 30 days before calling as the letter said we did not need to.  It took another 12 after that before we saw the refund.  Our letter was the boiler plate, BUT it had BOTH of our names on the top for the refund.  I made sure we were BOTH listed before leaving the ship.  What names are on the heading of your letter?  It sounds to me like you had option number 2 (with port imposed limitations as well) which would not allow you or your kids to get a refund based on what we were clearly and repeatedly told.  Sorry. 

 

I am not surprised to hear there was confusion...we had confusion in other ways (like being told when to go off the ship, excorted down and then the gangway personelle said we could not disembark, even though 2 GS managers were there saying we had to....calls had to be made.  

 

 

We were on Voyager actually.  Going on Jewel this month.  Sorry for that mix up.

[Lottie1974]

20 hours ago, xxHadleyxx said:

I should add that there is no refund at all for the unused days for money spent on a successful Royal Up bid (so that suite ended up costing us quite a bit more per night).

 

We also had a dining package we had ony used 2 of 5 nights from.  They subtracted the FULL price for the two meals we had (not even letting those be BOGO, since we had dined on night one and are Dplus so would have used that coupon had we not bought a package) and then only refunded the 19$ per peron leftover...I think the fair way to do it would be to divide the price by 5 meals and refund 3/5 of it.  BUT all in all, given that they do not actually have to offer any compensation/refunds  we were ok with it.  Slightly frustrated, but ok.

Thanks for this - as I have quoted in a previous post I have found RCI documentation on line which states that the travelling party will be refunded. See below . Clearly you , like ourselves had nothing like the cruise you expected.

[S.A.M.J.R.]

9 minutes ago, Lottie1974 said:

Thanks for this - as I have quoted in a previous post I have found RCI documentation on line which states that the travelling party will be refunded. See below . Clearly you , like ourselves had nothing like the cruise you expected.

Thinking "negative"... according to what you posted, members of the travelling party are entitled to "a pro-rated refund for the UNUSED portion of your cruise fare." (emphasis mine).  

 

I can see RCI make the argument that those who weren't quarantined DID use the facilities (even if you had to take food back to the cabin).  

 

To me, that's not a slam dunk, but I can see it as an "out" for RCI. 

[Lottie1974]

3 hours ago, S.A.M.J.R. said:

Thinking "negative"... according to what you posted, members of the travelling party are entitled to "a pro-rated refund for the UNUSED portion of your cruise fare." (emphasis mine).  

 

I can see RCI make the argument that those who weren't quarantined DID use the facilities (even if you had to take food back to the cabin).  

 

To me, that's not a slam dunk, but I can see it as an "out" for RCI. 

Yes I absolutely see your point - but how many people would see a holiday without their spouse and father as being what they envisaged when booking, whether we used the facilities or not. If there was ever a case for the ‘spirit of the law ‘ rather than the letter this may be it …… 

[xxHadleyxx]

3 hours ago, S.A.M.J.R. said:

Thinking "negative"... according to what you posted, members of the travelling party are entitled to "a pro-rated refund for the UNUSED portion of your cruise fare." (emphasis mine).  

 

I can see RCI make the argument that those who weren't quarantined DID use the facilities (even if you had to take food back to the cabin).  

 

To me, that's not a slam dunk, but I can see it as an "out" for RCI. 

I agree...that is how I read it and how it was repeatedly explained to us when my husband had covid onboard.

[xxHadleyxx]

10 minutes ago, Lottie1974 said:

Yes I absolutely see your point - but how many people would see a holiday without their spouse and father as being what they envisaged when booking, whether we used the facilities or not. If there was ever a case for the ‘spirit of the law ‘ rather than the letter this may be it …… 

On the other hand, if your husband had a normal flu with fever, or threw his back out and was in too much pain to walk around on the ship, etc...no one would get any refund.  It is a risk we take when we travel (on ships or on land).  I personally think RCI is doing a good job walking the fine line of offering something, and enough of something that people feel up for trying a cruise, but not so much that they are losing gobs of money on it or being taken advantage of.  It would help if the letter told us to call for that refund if that is what they want us to do, but .. ...

 

 

It stinks for you though, and I am truly sorry.  That is not the vacation you wanted and it is very dissapointing. 

It was awfully disapointing for us to have to cut our holiday short, and drive home for a looooong day in the car while my husband was ill (and I knew being confined to the car with him for 14 hours was going to make me ill eventually, which it did).  

[S.A.M.J.R.]

14 minutes ago, Lottie1974 said:

Yes I absolutely see your point - but how many people would see a holiday without their spouse and father as being what they envisaged when booking, whether we used the facilities or not. If there was ever a case for the ‘spirit of the law ‘ rather than the letter this may be it …… 

It doesn't really matter what you envisioned when you booked the cruise.  It comes down to what you AGREED to. 

 

I'm just playing devil's advocate.  Anyone who has done an ounce of research on cruising over the last what, 18 months, knows there's a chance a person can be put into quarantine.  AND that other members of the party may not be.  

[rudeney]

2 hours ago, xxHadleyxx said:

On the other hand, if your husband had a normal flu with fever, or threw his back out and was in too much pain to walk around on the ship, etc...no one would get any refund.  It is a risk we take when we travel (on ships or on land).  

 

 

And if they treated passengers with COVID the same as someone with a cold/flu or pulled muscle, we would not be having this discussion.  The problem is they treat someone with a positive COVID test as if they are spewing the plague.  

[reallyitsmema]

3 hours ago, xxHadleyxx said:

On the other hand, if your husband had a normal flu with fever, or threw his back out and was in too much pain to walk around on the ship, etc...no one would get any refund.

 

Actually that is not true.  My DH and I both tested positive for influenza A on Anthem in February 2019.  We were quarantined in our cabin and both received a prorated FCC for the days we were quarantined.  We also did not have to pay the costs of our visit to medical and the Tamiflu we received because the Captain had announced there was a flu outbreak on the ship and anyone who was feeling ill would be seen for free.

[jetta8300]

On 8/6/2022 at 3:06 PM, Lottie1974 said:

Thanks for providing your experience, we have insurance to cover the airfare. RCI provided no help with this .

 

It seems amazing to me how many people appear to think I have some how unjustified in requesting something I was told would happen by staff on board a ship - I didn’t ask about compensation they proactively told me the refund would apply to the wholeparty- I was too

upset at the time being separated from my husband on a cruise we had saved for and looked forward to sharing for two years.
Yet some of the responses to

my honest attempt to ask about other peoples experiences seem to be delighting in making me appear like a money grabbing unreasonable person . 

So thanks for the constructive answers like yours. I appreciate it

I don't think anyone is delighting in making you feel bad, but I think it's just sort of common sense that the person on board who told you this was either uninformed, or you somehow misunderstood.  It could also be that the person typing the letter out was incorrect, etc. Things are rapidly changing and what happens to one person one week, may be different the next.   There are all sorts of possibilities.  It just sounds uncommon that the entire party would be compensated. 

 

I think a lot of people think it is unreasonable to expect the whole party get refunded,  Since we all knew the risk we took sailing during covid etc.  However if this is actually a legit policy, good for you and I hope you get your refund.

 

 

[jetta8300]

1 hour ago, reallyitsmema said:

 

Actually that is not true.  My DH and I both tested positive for influenza A on Anthem in February 2019.  We were quarantined in our cabin and both received a prorated FCC for the days we were quarantined.  We also did not have to pay the costs of our visit to medical and the Tamiflu we received because the Captain had announced there was a flu outbreak on the ship and anyone who was feeling ill would be seen for free.

They knew back in 2019 that most people with the flu are not going to go down to medical and seek treatment at the risk of getting their entire party quarantined.  Back then, I would have never unless i seriously needed medical intervention, which is unlikely for most people... and FCC is a lot different than a cash refund.

Edited August 9, 2022 by jetta8300

[ARandomTraveler]

😑

Edited August 9, 2022 by ARandomTraveler