Another situation where people came back late from an excursion, were left behind, and blamed the cruise line...

[FionaMG]

2 hours ago, ace2542 said:

To be fair NCL left them in a very dangerous place off the cost of Nigeria wasn't it? Leaving someone behind in Africa is not the same as leaving them in Spain or Iceland or whatever. Particulary Americans, Brits or Australians.

 

São Tomé and Príncipe is absolutely not a "very dangerous place".

 

According to the US State Department's Travel Advisory website it's a Level 1 destination, i.e. exercise normal precautions, the same as Iceland and actually safer than Spain, which is Level 2: Exercise increased caution.

 

By way of comparison, the Bahamas are also level 2, while Jamaica is level 3 - reconsider travel.

Edited April 3 by FionaMG

[OnTheJourney]

14 hours ago, birdofsong said:

This is why I always book excursions with the cruise line.

Even that sometimes is no guarantee! We were on an RCL excursion one time in Latvia during our Baltic cruise, and the tour group leader left and went back to the ship without us! We were in an organ concert with the entire group and a few people started to not feel well, so she took them outside. At some point, apparently, the entire made their way outside as well - so admittedly we were probably at the tail end of all that (weren't all seated quite together since it was very crowded) - but, still, she never counted her group to make sure everyone was there! It all worked out being that we hitched a ride with a different tour group.

 

We made our presence known back on board (and we're not the type to complain about most anything but this had us most unhappy) and I seem to recall an apology, but nothing else was said or done.

 

It had a lasting impact however in that to this day DW is always a bit nervous as to making sure we're at the correct place and time to meet up with a group escort to head back to the ship - especially in a foreign country.

Edited April 3 by OnTheJourney

[FionaMG]

37 minutes ago, A&L_Ont said:

 

NCL paid their expenses to get to where they eventually boarded the ship, so they didn't totally stick to policy.  That was a gesture that I would not have expected had I missed the ship.  

 

They didn't pay all of the expenses, only travel from Gambia to Senegal and that was because the ship was unable to dock in Gambia where arrangements had been made for them to reboard.

The cost of getting from São Tomé to Gambia is the guests' own responsibility.

[A&L_Ont]

18 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

Was that before or after the guy spouted off reasons, like currency and language issues etc., that make going off on a private journey not the best idea?

I know, the irony is great. 

[time4u2go]

6 hours ago, Tin can said:

I thought the cruise lines waited if they could for their own excursions and took responsibility to get you to the next port if they couldn't.

 

I'm sure their is no absolute guarantee they will wait, I recall a Royal sailing in the Meditteranean that had to leave late passengers on one of their tours due to rising tides at the next port or something like that and the late passengers were transferred to meet them.

That's correct, the ship isn't required to wait, even for ship-sponsored shore excursions.  The wording is something like, "guaranteed return to ship", which could be at a later port (or not at all, if it was the last port).

[A&L_Ont]

18 minutes ago, FionaMG said:

 

They didn't pay all of the expenses, only travel from Gambia to Senegal and that was because the ship was unable to dock in Gambia where arrangements had been made for them to reboard.

The cost of getting from São Tomé to Gambia is the guests' own responsibility.

 

I had to rewatch the story as I didn't catch the above in bold the first time.  I still think it was a nice gesture on the lines part for the partial refund, as they didn't have to cover anything.🙂

[GetToLivin]

I haven't read through all the responses so apologies if any of this has already been said, just sharing my opinion.

 

We've done both types of excursions: ship-sponsored and independent. Do I relax (much) more when we're on a ship-sponsored excursion? Absolutely, because I know we're still guaranteed to make it back to the ship if anything goes wrong. Does the ship always offer the types of excursions I want to do? Nope, so we find something we'd like to do after much research, reading reviews, etc (i.e., we don't choose excursions that can not get us back within 2-hours of all aboard or are very far from the port as a general rule).

 

What irks me about this story is that all these cruisers had indeed cruised before and therefore should know that their choices had risks. I understand they are upset over what happened but I don't understand why this is any different than a person who is late for their flight. Sure the plane can still be there while you run up to the door but once they shut it, oh well, YOU were late. Regarding the elderly lady with health issues, I have no idea why she's traveling alone to begin with (from what I've read it sounds like she and her family members were aware of her health issues) - just because you technically can, doesn't mean you should. I can empathize but these seasoned cruisers are riding the wave of lack of personal accountability. Maybe drag the touring company around since it was ultimately their fault they were late in the first place. 

[mjkacmom]

1 hour ago, A&L_Ont said:

 

NCL paid their expenses to get to where they eventually boarded the ship, so they didn't totally stick to policy.  That was a gesture that I would not have expected had I missed the ship.  

Paid for them to go from stop #2 (NCL couldn’t dock) to stop,#3. The passengers paid to get to #2.

[fpcruiser]

Just my curiosity, I never saw how late they actually were. Five minutes?, 2 Hours? It really doesn't matter, late is late. I was just curious.

 

[GetToLivin]

5 minutes ago, fpcruiser said:

Just my curiosity, I never saw how late they actually were. Five minutes?, 2 Hours? It really doesn't matter, late is late. I was just curious.

 

What I've read was they were late by "more than an hour."

Edited April 3 by GetToLivin

[FionaMG]

11 minutes ago, fpcruiser said:

Just my curiosity, I never saw how late they actually were. Five minutes?, 2 Hours? It really doesn't matter, late is late. I was just curious.

 

 

Apparently late enough that the ship had had time to pull in all the tender stuff and send a last, extra tender back to shore to leave the passengers' passports with the port agent. I don't feel qualified to put a number on it myself but I've seen comments from others that it was at least an hour.

[A&L_Ont]

1 hour ago, mjkacmom said:

Paid for them to go from stop #2 (NCL couldn’t dock) to stop,#3. The passengers paid to get to #2.

Yes, my apologies.  See the post below to which referenced only the partial payment of expenses.

 

1 hour ago, A&L_Ont said:

 

I had to rewatch the story as I didn't catch the above in bold the first time.  I still think it was a nice gesture on the lines part for the partial refund, as they didn't have to cover anything.🙂

 

[A&L_Ont]

Just reading the NCL board about this. That thread has been live since Saturday and has 26 pages of activity.

[FionaMG]

1 minute ago, A&L_Ont said:

Just reading the NCL board about this. That thread has been live since Saturday and has 26 pages of activity.

 

Yes, and some of the posters are actually on board the ship.

[lovesthebeach2]

3 hours ago, A&L_Ont said:

This was the story I saw this morning. One was pregnant and some were elderly so I'm not sure how easily they could have boarded the cruise ship from the military vessel.  In watching the video they didn't look overly nimble. 

 

The best line was the woman stating that although there is a set of rules NCL followed their rules too rigidly.🤦‍♂️  That was about 1minute into the video.

 

 

I couldn’t even watch the whole video….The woman sounded entitled. Everyone should be inconvenienced because they came back late. That would set a precedent that cruise lines don’t want to do for many obvious reasons. This is why especially on remote islands one should consider taking a ship excursion.

 

[The Fun Researcher]

17 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

I'm all for independent tours, but I'm not sure I'd do one in a place that isn't an everyday cruise port

Agreed.  We almost exclusively use 3rd party options (both for cost and variety), but we also fully know the risk, sail primarily well visited Caribbean ports, and are willing to deal with the consequences if we were not able to make it back to the ship.

 

6 hours ago, twangster said:

Tendering operations with any other private boat or in this case the local coast guard boat could simply be a violation of company policies. Attempting to transfer guests with unknown and unproven private boats is very risky.  It may require rope ladders or other apparatus to account for differences in vessel height.  The local coast guard vessels are probably not designed to be dual purpose coast guard / tender boats.    Attempting to transfer guests between any vessel other than approved and known tender boats has tremendous risk associated with it.  The local coast guard personnel may be excellent mariners but that doesn't mean they have a lot of experience attempting to transfer guests between their craft and a passenger vessel. 

Exactly, port pilots have died in that process of boarding/disembarking cruise ships.

 

Regarding this couple, the thing that struck me were the comments that they weren't sure they wanted to board the ship now. After all that trouble by them, and NCL to meet back up.  That's straight up pouting, and not taking ownership.  Suck it up.  You made a mistake.

[Tatka]

If we book something it is often independent tours, but we do some analysis of area we explore before we do this. Area, timing etc.

[spelican]

All things considered, I have a feeling NCL wishes the ship captain had waited an hour to get them back on board.  The national media ran hard with this story, and there is just no good way to spin it for NCL.  This seemed a bit different to me than drunken pier runners in Cozumel who can't tell time.  I'm all for policies until they create a damn fool result.

Edited April 3 by spelican

[GetToLivin]

12 minutes ago, spelican said:

The national media ran hard with this story, and there is just no good way to spin it for NCL. 

I think that people who don't cruise or those who tried it once and didn't like it will jump on the bandwagon of, "why would you want to be on a floating city anyway, one more reason not to cruise, blah blah" and they'll comment as such. But for people who cruise regularly, I can't imagine there's too much in the way of support for the decision-making of these individuals and the nightmare press they ultimately created for the cruise line (whether or not it was their fault, they knew the risks). I never understand the "rules for thee, but not for me" mentality of some people, just ick.

[F27TW]

Very little sympathy for this group.  They chose to go off on their own on a non-ship excursion and were well over an hour past the cutoff time.  NCL owed them nothing.  The ship staff had no idea where these people could have been on that island .. or how far out they were.  

[Tatka]

1 hour ago, spelican said:

All things considered, I have a feeling NCL wishes the ship captain had waited an hour to get them back on board.  The national media ran hard with this story, and there is just no good way to spin it for NCL.  This seemed a bit different to me than drunken pier runners in Cozumel who can't tell time.  I'm all for policies until they create a damn fool result.

 

In the end it is all the same.

Rules are known.

 

Cruiselines cannot make exceptions because they sell excursions based on this "risk". (Well I should not use quotes). This is aside from amounts they need to pay to stay in port longer.

 

[karena1]

19 hours ago, cruiselvr04 said:

i think you do have to look at where you’re at before you book something independent.  A port of call that’s rarely used, an island off the coast of Africa, with people who may not fully understand being timely, probably not. We book independent excursions and will continue to do so.  But there are times when a long distance is involved or the port time is short, we will not.  

I agree.  In the caribbean, which is pretty much all we do, we always do our own thing.  We grab a cab and go to our favorite beaches.  But we always leave ourselves plenty of time to get back to the ship.  In October, we are doing the Panama Canal, and we booked Royal Excursions and one Shore Excursions Group since we have never been to any of the places we are going to.  Only 2 places that we are going to that we will will do our own thing is Costa Rica and Grand Cayman.  

 

[Tatka]

I am fine with most places in Mediterranean or Northern Europe if there is enough time of course.

[A&L_Ont]

4 hours ago, FionaMG said:

 

Yes, and some of the posters are actually on board the ship.

I’ve only read the first 3 pages at lunch. All have to catch up on it tonight.

[SilkySal]

38 minutes ago, A&L_Ont said:

I’ve only read the first 3 pages at lunch. All have to catch up on it tonight.

Come back here and let us know your thoughts, so I don't have to read all of those pages.😜