How long do they hold the ship?

[WestchesterCruiseFan]

There is currently a Cruise Critic Group forming for February 16, 2008 on Liberty of the Seas. I will be flying from New York and, I do plan on arriving a day early just in case of snow. My question is, in the event that I get snowed in on the day prior (February 15) and actually have to fly down on February 16, factoring in delays, etc... How long do they hold the ship if you book your air with Royal Caribbean? In other words, if I am forced to fly the same day and I have booked my air via Royal Caribbean and, we're running late due to flight delays, will they hold the ship until we arrive?

[cb at sea]

It would depend if the flight was full of RCI passengers or if it was just 2 of you! If there are a considerable number of passengers delayed that booked through the cruiseline, they will delay departure, if feasible. If not, they will depart and make arrangements for you to connect at the 1st port. Our 2nd cruise had about 40 folks delayed and they did hold the ship for about 1 1/2 hours.

[Sue L]

There is currently a Cruise Critic Group forming for February 16, 2008 on Liberty of the Seas. I will be flying from New York and, I do plan on arriving a day early just in case of snow. My question is, in the event that I get snowed in on the day prior (February 15) and actually have to fly down on February 16, factoring in delays, etc... How long do they hold the ship if you book your air with Royal Caribbean? In other words, if I am forced to fly the same day and I have booked my air via Royal Caribbean and, we're running late due to flight delays, will they hold the ship until we arrive?

 

 

I also live in New York and always worry about this! When they are predicting something major the airlines usually waive all change fees and will try to get you out earlier if possible. My DH always tells his boss that if bad weather is predicted we are out a day earlier. In your case if a storm was predicted for the 15th, we would fly out the 14th. Yes it would be an extra night in the hotel but it is a small price to pay not to be stressed out about making the ship. When you cruise in the winter you need to be flexible.

[Lynnees]

We always fly out the day before. Although we live in southern Ontario we fly out of Buffalo which is notorious for snow storms even when we aren't getting them 30 miles away in Ontario.

 

Should this type of situation happen to us and we could predict it was/is going to happen we too would leave the day before that.

 

Cruiselines are bad for not holding ships. Lately they have been telling people that it is up to them to get themselves to the first port of call as booking air through the cruiseline is only suppose to be a "favour" type situation and they state they are not responsible for getting you there.

[Sooner-b-Crusin]

We were on Voyager 4/29/06. There were 40 pax on a flight that was delayed from Tx due to storms.(booked thru RCL) We waited about 2 hours on them. But that was for 40. Don't know about just a "few".........

Always wise to fly in a day early.

[Dave85]

We missed a cruise 2 summers ago because of one of the August hurricanes that struck Florida, might have been Charlie? We were supposed to be sailing on the Carnival Glory out of Port Canaveral, and we had a flight the morning of (which we rarely ever do) because of a work conflict. The Orlando airport had sustained significant damage and was closed the entire night before and morning of. We did not have our air booked through Carnival, but obviously many people who did were in the same boat (no pun intended)... anyway, my point... Carnival held the ship until around 11 that night I believe. We missed the cruise but they were gracious enough to give us a full credit which we used in January on the Valor.

 

We have fortunately not experienced such a situation on RCI (and hopefully never will), but cruise lines will hold the ship as long as they can if a significant number of people are affected. Remember, they have your money, but a significant number of people missing is a significant amount of onboard revenue they're missing out on.

 

P.S.: It all worked out for us because not only did we get that credit, but we hopped on a 5-day VOS Canada cruise the following weekend which turned out to be wonderful and turned us on to RCI.

[judy&steve]

In January 2005, there was a massive snowstorm predicted for the weekend of our AOS cruise. We wound up getting a flight a day earlier (they had cancelled the flights for Sunday and we were able to rebook for Saturday). It was a comedy of errors that day -- wound up flying from BWI to Dallas had to stay overnight in Dallas and then flew to San Juan. We originally had a direct BWI-SJU. Naturally, the luggage got lost.

Long story short, the ship was supposed to sail at 10 or 11 and didn't leave until 2 am. Everybody's flights were affected in one way or another. They were still short 300 passengers. They boarded at Aruba.

(Because the ship left so late, our luggage did catch up with us before sailing. There was one more flight from Dallas that was due in after the ship was due to sail. )

--Judy