Alaska Wet Travels and Washout

[wrp96]

I was one of approximately 150 passengers that were stranded because of the weather. The ship was delayed for all of us not just me.

 

Princess Hotel gave us snacks (soft drinks, chips, etc) most of the day and a modest (Fish, pasta, Vegies) buffet dinner at 5 PM. Does anyone consider that equivalent to shipboard dining.

 

Princess fed you and got you to the ship with your luggage. Was it the happy vacation you planned, unfortunately no, but you got to the ship safely. You should go to the Holland America board and see how badly their Cruise Tour passengers got treated.

 

Nevertheless, Princess was responsible for our transportation to the ship irrespective of cost to them and they failed their responsibility.

 

You got to the ship. I don't see how they failed their responsibility.

 

Now good customer service says since you are upset they might do something for you, but they don't have to.

[cherylandtk]

I understand weather delays but this was inexcusable. The cruise tour for my family of 3 cost about $7000 and I think a $150 credit is insulting. Looking for comments from other Princess travellers.

My comment would be that this is a typical and standard compensation for your sort of mis-adventure. This can be a shock and huge disappointment for many travellers, particularly those who have not fully read and/or understood the fine print of the Passage Contract prior to the trip going awry. Should your trip not turn out as expected, and this occurs fairly frequently, passengers quite often have exceedingly high expectations, as do you, of what has been purchased and guaranteed to them. I am sorry you were not aware of this prior to your trip, and wish you happier travels in the future.

[Nancyquilts]

It's always disappointing to plan everything out and then not have it happen that way. You were inconvenienced by the rain, but at least you didn't lose your home or have it badly flooded, which happened at that time to a number of people who live in Alaska. Nancy

[pollyanno]

Princess fed you and got you to the ship with your luggage. Was it the happy vacation you planned, unfortunately no, but you got to the ship safely. You should go to the Holland America board and see how badly their Cruise Tour passengers got treated.

 

can you tell me what to look for to see how badly those people got treated? you've piqued my curiosity but I went over there.. knowing nothing about HAL, and.. it's a lot of dutch. :)

 

OP. I'm really sorry your trip was so unpleasant. :(

 

anno

[QueenofScreen]

Honey ignore all these narrow minded posters, who are laying the sarcasm and not providing the empathy.............they're called cheerleaders.

 

Having said all that I understand 100% how you feel. I have been to Alaska twice (it is my favorite place to cruise, so far), I love the weather there, but you must realize it's a crap shoot. Parts are a rain forest.

Cruise contracts have the black and white spelled out. They did take resonable care of you, be content, and let it go. Did you have a great trip?? Did you see any whales, and did you buy an Ulu knife??:D

[Pam in CA]

I'm sorry your experience was so poor. When we were in Hawaii last March/April, they were experiencing the most rain they'd had in 40 years with roads washed out, tours cancelled, etc. I had two tours that I'd really been looking forward to that I wasn't able to make due to the rain and washouts. Unfortunately, there's nothing Princess can do about weather. C'est la vie.

 

However, I do think they could have, and should have, organized your transfer to the ship much better. Compensation for poor planning and stress would be in order, IMHO, but it should be based on the land tour part of your trip. It wasn't Princess' fault that the trains were unable to run so I don't see where compensation for that is in order.

 

You were transferred to the ship and it cruised as scheduled. I don't think there is any compensation due for that since you got what you paid for.

[nrdsb4]

Honey ignore all these narrow minded posters, who are laying the sarcasm and not providing the empathy.............they're called cheerleaders.

 

Having said all that I understand 100% how you feel. I have been to Alaska twice (it is my favorite place to cruise, so far), I love the weather there, but you must realize it's a crap shoot. Parts are a rain forest.

Cruise contracts have the black and white spelled out. They did take resonable care of you, be content, and let it go. Did you have a great trip?? Did you see any whales, and did you buy an Ulu knife??:D

 

How is your post different from the "cheerleaders?" I've not sailed Princess yet, just researching, and I feel his expectations were unreasonable as clearly a natural occurrence caused the problems to begin with, and it seems Princess made a good faith effort to right things as much as possible. Just because someone doesn't agree with the OP and might even think he is particularly unreasonable doesn't necessarily make a person a "cheerleader." That term is flung around far too often, just as the word "flame" is. All too often those terms simply mean "someone doesn't agree with me" and if those labels are applied, it can invalidate dissenting opinion.

 

BTW, when one uses the phrase "Looking for comments," he is going to get all kinds, not just the ones that cozy up to his point of view. If one can't handle that possibility, one shouldn't ask the question on a well traveled web site.

[nrdsb4]

Unfortunately, rain caused a mudslide washing out both the road and rail between Denali and Anchorage. At 7:30 AM Princess tours took us by bus north to Fairbanks (3 hrs) and brought us to the Princess Hotel. At noon they told us that they would be flying us to Anchorage so we went to the Fairbanks airport anxious to get to the ship. Instead, after a 3 hour wait and no flight we were taken back to the hotel. At 7 :30 PM we were again taken to the airport and this time got on a 10:30 PM flight to Anchorage. After arriving and getting our luggage we got on a bus at 1:00 AM and arrived and checked in at the ship at 2:30 AM after 17 hours of travel and delay.

 

We missed the highlight of our land tour, we missed the Sailaway 1st night Dinner, we missed the evening's entertainment and because we finally got to bed at 3 AM we also missed viewing College Fjords 6 AM to 9 AM because we were still sleeping.

 

The next day we complained to the Purser and was told we would get a $50 per person credit for missing the train trip.

 

I understand weather delays but this was inexcusable. The cruise tour for my family of 3 cost about $7000 and I think a $150 credit is insulting.

 

Looking for comments from other Princess travellers.

 

What do you think would have been a fair and equitable solution? How could Princess have gotten you to the ship earlier considering the fact that an unforseen natural occurrence prevented the train ride and apparently the airlines did not bump previously booked passengers to accomodate your group? I would have slept in too after a long night, but you DID have the option of sucking it up, getting up and viewing the College Fjords. Princess did not stop you from viewing the Fjords and returning to bed afterwards, that was a choice you made. An understandable one, but still, you could have seen those Fjords had you truly desired.

 

I would have been deeply disappointed if I were in your shoes. But I would reserve my ANGER for Mother Nature, not a cruise line who had no say in the weather and its results and who seemed to try in good faith to get you to the ship to salvage as much of your cruise as possible.

[HomeLover]

Caroline,

I just read this, and I am glad you pointed out the responsibility clause of the cruise line. You always take a chance with any mode of transportation. Last Thanksgiving, I was on Radisson and because of the tropical storms and hurricanes that hit the western caribbean, we had a huge itinerary change before we left. Then we had 2 more changes in the first 15 hours on the ship! You have to realize that with weather the cruise lines do the best they can. The OP was very lucky that he got anything....he was not entitled.

[sonomaphil]

Is it just me or do the major complaints about Alaska have to do with rain more than anything else?

 

Hello!?!?!?!? It RAINS in ALASKA! Welcome to the world. No cruise line can change that.

[wrp96]

can you tell me what to look for to see how badly those people got treated? you've piqued my curiosity but I went over there.. knowing nothing about HAL, and.. it's a lot of dutch. :)

 

OP. I'm really sorry your trip was so unpleasant. :(

 

anno

 

I can't remember the titles of the threads but there are at least two of them on the HAL board. In one case the people were told to leave their luggage outside of their room one night even though HAL had no idea how they were going to get them out of Denali and 6 days later they still had no luggage, and neither did anybody else on their cruise tour. They too were taken to Fairbanks and flown to Anchorage.

 

The difference between the Princess response and the HAL response is that Princess fed their people and managed to get them from Denali to the ship with all their luggage unlike HAL.

 

The fact of the matter though was that for several days nobody was getting from Denali to Anchorage without going to Fairbanks and flying to Anchorage, because both the roads and the train tracks between Anchorage and Denali were washed out. I know at one point the cruise lines weren't even certain they would be able to get people out of Denali at all in time to reach their cruises.

[NYCityCruiser]

Is it just me or do the major complaints about Alaska have to do with rain more than anything else?

 

Hello!?!?!?!? It RAINS in ALASKA! Welcome to the world. No cruise line can change that.

 

 

Well, then why isn't Princess more prepared? If this kind of rainstorm is (as so many people have said) perfectly predictable and easily foreseen than why didn't Princess have some sort of backup plan in place for replacing the train portion of this cruiser's trip? It sounds as if they were caught on the hop and were scrambling to figure things out. Maybe the passenger could have made an alternate connection to the ship himself in less than the 17 hours it took Princess and maybe he could have gotten lunch too. You are all blaming the passenger for not forseeing the weather but I do believe the cruiseline has a little more invested in following weather forcasts and knew ahead of time there would be difficulties. One might have thought they would have already started thinking about how to get 150 of their paying passengers from their own hotel to their ship.

[ARRTrain]

Of all my years up here in Alaska, I don't remember a time when the Parks Highway was shutdown like this. The highway is still only down to 1 lane and 1 way traffic for 5 miles. They still have to fix some major bridges on that highway. So far only temp. repairs have been made. I'm surprised the ARR got their track fixed early Mon. AM. so the trains could run.

 

It has been a long time since Alaska got this much rain in a short period of time.

 

It is still raining up here. Whittier is getting hammered right now.

[wrp96]

Well, then why isn't Princess more prepared? If this kind of rainstorm is (as so many people have said) perfectly predictable and easily foreseen than why didn't Princess have some sort of backup plan in place for replacing the train portion of this cruiser's trip? It sounds as if they were caught on the hop and were scrambling to figure things out. Maybe the passenger could have made an alternate connection to the ship himself in less than the 17 hours it took Princess and maybe he could have gotten lunch too. You are all blaming the passenger for not forseeing the weather but I do believe the cruiseline has a little more invested in following weather forcasts and knew ahead of time there would be difficulties. One might have thought they would have already started thinking about how to get 150 of their paying passengers from their own hotel to their ship.

 

It's not as simple as you think. There are two different complaints about the rain being dealt with in this thread. One complaint is about the rainy weather in Alaska, especially in the ports that the cruiseline's visit - that is common, and predictable and should be taken into account when you cruise to Alaska. BUT the flooding that occurred in central Alaska and disrupted the Cruise Tours is NOT common at all, and was definitely unpredictable and unforeseeable. This was not something that the cruiseline's could've easily planned for.

 

The backup for the train portion was probably to bus people down the Parks Highway to Anchorage. Well, the Parks Highway was washed out as well as the train tracks being washed out. Busing people north to Fairbanks and then flying them south to Anchorage was the only alternative left available to any of the cruiselines. Alaska is not like the lower 48 where if one road is out, another one is readily available. There are only a few highways in Alaska. The Alaska Railroad follows closely the same path as the Parks Highway from Anchorage all the way to Fairbanks.

[NYCityCruiser]

OK, thanks for clearly (& calmly) explaining that.

 

Is this the time to bring up global warming? :rolleyes:

[wrp96]

OK, thanks for clearly (& calmly) explaining that.

 

No problem. I think the problem is that people forget how large a state Alaska is and that once you get off the cruise ship and away from the ports a good portion of it is still undeveloped and unaccessible. In the time it takes to drive from Anchorage to Fairbanks on a good day, you could drive through several states in the Northeast, on various alternate roads - they are few to no alternatives in Alaska.

[nrdsb4]

Well, then why isn't Princess more prepared? If this kind of rainstorm is (as so many people have said) perfectly predictable and easily foreseen than why didn't Princess have some sort of backup plan in place for replacing the train portion of this cruiser's trip? It sounds as if they were caught on the hop and were scrambling to figure things out. Maybe the passenger could have made an alternate connection to the ship himself in less than the 17 hours it took Princess and maybe he could have gotten lunch too. You are all blaming the passenger for not forseeing the weather but I do believe the cruiseline has a little more invested in following weather forcasts and knew ahead of time there would be difficulties. One might have thought they would have already started thinking about how to get 150 of their paying passengers from their own hotel to their ship.

 

Who has blamed the passenger for not forseeing the weather? People have only pointed out that passengers must be prepared to accept the vagaries of Mother Nature, not that they should forsee the future. Every time I travel I know that depending on where I am, weather can always put a crimp in my plans. Some things just cannot be anticipated in advance, so you have to make the best of the situation at hand.

 

And it's a little bit of a stretch IMO to expect anyone to predict a MUDSLIDE and highway shutdown. That would require one heck of a crystal ball.

[MikeKool]

My family of 3 just returned from a 4 night Land Tour of Fairbanks and Denali followed by a southbound Sapphire Princess cruise. It rained 8 of the 11 days !!

 

Our 4th night ended at Denali Natl Park after which we were supposed to travel by train to Whittier to embark the ship. That train ride was the highlight of the land tour.

 

Unfortunately, rain caused a mudslide washing out both the road and rail between Denali and Anchorage. At 7:30 AM Princess tours took us by bus north to Fairbanks (3 hrs) and brought us to the Princess Hotel. At noon they told us that they would be flying us to Anchorage so we went to the Fairbanks airport anxious to get to the ship. Instead, after a 3 hour wait and no flight we were taken back to the hotel. At 7 :30 PM we were again taken to the airport and this time got on a 10:30 PM flight to Anchorage. After arriving and getting our luggage we got on a bus at 1:00 AM and arrived and checked in at the ship at 2:30 AM after 17 hours of travel and delay.

 

We missed the highlight of our land tour, we missed the Sailaway 1st night Dinner, we missed the evening's entertainment and because we finally got to bed at 3 AM we also missed viewing College Fjords 6 AM to 9 AM because we were still sleeping.

 

The next day we complained to the Purser and was told we would get a $50 per person credit for missing the train trip.

 

I understand weather delays but this was inexcusable. The cruise tour for my family of 3 cost about $7000 and I think a $150 credit is insulting.

 

Looking for comments from other Princess travellers.

Hi WWF,

We just got back yesterday from the Regent Mariner sailing from Whittier down to Vancouver. Saw the Sapphire in one of the ports (forgot which one). The washed out bridge caused tons of problems. We did 4 days pre-cruise (on our own) and had to make alternative plans due to the flooding. Who would have thought? We spent 1 night at Talkeetna Lodge and 3 nights at Captain Cook in Anchorage. Spoke to several Princess and Holland America passengers who were definitely NOT happy campers. I can imagine the nightmare the cruise lines, hotels, buses, railroad, etc.etc faced. I spoke with many locals in Anchorage who had never seen such a wet summer.

Prior to this trip it was 6 years since we cruised Alaska. Overall we had a GREAT time! Weather was better this trip than the last time we visited. We always expect rain in Alaska and any sunny days are a bonus. Some of the ports were so "built up" we hardly recognized them. We saw tons of wildlife and beautiful scenery. Our helicopter tour was uneffected by the weather but we did have a boat tour around Kenai cut short by rough seas.

Next year we'll fly into Fairbanks, see Denali and take the southbound cruise again. Did you like the rest of the cruise? How was the Sapphire?

[Ethel5]

Well, then why isn't Princess more prepared? If this kind of rainstorm is (as so many people have said) perfectly predictable and easily foreseen than why didn't Princess have some sort of backup plan in place for replacing the train portion of this cruiser's trip? It sounds as if they were caught on the hop and were scrambling to figure things out. Maybe the passenger could have made an alternate connection to the ship himself in less than the 17 hours it took Princess and maybe he could have gotten lunch too. You are all blaming the passenger for not forseeing the weather but I do believe the cruiseline has a little more invested in following weather forcasts and knew ahead of time there would be difficulties. One might have thought they would have already started thinking about how to get 150 of their paying passengers from their own hotel to their ship.

 

And here's your answer

 

[QUOYE=ARRtrain]Of all my years up here in Alaska, I don't remember a time when the Parks Highway was shutdown like this. The highway is still only down to 1 lane and 1 way traffic for 5 miles. They still have to fix some major bridges on that highway. So far only temp. repairs have been made. I'm surprised the ARR got their track fixed early Mon. AM. so the trains could run.

 

It has been a long time since Alaska got this much rain in a short period of time.

 

It is still raining up here. Whittier is getting hammered right now.

[yj2cute]

Honey ignore all these narrow minded posters, who are laying the sarcasm and not providing the empathy.............they're called cheerleaders.

 

Wow, 6 whole posts and you've learned the lingo already, huh? What's been posted here are facts as well as empathy. Bottom line, you can't control the weather.

 

I was on my first Alaskan cruise at the end of May on Sun Princess. I cancelled a RCCL cruise because they cancelled the glacier viewing portion of the cruise. Because this was very important to me, I transferred my booking to a different cruiseline which included glacier viewing in the itinerary. Well, lo and behold, due to a late snow in the region, we were not able to get close to the glacier at all due to a large number of ice chunks in the water in the channel leading up to the glacier and I still didn't get to see it. Whose fault is it? No ones, the weather can't be controlled. I know that going in and we have to make the best of it. All I can do is decide not to go to Alaska that early in the season again. I didn't ask for compensation or expect any. I still enjoyed my cruise and took the lemons and made lemonade.

[jimmy2x]

Princess fed you and got you to the ship with your luggage. Was it the happy vacation you planned, unfortunately no, but you got to the ship safely. You should go to the Holland America board and see how badly their Cruise Tour passengers got treated.

 

 

 

Frequent the HAL board and do not remember anything posted about this. Just to be fair, checked back two weeks and found nothing. Are you sure it was on the HAL board? Obviously if the weather was that bad it would affect ALL of the cruisetours, so I'm sure that HAL had some unhappy pax.

[pollyanno]

Frequent the HAL board and do not remember anything posted about this. Just to be fair, checked back two weeks and found nothing. Are you sure it was on the HAL board? Obviously if the weather was that bad it would affect ALL of the cruisetours, so I'm sure that HAL had some unhappy pax.

 

oh.. I went back and looked again and did find one thread.. I don't believe it had anything about alaska in the title though, I think it was more about customer service (the person who started it is called home at last or something like that).. that person still doesn't have their luggage! I think the last post (at least the last one by the OP) was on the 28th.

 

that thread referenced another one that I didn't find.. and the ship.. y'all will forgive my dutch, I'm not meaning to be disrespectful, I just don't recall how exactly it was spelled.. the ship was something like statendam with probably more a's and/or m's than that.. and maybe without the e.. that's sorta what it sounded like in my head when I read it, though.. :)

 

really unfortunate way to begin or end a vacation..

 

anno

[ARRTrain]

Treatment by HAL

 

Lost Luggage ????? Need Help

[woodofpine]

Sorry the OP suffered crummy weather, but it sounds SO-O whiney! Nobody every went to Alaska for the weather... Naturally, the lines don't guarantee the weather...

 

Heck - I busted my ankle near the bottom of Rendez Vous Peak in the Tetons is February largely to due to the sun settled weight of the snow... It wasn't "champagne powder" as advertised! Neither the ski mountain or the trip packager picked up my medical bills or compensated me! I'd take $150 bucks in a heartbeat rather than be insulted.

 

I did my honeymoon in Scotland in March years ago. It rained (or snowed) 7 of 8 days! Totally awash...

 

Both trips were GREAT!! They turned out exactly as god intended...

[Ethel5]

Honey ignore all these narrow minded posters, who are laying the sarcasm and not providing the empathy.............they're called cheerleaders.

 

So after 5 posts, you feel that you can start name calling?

 

The OP was taken care of in light of extraordinary weather and should be happy that Princess kept them safe and sound.

 

As far as the poor service from the cabin steward, it should have been addressed while on board and taken care of right away.