What happens when you miss the plane

[Shogun]

Hi Folks,

 

London is having its worst fog in years so much so that hundreds of flights a day are been cancelled , not the long haul but the Scotland England, Ireland England etc.

 

Every time we have flown with Princess we would fly to London normaly the same day as the flight out to US etc.

 

So with no flights to England have these people lost there cruise, does insurance cover fog,

 

Many will have made there own way to catch the London flight will they lose everything.

 

 

yours Shogun

[Pam in CA]

When you miss the plane, you thank god that you have cruise insurance for any reason. If you miss the ship for whatever reason without insurance that covers "any reason," you lose the cost of your cruise unless you can persuade the airline to fly you to a port and catch the ship. Any additional flight costs are yours to eat unless you have flight insurance or some other insurance to cover it.

[Shogun]

Hi Pam, Thanks,

 

A lot of people saying that they have lost out in that air line is not responsible for fog, do not know if they mean that they get offered another flight but nothing more.

 

Will need to check own insurance not sure if it has an any reason clause

 

 

 

yours Shogun

[Globaliser]

So with no flights to England have these people lost there cruise, does insurance cover fog,

 

Many will have made there own way to catch the London flight will they lose everything.

As Pam says, this is what insurance is for.

 

The airline's only legal responsibility is to get you to the destination on your air ticket as soon as it reasonably can.

 

Whether a particular airline may do more for you than that depends on the airline, and also depends on how good a relationship you have with it. It goes without saying that higher-tier frequent flyers will have a better chance of persuading the airline to do a little extra, although still dependent on whatever the airline is prepared to do.

 

But you always need to read the details of your travel insurance, as well, to see whether you're covered for a particular eventuality. Too many people compare prices only when buying things - not just insurance - and too many people think that cheapest product is the best. Some even think that lower price = better value. Of course, they're wrong. You can't work out whether something is good or bad, or better or worse value, without knowing exactly what you're buying.

 

For example, the current terms for a policy from my usual insurance provider say:-

We Will Pay ...

• Up to £1,000 for reasonable extra costs of travel and accommodation if you arrive at the final point of international departure too late to board the aircraft, coach, ship or train in which you are booked to travel from or to the UK.

This would cover the person who was booked to travel domestically within the UK to connect to an international flight to the US, and who misses the international flight because the domestic travel was disrupted.

 

If the delay is serious enough, then this kicks in:-

We Will Pay ...

• Up to £5,000 towards the cost of your trip if you need to abandon your outward international journey from the UK as a result of a delay, which is beyond your control, lasting more than 24 hours.

[Pam in CA]

The bottom line is that if you don't have insurance or the type of insurance that will cover this and have made your own flights, you bear the responsibility and cost of getting to the ship on time. It's not that the cruiseline doesn't care -- they do -- but you've opted to book on your own so the financial burden is yours. If you don't make it to the ship, it's not their problem. As has been said, that's what cruise insurance is for.

 

We see people post on these boards really difficult and terrible events that prevented them from making the ship and they feel Princess should give them their money back. It doesn't work that way. That's why most of us pay the extra for insurance. "Stuff" happens: fog in London and snow in Colorado, messing up flights all the way to Chicago.

 

If you've booked Princess air, they will attempt to get you on a flight to catch up with your ship. Several years ago, that happened to me after an unpredicted snowstorm hit Boston. I wound up having to fly to Miami, stay over there and the next day, fly to Martinique to catch up with the ship. I was given food and hotel vouchers and I was ticketed directly by AA on Air France and didn't have to pay a deviation or additional fee.

[MercedMike]

LOL -- well, I can give you an exact answer on that one -- from experience!!

 

A few years ago, we got on the plane in Iceland, and it headed out over the Atlantic. Two hours out, the pilot announced we had lost an engine and we were returning to Iceland! Well, to make a long story short, after an uncomfortable two hours we made it back to Iceland and sat in the airport for about 8 hours. Finally we got on the flight, and arrived in Heathrow at almost the exact minute our ship sailed from Southampton!

 

We had called Princess several times, and they did have a rep at the airport to meet us. He put us in a cab, and that was the extent of his help. However, the cabbie was wonderful, took pity on some stranded Yanks, and carried our bags into Paddington Station, helped us buy our tix, and even pointed out the right platform for us.

 

So we took the night train to Falmouth. It was scheduled to arrive at 8:02 AM, and I guarantee you it did not arrive at 8:01 or at 8:03! Precisely at 8:02 we were in Falmouth. We hunted up a taxi, drove to the dock, and a Princess Purser was standing at the bottom of the gangway with a list in his hand of about 10 or 12 people who had missed the ship. He had our luggage carried aboard, and we went up to the buffet and then collapsed in our cabin!

 

Now, Princess positively did not have to do it -- but they actually credited us 1/12 of our cruise fare for the missed day! We did have insurance, and they paid us a bit for the train tickets and the cab fare. Basically it all worked out well in the end, and gives us quite a story to tell.

 

Bottom line -- we chose to take the chance of arriving on embarkation day because we knew the infrastructure was there to make it fairly easy to get on the ship at the next port. If you are flying into -- say -- Venice, and your ship's next port is Kusadasi two days later ... that would be a lot more complicated! You need to consider things like that when making plans.

[donna5]

Hope there aren't a lot of Colorado people going on cruises this weekend. DIA closed down Wed morning and won't be reopening until Fri. at Noon(at least that is the target). Here in Grand Junction we had a lot of diversions of planes that were to go to Denver, Aspen etc. Lot of people on buses and renting cars. Fortunately anyone that wasn't going to Denver, Aspen or wherever was snowed in, got some direct flights from GJT to Chicago and LAX. We never have direct flights out of here except to SLC, DIA, or PHX.

 

Also got a lot of corporate jets parking here (Rich people going to Aspen).

[chasetf]

....Bottom line -- we chose to take the chance of arriving on embarkation day because we knew the infrastructure was there to make it fairly easy to get on the ship at the next port. If you are flying into -- say -- Venice, and your ship's next port is Kusadasi two days later ... that would be a lot more complicated! You need to consider things like that when making plans.

Thanks for sharing your experience. We like to fly in a few days early to account for those mishaps, and to give us pre-cruise time. I like your advise to consider, if coming in same day, how soon you will be able to pick up the ship and how far you have to go.......

 

We did the Golden Princess / British Isles this past summer. We did a pre-cruise in Scotland, and then fly down to Southampton the day before boarding. They day we boarded was the day they shut down Heathrow and Gatwick with the bomb scare. :eek: Some people were not able to catch up to the ship until 4 days later. They ended up losing 1/3 of their cruise. :(

[nho9504]

I agree with Mike wholeheartedly - you need to take into account of factors that how easy you can catch up with the ship, in case something happened causing you to miss the embarkation port.

 

Sometimes even arrive a day earlier may not really work, if the arrival time would be past the boarding time should you be forced to take a next day flight.

 

The example was our last year's Alaska SB cruise. While we booked our AA flight to arrive ANC one day prior sailing, the daily flight from DFW to ANC was in the afternoon and arrived ANC in the evening. DFW has notorious late afternoon Summer thunderstorms that could delay flights by several hours. I called AA to inquire their policy for weather delay, knowing airline is NOT responsible for weather delay - i.e. they have no obligation to put you on alternatives. The very helpful AAdvantage desk agent told me should the weather delay happened, the best AA could do would be to put us on the flight next morning from DFW to SEA, then connect to an AS flight to ANC - she looked up the schedule and told me the earliest arrival time would be around 12 noon, and then 2pm by going this routing. Well, we all know it takes 2+ hours to get to Whittier, plus Whittier has that tunnel to deal with... At the end we chose to change our flight to arrive ANC 2 days before sailing, just in case if there was weather related delay, we would still have ample time to deal with it - because, if one missed the ship at Whittier, the next port one can catch the ship would be 4 days later at Skagway!

[beetoven]

We recently missed our flight from Chicago to Copenhagen because we could not get into Chicago due to weather. We had Princess insurance(Berkley Travel Care) and they did nothing for us except say" keep your receipts." SAL re booked us and several others to the next port of call, Stockholm the next day. We all had to spend the night at the airport because several flights were delayed and no hotels were available. We had our travel agents contact the ship to let them know we would meet them in Stockholm so they would not give away our rooms.

While Princess Cruise line reimbursed us for the two days missed, the insurance would only reimburse us for the meals and hotel. The Princess Travel policy does not cover ground transportation, so we were on the hook for the taxis to the hotel and to the ship, which was docked in Nyshamn, about 80km away. I have since learned that other insurance policies do cover ground transportation.

 

 

 

Hi Folks,

 

London is having its worst fog in years so much so that hundreds of flights a day are been cancelled , not the long haul but the Scotland England, Ireland England etc.

 

Every time we have flown with Princess we would fly to London normaly the same day as the flight out to US etc.

 

So with no flights to England have these people lost there cruise, does insurance cover fog,

 

Many will have made there own way to catch the London flight will they lose everything.

 

 

yours Shogun