A post of frustration-open letter to the offender

[maccruiser22]

Left my camera in a rental car and didn't realize until 40 minutes before the ship was due to depart one of the stops. We frantically got hold of the rental company and had to leave the ship 15 min before departure to run to the end of the pier. By the time we got back on the ship we had only 3 to 5 minutes to spare. The rental company was nice enough to drive to the pier in such haste to deliver our camera.

[Sally Forth]

Hello,

 

We were on the Zenith (X) last October and my husband came back from the casino. "Where's your camera?" I asked. He blushed, than turned white and said: I left it at the casino! He rushed back there and it was gone. It was brand new. We had bought it for that trip. We went to the front desk and no one had returned it. The next day, in the afternoon, we received a card from the front desk stating "in regards of ... Lost camera". We ran out of our cabin and rushed there. There it was. Someone had turned it in. Yes ladies and gentlemen, there is some honest people left. We wanted to know whom returned it so we could reward him but they said that the company has a policy for the staff to bring back stuff that the clients leave behind. So we will never know. But to that day, we are gratefull to whom ever brought it back.

How nice that someone was decent enough to do that. My niece lost hers on the flight to LA from Vancouver. She realized it was gone before we got to the hotel in Santa Monica, we phoned Air Canada and they couldn't find it. She knew she'd left it in her seat pocket and it was 10 p.m., so the plane wasn't going anywhere that night.

 

Viv

[wildcruisers]

It's really disheartening to hear that someone would take all your photo memories. I do think that's bad luck as I have found that most people are honest. We came off Mariner in July and went to Orlando for 2 weeks. During that time my daughter left her camera (with all her cruise pictures) at Wonderworks and when we rushed back for it, it had been handed in (huge relief and tears averted). In Animal Kingdom, I left my camera (again, all our cruise memories) on the Everest ride - 6 hours of worry later it was handed in! Our faith in human nature has been totally restored. We didn't care about the cameras either, they were insured, it was the irreplaceable photos of a fantastic holiday.

[beach girl66]

On our cruise last Nov. there were signs up everywhere asking that who ever FOUND her camera to please turn in at least the memory card it was her honeymoon pictures :o I can only imagine how she felt. Sorry to hear about your camera

[beach girl66]

On our cruise last Nov. there were signs up everywhere asking that who ever FOUND her camera to please turn in at least the memory card it was her honeymoon pictures :o I can only imagine how she felt. Sorry to hear about your camera

 

sorry double post!!

[williebcruisin]

How sad for you to lose all those pictures! I understand about losing all those memories. I was so afraid I would lay mine down and forget it, that I tried to keep it in my hand most of the time.

We did find a camera though. At the Captain's Gala, there was a woman with a very "different" hair style :eek: ...and well, we were looking at her, and even took her picture. Well, sure enough, she left the party, and when we stood to leave..there was her camera. We started to leave it thinking that a crew member would pick it up, but decided to get it ourselves and turn it in. As we were leaving the Gala, my daughter had just handed the camera to a crew member, when this woman came rushing by. We knew she was looking for the camera, so we told her where it was. She was very grateful, and we were glad we had found it for her. I guess it pays to look different sometimes...she got our attention!

 

I hope the person who took your camera will have second thoughts and try to contact RC about it. If I were you, I'd still be in touch with RC...who knows, you might get lucky!

[momonthego17]

I am so sorry you lost your camera. I have kept a diary since I was 12 years old and I am now 46. I have not missed a day. Sometimes

I read them and it all comes back to me. Little things that I have forgotten are all there for me to enjoy again. I suggest you write it all down every little detail you can remember from your cruise. Especially your B-day party at Chops and your daughter dancing with

your husband. Even without pictures, sometimes having it written down can bring pictures of the event back to your mind. Can you check with the cruise ship again to see if anything was turned in on

the departure day? Good luck!!!

 

I agree!! I'm not as diligent with my writing as Rowse, but on some trips I keep a diary of what happened each day and my impressions and they are as much fun to review as the pics from said trip.

I hope soon you will have another cruise scheduled 3redheads, so you can make more memories! Thanks for sharing your story.

[debshomespun]

On our Navigator cruise, we left our camera in the windjammer. Soon as we got back to our cabin, went running back up and presto, it was gone! Checked with the pursers desk, nothing, We filed a claim, as it was stolen. After returning home, we did claim it on our insurance, and we got re-imbursed for our camera. To the OP, if you had insurance, make the claim, you will be re-imbursed. Good Luck! It is terrible to loose the pictures. They could keep the camera, just return the memory card!

[marci22]

My son misplaced his wallet on our recent cruise. It was returned to guest relations with his seapass and school ID inside, but the few dollars in it were missing.

[MakinGold]

Just as a tip, even though the memory cards these days can hold hundreds of pictures, I usually bring two on a week-long vacation and halfway through, I'll put the one I've been using away in a safe place and switch to the other. That gives you a little protection in that you won't lose all of your pictures at once. Of course, those memory cards are getting pretty cheap these days, too, so if you really want to be paranoid about it, you could bring one for each day. :)

[bunting]

Hi very sorry for your loss....surprised the ship could not do more to help you...I remember when Celebrity use to have their cruise cams on the internet and they always showed their internet cafes..you would think that they have the same protocols on Royal and have the place covered by CCTV, if they did, they could have checked when you logged on and off the internet and then reviewed their recording of the area for that time time period and afterwards perhaps until the time you discovered your loss, until they saw something..would take time but would have helped......

[piercetc4]

we left our camera in the theatre on the ship one night- realized it about 30 minutes later- went to guest relations and they quizzed us about a camera that had been turned in- it was digital so they could easily look at the pics and see it was ours/ us in the pics...... so we got it back- thankfully-

 

sorry you did not have any luck so far in getting your pic's/camera back- it stinks someone who found it did not turn it in! i am with you....keep the camera but please turn in the memory card-

[wraithe]

I hope that you get your camera back, but I know how slim the chances are. I would suggest that maybe you consider taking a laptop with you to download pics to daily, or if you don't want to do that, maybe take a memory chip for each day. My wife's camera broke on day 2 of one of our cruises. We wound up buying a camera from the ship until we got home. Just a couple suggestions that might help.

[bunting]

I hope that you get your camera back, but I know how slim the chances are. I would suggest that maybe you consider taking a laptop with you to download pics to daily, or if you don't want to do that, maybe take a memory chip for each day. My wife's camera broke on day 2 of one of our cruises. We wound up buying a camera from the ship until we got home. Just a couple suggestions that might help.

 

Maybe the cruise line could offer a camera rental and chip download (upload) package for those people and maybe they could give people the opportunity to upload their memory cards to their internet accounts or something like that then people could back up their photos as often as they might wish and save having to bring the laptops?

[MakinGold]

Maybe the cruise line could offer a camera rental and chip download (upload) package for those people and maybe they could give people the opportunity to upload their memory cards to their internet accounts or something like that then people could back up their photos as often as they might wish and save having to bring the laptops?

 

I think at most onboard camera shops, you can get a camera card downloaded to a CD/DVD, but the cost is almost as much as buying and extra memory card to bring with you.

[logan1_2000]

I am sorry for OP's loss of camera and the photos contained therein. I will join others in saying that you do have your memories, the pictures in your mind are yours forever.

 

We do not own a digital camera, or any camera other than occasional single use cameras. And when we do take photos, we develop them and then the photos sit in envelopes, and the envelopes are tossed in drawers. At some point I decided that the pictures I wanted most were the ones in my mind, and I stopped worrying. I still see some people who seem to spend the vacation or whatever event it is not really participating, but rather standing apart, looking not at their children but at the viewfinder, recording videos that may or may not ever be watched. Enjoy the moments, as OP did.

 

As for what goes around comes around, I hope it does, and I hope by slim chance someone sees this thread, realizes it was them who walked off with that very camera, and somehow sends it back. But then, I also hope Michigan will figure out how to beat Ohio State again anytime soon.

[MakinGold]

We do not own a digital camera, or any camera other than occasional single use cameras. And when we do take photos, we develop them and then the photos sit in envelopes, and the envelopes are tossed in drawers. At some point I decided that the pictures I wanted most were the ones in my mind, and I stopped worrying. I still see some people who seem to spend the vacation or whatever event it is not really participating, but rather standing apart, looking not at their children but at the viewfinder, recording videos that may or may not ever be watched. Enjoy the moments, as OP did.

 

On the other hand, some people, like my DW, are very good about organizing pictures into photo albums and scrapbooks along with notes and commentary. It's a lot of fun to pull out those albums from time to time and reminisce about it, plus be reminded about how goofy your hair looked back then or how different the fashion styles were, etc. etc.

 

We do have quite a few video tapes that we never look at, though, so I don't do much videotaping any more. I do have some plans of converting those tapes to digital at some point, so I can manipulate them on the computer and put together a video montage of sorts. That's in the one-of-these-days pile of things to work on, though. :o

[KelJ]

we did a Rome to copenhagen cruise...in rome we toured the forum. we spent a few hours there and when we were ready to leave my wife decided to use their facilities. these were a couple of porta potties. my wife gave me her camera to hold while she went in. while she was in there I decided to follow one of my rules of travel .. go to the bathroom whenever you can as you never know when you will find one again. I put my wifes camera in my coat pocket and went in the other port a pottie. I did my business in the side urinal and as I was turning to leave I heard a splash...yup you guessed it her camera had fallen into the toilet....by that time my wife was waiting for me outside and she heard the splash....she insisted that I recover the camera...luckily it was raining that day and it was early so the pottie had not seen much use... I found a 2 foot length of hose in the gutter and used this to fish out the camera....I had a plastic bag from a purchase which I dropped the camera into without touching it. back on the ship I retrieved the film which was all we were concerned about. I threw the camera away. NOW FOR THE FUNNY BIT. Our room steward must have thought the camera had fallen into the waste basket in error. we found it sitting on the desk in the room. at that point I was glad that I had cleaned the camera up before getting the film out or else she would have been handling things she would not have liked to. this ritual was followed for the next 2 days. she must have thought we were the clumsiest people on earth...I finally tossed the camera into a waste bin in a public room on the ship.

 

OMG! What a funny story!!:D Were you able to have the film developed?

[Dawniepoo]

Lost my camera onboard. I remembered 10 it 10 minutes after leaving the lounge. It was gone when I ran back for it. No one turned it in.:(

[The Big Booper]

I have been using digitals with SD cards for years so I have a large collection of small memory cards @256 rather than the ultra large 2 and 4 gb cards sold today. When friends ask why I don't just take 2 4gb cards rather than the 15 or so small capacity cards I take on a trip, I have 2 reasons.

 

1) If a card goes bad, all the pics are lost and...

 

2) If the camera is stolen........

 

Using a 256 card with my 8 MP FZ-30, I can store 67 images, not a lot, but I have 15 cards and some are 512 and I have 2 huge ones at 1 gb so I am covered if the camera is lost/stolen. Losses will be minimized.

 

My new laptop has a built in card reader so I like the idea of downloading pics each nite, but I wouldn't erase them from the card. If you can afford to cruise you can afford to have a few extra cards.

[medfordgirl]

I am sorry about your camera, I once lost a $400 solid white gold bracelet on HAL (it was a gift) and it was never turned in. Guess they are on all the cruise lines. :(

[newbeestl]

Not sure if this has been posted before, but when you go on a vacation or somewhere with your camera, always take a picture of a note with your name, address and phone number on it. Then if you do lose your camera, maybe the person that finds it will return the card to you at least.

[bunting]

Not sure if this has been posted before, but when you go on a vacation or somewhere with your camera, always take a picture of a note with your name, address and phone number on it. Then if you do lose your camera, maybe the person that finds it will return the card to you at least.

 

Thanks great idea...also always have the make and serial number in my file, with so many similar cameras around the serial number helps prove its mine...

[KelJ]

I actually put a little sticker on my camera with my cabin number on it. If someone tries to call me at home, they're not going to get me!

[willysgrandma]

I am so sorry this happened to you. It would be a much better world if the person who found the camera would put themselves in your shoes and ask how they'd feel if they lost their camera.

 

It's too bad people don't treat others as they would want to be treated.

 

We were in New Orleans recently and left a print we had purchased in a restaurant. I went to the webiste of the store we bought it from and e-mailed about buying another - I told them I had left it in the mall the store was located in.

 

The store owner e-mailed me back and told me that someone had found it and since the store business card was attached, called the store to see if anyone had been asking about it. He gave me the womans phone number, I called her and identified the picture and she told me next time she is in the French Quarter, she'll drop it at the store. The store owner said he'd ship it back when he receives it for $8.00.

 

We still haven't received it, but the woman did tell me that she is in the French Quarter once a month and will bring it back next time she is there.

 

I have faith I'll get it back and can't tell you how relieved I was that someone honest had found it.