Forwarding luggage to ship

[VeroSue]

Does anyone know how to go about forwarding one's luggage to the ship in advance of one's sailing date. We are on the Navigator's 6/21/08 cruise and wanted to know if anyone has had experience in this area. Thanks so much.

[petlover]

VeroSue,

I have used IPS several times when Regent was picking up the tab and never had any problems. BUT, I think I've been lucky because I know many others who have had problems so for that reason I would not recommend them. I know people who have had very good luck with First Luggage and this is who I would likely use (plus their rates are much better than IPS).

 

Here's some info that might be helpful to you:

 

International Port Services (IPS)- http://www.intlportservices.com 1-800-395-8810 - Minimum Charge: $650.00 (Ship up to 100 lbs for the minimum charge); $6.50 per pound over 100 lbs., plus Customs Charge: $125.00 per shipment Total (minimum) $775

Luggage Free http://www.luggagefree.com 800.361.6871

Luggage Express http://www.usxpluggageexpress.com/ 866 Ship Bags

Luggage Concierge http://www.luggageconcierge.com/ 800-288-9818

Luggage Forward http://www.luggageforward.com/quote_international.jsp 866-416-7447

1 large bag estimated transit time: 3-5 business days* $446 (USD)

The Luggage Club https://www.theluggageclub.com/ 877-231-5131

For International Rates: Call Toll-Free 877-231-5131

First Luggage British Co. http://www.firstluggage.com/ 800-224-5781

$268. for 1 bag to 66 lbs. (30 kilos) Hong Kong to Florida!

Virtual Bellhop http://www.virtualbellhop.com/services.html#international (877) 235-5467

[luvtojump]

Please do not use IPS. We were on a 7 day Seabourn cruise in the Med. and only had the clothes on our backs after IPS's negligence.

 

We handed over our luggage to them 14 days prior to our cruise. They never tracked our luggage and could not even locate it the entire time we were traveling.

 

Don't even think of contacting them on the weekend. They are not there. Not even for emergencies such as ours. We finally made contact with them on Monday at 5PM (we boarded the ship on Sat.) to ask where our luggage was. They kept promising they would get our luggage to the next port. Never happened. Then they promised it would be delivered back to our home. Again, never happened. In fact, they finally admitted that they could not find it.

 

42 days later, I had to hire another company to assist after IPS had given up. Thanks to the head purser at Seabourn and Jeff at Luggage Free. They located our luggage and it was delivered three days later.

 

After the smoke cleared and 45 days after IPS picked up our luggage, we were reunited. Not surprisingly, almost half of it was missing. To this day, IPS is not responding to our claims.

 

This company is bad news.

 

Even after our experience, I think shipping luggage is a fabulous way to travel. Please pick your company carefully.

[gazuccio]

OK I have to ask as I have never had to use this type of service? First of all I think I could see the value of using a service like this if I were going for a 30 day cruise, but I would leary about sending it on ahead in hopes it gets there and meets me where I need it to be. Why not pay the over baggage fee at the airport or the over size fee and eliminate the hastle of using another service. If handling your bags is an issue there are porters that handle the bags at the airport very efficiently and the cruise lines take care of getting it from cab to ship. So I guess I am trying to understand the value of using this service. Please can someone edumacate me...please??? Thank you in advance. R & L

[Breezes06]

People have various reasons for wanting to send luggage separately. We took a cruise last year and were hearing many reports of lost luggage on major carriers. Not wanting to experience a cruise with no formal clothes and with only what we could find to purchase on the trip, we decided to send one bag by UPS to our pre cruise hotel. We each put some of our clothes in one bag, took it several blocks to a UPS store. We paid to have the luggage boxed, and off it went to the hotel for a total of about 50 bucks. Not only did we not have to deal with the bag in the airport, taxi, etc., we felt certain our luggage would arrive safely at our hotel. It was there waiting for us when we arrived and was promptly delivered to our room. I know of other people who have shipped luggage to the port by DHL or other carriers. This was so easy for us that I'd certainly do it again. I had called the conceirge to clear this procedure with the hotel. He told me it's done all the time.

[Paint Horse]

Shipping luggage is very nice, when it works.

 

We also attempted to use IPS as Regent has selected them as their agent for this sort of thing. We did not use them to ship the luggage to the ship as they were too incompetent to deal with it. I have never talked to a more useless group of people. Instead we arranged for Luggage Concierge to ship it for us, but only to the precruise hotel. This worked really well. Luggage Concierge is used by Crystal. As another poster pointed out you can do this yourself, at least to the hotel, by just using UPS. We used Luggage Concierge in this case just to try them out. It is a little trickier to ship it yourself through someone like UPS all the way to the ship.

 

Being foolish by nature, I decided to try IPS to ship the luggage back from the ship to our house. I did this as the ship's staff would arrange this for me. To my relief it all arrived intact. Of course I never heard anything from IPS. What idiots.

 

I recommend we all contact Regent to insist they make arrangements with additional shipping companies.

[LOGHL]

Does anyone know how to go about forwarding one's luggage to the ship in advance of one's sailing date. We are on the Navigator's 6/21/08 cruise and wanted to know if anyone has had experience in this area. Thanks so much.

 

we have shipped luggage 3 times (round trip each time) and have had great results. They follow through constantly. Tell them Judy Demain recommended you & you will get a small discount..

[gazuccio]

Hmmm, well it seems like a hit or miss with these carriers. Both my wife and I will have an enormous amount of luggage since we are bringing our dive gear, but I guess we need to decide which option is best, carry it with us or not. We are not making a direct flight to Tahiti, and we have a stop in LA for a coupe of days before we head off to Tahiti. Then once in Tahiti we will be there for three days before we head on the ship so if our luggage were to be misplaced then we have some time to retrieve it...I guess. So I guess its down to gamble or not to gamble...this is the question!

[petlover]

The times we've used IPS was when we were on World Cruises for 4 months at a time. We didn't have a choice since Regent set it up and paid for it. On the current 2008 WC there have been nothing but problems with IPS and I'm sure that Regent will never use them again. Almost 3 weeks into the WC and there are still people missing luggage.

 

Again, the company that I've only heard good things about and no screw ups (that I've heard about is) First Luggage and their price is better.

[xrvlcruiser]

Thanks Marcie!

 

Having a list of all the services/information in one place is a big help.

 

See you soon . . . Peggy

[JoAnne B]

There are many reasons to ship luggage. Even with porters heavy luggage can be difficult for some of us. Excess baggage fees are pretty hefty if you are flying internally in Europe. And the airlines are less than dependable these days. Several cruisers were missing bags on the last crossing. One couple received their bags the night before disembarkation in Funchal..just in time to put it out for pickup. And they only flew from London to Monaco. Another lady's luggage was totally missing for the entire trip.

 

I used IPS a while back to ship my bag home from the ship in Monaco and had no problems. After hearing horror stories, I used Luggage Free on my last crossing and they were professional and easy to deal with. They made an appointment for pickup and the doorbell rang almost exactly on time. The bag was in my suite when I boarded.

 

For me it's worth the money. The only problem was that I didn't keep a log of what I had packed and ended up with a mismatch of some outfits between what I shipped and what I packed at the last minute to carry with me. Next time I'll keep track of what I send ahead!

 

JoAnne B

Houston

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

I'm re-posting my rant about IPS from last April (again...):

 

"Everything International Port Services (I.P.S.) could mess up, they did:

 

- Did not pick up the luggage on the day they scheduled (luggage sat outside for a day). Excuse was "the driver was on vacation".

 

- Delivered luggage on the wrong day to wrong cruise line and th wrong ship! Due to the problem with the pick-up, I happened to have called the freight forwarder (Lynden) in Ft. Lauderdale the day before our departure, just to check, and they said the luggage was already on board another ship. They said that the paperwork from IPS made no mention of Regent or the Mariner. They sent drivers out and they combed the dock/ship and finally found our luggage. They got it to our ship the next day around 1pm, just in time. (We had both Regent tag types on each of our bags...).

 

- Luggage was damaged and absolutely filthy. When I brought that up, IPS said "Oh, shrink wrap is available on request". It would have been nice if they had mentioned that before they picked up the luggage...

 

- When we disembarked with our luggage, we looked around for the IPS person with a sign that was supposed to be there, but could not find one. I found a Regent rep and she said she was upset also because they could not locate an IPS rep. She had us put our stuff off to the side and said she would look after it. We had a plane to catch so we had to just leave our stuff on the sidewalk and hope Regent sorted it out.

 

- IPS said they would return our luggage on a Saturday while we were home, but it arrived on a Monday, un-announced, and sat outside (behind our gate, fortunately) for the day (fortunately no rain).

 

So unless I absolutely had to, I would not ship luggage again. It greatly added to the stress rather than relieving it."

[mythologist]

R & L -

 

I called around extensively to every place that would ship to Tahiti in April, 2007 . I was told repeatedly that because of the Port Authority, a person shipping to Tahiti does not have complete control of their luggage as it was taking up to 30 days to get your luggage through. Additionally, I was told there is a very high level of theft from the luggage. Thus, I ended up not shipping my luggage. They said there are a handful of places in the world with this type of problem, although in most places it's not a problem. So, in the FP I would not risk it.

[LOGHL]

we have shipped luggage 3 times (round trip each time) and have had great results. They follow through constantly. Tell them Judy Demain recommended you & you will get a small discount..

 

Sorry..I goofed..the company that I highly recommend is 'LUGGAGE FORWARD"

[Iamboatman]

I would also recommend against IPS. Things have gotten so bad with IPS that Holland America actually sent executives to their offices when many people on the Amsterdam World Cruise couldn't get their luggage picked up. (I received multiple assurances that the paperwork would be faxed over and, of course, it never was.)

 

One thing to keep in mind on the other end of the shipment is that whichever company you use, you will nonetheless be at the mercy of the local port agent...unless you have it shipped to a local hotel where normally it is DHL that handles the paperwork and delivery.

 

Most people have no problem getting their luggage picked up (other than with IPS) and most people do not have a problem getting it delivered. Things to happen, so be sure you have some contingency clothes just in case...and if you are having a pre-cruise stay, deal with the hassle and have the luggage delivered to your hotel so you have time to chase it down if there is a problem.

[ridolphi]

We used First Luggage last summer when flying to Nice. We had heard horror stories of flying thur LHR, which we were, and the fact that on BA we could only have one carryon. To be honest, I just freaked at the possibility of getting to the ship and not having anything more than what was in our carryon. First Luggage was fantastic. I had many emails with a very competent woman, and she also told me that if we had a BA segement and I booked thru the BA link to them, we would get an additional 5% discount. They also offer discounts for 4 or more pieces. We had three pieces. Once I booked, I had another email from her giving me the name of the person in charge of our shipment. That lady emailed me all the paperwork and tags, with detailed instructions. The FEDEX driver showed up on the appointed day, did everything per the instructions I had been sent and our luggage arrived at our hotel three days later - a week before we did. The hotel concierge emailed me that it had arrived and when we checked it was already in our room. Since we cruised back to FLL, we did not ship the luggage home, just brought it with us.

I would highly recommend them. I was very impressed with their efficiency, the ability to email or call them at any time, the tracking system, not only could I track directly with FEDEX, but First Luggage kept us informed via email as to the status, and the lady in charge emailed the day it arrived at the hotel as well. I would not hesitate to use them again if I felt the need.