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I wasn't on this cruise, but can understand the disappointment of those who were. Many people put allot of time and effort into selecting and planning a vacation, it is therefore understandable that they would feel let down. Additionally, that RCCL seems to have mis-handled the situation and completely failed to effectively communicate with its passengers only made them more frustrated.
That being said, what I cannot understand is all the attack dogs coming out of the woodwork to chastise these people that it is their fault that they were disappointed and to stop being such crybabies. I have to wonder why they would rise up so vociferously to defend a corporation, pulling out the fine print that the suits hide behind and exhibit such insensitivity to the emotional letdown that these passengers had experienced. Frankly, I wonder what their agendas are, and if they are somehow making money off the cruise industry.
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Does anybody who is raving about Celebrity and knocking RCCL realize that they are the SAME company? I know there is a difference between the 2 cruiselines as far as onboard food and service goes (some better on Celebrity and some better on RCCL in my opinion) but I'm sure if the same situation arose on a Celebrity cruise, the same decisions would have been made by Celebrity's parent company, which is RCI.
PapaBill,
I am just reporting to you what was told to the passengers by Royal Caribbean in one of their letters. The letter said that the Bahamas were a possibility and the reason for not going there was the short time they would be in port. That was info directly from RCI. I have the letter in front of me.
I still maintain that paying the fee for violating cabotage laws would have been less expensive in the long run that the PR black eye this has turned into.
I'll repeat what I've said elsewhere--the displaced passengers don't have a legal leg to stand on. OTOH, they have every right to be honked off. RCI may not have controlled the weather, but they could have handled the choice they made a lot better.
I have an Eastern Caribbean cruise next week. Looking at the forecasts, I can only say it looks like the weather is going to suck. I'm prepared for that. I don't expect an itinerary change, but I'm betting the diving excursion that's been reserved doesn't end up happening. But I also didn't pack for the beach and enjoyed the charming ambiance of Eastern Canada.
Re: Re: Where else do you think the ship could go?
Frank, Are you saying that if you sailed 1200 miles through a tropical storm to the Bahamas (instead of 625 miles to Bermuda), spent an afternoon there, turned around and caught up to the storm again on the way home you wouldn't have been organizing passengers and posting here?
Baloney. You'd be posting the same thing and demanding the same compensation.
Re: Re: Where else do you think the ship could go?
cpaige, The weather was also beautiful in Bermuda. The point is you would have sailed through a tropical storm to get to either destination. In addition, on a six day cruise would you have wanted 51/2 days of cruising, mostly in VERY bad weather to spend a half day in the Bahamas?
Can I ask just one question here, one that I ask before but nobody answers. Went back to work today and was finally able to talk to my co-worker about HIS Bermuda cruise on the 24th. He left NYC that sunday on NCL's Norweign Crown Muck smaller boat about 35000 tons 1000 passengers This is what he said. Monday the sea was quite rough a number of passengers got seasick incl. his wife High winds. Improving during night.Tuesday morning arrive in Bermuda weather mostly sunny and warm, beautiful rest of week had a great time in Bermuda ,smooth sailing on way home. SO that't it and again my question is how could two large cruise companies send out three boats to the same Island on the same day two leaving from the same port both having acces to top weather data and come up with two different decisions. Did RCL err on the side of caution and ended up with egg on its face while NCL decided to go dosn't NCL care about safety too? Maybe it was the size of RCL's boat something doesn't add up here.
Once again I am saying I would rather of stayed out to sea then go to a climate I was not prepared for. I think many people on this ship agree with me. I don't care if you feel we would then be crying we did not go to any port.
Once again, we went through the tropical storm you keep talking about, we had 51/2 days of bad weather. So what's your point? And as far as i'm concerned I would have rather spent a half day in the Bahamas then have nothing at all. At least on the way home from the Bahamas the weather would have been nice since the storm was in HALIFAX.
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To make it easy, I'm just going to provide several answers/comments here:
Kellie: Forget about reading the fine print. Just skim thru the stuff you're signing first. You paid, what, $60 for travel insurance? What do you really think that's going to cover? Chances are, most people aren't going to miss their cruise. If insurance is going to be offered that will reimburse for missed ports/destinations/weather, the chances of that happening are much greater, and thus the cruise line or private operator will charge much more for the insurance. And chances are, you wouldn't have had purchased it anyway, because of the increased cost. RCCI is a business, and its stocks are publicly traded. RCCI might have upset 2,000 passangers, of which 25% (500 people) *may* have booked another cruise. A large insurance payout or refund to customers would have angered way more stockholders than cruisers.
Brendas: Given the option to reschedule? After taking the time to get to the port and only then learning about the detour? Cruise line would have lost too much money (see about stockholder comments. And cruisers would have complained they should get free airfare and compensated for taking a week off of work for the cruise.
Sharon: No, you wouldn't have had enjoyed that option of going to the bahamas, even if it was possible. First off - which Bahama? 2,000 would be looking for 2,000 different destinations, and 1,999 would come away made they didn't get to the destination they wanted to go to. It would take, say, 30 minutes to disembark. You would get 2 hours to walk around, lay on the beach, etc. Certainly no time for excursions. 30 minutes for everyone to get back on. Several dozen not watching the time, and missing the boat. The other 1,950 complaining they didn't have enough time to do anything, except purchase a "I went on RCCL cruise and all I had time to do was buy this lousy T-Shirt" T-Shirt at island souviner stand.
Frank: Did you talk to the potental bride after the fact - meaning, after knowing where the storm went? Thinking back, I don't think the storm was ever supposed to hit Canada, but changed directions 'at the last minute'. Remember, these same meterologists have been wrong time and time again when it comes to simply prediction sun and rain and snow. A hurricane is even tougher to predict.
PapaBill: Good question. Imagine if a ship did make it to the Bahamas, and it happened to be raining there. We'd have 2,000 people complaining how RCCI intentionally chose a port where they knew it would rain.
roadnut - if we went to the Bahamas, fewer people would be ticked off than they are now because we went to Canada... Kellie has a point, do you work for RCI????
Re: Re: Where else do you think the ship could go?
Funny stuff. Why is it when one has a differing view, they are immediately termed as working for the company they are siding with? So, to answer you all, I have never worked with RCCI.
Here is Kellie's comment directly. Notice that nothing is said about an on-board credit, and certainly hints strongly at receiving money back (after all - that's what insurance is. If you total a car, your insurance company will send you a check to cover the loss, not a credit towards a purchase of another car with the same manufacturer): "Yes I did purchase travel insurance, no I did not have a travel agent I booked right through Royal. Do you think Royal told me my Insurance would only cover if they cancelled the trip not if the itinerary changed? No they did not. I have since learned that their are all different tiers of insurance, they of course only sell the one that best suits them in this situation. I know I should have read that contract too!!"
If you were given the option of sailing storm free (as per the projected path of the storm) towards Canada and have two ports to stop at, or go thru the storm, hit very rough seas in which many passangers would have gotten sea sick, and spend 3 hours on a Bahama island before leaving again (& you could not choose what island you could dock at), what option would you have taken? Remember, you can't factor in what you know happened, only what is forecasted to occur. Even those NBC meterologists didn't know what was going to happen BEFORE the storm moved northwards to Canada.
I have made many posts. He is referring to one in which I was replying to some one regarding whether or not I had purchased insurance, and if I used a travel agent. Read all my posts.
I again would like to say how funny it is that so many of you who were not on this ship care so much about Royal rip off. We as passengers know what took place, we don't need to defend ourselves to you all who obviously have nothing better to do. I came on this message board to discuss my experience on Royal, not defend myself to a bunch of people who have nothing better do than argue with people who have had a bad experience and have voiced it.
This was not my first cruise I have cruised many times, I will cruise many times in the future just not with this cruise line. I KNOW how we were treated, and it wasn't right.
Before anyone asks yes I have experienced problems in the past with Carnival and Celebrity, both companies gave an onboard credit and a future cruise discount. If anyone's curious Celebrity is run as seperate company than Royal according to the Captain's Club rep I spoke with. Since I was reimbursed more for a port change from them I believe her.
Just want to readdress a lot of comments on the chosen itinerary and why we all should be glad RCI chose it. I've been saying this over and over....I do agree that the change was the right thing to do. RCI just should have handled the change in a more positive, customer friendly way. I know these are should-haves and could-haves but it wasn't that much to expect since RCI did have reduced expenses. If RCI had taken an additional 5 minutes during the safety drill and apologized for the change in itinerary and explained the reasons for it and told people they would get an on-board credit of say $150 I think a lot of the anger would have been minimized. Would people have been upset? Sure, but things would not have escalated to the degree that they did. The $150 credit would not have hurt RCI as it would spent on board anyway. Just a little less profit but not refunding and "losing" money.
For everyone's info, people were upset in the beginning of the cruise because of the change but were looking at making the most out of the cruise. It was only when we encountered the "attitude" of "you're getting what you paid for and we don't give a crap" that things started to get nasty. If RCI handled this change properly they could have benefitted from the press but instead chose to take a stand that was very anti customer service/customer satisfaction oriented.
Re: Re: Where else do you think the ship could go?
Not looking in this post to argue the merits, this was a "Where else do you think it could go" post. That said, Frank where , why and how do you keep coming up with the comment that RCCL had reduced expenses on this cruise?? What reduced expenses are you referring to?
Did evryone give up eating lunch on this cruise?. Did RCCL turn off the utilities for a couple of days? What reduced expenses are you referring to on all your posts???
The original question for this post should have included a map, with a day-by-day storm path. It would make the question easier to answer.
But seriously, most of the passengers who posted here seem to have miss the point here in this topic. Once RCCL decided that Bermuda was not a viable port destination, there wasn't really any other alternatives besides Canada.
As one of those people who were not on the cruise, I'm not here to tell people to quit their complaining. Most of the non-sailing-people posts I thought were trying to turn negative attitude into a positive one (at least at the beginning until real tempers flared).
Unfortunately the captain, with help from corporate, made a bad decision with Canada. But there were no other alternatives at the time the decision was made. I was on the Caribbean Princess last year following the storm a day ahead of us. Althought the waves were noticeable and not very bad, there were people who were concerned and/or complained about it. Otherwise, the weather was great. But the general consensus was to be safe, and get home safe.
So to answer the question of the post, given the length of the cruise, and to avoid the storm, Canada was the only choice. Anything else would result in a longer cruise, bad & unsafe sailing conditions, or violating the law mentioned.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Where else do you think the ship could go?
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