I confess, while I’m not a nervous traveler, there’s one time when I ALWAYS err on the side of caution, and that’s when flying to a port before a cruise. It doesn’t matter when the ship sails, I want to be there the day before.
I recommend my clients do the same. (And this was including when we departed from San Diego, a short flight from San Francisco.)
The reasons are many, luggage can be misplaced, the plane can be delayed, or a flight can be canceled completely. Even if a short flight is canceled, other flights might be full.
Besides, for anyone who IS a nervous traveler, it’s just much more relaxing to stay in a hotel, get a good night’s sleep, and take a taxi or transfer to the ship in the late morning or early afternoon.
As Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and Carnival passengers found out this week, there’s something else that can go wrong, having your ship sail without you.
With Hurricane Irene bearing down on San Juan, port authorities decided to limit traffic, and both Royal Caribbean’s Serenade of the Seas and Carnival’s Victory were told to leave early.
The Serenade of the Seas scheduled to sail at 8:30 p.m., left at 5:30 p.m., the Victory, scheduled to leave at 10 p.m., left at 6 p.m.
Both ships had started boarding around noon, so most passengers were aboard. However, Royal Caribbean apparently left 145 people stranded, while Carnival left over 300.
As a side note, the two cruise lines handled things at that point very differently. RCCL only offered to provide lodging and transportation to the ship for those who booked the line’s air-sea package. Other passengers were on their own, and told to work with their insurance companies for refunds or compensation since the problem was weather related.
Carnival on the other hand offered stranded passengers two hotel nights in San Juan, and a flight to meet the cruise in Barbados or, a cruise credit for a future cruise.
Regardless of the cruise lines’ different responses, the basic premise remains — it’s a good idea to be in the a cruise ship port the night before the ship sails.
(Yes, it was technically possibly for passengers to be in San Juan and still miss the ship. But with ships that leave late at night, most people tend to board on the early side, so they can get settled even if they plan to explore the city afterwards.)
Personally, my sense is on this early sailing issue is that Royal Caribbean will eventually join Carnival in offering compensating passengers who missed the boat.
But for anyone with limited vacation days and/or overly crowded schedules, it’s really the time itself that is non-replacable. If that’s true in your situation, be good to yourself and consider that when making pre-cruise travel plans.
Janice Hough is a California-based travel agent a travel blogger and a part-time comedy writer. A frequent flier herself, she’s been doing battle with airlines, hotels, and other travel companies for over three decades. Besides writing for Travelers United, Janice has a humor blog at Leftcoastsportsbabe.com (Warning, the political and sports humor therein does not represent the views of anyone but herself.)
