Anyone else have any "frightening" pre cruise stories?

Here is mine from my last trip! I did not include it in my review but decided to post about it as we look back on it and am able to laugh now. I will make it as short as I can.

Me and my mom arrived on a Friday (2/4/11) in Tampa for a Saturday cruise on the Radiance. Check in at the hotel went very well. I was going to meet some of my buddies from Tampa at the Bahama Breeze next door to the hotel but before that, mom and I decided we needed to make a run to CVS.

While we were at CVS, mom spots a Kohls :o We decided to stop by there as well. After done with shopping at Kohls mom decided she needed to visit the "ladies room". While in the ladies room, she leaves her purse in there and walks out!!!!!!!!!! :eek:

This purse contains her DL, credit cards, some cash and most importantly PASSPORT! :eek:

Well she didnt realize it until about 25 minutes later and we were back at Bahama Breeze. Needless to say my heart SUNK! I immediately looked up the Kohls on the GPS and called them. Thank goodness an employee had found her purse and turned it in to the manager! WHEW! was I relieved!

We returned quickly to get the purse and everything wound up going great. From then on, needless to say, I was in charge of holding on to her passport :p Mom tried to tip the gal real well but she politely declined and said she couldnt accept it.

Sure am glad an honest employee found it or our cruise would have likely wound up a nightmare! She now refers to it as her "Radiance cruise that almost didnt happen".

Anyone else have any similar stories to share? :confused: :)

Oh I'm sure you will find several . our first cruise being a rookie we had flights for the day of the cruise and I found out at 5pm the night before ours had been cancelled due to lack of pilots to fly it. :eek::eek:

Oh I'm sure you will find several . our first cruise being a rookie we had flights for the day of the cruise and I found out at 5pm the night before ours had been cancelled due to lack of pliots to fly it. :eek::eek:

Wow! were you able to make the cruise? What a stressful way to start such a wonderful vacation!

Before we knew the purse was safe, Mom had already decided that I would cruise solo and she would just fly back to Ga and stay with my brother until i got back. We really were lucky to get her purse back!

Living it right now. Had back surgery one week ago and sailing in 2 weeks. Hoping I'll be as good as doctor thinks I'll be.

Living it right now. Had back surgery one week ago and sailing in 2 weeks. Hoping I'll be as good as doctor thinks I'll be.

Best wishes to you for a speedy recovery and I hope you are able to make your cruise! :)

I had an unexpected surgery back in November and then many weeks on total bedrest and I thought i was going to have to cancel our February cruise so I know where you are at right now!

Last year we were going on the Navigator leaving from Miami. I booked a deal with park sleep and fly and when we arrived in Miami at about 1am after driving 13 hours to get there we found they did not have a room for us. But they had already charged my credit card for the room so I did not understand why they did not have our room. This was spring break in Miami at 1:30am. I had to find a new hotel (the lady at the previous hotel was very rude to me I was in tears I did not know what to do!). We found a hotel but they did not have the park sleep and fly deal so we also had to pay for our room, and parking at the port in addition to the money that had already been taken out of my account for the room we did not get. So that was almost $300 I was not counting on having to spend. We enjoyed our cruise and after we got off I called parksleep and fly and they refunded me there fee and the manager at Marriott said they did have be reservation but it was booked for a different day which was why my card was charged like I was a no show! I wrote a letter to Bill Marriott and got $200 in Marriott gift checks and all of the money was refunded for the hotel we did not use. So we got to use one of our checks on our precruise hotel next time. This time I booked with priceline and will call a week or so before and confimr they have me a room for the correct day!

Now my husband is having dreams of the ship flipping over and I had a dream that I was bascially locked out of the promenade deck and there were emergency exits only so I could not get back in....I just want this cruise to get here!

My sisters and I flew to Florida 3 days prior to our Majesty cruise. Well my sister realized that she left her passport at home!!!! Her boyfriend overnighted it to her and we received it the day before the cruise.

Just this last cruise, flew in to Ft. Lauderdale on Friday for a Saturday departure on Oasis. Between my mom, two sisters, one b-in-law and one niece we had about a dozen pieces of luggage. Several hours after we got to the hotel, my sister noticed one of my b-i-l's bags was missing. Unfortunately, it was the one in which he had packed all his medications (don't get me started -- you NEVER pack medications).

After a couple of panicked hours trying to track down the limo company that had taken us from the airport and learning they did not have the bag, he and I took a trip back to the airport (while my sister took my niece to the pool like we'd been promising her all day she could do once we got to sunny Florida). On the way over to the airport, kept trying to calm him down with all the things we could do if the bag in fact did not get on the plane in Newark -- call his pharmacist, call his doctor, etc. to get a weeks worth of precriptions which we could then fill at the nearby CVS before we boarded, but he was still a nervous wreck (aren't men supposed to be good in a crisis?). Fortunately, the minute we entered the airport baggage area he spotted his bag sitting in the unclaimed luggage office and the vacation was saved.

Here's the funny part. One of the things he was most panicked about on the way over in the cab was that he could not remember the name of any of his medications, and therefore could not imagine how he could even begin to get replacement prescriptions. Literally, the whole cab ride over he kept trying to remember them and couldn't. When we got to the airport, he put his hand on the handle of his suitcase, looked me in the eye, and proceeded to rattle off the generic names of every one of his seven different pills. Talk about nerves robbing you of the ability to think!

I am glad he got his meds....Being in the pharmacy profession I know how it could have been without them.

Not so much a pre cruise story but during our last cruise on carnival we went to Cozumel docked at the international pier and went on a cooking excursion which included unlimited drinks at playa mia...We went to get back on the ship after looking around at the shops for a bit and when we had to show our sea pass cards to the port authority my husband did not have his! I was freaking out I did not know where he lost it and he was too drunk to tell me and he kind of thought it was funny. I told him we dont have money to fly him back home if he cant get on the ship. At that time our last names did not match since I had booked the cruise under my maiden name I did not want to go through all of that trouble to change it and they were telling me we were not married since we did not have the same last name after arguing with these people for like 10 min and yelling at my husband they let us go and gave us someone elses card! We got to the ship for them to scan our cards and we just told him he lost it and there was no problem they looked up our room and his pic and told us to get a new card from guest services. So my husband went back to the room and passed out the rest of the night. I was going to go to dinner by myself and the dining manager saw how upset I was he had my food delivered to my room. I went to the midnight mexican buffett by myself and the next morning my husband could not remember anything. We go to Cozumel on our Oasis trip in May...I am booking an excursion that does not include unlimited drinks! He is not going to stress me out on my vacation again!

The week we flew to FT lauderdale for a cruise, we were transferred to our Hotel, upon checking my carry on Bag I noticed my packed tennies were no longer packed, DH swears I must have left them at home, I said absolutely not, so grab a cab & off to Target we go at the total cost of $23 something. Now we board the ship, receive our luggage and unpacking, low and behold my missing tennies ended up in DH's garmet suitcase, he had moved them. I asked why would he get into my carry on, he said he was redistributing the weight of our big luggage, so stoled the tennies.:D. He now knows to stay out of my luggage.

Best wishes to you for a speedy recovery and I hope you are able to make your cruise! :)

 

I had an unexpected surgery back in November and then many weeks on total bedrest and I thought i was going to have to cancel our February cruise so I know where you are at right now!

Thank you. I'm very encouraged by the way I feel today, just one week post surgery. After a long discussion with my surgeon, I decided that the surgery restrictions (the ones he listed weren't bad at all) were far less than the resistrictions I would have had due to the pain.

Nothing right before a cruise, but my wife's appendix ruptured 3 weeks before a cruise last summer. She had to have an emergency appendectomy and spent five days in the hospital. We still made the cruise though. :)

This isn't really a frightening story because it has a good ending, but it's a cautionary tale:

As we were driving to Florida for our very first cruise, we encountered heavy, heavy traffic as we drew near to Jacksonville . . . and eventually we reached a place where the entire interstate was literally JUST STOPPED. As far ahead and as far back as we could see, cars were stopped. We sat in that traffic jam two full hours. People were out of their cars, walking around and talking to one another. No one knew anything. When we finally moved again, we eventually saw that a tractor trailer truck had BURNED ON THE INTERSTATE. They'd had to put out the fire and then drag it off to the side.

The whole time we were out there, we kept saying to ourselves, "Thank goodness we're only going to the hotel tonight. It's so fortunate that we don't board the ship 'til tomorrow."

Wow! were you able to make the cruise? What a stressful way to start such a wonderful vacation!

 

Before we knew the purse was safe, Mom had already decided that I would cruise solo and she would just fly back to Ga and stay with my brother until i got back. We really were lucky to get her purse back!

Yes it was the one of the most stressful nights of my life lol. I called my TA when I found out , i was surfing the net and found it . She was like we close in 10 minutes you will have to call Delta:rolleyes::eek:, I was like really. yea never used them again . Actually called Delta they were like that flight is not cancelled , i said I'm looking right at here on whatever sight i had it on , then she was like oh crap , yea it is , well to make it short she was wonderful , got us upgraded to first class , when i told her it was our first cruise , we got there around 1pm , now we go at LEAST 1 day pre if not 2 .

Our first ever cruise was a 3 nighter and we had a great time. We booked

a 5 nighter right after we got back for the following spring. We get to the port and they would not accept the DW hospital cert. of birth this time.

It was Memorial Day and they said nothing could be done. We had to wait nearly 2 hours to get our luggage back and then the walk of shame. We have passpots now. RCI was very good about it, even though it was our mistake. We got about 50% of the cost back in the form of coupons.

If you see someone making the WALK, be kind.

Before we knew the purse was safe, Mom had already decided that I would cruise solo and she would just fly back to Ga and stay with my brother until i got back. We really were lucky to get her purse back!

Actually, without an ID she wouldn't even have been able to fly home. It's good it didn't come to that!

Probably not what you meant by "frightening cruise story" but the morning of my very first cruise in 2004 I woke up with a migraine. I threw up a few times on the way to the airport (and had to grab a different shirt out of my suitcase) :eek:

:p

Oh I'm sure you will find several . our first cruise being a rookie we had flights for the day of the cruise and I found out at 5pm the night before ours had been cancelled due to lack of pilots to fly it. :eek::eek:

We had a similar situation -- our flight from Rochester, NY to San Juan was canceled because the flight attendant didn't show up for work! Fortunately we had planned to go down a day early and the ship didn't set sail until late evening, so we had a little bit of a cushion. We were fortunate to get an early flight the next morning, and made it to the ship about 10 minutes before out dinner seating! I was sooo glad to see the Schooner bar that night! LOL

I guess this would be pre-cruise. Five years ago we were inside Port Canaveral terminal, showed all of our documents and were checked in to board Disney's Magic. Then someone left a baggage unattended. THUS, everyone was evacuated from the ship and we had to wait out in the Florida sun for 2 hours in the parking lot. A bomb squad from Orlando had to be called in - took an hour to get to Port Canaveral. It was very hot and humid. They started passing out waterbottles to people - ambulances had to be called because some started having health problems due to the heat! Needless to say it was not the start to our vacation we wanted! We had skipped breakfast because we thought we were going to be eating at 11:30 for lunch -- we were starved when we boarded!

Not a pre cruise horror, but a post cruise one. About three years ago on our RCL cruise my wife went to bed about 10 on the last night. I came up from the casino around 11 to put the bags in the hall and saw she had some clothes on her suitcase. I figured she put them there to pack them but forgot so I packed them and put the suitcases out. WRONG.

She woke up before me and I heard a scream. All she had was shoes and a nightgown. Needless to say, I was sent down to see what I could do. To make matters worse, I did not fill out the information on the luggage tags thinking that where can it go, we are sure to get it back (actually since then, I have met a couple of people who have had lost luggage during disembarkment).

Anyway, I went to the purser to explain the situation and the first person offered me a tee shirt. I explained, this was really not very good, but might help a little. Her superviser came out and asked what type of luggage we had. Luckily we replaced our generic black luggage with beige luggage which is a little more unique.

After about 15 minutes she came back with my wife's suitcase. I wanted to hug her. She looked at me and said that I really need to fill the luggage tags out. She got a nice tip and a letter to RCL about this great service that probably saved my life.

Our first real cruise (I don't count our first little 3 nighter to Ensenada as a real cruise) back in 2007 on the Mariner. We were going all out taking our four boys in a RFS with a pre-cruise to Disney world. I was really trying to make everything perfect. We applied for passports almost four months in advance. We never got them before the cruise but I had luckily re-ordered new birth certificates just in case. After making sure everyone had what they needed and the mail was stopped the last thing on my list was to go have a pedicure and get my nails done. Went to the same salon two days before leaving, I had never had a pedicure done and the guy doing the pedicure grabbed the wrong bottle and massaged callous remover instead of massage oil and rubbed it all over my legs. He only stopped after the acid ate a hole in his gloves. By this time my legs were burning and started to get blisters were every pore was. I went straight to the emergency care facility but the damage had been done. The entire trip my legs had blisters and scabs where every pore was. The right leg worse than the left. I looked like I had some horrible disease. I tried my best to hide my legs as much as I could.

When we got home a contacted a lawyer and sued the salon. It took a year and a half to settle the case and with the money I got my hubby and I went on our first cruise without kids on the Liberty. So I guess it was worth the embarrassment.

a week before 1 of my sailing i was in a car accident and broke both bones in my leg needed surgery and got 6 screws 2 plates and had the surgery 2 days before i flew out and only reason i was able to go was cuz my mom worked at the hospital and she pulled strings to get me out

This was a first for us. We always fly the day before we leave for our cruise. Our last cruise in October going on the Oasis, we were going to Boston Logan Airport at 4am. It was only an hour 20 min. when at 5 am we hit dead stop on the highway. There was a bad accident and they needed to bring in a helicopter. We had a 7am flight and had to reach the airport to check in our luggage by 6:30, it was 6:38 when we arrived so we couldn't check in our bags. It was a holiday weekend and they didn't think they had any extra seats to put us on, even the next day looked iffy, we thought for sure we would miss the cruise. There were 5 of us, and after 20 minutes, she found 2 separate flights. She got us into Palm Beach at different times, but didn't care, and we just needed to drive up to Fort Lauderdale. We finally made it to our hotel by 6pm totally exhausted and thankful to the agent at JetBlue who was fantastic! Next cruise we are thinking about leaving 2 days ahead!!

Woke up at 8am the day of my flight to my Serenade Alaska cruise. Unfortunately my flight left at 5:40am.:eek: And almost every flight out of my local airport was overbooked for the next 3 days.

Luckily between my travel agent and the American ticket agent, they managed to find a way to salvage my trip. We found a seat on a Southwest flight to Love Field in Dallas. I then took a taxi across Dallas to DFW where American agreed to put me on a later flight than my original one. Managed to arrive only 8 hours later than planned. Thankfully I was flying in a day in advance.

Our first ever cruise was a 3 nighter and we had a great time. We booked

a 5 nighter right after we got back for the following spring. We get to the port and they would not accept the DW hospital cert. of birth this time.

It was Memorial Day and they said nothing could be done. We had to wait nearly 2 hours to get our luggage back and then the walk of shame. We have passpots now. RCI was very good about it, even though it was our mistake. We got about 50% of the cost back in the form of coupons.

If you see someone making the WALK, be kind.

Now that makes me feel so badly for you...I can't imagine the disappointment and frustration at not being able to do anything except wait...and walk. :( "The walk of shame" - very descriptive! :eek: