How does your family handle bad news when on vacation

I would want to be notified and depending on how far into the cruise we are and what the situation is I would then make a decision. I would also make it a point to check in regularly as opposed to keeping phone in the safe. But tell me.

Not agreeing or disagreeing with the choices that one makes whether to be notified or not.

If your family knows which ship you are on, you can be contacted via Carnival and GS will notify you.

Maybe this was not done years ago, but these days, GS is very understanding of family emergencies and advises the guests that they are free to use the ship's phone to make calls free of charge. Never had to personally but a few friends who have had a death in the family were told this.

If they're dead, there's nothing you can do. I suspect I'd still prefer to be told. I'm sure it depends to a very large extent whether it's someone where death is the normal order of things, eg. an elderly parent, or less natural, eg. a child.

If the person is dying, then I'd want to come back so they don't die without me. Assuming it's someone I was close to, of course - I'm not close to any cousins, for example.

If the house burns down, let it burn. It might be easier to come back to after someone else has had a week to pick up the pieces.

I got a text from my Aunt during my Baltic cruise telling me that "she did great in surgery and is resting comfortably." Now, the problem was that no one had previously told me that my mother's hip surgery had been moved up by a few weeks and it took me awhile to figure out who was in surgery and that it wasn't too serious (my cousin is a addicted to drugs, so he sometimes has health crises too). So try to get the whole family on the same page, and make sure if you tell someone about an emergency or health situation on a trip you give them enough information that they know what is going on.

I would want to know the news. Then at least I've got the opportunity to make a decision if we are leaving the ship and flying home. If it's an immediate family member and they are still alive I don't want someone else to hedge their bets if I want to know or not.

I always buy trip insurance so I'm not concerned about the cost.

If the whole family is with me and the house burns down I might stay aboard though [emoji568]

We would also not say anything. Not odd.

Keith

Since pretty much all of our family members are still alive, except for 3 grandparents between my husband and I. I would want to know if one of our parents passed, or a sibling of ours, niece/nephew, or one of our children.

BUT, my parents LOVE to cruise and want their ashes in the ocean when they pass away...so their wishes may be for us to morn them when we finish the current cruise at the time they pass, come home for their funeral and then use our inheritance for a big family cruise to spread their ashes, LOL.

But, I don't know if I could actually finish a cruise knowing a family member passed away.

I think i should give a little explanation on our family policy.

We have one family member who is controlling and craves attention, if they know someone is going on the trip, there will be an emergency room visit the night before...nothing will be wrong. We no longer let them know when anyone is leaving town. If they find out someone has left there will be a trip to emergency room during someones trip again another false alarm. This individual has been dieing for the last 30 years or more. We finally decided to no longer to put our lives on hold and came up with this policy the entire family is in agreement.

Interesting glimpses into peoples lives here.

I think I would want to be told, then it can be my decision what to do,

I was at sea when Superstorm Sandy hit the port in NJ, we were informed by the ships personal that the port flooded after we pulled out, and several, but not all, of the parked cars were in the flood. They gave us a room of phones to use to call insurance company's and for rides home, but could not tell us which cars, just to make 'incase' plans. for a few days my stress level was up, the not knowing was worse than being sure. And I was lucky. wet rugs but no water damage to engine.

A death or illness, yea I'd need to know, if only to check in more often.

~ We have one to add to the list of Fun Cruises ? Our daughter was pregnant an delivered early ~ We where on the Adventures of the Sea's ~ Was the fastest disembarkation ever, , Our Thanks to RCCL as well as the Port Authorities ! ~ She was upset we went on the cruise in the first place . . . We made it from the Baltimore , MD Port to the Hospital with a 1/2 hour or so to spare before she popped ! { We Made It } ~ Positive Outcome / Yet Stressful coming up the Chesapeake Bay ! :D / / /

Part 2 of it was our 4 year old daughter was with us and friends whom brought their daughter / { BFF's } Our daughter stayed with our friends so we could get off the ship an make it to the hospital and our friends left a bag at the port / We got it the following week ~ Found out they used it to train their dog's ! My wife will never let us use the bag again ? ~ Why you ask / They used Synthetic Cocaine / An Hemp in our daughters bag ! :eek: They promised we'd never have any problems ! ~ LOL

So our moto is { Positive Attitude / Positive Outcome } ~ { Negative Attitude / Negative Outcome } You Choose ~ :)

Have A Nice Day

J.L. & Bree

I think immediate family members with life threatening conditions or passing away suddenly, let us know. Talking mom, dad, sisters, our children, that's it. Beyond that we can find out when we get home. I would imagine if there was any chance a family member wouldn't make it, we would cancel and go home. If they passed, it would really depend.

I have always said if ANYONE leaves doing something fun they enjoy doing to go to my funeral, they do not know me at all and are not a true friend...life is way too short to waste time you could be spending doing something you love listening to a pastor drone on while looking at my stiff body. I wasn't that great. ;)

Our friends and their whole extended family took their dream cruise to Hawaii....one day in their Grandpa passed. No insurance, but they all left their dream cruise to go to the funeral. I'm sure Grandpa didn't know they were there, but the money and experiences were lost forever.

That's just me though :).

My grandmother was very sick when I left for my Italian honeymoon. She assured me she would be okay, but I made my mom promise to call me if anything happened. She survived my honeymoon and we lost her 3 months later.

Wow, touchy subject for me! Like Uncleg, had a family member that would always "get seriously ill/ hospitalized" EVERY time they found out we were going on vacation the week or DAY we left. Stopped telling them and their illnesses (I.e. They would stop taking their meds) stopped, too. I have family that travels extensively, never really has anything to do with us when they are home (they have their faves in the family and it ain't us), and have said that they would not cancel their vacation if a family member got really sick or died, but I can guarantee you, we would be the first ones they call on vacation if they or someone else in the family got sick or died, no matter where we were. Would be lying if I said I would be willing to change my plans....

Wanted to post to this thread, we experienced while on the Dream 12-09

While checking our voicemail in St Thomas port joes father passed away suddenly. There was nothing we could do,and GS let us phone our daughter to make plane reservations the same afternoon we got back in port to fly to PA where they live thank you Mississauga for remembering us and being friends since

We've vacationed several times without even telling my grandparents we were going because they tend to be critical, tell us we could do better things with our money, etc. :rolleyes:

I can relate, my MIL's mom passed away while they were at a conference, so they had to keep her on ice for a few days.

My MIL said we should not travel until after she died. I told her that would not happen! She died 9 years later, and I showed my wife the list of what we would have missed if we had heeded her.

We were on a cruise when the 1994 Northridge quake hit. We lived 3 miles from the epicenter. During the sruise we discussed what would be standing when we got back. Fortunately we had minimal damage.

When the attack on 9/11 hit, we were in Europe. We opted to continue with our plans as there was nothing we could do about it.