talltree

All of who were onboard knew that Hurricane Dorian could impact our cruise (which it did) and I am sure that all passengers onboard would want MSC to do what was best for our safety and the safety of the ship and its crew.  We accept that weather could impact our cruise, but what we cannot accept is the way that we were misled and forced to make a rushed decision about our trip without knowing all the facts.  We all get it that the Coast Guard and Port of Miami make decisions based upon the weather all the time.  As I currently reside in Jupiter, FL I was extremely concerned that hurricane would come ashore right where I live.  I opted to stay onboard because that was one of two options provided to me at the time.and there was no reason to go home during a category 4 storm.  Remember on Friday the storm was still predicted to come ashore dead center on Palm Beach County.  So the passengers that opted to get off did so by 12:30 or so on Friday.  Many had to incur substantial expense in making alternate arrangements since they were essentially kicked off the ship.  Had MSC been truthful they could have stayed onboard without the added expense of finding alternate accommodations or they should have been given the option of returning to the ship (since they did pay for a seven night cruise). AS MSC caters to a more international clientele, I am sure many of these passengers had no idea as to what to do or how to get home. I decided I would ride the storm out on the ship until it was safe to return.  Only after everyone was off did MSC inform us we would be disembarking the next day--had I known (when MSC knew which was prior to the last passenger disembarking)  I would have left the ship on Friday so as to prepare for the hurricane.  MSC knew before the final passenger disembarked that the port would be open on Saturday, and yet I was now held hostage onboard because the time to disembark had passed.  So now I am freaking out on the ship worrying for a whole day what I was going to do because the hurricane was headed straight for my home and there was nothing I could do but sit on the ship and wait until Saturday to disembark.  What if I had to evacuate-- I was now a day behind because I was stuck on the ship.  If the ship had headed out to sea as we were informed it would do, then whatever happened during the storm happened, but now I know I have to get off on Saturday and head directly into the storm's path one day  behind planning because I was now stuck on the ship.  Luckily the storm slowed down and will most likely stay off shore. The mood onboard after we learned we were stuck onboard became very somber and that was essentially the end of the cruise for many of us.  There was no energy left onboard.  My gripe with MSC is the lack of truthfulness, the complete lack of communication, and with the utter disregard for the wellbeing of its customers.  People were treated like a herd of cattle when they were ushered out while the rest of us were held hostage onboard.  I know I am going to get slammed by MSC cheerleaders, but the way we were treated was just not right.  I get it that there was a major hurricane that disrupted the cruise, but there are better ways to handle the situation starting with telling the truth.   Just my two cents.  

MSC just announced that we will be disembarking tomorrow morning.   New guests will arrive tomorrow. 

And if they do offload us tomorrow, the weather will be significantly worse than it is today, but more importantly our options and timeframe for getting out of the storm’s way will have greatly diminished because we opted to stay onboard. That would not be a safe or wise decision for MSC to make. 

Ok--so I am still on board and they made an announcement that anyone that said they would get off needs to get off now because customs personnel are leaving at 12:30, but this is the interesting part of the announcement--if you do not get off today you will not have the opportunity to get off until tomorrow--which could mean that the rest of us will have to disembark tomorrow.  I'm not sure that is the plan, but that was the announcement.

The letter we received last night clearly states that we will depart tomorrow (which is today) and sail to a safe area until it is safe to return 

We are still onboard, and MSC announced that it will update us as they receive the CoastGuard briefing which I believe is at noon.  Passengers have mostly been off loaded and supplies are still being loaded on so we shall see what happens.

I am currently on the MSC Seaside.  We have arrived at the Port of Miami and those who wish to disembark are free to do so and those who do not wish to disembark can stay.   Once everything is loaded onboard, we are headed out to who knows where for who knows how long.  We opted to stay because we live in Jupiter which unfortunately will be a prime target for Dorian.   Why deal with all that?  

Best wishes to all and hopefully we will all make it thru the storm.  They are treating us fabulously on board and my butler Maria is the best.  😀

When you give your thread a blanket title like "Royal Caribbean Does Not Care About Disabled People," I'm afraid you're going to provoke some heated responses. I would like to know if, after your time on board and your disembarkation, would you still make that statement?

Ok, I guess in retrospect, making a blanket statement like I did was probably not the ideal thing to do, but at the time I believed it to accurately reflect my personal situation and that of the others waiting outside in hot humid conditions. No one did care--whether it is the ultimate responsibility of the local port authority or Royal Caribbean, I can't say. All I know is what happened to my father and the others sitting outside showed a lack of caring and empathy for those that are less fortunate healthwise than that of the masses that were quickly getting out of the heat and inside the terminal facility. Why can't a small area inside be dedicated for persons with disabilities to wait for assistance? If it takes an hour to board, so be it, but at least elderly people are not out in the heat. Yes people do take advantage of disability assistance and for that they should be ashamed, but to make others suffer because of the lack of moral character of some should not be tolerated by Royal Caribbean or any other organization. As I did mention in an earlier post, Royal Caribbean did do a great job with disembarkation no question about it. The staff onboard were professional and made disembarkation process go smoothly. The ball was dropped at embarkation.

The last cruise my mother came on was Oasis. She could walk, but did have difficulty after short distances so we rented a wheelchair for her. The crew couldn’t have been nicer to her. The waiters would see us coming and would come and push her to the table and help her to her seat. There were many examples of that. However, the last time we left from San Juan, we were at the pier before they were letting people in the terminal. There was a long line outside in the heat. This was a couple of years before we started renting wheelchairs. I went up and asked security if it would be possible for my mother to go just inside the door where I could see some chairs. No dice. So maybe the problem is with the operations of the San Juan terminal. Not sure who is responsible for that.

Thank you for confirming my issue. Finally someone gets it. :D All the wheelchair, scooter and transport chair advice did not apply to my original issue.

I always wanted to know why a person needs a wheel chair getting on the ship and the next 7 days they manage without it? My wife will s disabled and we have a scooter, a wheelchair, a transport chair and crutches to walk in the ship. Instead of being dependant on others buy the tools you need. A transport chair is only $125.00

I am so happy that so many people offer useless advice to me without knowing my situation. I'm glad you can rent a scooter for $125.00. Good for you. Does that help me with my father who is severely visually impaired? I think not. Do you really want someone driving around on the ship on a scooter that is visually impaired or can not walk without assistance? He can't drive a car and you want him to drive a scooter onboard. Great. My father is fiercely independent and if he needs a little help along the way, what is the issue? Again, walk in my shoes then open your big mouth.

Ok, since some members on this thread take great pleasure in attacking me and assuming that I am an irresponsible cheap person, I would like to clarify my personal situation. I did everything possible to inform Royal Caribbean of my father's disability and still I had the experience I relayed in my original post. Whether I had my own chair or not, he still needed to be wheeled onboard by the staff as I could not do it. Whether I had a long flight (which I didn't) or not, what does that have to do with my situation? I'm not venting, I am simply relaying my experience. I get it, my father is not special, but he deserves to be treated in a dignified manner as did the other guests that were waiting out in the heat for at least an hour. Maybe a holding area inside could have been provided, I don't know, but it seems to be common sense that you do not let elderly people stay out in the heat for an extended period of time. I'm glad others had great experiences with their wheelchair assistance, but I did not. That is my experience and no one here can speak or assume anything on my behalf. Having said that, Royal Caribbean can work with the local port authorities by pointing out the flaws in their operation and suggesting changes to the way things are handled. Is it acceptable for Royal Caribbean to say oh well, we can't provide input to the port management to make improvements in dealing with persons with disabilities? I think not. When you walk in my shoes you can criticize, otherwise keep the personal attacks to yourselves. If people do not have the right to freely express their opinions without being attacked by insensitive people that can not comment on my personal situation, then what is the point of posting anything on this board.

Not all was bad, I will say that my experience with disembarkation today was excellent. I made sure I was up early so that my name was first on the list and we got off the ship at our allotted time. The person that was handling the disembarkation was excellent. No problems with disembarkation.

It is unfortunate that I have to again complain about the way elderly handicap persons are treated on Royal Caribbean ships. Today we are sailing on the Adventure of the Seas and encountered a totally unorganized and uncaring handicap station while we waited to board the ship. We arrived at 12:18pm and it took exactly one hour for someone to arrive to take my 83 year old father on the ship. There were probably six to eight other people waiting for someone to assist them. After waiting outside in the hot humid weather of San Juan, I approached the Pier Coordinator--Virginia Davilla about the delay and was told twice that if you are tired waiting, you are welcome to walk on board. Uh, I am with my 83 year old disabled father and this is the response that I get from the Pier Coordinator--just walk onboard. If he could walk onboard do you think we would be sitting in the heat for an hour? Come on--what ever happened to showing compassion to elderly handicap people. I am totally disgusted with the treatment we received today.

I just booked the April 5th sailing on the Quantum, and have a bit of a problem with making dining reservations. I guess due to the late booking there are no dinner reservations available on most days other than 9pm and later. I am also stuck eating in the same restaurants 2 and three times over. While that might be fine for others, it is definitely not fine for me as I will be traveling with 2 small children that normally are asleep after 9pm just as our dining order would be taken. I did speak with customer service today and, although the agent sympathized with my situation there was not much she could do other than to email my concerns to someone associated with dining reservations. I am not anticipating that anything will be done. Any suggestions on what to do would be appreciated because as I see it now, we will be eating at the buffet each night which would definitely make me an unhappy camper.

I am sorry to say that I must respectfully disagree with the op that a bigger ship is better. I was also on the 12-12-09 sailing. Yes the shows, neighborhood concept, food venues,etc were great, but I feel that the large amount of people onboard took away from the enjoyable cruise experience. I mentioned the disembarkation fiasco in another thread, but it was not only that, arriving by taxi to embark was no better. There were just too many people for the staff to handle and there were no contingency plans to make things go smoothly. Take our muster drill as an example of having no contingency plans. We were assigned to the G1 area which was in the boardwalk by the carosel. Make a few hundred people line up in the heat for 20 minutes without telling us anything and see what happens. The outide loudspeakers did not work and we had no clue as to what was the purpose of the drill. I truly did not know what we should do in an emergency on the Oasis. Yes, the staff eventually did get blowhorns, but instead of telling us what to do in an emergency they had to keep telling people not to leave as the drill was not over. People got tired of standing and left. I have never seen a muster drill like this before. Yes RCCL apparently is trying to work out these issues, but that does not help me. After having spent more $$ on this cruise than any other Caribbean cruise, I expected better. Yes, I will agree that the shows, neighborhood concepts and food venues (esp, Giovanni's) were great, but it is the little things that stand out and take away from the cruise experience. On this cruise I was told that there were around 500 children on board. We were cruising with two children (4 and 6). The children's pool area was so cramped and full of children that it was not enjoyable. After being on the Freedom, I was disappointed with the size of the children's pool area. I can just imagine how crowded it will be this week for the Christmas cruise. The other pool areas also had that cramped feeling. I understand that these areas are smaller because of the ship design and accept that. The scheduling of the shows should be adjusted. We were in the first sitting for dinner and on two occasions, we had to rush our dinner and leave early to catch the 7:30 show. This took away from our dining experience. It just felt like we were being herded around like cattle. Again, these things didn't allow us to enjoy ourselves in a relaxed manner. The diamond party was in the theater because of the large numbers of people. It just didn't have that intimate caring feeling anymore. I felt just like one of the many. The captain had a question and answer session and there were a lot of dissatisfied people at the party. The captain and head of hotel operations did a great job of dodging legitimate questions from frustrated diamond members. Again it felt like we were just a number and not a person. I am not complaining abour the ship, it was truly beautiful. The venues were great as were the shows. Our waitstaff (Kevin & Luis) were excellent. The food was good--better than my last cruise on the Explorer. I liked the option of eating in many different venues. Overall I am very fortunate to have had the opportunity to cruise on such a lovely ship, but I am somewhat disappointed with some aspects of the cruise which took away from the whole cruise experience. I am happy I went and experienced the Oasis, but I am not sure I would sail on it again.