Lost Baggage & Royal Caribbean's response

[enidcruiser]

I read an interesting article the other day in a travel magazine that says some people's regular medical insurance covers medical emergencies while traveling. I have no idea if mine does--I always assumed it didn't. I'm going to look into it, as my main purpose for getting travel insurance is for medical reasons. I know the chances are so slim that something will happen, but I don't want to risk it!

 

That's the real reason we buy the insurance. A helicopter ride from the ship in an emergency could cost more than I care to think about. :eek:

[SargassoPirate]

We almost had a similar situation at the same port, but it was on embarkation day.

 

We arrived on a shuttle and were directed to place our bags in a certain area on the curb. It was utter chaos and I could tell from the color-coded tags that most of the bags standing unattended on the curb were from passengers disembarking that day (why those bags were at the curb is still a mystery) I took one look at the mess, and decided we were going to roll our pullmans to the security checkpoint. We placed them on the conveyor belt for scanning, retrieved them at the other end, and within 30 minutes of arriving at our cabin we were unpacked. :cool: NO WAITING for the bags to be delivered.

 

From then on, we self embark and disembark and life is a lot smoother on both ends.

[broberts]

I would gladly take 300 dollars for my bag. It might have 75.00 worth of stuff in it

 

Most suitcases cost more than $75. Let see, 5 t-shirts @ $15 = $75. One pair inexpensive shoes, $45. Oh my, I'm already over $75 and I haven't even gotten to my under things.

Edited February 22, 2010 by broberts

[waterbug123]

When we cruised Celebrity a few years ago on the Galaxy, the bags were placed in rows based on where you were in the ship. When you got your bags, you walked past a Celebrity employee who watched the proceedings. I agree there were no luggage checks, but at least someone was watching.

Mark

 

Honestly, I don't really see any benefit in a Celebrity employee watching the proceedings if they are not actually checking luggage. It just means they are watching people as they take luggage, be it the right luggage or the wrong luggage. No added safety/security/insurance.

I won't get into a discussion of what you should have done or whether RCCL could have done more. But I will say that I have flown in and out of airports all over the country, on assorted airlines, and have cruised on 3 different cruiselines, and I think I can recall exactly one time, at one of the NYC airports, when someone was actually comparing claim checks to the luggage people were leaving with. Every other time/place has been a free-for-all where anyone could walk off with anything. So I woudn't necessarily write off RCCL in lieu of another cruiseline, because the procedure is likely to be the same with the other mass market lines.

[fcorey]

Noli nothis permittere te terere

 

or as I say.... people suck, populus combibo...

Edited February 22, 2010 by fcorey

[BND]

Wow, the tone of this doesn't seem encouraging to any new poster on CC. Looking at the public profile of this one only shows that he's posted over 1100 times...but has not made any friends...ummmm? The OP is, unfortunetly, a victim of cirumstances and I hope that some remuneration is made. In any case, I hope you continue to cruise...too much fun to stop.

 

In no way am I defending that poster. I do not agree with his statements, but the number of friends is meaningless. I have received several friend requests but haven't accepted them. A lot of posters don't have friends showing in their profiles.

 

What I can never figure out is how someone accidentally picks up someone else's bag and takes it with them. All our bags have personal id tags with my husbands' business card on them. It makes it easier to spot our bags too because the tags are from company trips that are unusual so easy to spot. It only takes a second to check the tag on a bag.

Edited February 22, 2010 by BND

[G'ma]

This is only one example of why trip insurance is a necessity....

[julianne74]

I bet the trip insurance wouldn't cover it. Probably something about the placement in the cruise terminal.

 

I would say that in the future I would self disembark. I've done it on most cruises and it was easy peasy. If someone asks why, you can tell them the story. I don't think anyone would blame you!

[EndlessLove]

I don't see what this accomplishes other than giving you a false sense of security. If they are not matching the ticket on the bag with your claim ticket, then all they are doing is watching people calmly walk off with your bag, either by mistake or by intent.

 

I remember the old days when you couldn't leave the airport baggage claim area without providing your claim tickets to an employee, who would then match them to the tags on the bags. I guess those days are over.

Actually those days aren't over in the San Juan airport -- when we claimed our luggage two weeks ago before our Serenade trip and went to go outside for a taxi there were 2 women checking every bag against the baggage claim ticket that you received when you checked your bags.

Edited February 22, 2010 by EndlessLove

[WarmH2OSailing]

I do not agree with his statements, but the number of friends is meaningless. I have received several friend requests but haven't accepted them. A lot of posters don't have friends showing in their profiles.

 

 

Sorry BND, obviously too much tongue in cheek for everyone. Merely a faux supporting supposition for what I perceived as an "unfriendly" post. It's doubtful that I could find "real" friends on my own profile.

 

Cheers

[heffa72]

Good luck in locating your bags. I do agree it would be nice to have a better system. They should think about putting matching bar code tags on your luggage that matches a ticket stub or something...so when you leave, they scan the bag and your ticket stub...if they match your free to go...if not, you're pulled aside to figure out the issue. I know this would slow the process, but it *could* be done. Even if they spot checked every few people it would discourage theft. The accidental swaps are 99% resolved because everyone wants their own luggage back so they'll call the person who's name is on the tag if they're lableing it correctly.

 

To be honest, I sometimes get a bit uneasy leaving my bags out side my room before debarkation in particular. Anyone could easily take your bag that night and carry it off the next day. How would you know what happened. It would be 12-15 hours before you'd even know and they'd be long gone. Its really a playground for criminals...but thank goodness there aren't that many criminals on the cruise ships.....other than the dealers in the casino!! :rolleyes:

[Schooner Bar Girl]

This is only one example of why trip insurance is a necessity....

 

Actually many times having trip insurance wouldn't help much. Many policies are secondary policies only and one would have to make the claim under their homeowners or tenant insurance FIRST and then the travel policy would kick in to cover what the other insurance didn't if applicable. Of course not all policies but many are this way.

 

I only purchase travel medical insurance when I travel as many of the other optional travel policies are duplicates of coverage that I already have on my existing insurance coverage.;):)

[wraithe]

There is so much more that RCI could have done. In fact there are things that only RCI can do in this situation since it is their premises in which the luggage went missing. The last people to handle the luggage before it went missing were RCI employees or contractors. Who else is there that could implement systems to reduce theft and involuntary luggage swapping?

 

Actually, that's not true, did you notice that none of the porters are wearing an RCL uniform, but everyone else that works for the company is wearing a uniform. Dead giveaway that the luggage porters don't work for RCL. RCL ship employees hand off the luggage to the porters who are employees of the port. RCI cannot control what the porters do, and neither can the port, to any degree. Try going up against the longshoremen's union sometime.

 

I am not assigning any blame here. But the simple fact of the matter is that in this situation only RCI is in a position to create an environment that minimizes the problem and only RCI is in a position to assist the passenger when something goes wrong. The fact that RCI doesn't implement even the simplest of programs to reduce involuntary swapping, e.g. signs, announcments, etc., speaks volumes. The additional fact that the response of RCI terminal personal is "fill out the form" says even more.

 

Actually, again, the terminal belongs to either Broward County, or the State of Florida, RCL likely, does not have authority to post signs, make announcements, etc on someone elses property.

 

I suspect that the OP would rather have had $300 of RCI staff time trying to find the luggage rather than the actual money. To me the offer is somewhat insulting. It is not reasonable recompense for the lost luggage, even if one discounts the i-pod, and it lets the company off of having to care about the situation that only they can address.

 

Why doesn't the cruise line spend some of this settlement money posting signs in the hallway and pick-up area, running an announcement loop in the luggage pick up area, putting a notice on the front page of the last Compass, mentioning the problem in debarkation lectures, etc.?

 

Once again, it's not their property. They can and do post information in the Compass, debarkation procedures, and if I remember correctly, they do have signs posted at Port Everglades to verify your luggage, but too many people don't check, because they can't make a mistake. Same sort of people that ignore the safety brief on an airplane.

 

If the OP wants to sail another line, so be it, but the same folks who potentially mishandled your luggage this time are going to be handling the luggage for the other line when you pull in to PE.

[lam2006]

ALL the cruise lines - and the airlines operate exactly in the same manner.

No matter where this had happened to you, the results would be the same.

 

Smart travelers get insurance. Did you?

 

I was about to ask what you were thinking when you left an ipod in an unlocked suitcase.

But it is obvious that you were NOT thinking.

 

You might consider this loss a "not paying attention tax".

 

Wow !!! What a compassionate response !!!

[cruiseknots]

Don't give up! After 4 weeks I finally got a call about my bag. It's a shame that it took the person who took it that long to report it. But at the same time, they were kind enough to ship it to me at their expense. They could have easily dumped it in the trash and saved themselves the $100.00 it cost to ship it.

 

I do agree that $300 doesn't cover much. Next time you pack a normal sized suit case, add up the value of what you have put in. It may shock you. Obviously I'm assuming you are not putting in jewelry and other expensive items. I also don't like RCI's shipping policies. In ANY case you, the guest, are responsible for shipping charges even if it's RCI's fault.

 

Regarding Bruce and insurance. Do you really think you are smarter by buying insurance? I have never bought insurance on travel. I have traveled the entire world and have been on almost 30 cruises in the last 20 years. To date, I have not needed the insurance. I think I am ahead quite a bit on this. I could afford to miss 3-5 cruises and still be ahead on insurance. You should only insure, what you can't afford to lose! If you are able to afford a cruise, odds are, you are able to replace what is in your bags. Insurance is extremely profitable because most people will never need it. So who is smart here? It is a personal choice. It doesn't make you smart or dumb. If you don't buy insurance, you may need it. If you do buy insurance, you most likely won't need it. So again, who is smarter????

Edited February 23, 2010 by cruiseknots

[kjkrmk]

To the OP,

 

This past October, we finally had our first missing bag when we departed the ship. Like you, we looked for it but it was not there. At this point, I was told the luggage is not under the control of the ship personnel but rather the port. So, I got with one of the port workers, filled out the form, kept my copy, turned in their copy and went on home. About a week and a half later, UPS delivered the bag to us at home. Tracking it afterward showed it left South Carolina (I assume after the person who took it by mistake realized it), went back to the port, then shipped to me.

 

So, don't give up, give the person who took it by mistake time to return it, the port time to sort it out, etc. It may show up soon.

[--MajestyoftheSeas--]

ALL the cruise lines - and the airlines operate exactly in the same manner.

No matter where this had happened to you, the results would be the same.

 

Smart travelers get insurance. Did you?

 

I was about to ask what you were thinking when you left an ipod in an unlocked suitcase.

But it is obvious that you were NOT thinking.

 

You might consider this loss a "not paying attention tax".

 

Using the above logic one should always carry on ones luggage and never have the porters handle it aswell.

Since the bags are left in the area where the elevators are on the ship or in the hallways outside ones door anyone can pick and choose what bag to steal :(

Fortunately there doesn't seem to be that many thiefs but I still feel sorry for the OP that lost a bag :(

[mtchg]

I do not normally post here, but I felt something should be mentioned about the experience my family just went through on our last R.C. cruise. We were booked on the Independence sailing Jan. 31st from Port Everglades. The cruise was great, as always, but the disembarkation was a disaster. Anyone who has been on a R.C. recently sailing out of Port Everglades is familiar with the status of the terminals that R.C.uses. They have makeshift tables to sign in, makeshift stations for customs on return... In all, the facility is not in good shape to handle the number of people they are moving through.

The problem we ran into was my daughter never received her luggage when we disembarked. We had signed up for a shore excursion in Ft. Lauderdale, so we were told to assemble in a different place than others with the same color scheme on their bags. When our color was called, we were told to wait until the excursion was ready to go as a group. This meant we waited 15 minutes after everyone else for our grouping.

When we were finally told to disemark the ship, we were the last group with our luggage color code to leave. When we got outside, we were herded into a room, where a few bags with our color code were laying on the floor. No one was around to check any tickets. Anyone could walk into the room. Once in the room, and were told to get our luggage, and go to the Customs lines. Unfortunately, since 400 other people had already rummaged through the luggage, someone had obviously taken one of our bags, because it wasn't there. When we asked what we could do, we were told to fill out a form. That was it. No checking. No investigation. Nothing. We were told to hurry because we were scheduled to go on the everglades excursion, and it was leaving soon.

When we got to customs, there was no one to check our bags. No Royal Caribbean employee. No customs person. No one. No one counted or verified that the bags we happened to have with us were actually ours. We could have walked out with ten bags, and no one from Royal would have known the difference. The sad part is it appeared that none of the employees cared. My daughter had lost her bag, and no one from the cruise line cared. They were more interested in getting us out of the terminal as quickly as possible. Luckily, my daughter did not have anything extremely valuable in the bag, but she did have two expensive formal dresses and an I-Pod Touch. In all, she lost about $1,000 worth of stuff due to the cruise lines negligence. After two weeks, Royal has said they have no idea what happened, and offered my daughter $300 to cover the loss. There is not much we can do about it, since this amount is listed as the limit of their liability for baggage in the paperwork you sign when boarding.

Next time, we will go on another line when we choose to cruise. We will also consider keeping our bags in our own posession since we can't trust them to Royal's crew.

 

....yea, but how was the cruise? :)

[knittinggirl]

I do agree that $300 doesn't cover much. Next time you pack a normal sized suit case, add up the value of what you have put in. It may shock you. Obviously I'm assuming you are not putting in jewelry and other expensive items. I also don't like RCI's shipping policies. In ANY case you, the guest, are responsible for shipping charges even if it's RCI's fault.

 

. . . Do you really think you are smarter by buying insurance? I have never bought insurance on travel. I have traveled the entire world and have been on almost 30 cruises in the last 20 years. To date, I have not needed the insurance. I think I am ahead quite a bit on this.

 

In some cases, $300 won't even cover the suitcase! We ended up using our insurance on our very first cruise, because my DH broke his hip, and we had to postpone. Also, one evacuation at sea, and you've made up for all the premiums you've ever paid. One rule of thumb . . . if you're over 50, definitely get insurance.

 

Still, I wonder when was the last time RCI raised their lost baggage compensation.

[marci22]

Newark airport used to require you to show your tickets to claim your luggage as you were leaving the luggage carousel. They don't do it anymore though.

 

If I am leaving bags out, I always do it at the last possible minute, not at 4pm as I have seen people do. If I see the guys in the hall collecting them, I will put them out as well. I don't put anything valuable in them, and I do lock them.

 

I have twice had some of my bags end up in the wrong area of the cruise terminal, both times when we did not choose express debarkation. We found them, but it took awhile.

 

Now I choose express debarkation not only to get off early, but to have control of my luggage.

[marci22]

I never used to get the cruise insurance in the past but I did buy it for our Med cruise due to the cost and for our last and next cruise because there are just more things that can go wrong as we are getting older and the kids are quite active and can get injured and I just don't want to worry.

 

I didn't get it when we did the Bermuda 5 day and I probably wouldn't do it in the future for something like that.

[goneclear]

 

Smart travelers get insurance. Did you?

 

I was about to ask what you were thinking when you left an ipod in an unlocked suitcase.

But it is obvious that you were NOT thinking.

 

You might consider this loss a "not paying attention tax".

 

Just a plain dumb comment.

To the OP dont take these dumb comments to serious. Most people on CC are very nice and very helpful.

[ehfl]

Your trip insurance should cover the lost baggage.

 

It's really not clear what else you expected the cruise line to do. You claim that you wanted an "investigation"? If the bag is not there, what more needs to be investigated? Do you want all 2000 crew members to stop preparing for the next cruise, and look for one piece of baggage? What specifically would this "investigation" entail?

[broberts]

Actually, that's not true, did you notice that none of the porters are wearing an RCL uniform, but everyone else that works for the company is wearing a uniform. Dead giveaway that the luggage porters don't work for RCL. RCL ship employees hand off the luggage to the porters who are employees of the port. RCI cannot control what the porters do, and neither can the port, to any degree. Try going up against the longshoremen's union sometime.

 

Incredible. You suggest that because the cruise line leases/rents the terminal space that they have absolutely no control over the premise. So Walmart bears no responsibility for what happens in its stores? They don't even get to decide on who can work on their premises? If you trip and fall in a restaurant, the restaurant has no potential liability? What a curious sense of responsibility you have.

 

RCI can control what the porters do, either when they negotiate the occupancy agreement or afterward. They have simply chosen not to. I know that companies like to hide behind the "not our employee" line, so no one bears any responsibility for the actions of people who earn their living from the company's operations. It is a canard.

 

The suggestion that the porters are like locusts uncontrollably infecting an area is ludicrous. Oh, I feel so sorry for the powerless billion dollar corporations. Isn't it a shame that they have absolutely no ability to control their land based operations. Boo hoo.:rolleyes:

 

Actually, again, the terminal belongs to either Broward County, or the State of Florida, RCL likely, does not have authority to post signs, make announcements, etc on someone elses property.

 

Please. Your suggestion strains credulity. Someone leases/rents space and they can't use it? They can't make announcements or place signs? Once again, why would a billion dollar corporation like RCI ever agree to paying to occupy a premises over which they have absolutely no control?

 

Once again, it's not their property. They can and do post information in the Compass, debarkation procedures, and if I remember correctly, they do have signs posted at Port Everglades to verify your luggage, but too many people don't check, because they can't make a mistake. Same sort of people that ignore the safety brief on an airplane.

 

I never said it was their property. What I did say was the if it wasn't their property they lease or rent the premises. Tenants actually do have some control over their premises. In business leases the actual degree of control is negotiated but rare would be the lease that removed all tenant control over who can be on the premises and what interior decorations are allowed. In fact I can't imagine a tenant agreeing to give up all such control. I especially can't envisage a mega corporation doing so.

 

There are many different ways in which people can be made more aware of the problem of swapped luggage. Certainly none or even all in concert will be 100% effective, but they can help to reduce the problem. If you can't "post" signs, ;);), you can certainly have free standing signs. If you can't make public announcements, ;);), you can certainly have free standing screens running PSAs. Having an employee or two reminding people as they leave the baggage area to check that the bags they have are really theirs would help a great deal. Anything to increase awareness in people of the potential problem. After all most airports implement some or all of these things so why is so hard to do so at a cruise terminal?

[Miata2004]

I don't want to diminish the fact that the cruise to the western caribbean was great. The staff on Independence was attentive and friendly. The ports were fun, and the ship itself was flawless. I just think Royal could finish this excellent service by paying more attention at disembarkation. And to answer one question asked here. I did not expect a full 'investigation'. I would have liked to have had someone take interest and look in other areas, or ask if any bags had lost their tags or something. When I asked, all I got was the usual "it happens" line, and 'please fill out the form, and we will contact you'. This level of help does not, in any way, compare with the service provided on board. If I were RC upper management, I would want the entire staff to show the same level of service, and I would do what I could to get it done.

 

Mark