When things go wrong...

[Thoie]

There's a discussion ongoing in another thread at the moment, which is getting a little heated. The original purpose of that thread was about a specific incident that happened recently in the Canaries, so rather than bogging that thread down with hypotheticals, I thought I'd start a new one here. In case anyone gets confused, I'm not currently on holidays - this is all hypothetical.

 

So, you're on your cruise from A to B. You have flights booked to bring you from B to home at the end of your cruise. You have travel insurance. Midway through your cruise, something happens that means the rest of the trip is cancelled. Everyone is going to be put off the ship at point C. The cruise line is arranging to get everyone back to point B, one way or another.

 

The discussion on the other thread is around whether independent travelers should be given accommodation by the cruise line for the period between "now" and "when your flight leaves B".

 

My feeling is that regardless of whether I booked a package (flights + cruise) or I booked my flights and cruise separately, the cruise line has a responsibility to give me a bed until I can get a flight home. When booking my holiday I was basing my plans on the fact that I was paying the cruise line for a bed for x days. If I'd booked a flight + hotel, and the hotel needed to close for a few days, I'd expect them to arrange somewhere else for me to sleep during that time.

 

Other people seem to feel that having the cruiseline "help" the independent travelers, that it's a slap in the face to the people who booked the whole package, and that the independent travelers should take care of themselves, and use their travel insurance for that.

 

What does everyone else think?

[klfrodo]

What do I think?

 

I think there are many answers here, and some of the answers are cultural based. Depends on where someone has lived, what their expectations in life are, and in some cases, what they are accustomed to based on the laws and regulation of the country they are from.

The consumer protection laws vary greatly for those from Ireland vs. those from the US vs. those from Australia. Therefore, our expectations would be vastly different.

 

What would I (personally) expect?

If I purchased the whole package directly from the cruiseline, I would expect to be treated differently from those who went independent and assumed any risks themselves. If the cruiseline decided to make everyone whole financially, then that would be their decision. If they decide to seperate and make whole only those who paid for a complete package, then I would accept that also. I'm still going to be made whole through my insurance claim.

[cruiseco]

 

Other people seem to feel that having the cruiseline "help" the independent travelers, that it's a slap in the face to the people who booked the whole package, and that the independent travelers should take care of themselves, and use their travel insurance for that.

 

What does everyone else think?

 

I try to make a point of not giving any weight to the opinions of those whom I consider to be mean-spirited, selfish, or boorish.

 

Assume I'm one of the ones who booked "the whole package" and the cruise line is going to take care of me 100%. How in the heck can it possibly make any difference to me what the cruise line is doing for others? It can't, unless I'm being mean-spirited, selfish, or boorish.

 

So my opinion is that anyone upset that the cruise is doing more than might possibly required doesn't deserve even a second of my thoughts. Life's too short to worry about idiots and their opinions.

[sirwired]

Whether or not a policy would even cover this is shaky (and vary by country); there are strict conditions on collecting on Trip Interruption. The policy language is confusing enough that it's hard to tell if they'd be able to collect for being stuck waiting for their flights home. For instance, I'm not sure TravelGuard Gold would cover this.

 

I think they'd write the policy under the assumption that you would be receiving a refund for the missed days from the cruise line (almost certainly true), and therefore don't need insurance coverage for such an event. In addition, it's also a pretty safe assumption that the cruse line will cover your lodging to avoid a customer service disaster. (Also true in this case.)

 

I'm not even sure what way the flight was booked has to do with anything. Everybody booked a cruise and a flight somehow, with the assumption that there wouldn't be any crazy gaps in the middle. If the problem was with the flights themselves, I could understand some people wondering why they booked a package... but the problem was with the ship. Everybody's booked the same ship, and should be due the same accommodations due to the failure of the ship.