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Royal had employees "get out"?

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By linkerbink,
in Royal Caribbean International

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linkerbink

linkerbink

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Am watching the Weather Channel and the on-site guy in Miami said the two ships that were there yesterday (Royal and Carnival) are now gone. In addition, he said Royal has had their employees "get out"...I assume that meant out of their headquarters? I know their building is very close to the water. Another thread on this board quoted an email from Royal to travel agents stating that their website will be unavailable for several days, so this fits if everyone is out of the building.

 

UPDATE: Jim Cantore, the Weather Channel guy in Miami said that Royal put its employees on the ship that was in port and evacuated them out of the area. Interesting if true....

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Canadianmama3

Canadianmama3

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"Unavailable for several days". Yet RCI is telling people to come into hurricane weather and flooding to get on ships on Tuesday and Wednesday or lose their money. Can you say hurricane Harvey and Liberty of the Seas?

 

 

 

Just because they haven't cancelled yet doesn't mean they won't. Nobody really knows exactly what is going to happen. If they had cancelled the cruises already you would have people complaining about that.

 

You just need to chill out and wait and see. That's what you need to expect when booking a cruise during peak hurricane season. Before I decided on a march cruise I was also considering a late August one. When I was looking at them I knew I was taking the risk that our plans could change completely.

 

 

And if you have travel insurance, which you better have cruising this time of year, you can always look into what they will cover.

 

 

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lbjen

lbjen

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It's smart for a number of reasons. They know where their employees are, they don't have to worry about where they evacuated to and how long it will be before they come back. They have access to wifi and phones on the ship and can be working if needed. And yes it is a good thing to look after your employees if you can. My husband's employer offered to send a roof company out to take care of our damage after Harvey, at no cost to us. That is taking care of your employees.

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jmdx2

jmdx2

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"Unavailable for several days". Yet RCI is telling people to come into hurricane weather and flooding to get on ships on Tuesday and Wednesday or lose their money. Can you say hurricane Harvey and Liberty of the Seas?

 

When did they finally cancel the Liberty/Harvey cruise?

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Big_G

Big_G

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"Unavailable for several days". Yet RCI is telling people to come into hurricane weather and flooding to get on ships on Tuesday and Wednesday or lose their money. Can you say hurricane Harvey and Liberty of the Seas?

 

That's not quite true. They're offering FCC if you choose to cancel.

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Big_G

Big_G

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UPDATE: Jim Cantore, the Weather Channel guy in Miami said that Royal put its employees on the ship that was in port and evacuated them out of the area. Interesting if true....

 

I was watching that segment too. Maybe because I'm from the northeast and may have a different definition of 'whitecaps' but someone tell Jim Cantore those weren't whitecaps on Biscayne Bay. Just sayin'... ;p

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Namelocg

Namelocg

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It is true. I was on the Enchantment that returned to port on Thursday. We were given the choice of disembarking or remaining on the ship if we didn't have a way to get out of the path of Irma. Since I live in So Fla I chose to come home and ride the storm out here. The ship left port full with passengers and employees on Friday.

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39august

39august

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I think this is a fine thing for RCI to do for employees. My point is that they are still encouraging coming into a dangerous situation, just as they did with Harvey and the Aug. 27 Liberty cruse. But I hope they learned something and will cancel these well before they did with Harvey. We were told up until 11 AM on the sail date to come to the port or lose our money. By that time, the highway approaching Galveston, and there is only one, had been closed earlier due to water over the roadway. And the closest airport had closed that morning around 7 AM. We cancelled 2 days earlier and filed a claim under the "cancel for any reason" coverage.

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LMaxwell Great Review Rare

LMaxwell

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And if you have travel insurance, which you better have cruising this time of year, you can always look into what they will cover.

 

I always have travel insurance, so I took a look at the various policies I am holding right now; and if the trips not canceled, not a heck of a lot for hurricanes.

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travelplus

travelplus

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If i were an employee of Royal Caribbean I would do my best to get on the ship as the captain is in constant contact with the Royal Caribbean weather desk and I would hopefully have a working phone and internet and would be fed and have water etc.

 

I think this is a smart move on Royal's part.

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capriccio

capriccio

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It's smart for a number of reasons. They know where their employees are, they don't have to worry about where they evacuated to and how long it will be before they come back. They have access to wifi and phones on the ship and can be working if needed. And yes it is a good thing to look after your employees if you can. My husband's employer offered to send a roof company out to take care of our damage after Harvey, at no cost to us. That is taking care of your employees.

 

All true plus they are taking care of their ships since the worst place for a ship to be is tied up to a dock during a hurricane. That's why the Coast Guard instructs ships head to sea in anticipation of hurricane force winds.

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perditax

perditax

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That's interesting, their telling there employees to get out of town, but they are telling their paying guest to come on down or risk losing your money if by some miracle the ship sails.

 

 

Apples and oranges.

 

Evacuated employees BEFORE storm.

 

Haven't determined status of cruises AFTER storm.

 

Irma is forecast to roll out of Florida by Monday afternoon. It's not unreasonable, especially now that the east coast may be spared, that things will be up and running by midweek.

 

I definitely agree that the situation in Galveston was different, but it was known in advance that Galveston's dangers would worsen AFTER the storm due to the storm lingering and dumping massive rain. That's not the case in FL. But RC is to blame for ignoring that readily available info in TX.

 

None of the FL east coast cruise or airports are even in the 5pm NHC cone now. Tampa is in the crosshairs. Weather prediction is still imprecise.

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DrifterSS

DrifterSS

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When did they finally cancel the Liberty/Harvey cruise?

 

 

 

Not sure if this is rhetorical, but they didn't cancel the cruise until Sunday...the day it was originally scheduled to leave port. Leaving zero time to alter any plans. I was supposed to be on the ship and luckily the only reason I didn't get stuck in Houston was because Southwest cancelled four of the flights I was scheduled to be on.

 

 

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DrifterSS

DrifterSS

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...I definitely agree that the situation in Galveston was different, but it was known in advance that Galveston's dangers would worsen AFTER the storm due to the storm lingering and dumping massive rain....

 

....Weather prediction is still imprecise.

 

 

This made me laugh.

 

 

 

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perditax

perditax

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This made me laugh.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

Fair point, you got me on that one. I guess to rephrase ... weather forecasts seemed much more confident about the Houston flooding (specifically the system that would keep Harvey over Houston for days) than they have about Irma's track.

 

Also keep in mind Harvey kind of came out of nowhere, so the timing was closer / short-term forecasting more readily accurate. Irma has been a nail-biter from day one.

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lbjen

lbjen

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Liberty was cancelled several hours after the city of Houston sent out a very alarming message to all residents to warn them to go to their roofs instead of their attics if they needed to be rescued by helicopter. People were posting screen shots of the various civil emergency warnings that we were being given on the RC FB page and sending them to Van Fleet and they were still replying that people needed to show up or lose their money.

 

I honestly believe that the Liberty issue was down to a massive lack of understanding of Houston's weather and infrastructure. Houston meteorologists frequently say that the weather here is pretty unique, with the kind of rain we can get here. I think that the people scheduled to sail in the coming days have the fact that RC knows FL on their side.

 

But I do think that they should be erring much more on the side of caution and just canceling instead of letting this hang over people's heads.

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