Another EZ Air qustion about missing sailing

[MixerDave]

What happens if your flight is late, and you miss the ship - what is the procedure if the next port is Hilo, Hawaii 5 days later?  Are you flown to Hawaii, put up in a hotel for 5 nights, and provided food?

[whatcruiseisnext]

10 minutes ago, MixerDave said:

What happens if your flight is late, and you miss the ship - what is the procedure if the next port is Hilo, Hawaii 5 days later?  Are you flown to Hawaii, put up in a hotel for 5 nights, and provided food?

With EZ air you are guaranteed to get to the next acceptable port at no additional cost. Your travel insurance or YOU will pay for your hotel accommodations and food. 

[Colo Cruiser]

18 minutes ago, whatcruiseisnext said:

With EZ air you are guaranteed to get to the next acceptable port at no additional cost. Your travel insurance or YOU will pay for your hotel accommodations and food. 

Yeah I think I would cancel. Thats a big chunk of the cruise.

[Shmoo here]

22 minutes ago, whatcruiseisnext said:

to get to the next acceptable port

And that's the key.  There may not be an acceptable port, depending on what the cruise itinerary is.

[NavyVeteran]

1 hour ago, MixerDave said:

What happens if your flight is late, and you miss the ship - what is the procedure if the next port is Hilo, Hawaii 5 days later?  Are you flown to Hawaii, put up in a hotel for 5 nights, and provided food?

There is another problem on a Hawaii roundtrip from Los Angeles or San Francisco. You cannot fly to Hawaii, board the ship, and leave the ship when it gets back to Los Angeles or San Francisco. That would violate the Passenger Vessel Services Act, since it would be a one way cruise from one US port to another US port without a stop at a distant foreign port - Ensenada, Mexico, is not a distant foreign port.

 

If you join the cruise in Hawaii, you may have to leave the ship in Ensenada in order for the cruise to be legal. Then you would have to obtain transportation home from Ensenada.

 

You would have a similar problem on a round-trip Alaska cruise from Seattle, San Francisco, or Los Angeles - it would become a one way cruise without any distant foreign ports. One way Alaska cruise from Vancouver would become a one-way cruise with no foreign ports if you missed Vancouver. Note however that a one-way cruise from Whittier to Vancouver would still be legal if you missed the first port, since it would still end in a foreign port.

Edited September 28, 2019 by NavyVeteran

[MixerDave]

5 minutes ago, NavyVeteran said:

There is another problem on a Hawaii roundtrip from Los Angeles or San Francisco. You cannot fly to Hawaii, board the ship, and leave the ship when it gets back to Los Angeles or San Francisco. That would violate the Passenger Vessel Services Act, since it would be a one way cruise from one US port to another US port without a stop at a distant foreign port - Ensenada, Mexico, is not a distant foreign port.

 

If you join the cruise in Hawaii, you may have to leave the ship in Ensenada in order for the cruise to be legal. Then you would have to obtain transportation home from Ensenada.

 

You would have a similar problem on a round-trip Alaska cruise from Seattle, San Francisco, or Los Angeles - it would become a one way cruise without any distant foreign ports. One way Alaska cruise from Vancouver would become a one-way cruise with no foreign ports if you missed Vancouver. Note however that a one-way cruise from Whittier to Vancouver would still be legal if you missed the first port, since it would still end in a foreign port.

 

This question arose based on a friend who was taking a 1 way to hawaii on another line and nearly missed the ship.  They felt their vacation protection would fly them to Hawaii, put them up and feed them. I doubted, but not sure - 

[waltd]

Who's to say the cruise line would fly you to Hawaii right away.   They have 5 days to get you there.    Might have to stay in a  hotel locally for a few days.   On the other hand if you don't like sea days wouldn't it be nice to be flown to Hawaii and stay in a hotel waiting for the ship to arrive.  

[Shmoo here]

2 minutes ago, waltd said:

Who's to say the cruise line would fly you to Hawaii right away.   They have 5 days to get you there.    Might have to stay in a  hotel locally for a few days.   On the other hand if you don't like sea days wouldn't it be nice to be flown to Hawaii and stay in a hotel waiting for the ship to arrive.  

Except, for OP's particular cruise, that isn't what would happen.  As noted, they would be flown to the first acceptable port.  That is, a port that would not violate the PVSA.

 

OP is on a round trip out of LA to Hawaii cruise.  The first acceptable port on that itinerary would be Ensenada, at the end of the cruise.  

[waltd]

I'm not so  sure there aren't exceptions to every rule.  

[Shmoo here]

8 minutes ago, waltd said:

I'm not so  sure there aren't exceptions to every rule.  

The PVSA isn't a "rule", it's the law.

 

With a $762 per person fine to violate it.

[waltd]

So it's a law.   Princess has a guarantee.   Airline didn't get customer to port in time.  Whos to say the airline or Princess doesn't pays the fine.    As if laws aren't screwed around with  in this country.

[Shmoo here]

31 minutes ago, waltd said:

So it's a law.   Princess has a guarantee.   Airline didn't get customer to port in time.  Whos to say the airline or Princess doesn't pays the fine.    As if laws aren't screwed around with  in this country.

The fine is assessed against the cruise line.  And passed on to the passenger via their onboard account/credit card.  A cruise line will not knowingly violate the law by allowing a passenger to break the law.  It can result in more than just a fine against the cruise line.

 

That's what insurance is for.

[NavyVeteran]

3 hours ago, Shmoo here said:

Except, for OP's particular cruise, that isn't what would happen.  As noted, they would be flown to the first acceptable port.  That is, a port that would not violate the PVSA.

 

OP is on a round trip out of LA to Hawaii cruise.  The first acceptable port on that itinerary would be Ensenada, at the end of the cruise.  

It would be acceptable to fly to Hawaii as long as the passenger gets off the ship in Ensenada.

[Shmoo here]

Just now, NavyVeteran said:

It would be acceptable to fly to Hawaii as long as the passenger gets off the ship in Ensenada.

True, but they can't guarantee the passenger would do that when setting up the new flight arrangements.  

[NavyVeteran]

4 hours ago, MixerDave said:

 

This question arose based on a friend who was taking a 1 way to hawaii on another line and nearly missed the ship.  They felt their vacation protection would fly them to Hawaii, put them up and feed them. I doubted, but not sure - 

A cruise line may have a one-way from Vancouver to Hawaii, but it may not have a one-way from the continental United States to Hawaii. If you miss the first port on a Vancouver to Hawaii one-way cruise, there is no acceptable port to join the ship, since all the rest of the ports are in the United States.

[NavyVeteran]

Just now, Shmoo here said:

True, but they can't guarantee the passenger would do that when setting up the new flight arrangements.  

They can guarantee that a passenger will leave the ship in Ensenada, since they can force the passenger to leave as agreed.

[Hlitner]

Sometimes it helps folks to post things in clear English.  EZAIR (and other cruise air programs that are similar) can be great because of discount prices (especially for International business class) but the guarantees are not as valuable as folks think.  Yes, they will try to get you to the next port...if your flight is delayed or cancelled.  But the process is not normally easy and you will likely have to pay all the intervening expenses including hotels, food, transfers, etc.  If you have decent travel insurance it might also help...then again you might simply rely on the travel insurance and not even need EZAIR.

 

We use EZAIR because we can save thousands of dollars on Business Class.  But we do not rely on them to get us to the port on time which is why we always fly-in early (at least 1 day and often more).  For cruises out of US Ports we do not normally waste our time with EZAIR since their prices are not normally anything special and we can often do better on our own (especially if we can fly Southwest).  

 

And when it comes to travel insurance we have long urged folks to carefully read the policy (including the fine print).  Not all policies are the same and many folks do not realize the negatives until they try to file a claim.  And beware because most travel policies have a requirement that your flight arrival time meet certain requirements (such as arriving at least 6 hours before your last boarding time).

 

Hank

[trbarton]

8 hours ago, MixerDave said:

What happens if your flight is late, and you miss the ship - what is the procedure if the next port is Hilo, Hawaii 5 days later?  Are you flown to Hawaii, put up in a hotel for 5 nights, and provided food?

 

I’m suggesting that you call Princess & ask your question & then please post their response. That way we hear the response directly from them. We don’t have any responses from someone whose actually used the EZ Air guarantee. 

 

Tom

[2 cruises a year]

1 hour ago, Hlitner said:

Sometimes it helps folks to post things in clear English.  EZAIR (and other cruise air programs that are similar) can be great because of discount prices (especially for International business class) but the guarantees are not as valuable as folks think.  Yes, they will try to get you to the next port...if your flight is delayed or cancelled.  But the process is not normally easy and you will likely have to pay all the intervening expenses including hotels, food, transfers, etc.  If you have decent travel insurance it might also help...then again you might simply rely on the travel insurance and not even need EZAIR.

 

We use EZAIR because we can save thousands of dollars on Business Class.  But we do not rely on them to get us to the port on time which is why we always fly-in early (at least 1 day and often more).  For cruises out of US Ports we do not normally waste our time with EZAIR since their prices are not normally anything special and we can often do better on our own (especially if we can fly Southwest).  

 

And when it comes to travel insurance we have long urged folks to carefully read the policy (including the fine print).  Not all policies are the same and many folks do not realize the negatives until they try to file a claim.  And beware because most travel policies have a requirement that your flight arrival time meet certain requirements (such as arriving at least 6 hours before your last boarding time).

 

Hank

This is the best solution to the problem.  Being pro-active, rather than re-active.

Even 6 hours is cutting it to close for me.