Escape damaged, cruise cancelled, passengers being flown home

[halos]

On 3/16/2022 at 9:47 AM, Flipchild32 said:

Morale is currently high according to DisneyDude. Still having parties, etc.

 

Update: Morale on the ship is high. Everyone that is out at the bars and restaurants are having a good time. Making the most of our time left here. Haven’t heard many negative comments. 

Nice!

[resetjet]

I would recommend anyone on that ship who has time go to punta cana barcelo palace……or the Dominican tree house village.  Then you can catch spirit home dirt cheap.

[hallux]

1 minute ago, resetjet said:

Then you can catch spirit home dirt cheap.

Why pay for a flight if NCL is offering to fly you back to Florida for free?

[smileygirl_68]

In other comedy news, we switched this trip to the Joy and I’ve just seen the posts that she’s on her way to Miami with engine trouble…eek!

[hallux]

5 minutes ago, smileygirl_68 said:

engine trouble

This part is speculation, but considering the ship has 2 days to get to MIA, there's not much need to go faster than she is, which is half her normal top speed.  Slower speed means less fuel burned.  There may be some other issue that caused them to cancel the port and head straight to MIA...

[smileygirl_68]

6 minutes ago, hallux said:

This part is speculation, but considering the ship has 2 days to get to MIA, there's not much need to go faster than she is, which is half her normal top speed.  Slower speed means less fuel burned.  There may be some other issue that caused them to cancel the port and head straight to MIA...

I hear you…but still!

[resetjet]

1 hour ago, hallux said:

Why pay for a flight if NCL is offering to fly you back to Florida for free?

well that depends on your priorities.  If it is to save money, probably not.  But if your vacation was cut short, you only get one per year, and you have the time.  Spirit back is usually $100+ tax.....

[Groovy5]

We were on the March 12th sailing of the Escape. It was very sad to be told that we were being canceled but we had an awesome time until this morning. It was pure madness trying to get off the ship and onto a bus going to the airport. We had to get a Covid test which went fine but getting the results were ridiculous. It’s like it was run by 10 year old children. Many families from 1 cabin received their letter of debarkation, however when they got to the gangway they were told a member or members of their cabin were not listed. This included minors and spouses or other family members. It is just my husband and I in our cabin and thankfully we were both ok to proceed. We met a family of 4, husband and wife and 2 small boys. They packed and arrived at gangway 3 times yesterday and once today and were still told they were not leaving. This is totally unacceptable to expect parents to fly w/o their children or even spouse. They wasted to whole day yesterday going back and forth and now it’s starting all over again. This story was VERY common. Several were turned away yesterday at the gangway because the flight was full. They also announced yesterday that people w/o passports could not leave, I assume they are still working on that. We loved the ship and had a great time but organization was a Huge 0 in my book. And they never told us there was damage at all just that we were being canceled.

[Pitzel]

On 3/16/2022 at 8:36 AM, Ivy86 said:

Hopefully it will get repaired before my April cruise. 🤔 

I am hoping the same. We are scheduled to be on the last PC cruise before it heads to Europe. Concerned that they may cancel all remaining PC cruises in order to complete the repairs.

[pamrose228]

I am on the TA April 25 for 26 nights. I believe NCL is making sure all is okay even doing the last Caribbean cruise. They want the ship in europ since many cruises are out of there this season 

[PelicanBill]

Although it's been stated here the wind probably wasn't a factor, I am reminded of a trip on the Breakaway that had 3 ports adversely affected by wind.

- We were late docking in Cozumel as we tried repeatedly to come alongside the pier with a bad crosswind

- We had to "anchor" with station-keeping on thrusters in the south anchorage at Grand Cayman

- We were delayed 2 hours arriving in Ocho Rios as the wind prevented safe channel transit and docking a while

 

[blueslily]

On 3/16/2022 at 4:36 AM, bigrednole said:

That really stinks for passengers onboard and those scheduled for March 19. Almost no way to change plans or recover vacation time. For me, once vacation is approved, it is gone. If you can't go or something, you don't get it back. The least they could do for the people that are on the cruise currently is let them stay aboard, enjoy what the ship offers, and explore the DR with excursions and things.

 

Man, that is not a nice vacation time policy. Once your leave time is approved, they take it away from you even before the start date of your actual leave time and you cant get it back if you cancel your leave time request? That's ugly. Doubt I could work for a company that operates like that. Life happens. Plans change. And we aren't always in control of stuff that changes. Man. I couldn't work for that company. 

[ggTexasGal]

23 hours ago, Diver2014 said:

 

good grief.  Our January 15 cruise on Escape was cancelled 3 days prior to sailing.  Now this.  I hope 3 is not the 'lucky' number on Escape.

😟

Wishing you good vibes!

[BirdTravels]

10 hours ago, ricflyer said:

From what I can see on FLIGHTAWARE.COM there was one 767 charter yesterday and 2 A321s schedule so far today. So at this rate it is going to take some time to get several thousand people back to Orlando. I think Norwegian is facing a problem getting charters. With the NCAA basketball tournaments (men's, woman's and NIT) and the busy college/school spring breaks there is very little availability. This is going to get interesting. At least they can eat and drink on the ship while they wait.

Very little availability of what? Planes to charter? Spring Break? Not sure many college kids are chartering 767s. 

 

Last week, there were a thousand passengers. Not many planes required to repatriate that many people. 

Edited March 17, 2022 by BirdTravels

[ricflyer]

By spring break I mean the scheduled airlines are at capacity and don't have the ability to find a planes/pilots. The charter airlines in the US have very little availability with the sports charters going on right now.  Of the 5 flights flown today 3 were Air Century (an airline in the Dominican Republic) because there are not US charters available. It is always this time of year, nothing new.

[Adventure_on]

On 3/16/2022 at 8:34 AM, doreenrae said:

 

A lot of last minute changes for some, it sounds like! Seems like there may be a lot of passengers  from Escape 3/19 that will still be able to be cruising next week, with some joining our cruise on the Encore 3/20. Do you know what the other 2 replacement ships were, that were offered? Those cruises will obviously be at higher capacity that originally expected, and may be one of the 1st that will seem more like the pre-covid cruise experience. 

The other two were Joy and Dawn. we opted for Dawn. Way smaller but saved us a 3.5 hr drive..we can Uber to the Tampa port. And I have never been to Belize so this will be cool.

[Ivy86]

I follow on Twitter Someone that’s on this cruise and she said It’s a complete mess on the airport . People not in the manifest , families being separated , people struggling to leave the DR without passports etc . Complete chaos! 

[GonzoWCS]

34 minutes ago, Ivy86 said:

I follow on Twitter Someone that’s on this cruise and she said It’s a complete mess on the airport . People not in the manifest , families being separated , people struggling to leave the DR without passports etc . Complete chaos! 

Cats & Dogs living together!  Mass Hysteria!  🙂

 

[shof515]

1 hour ago, Ivy86 said:

I follow on Twitter Someone that’s on this cruise and she said It’s a complete mess on the airport . People not in the manifest , families being separated , people struggling to leave the DR without passports etc . Complete chaos! 

i also read on the book of faces that the prepare lunch the ship provided for the trip back home is being throw out by airport officials and these people have to wait in the airport for about 5-6 hours for the plane 

[Karaboudjan]

31 minutes ago, shof515 said:

i also read on the book of faces that the prepare lunch the ship provided for the trip back home is being throw out by airport officials and these people have to wait in the airport for about 5-6 hours for the plane 

 

No idea who is posting that, but if they think 5-6 hours is so bad they must not fly much...

[Eubie247]

We were disembarked yesterday without passports for 3 of 4 in our group.  While it was a long travel day and there was some short notice, I feel like NCL did their best to provide and execute an action plan given this doesn’t ever happen. Of course there are hiccups with things happening so FAST and FLUID with large amounts of people but we always felt safe and there were NCL team members along the way at every airport and the ports.  
A friend on the ship says things are picking up as they were leaving at 4:00 am today (7:30 flight).  
A shout to every NCL crew member- always so nice, calm and professional the entire time which helped! Going to apply for passports now because that’s on me for being cheap haha.  

Edited March 18, 2022 by Eubie247

[resetjet]

Something like this never goes smoothly. It sounds like they did a pretty good job.  I hope they give you a replacement cruise.

[Eubie247]

9 minutes ago, resetjet said:

Something like this never goes smoothly. It sounds like they did a pretty good job.  I hope they give you a replacement cruise.

Full refund plus 100% credit of what you paid for a future cruise!! 

[oteixeira]

Seems like a large group are flying home today, so lots of twitter feed posts about how awful it is that they are waiting at the airport, or have to hang out in the port area for the day since their flight is tonight, but there are other people reporting that they are still on the ship and wont be getting off for a few hours.  I dunno, seems we always hear the extreme sides when things like this happen.  Either it was terrible, or it was great, and then 80% of the folks never say a word and probably had no issues and no need to post/talk about it.

[zeroed]

I’m convinced that some of the people posting things like they’re relaxing on the boat this morning and everything is fine are full of it. Pics and reports from actual passengers posting on twitter paint a significantly different picture.