Bumped in the Baltic

JoeyandDavid · October 25, 2006

so my question is how far out did they let people know?

TheSkipper · October 25, 2006

Wow, what a bummer. We are scheduled in the Baltic aboard the Star Princess on June 21st next year, so I can really relate to all the anticipation and advance preparation that goes into a cruise of that magnitude.

Just hung up the phone from our TA for this trip when I read this post. Had just finialized our arrangements for transfers and insurance. Now going online and search for a hotel in Copenhagen for a couple of nights prior to the sailing so we can shed our "Jet Lag" before sailing.

mercedes · October 25, 2006

I am doing the Baltic in June 2008, so I will be looking forward to your review and thoughts about this cruise.

Suzila · October 25, 2006

So what this teaches us is that you MUST have insurance to cover yourself. It's no longer a 'maybe I should buy insurance'...now it's a necessity.

On the other hand, the woman did get her cruise fare back, plus the option of 25% off another cruise (which I'm sure she'd never use!), and she was able to use the airline tickets to see her Mother.

But, what if you can't use the airline tickets? What if, when we had gone on our Panama Canal cruise, they had bumped us? I would have been stuck with non-refundable airline tickets from L.A. to Ft. Lauderdale, and from Acapulco to L.A. That's absolutely ridiculous.

What I would like to see is some sort of ruling that in order to charter a ship for a business convention, etc., it has to be done at least a year in advance. If a family is booked on a ship, usually a year in advance, they haven't bought their airline tickets yet, haven't paid their cruise fare in full yet, etc. Do you actually believe they booked a charter ship two months before it was to take place?

Pretty poor business practices.

Jimmykaboots · October 25, 2006

Well going on to about cancelations due to chartered ships. I believe chartered ships do have the right of way, thats just my opinion though. They should let people know a decent amount of time ahead though. I can't just say I'll charted some ship a month from now, a sufficent amount of time is necessary I believe yet money does have a certain tinge of temptation to cruise line owners.

btate · October 26, 2006

I think Jimmy has it right on this one. The cruise line does have to worry about profits in every instance. I am sure that the amount of money the cruise line made was enough to bump several people to stay profitable. I am not saying that they are right or wrong, but we all need cruise lines to be profitable so we can all keep cruising.

JoeyandDavid · October 26, 2006

what they do in that case Sue Normaly is issue you travel vouchers towards another air fare at a later date... This happened to us last year when we bout air fare at the last minute and then canceled them..( i ended up using them towards this air fare to europe.. of course I was out the cash in my account type thing .. but i did get 98+% back on my purchase

jacketwatch · October 26, 2006

:cool: Byron: I'll put a different spin on the profit idea. Some yrs. ago 4 of us went to a restaurant on a very busy Sat. night for dinner. We were served quickly (we had a reservation) and were finished in about 70 min. After dinner the manager told us one of out entrees had been taken by mistake by another waiter and all of them had to be redone. As compensation for this error the entire bill was complimentary! How much return business (i.e. $$$) has that one act of fairness returned to the restaurant including us AND those in our circle that we told this story to? Alot to be sure. Conversely how much business is lost due to poor customer service? I call MSC's actions penny wise and pound foolish. JM2C. Larry :cool: