ontheweb

Thanks, I'd argue for a 10 if we had not managed to get the first available flight back home. One thing RCCL actually did well was make the internet cafe free so people could e-mail family, travel agents, airlines, etc. I know my mother in law thought they were going to drop us off in the middle of a hurricane until we e-mailed her. And everyone was considerate and did not hog the computers.

OK, that was bad, but I am going to argue for more than an 8 for my story. I will give 2 reasons. The first is being trapped in a lounge for embarkation when nobody is being allowed to leave and it is so packed that you can hardly breathe. And the second is the hell the airport was with no planes having arrived or departed for 2 days.

Let me slightly amend my story. Thinking back, it believe it was the Sunday of Labor Day Weekend, not the Saturday when we were supposed to dock. And since I am sure we got 2 extra days, the Tuesday after Labor Day when we finally reached Fort Lauderdale. Not that that really changes the story much.

Neither of us were among the people saying we would never cruise with Royal Caribbean again, in fact at that time, our second cruise, it was the only line we had ever cruised on. But, as it turns out, we have not cruised with them again. But that is due to they started building ships that were much too large for our tastes.

I see Halifax is one of your ports. Here is our experience with that port. We took a morning excursion to Peggy's Cove, pretty, but we both agreed it was not really worth the price. In the afternoon we wandered around the port intending to visit many places, but when we found ourselves in the Canadian Immigration Museum we were both fascinated and found ourselves basically staying the afternoon there. Your views may vary, but I thought I would share that.

Here is the possibly worst ever "ship happens" story. A hurricane kept us out of Fort Lauderdale on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend until Labor Day. There were now too many ships disembarking passengers that day and way too few immigration agents. And pretty much everybody now had to get off early to get to the airport and hope to fly standby. I know we changed from the tags for a 2 PM flight to the ones for earliest disembarkation. So they called the first tag, and the lounge was very full. And no one was let off yet before they called the second tag. And now it was wall to wall people and one could hardly breathe. Finally, there was an announcement by the cruise line (RCCL) and everyone expected it to say that disembarkation was about to start. Instead they said it was the last chances to buy photographs. That led to a lot of muttering saying I will never again sail with them. And of course the airport was hell. We were lucky and managed to be the last 2 called to board as standby for the next flight (2 PM just like our original 2 days before.) But while waiting for the airline agents, I did hear people who had been told that there would be no possible flight for them until the next day screaming at the poor airline agents.

Now that was funny! Maybe it would make more sense if the cruise was "down under" in Australia, and those were of course passengers from North America and Europe.

OK, my bad. Isn't there a law firm that does specialize in going after cruise lines? I guess I confused Elliot with them.

I understand he specializes in suing cruise lines, but does he also specialize in suing Travel Agents?

I also managed to talk to 2 of the singers telling them about my experience at the original 1969. Woodstock festival. The conversation first started when one of them like my Grateful Dead tee shirt and said it was her favorite. band.

And the various Carnival corporation cruise lines do the opposite, they give it only to the first person listed for the cabin even if it is owned jointly.

It is good that this worked out. Also good that NCL was not the one at fault. And maybe the reason that insurance won't cover it is that the airline should and did cover it.

It's rock and roll, you are supposed to stand and move your body! The one time I had a seat, I slid right off it quickly and went back to standing. (This was on the Prima last August.)

This is not true for all TAs.

For the Costa Concordia disaster, it would seem it was the captain who was to blame.

I know what you are saying, but I think it could be worded better. They are allowed, but the crew would need a different sort of visa which is more expensive. None of the major cruise lines seems to be willing to add this extra expense to allow a "cruise to nowhere".

Thank you, and I do believe the comment I had made was pretty straight forward. I really do not see how it could be construed to in any way downplay the seriousness of the situation the OP went through.

I in no way meant to downplay what the OP went through with this TA. I just wanted to emphasize that this is not normal. There are great TAs out there. There are good TAs out there. And I think I can say safely even the not so good ones who may just be order takers are at least honest.

Also, there is at least one excursion that has a stop at a museum before going to the airport. We did that on our cruise this past summer as DW said she did not want to spend hours and hours at the airport. (Unfortunately, our flight was delayed, so we spent hours and hours at the airport anyway. 😢 But it would have been even longer without that excursion.) There was supposed to be one other excursion that was a hike. She actually wanted that one, but it was not available. Actually, that was a good thing as the museum was fascinating, and the hike would have been extremely uncomfortable as it poured that day.

We were on the Prima this past summer, and as I posted on an earlier reply in this thread, the waitstaff had no idea of what I was talking about when I asked for those menus for the next day.

Talk about price gouging, my DW needed cough drops at the airport in Reykjavik. I finally found them and bought them charging in the local currency. When I got my cc bill, they were over $6 American money.😒 And they were not even individually wrapped and were all stuck together.

Never had an overnight on Carnival, but have had on other cruise lines. I think they are more common on other cruise lines. We had overnights on Princess in St. Petersburg (obviously that is not happening again) and Rosyth for Edinburgh. On NCL just last summer we had an overnight in Reykjavik.

Please do not make it sound like there are a lot of TAs who act like the one the OP unfortunately found himself booking with.

Another question, can both people receive on board credit if both people own 100 shares? However, they should both be able to get it if they are not in the same cabin.

Why do they have you take your glasses off for the online picture? I realize you take your glasses off for your passport picture, but I had my picture retaken at Southampton last August at our Prima check in and was told I could keep my glasses on, just sunglasses off.