Beware RCI Flight 1 hour Transfer Times

[Scotland01]

Our recent RCI Fly Cruise from Scotland had a flight transfer at Amsterdam of 1 hour.Glasgow to Amsterdam to Rome for Mariner Cruise.

 

Our Baggage (and others) arrived on day 4 in Crete.

 

Warning to all, do not travel on any connecting flights where the transfer is less than 1.5 to 2 hours.

 

The 40-50 minutes transfer time promoted by Amsterdam is a Marketing persons dream and does not relate to reality.

 

Having arrived early in Amsterdam from Glasgow, we just made the gate after going through security queues followed by immigration queues followed by a lot of walking. We checked at the gate to see if bags were on the aircraft. Yes all Glasgow on. What a lot of rubbish.

 

The RCI flight operations dept need to put a control in their systems to prevent such accidents waiting to happen. It seems to be forgotten that it is the customer who pays their salaries who are travelling not the flight dept not the RCI Business Manager or the airline shedule.

 

Be very aware and check the proposed flights before booking any fly cruises. Unless of course you wish to cruise in an XXXXL T shirt for several days including the Captains Formal night. We had to ask our Conceirge to seek permission for us to use the MDR.

 

We initially queried the flight schedule transfer time from Feb 12 and were given many reassurances that the transfer times were possible.

[NorbertsNiece]

Oh good grief. That's appalling. :eek:

 

How were you supported being without baggage for that length of time?

[bbbearden]

You are correct, never should a transfer time be less than an hour. I always plan for at least 2 hours.

[Tucker in Texas]

Before they had Choice Air, Royal Caribbean had us with a 45 minute connection at CDG in a different terminal, no less. I argued and argued with them that the connection was not only an illegal one for insurance purposes but was absolutely, positively not possible.

 

Finally got them to change me to a flight from Houston to Salt Lake City to JFK to Barcelona. While there was a direct flight from Houston to JFK, they wanted $300 to put us on it.

 

The year before, they had us with an hour and 15 minute change in Paris on flights from Barcelona to Houston. We would have missed it but there were 60 some of us going to Houston on the Barcelona flight so they had an Air France employee meet us at the gate and held the plane for an hour. The employee who had legs longer than I am tall and used them, knew where she was going, spoke the language, opened a passport control for us, and put us at the front of another line still took an hour and a half.

 

Tucker in Texas

[Scotland01]

KLM gave us small pack of toothpaste brushes shampoo etc. Because of cocerns re. transfer had taken basic change of underwear and casual outfit for us both for next day. DH was annoyed but I was extremely upset.There were at least 4 other couples in same boat. One lady was a carer with her wheelchair bound husband and had no chance to carry anything. Wish I could say guest sevices were helpful but on day 3 they gave a pack with an xxl t shirt socks and anther set of cheap and nasty toileteries. Not what I planned to wear at the first formal night. Even worse they could give us no reasurances when we would see our bags. I spent the time in Messina trailing the shops to get make up hair moose etc. Because of the liquid ban had nothing and wanted to look my best in white xxl t shirt. Next day was a sea day and finally got bags in Crete. What helped was the great group of people we met in Diamond lounge and at dinner!!!!!!

[Baseball fan]

Airline schedules, although legal are not always logical. When booking my upcoming flight to Europe, I came across a connection in London's Heathrow that was 1 hour. I avoided that one and found something else.

 

Did you have insurance? Surely they would've covered some purchases due to lost luggage. When traveling long distances and checking luggage, I always find insurance that kicks in within a few hours of losing my luggage. Granted they would not cover purchases of fancier clothes.

[KuffMUp]

I have flown many a time in the states with less than an hour transfer time. I have never had a problem. Maybe it is a states vs the continent that is the difference. The only problem I have ever had is flying out the day after Christmas and coming back the day after New Years. Our golf clubs didn't make the transfer and went on to Puerto Vallarta while we went to Cabo. Coming back we were supposed to be on a non-stop to Seattle. While flying over San Diego the pilot came on and said, "sorry we can't stop in San Diego because of fog so we are headed to LA." Everyone was confused as we weren't supposed to be going to San Diego and looking out the window there was no fog. We landed in LA, exited the tail cone and was bussed to the International terminal to go through Customs then back to the regular terminal to reboard. Only one problem. Our plane had disappeared. And since we weren't supposed to be there, no one in LA could help us. We eventually got home with no baggage. It arrived over the next two weeks, one bag at a time every few days.

 

Anyway, back on topic, I have never paid attention to this seeming rule of more than an hour. I always seemed to make it ok. I guess I should be more careful?

[joandian]

I have flown many a time in the states with less than an hour transfer time. I have never had a problem. Maybe it is a states vs the continent that is the difference.

 

Anyway, back on topic, I have never paid attention to this seeming rule of more than an hour. I always seemed to make it ok. I guess I should be more careful?

 

Changing on a domestic flight in the US is totally different to changing flights/terminals in some of the big International airports. We always leave at least 2 hours between flights and even then it's sometimes tight.

 

'M', that Diamond Lounge was a great hangout. I'm sorry we didn't get to spend more time there! I don't think I managed to see you in that XXXL t-shirt :D

[peteukmcr]

So sorry to hear of your experience. As someone who has had baggage delayed more times than I wish to mention during business trips, I understand exactly how you must have felt. We recently travelled with Lufthansa via Munich and you should have seen me at the baggage carousel waiting for that bag that always seems to be the last out.

 

So strange that RCI will accept such tight connections in Europe when for a flight from Manchester to Miami via Atlanta they would not allow anything less than a 4 hour connection. Even when I queried it because there was an earlier connection, the RCI flight desk said no, we won't allow anything less than 3 hours at Atlanta.

[winnie06]

We had the same problem last year, when transferring in Amsterdam. four out of the five bags of our group arrived with our flight, but my husbands didn't turn up for 3 days. I was warned that when travelling through Amsterdam, to split clothes between bags, but didn't actually do it. RCI were very helpful (there was quite alot of people on the ship without luggage), and each evening (before midnight) RCI would come and collect his clothes and bring them back at 7am the next morning, they also loaned him a suit for formal night. Not ideal but it did help considerably, and made his lack of clothes more bearable.

[waterbug123]

When you book airfare through the cruise line, you often end up with consolidator tickets. These include a number of downsides, one of which is unrealistic connection times. Buyer beware.

[Scotland01]

Just to clarify some points. Of course we have extensive travel insurance which we would never travel without. In this case the airline must refund our out of pocket expenses.but no amount of refund can compensate the misery of being without luggage for the first 3 days of the cruise and the uncertainty of when it would actually arrive. The girls among will appreciate this even more!! All the specially bought outfits heck I could not even lie out on the deck as I had no swimwear. Coming from wet chilly Scotland this was very important at least DH could take off his sole t shirt but the world is not prepared for a slighly lumpy grandma sitting out in her bra and jeans. The real frustration was that DH a seasoned business traveller had contacted RCI flight dept several times with his concerns about the transfer time fortunately documented.