snow delays and your personal experience with insurance, anyone?

[darbs7]

First, we never fly in the day of a cruise, but we have to this year. I am a teacher and I teach Friday until 3:30 (airport is hour away) and there are no later flights to San Juan so I fly out 6am on Saturday for a 9pm departure out of San Juan.

 

We arrive in San Juan around 11:45 am. What if there are snow delays? Are there any insurances that cover this and how is it covered? Any one have experience with this?

[sirwired]

What you need is a policy that will offer decent Trip Delay coverage for a Common Carrier (and/or weather) with a delay minimum of 6 hours or less.

 

What's "decent" Trip Delay coverage? Coverage high enough to get you to the next cruise port. (Which, for obscure legal reasons, needs to not be a US port.)

[cruiseco]

Many insurers are now including a "Missed Connection" benefit for this type of situation. this is from TravelSafe:

 

"Missed Connection: If You miss Your cruise or tour departure because Your arrival at Your Trip destination is delayed for 3 or more hours, benefits will be paid, on a one-time basis, up to the Maximum Benefit Amount, for a) the Additional Transportation Cost to join the Trip and b) the unused portion of the prepaid expenses for land or water Travel Arrangements, due to: a) any delay of a Common Carrier (the delay must be certified by the Common Carrier); b) a documented weather condition preventing You from getting to the point of departure; c) quarantine, hijacking, Strike, natural disaster, terrorism or riot."

 

In this case the Maximum Benefit Amount is $1500 (some are as low as $500) and has these nice features:

 

Only a 3 hour delay time which would work with your booked flights

 

Covers ANY delay of a common carrier. Some exclude carrier-caused delays (mechanical, etc)

 

Also covers reimbursement for the value of the day(s) of the cruise missed.

[sirwired]

Doh. Of course... Missed Connection is what I was thinking of. (Trip Delay usually being too low and only good for things like meals or a hotel room.)

[D4]

Make sure you have passports so you can fly to a foreign country if you need to catch up with your cruise.

[LocoLoco1]

Darbs7

As Sirwired nicely explained, one CAN get insurance if the fine print suits your situation. Booking the Flight portion with your Cruiseline can avoid watching your Cruiseship sail away without you and not being reimbursed. A Skilled TravelAgent can be a God-send. We were told, "Run!!" by Holland-Amer people after snow delays got several of us to Pier with 18/minutes to spare, some luggage never made it. Yes..get a Passport. Locomotiveman Tom