Very confused about HAL response

[JJPacer]

We returned from our latest cruise. We missed a pre-paid private excursion because the ship left port early and we were unable to do the excursion and return to the ship before the new sailing time. It was the Flam Railway and they do not offer refunds. We have trip insurance through a provider not associated with HAL. The coverage allows for missed excursions due to a change in itinerary. I have a copy of the itinerary, but I had written some "notes to self" on it and wanted a fresh copy. I needed to send a copy of the itinerary to the trip insurance company as part of the documentation they required to process the claim.

 

I called HAL guest relations for past sailings and asked them to e-mail me a copy of the itinerary. They said they'd send it out right away. I waited 4 hours, called again, and got the same response - right away. By the evening of the next day I still had not received it. I called again. This time I was told the e-mail with the itinerary was ready to be sent but first had to be reviewed and approved by a supervisor. What.....Why? They did not give me a reason. Only that it would be sent after a supervisor reviewed the e-mail and it could be a couple of days or more before I received it. All I asked for was the itinerary. I was courteous etc. It makes no sense. Does it?

 

We had a short window of time to make a claim with the travel insurance Co. So we sent the copy with my notes on it. We did not complain about the shortened port time while on the ship or after we got off the ship. We knew we had insurance and would be reimbursed. So why? I don't know. Do you?

[JJPacer]

We returned from our latest cruise. We missed a pre-paid private excursion because the ship left port early and we were unable to do the excursion and return to the ship before the new sailing time. It was the Flam Railway and they do not offer refunds. We have trip insurance through a provider not associated with HAL. The coverage allows for missed excursions due to a change in itinerary. I have a copy of the itinerary, but I had written some "notes to self" on it and wanted a fresh copy. I needed to send a copy of the itinerary to the trip insurance company as part of the documentation they required to process the claim.

 

I called HAL guest relations for past sailings and asked them to e-mail me a copy of the itinerary. They said they'd send it out right away. I waited 4 hours, called again, and got the same response - right away. By the evening of the next day I still had not received it. I called again. This time I was told the e-mail with the itinerary was ready to be sent but first had to be reviewed and approved by a supervisor. What.....Why? They did not give me a reason. Only that it would be sent after a supervisor reviewed the e-mail and it could be a couple of days or more before I received it. All I asked for was the itinerary. I was courteous etc. It makes no sense. Does it?

 

We had a short window of time to make a claim with the travel insurance Co. So we sent the copy with my notes on it. We did not complain about the shortened port time while on the ship or after we got off the ship. We knew we had insurance and would be reimbursed. So why? I don't know. Do you?

[SLOTheta]

Don't you have the Daily Program that you could submit that has the updated times? When our times changed, so did the dailies

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[take us away]

Sounds like a bit weird but do have to say that it seems many companies are getting a bit strange due to what some may consider frivolous lawsuits. May be the reason they needed supervisory approval to send out the change, which could be anywhere from just 1 person up to a list of people (including the lawyers of course) that need to approve before sending out.

[Krazy Kruizers]

That does sound weird that they couldn't send you a copy of your itinerary right away. I don't understand why a supervisor has to approve it.

In the future make a couple of copies of your itinerary and don't write on it.

[Nic6318]

Hi there

 

You could black out the notes to yourself and send them a copy of the itinerary that you have. That will be fine.

 

hope this helps

have a great day

[cbr663]

You are experiencing an organization with a culture of micro managing.

[sail7seas]

White out your notes to self, copy the clean copy and submit that to insurance company.

Edited August 17, 2016 by sail7seas

[Essiesmom]

Are you looking for a copy of the original itinerary with times? Or the revised one...

Does it have to be from the HAL website? You can go to Cruisecal.com and print out a copy of the original itinerary with port times. Though it is a member site, you can use Itinerary Lookup from the menu bar, choose your ship, then your dates. I just did it without logging in. Easy. EM

[serendipity1499]

We returned from our latest cruise. We missed a pre-paid private excursion because the ship left port early and we were unable to do the excursion and return to the ship before the new sailing time. It was the Flam Railway and they do not offer refunds. We have trip insurance through a provider not associated with HAL. The coverage allows for missed excursions due to a change in itinerary. I have a copy of the itinerary, but I had written some "notes to self" on it and wanted a fresh copy. I needed to send a copy of the itinerary to the trip insurance company as part of the documentation they required to process the claim.

 

I called HAL guest relations for past sailings and asked them to e-mail me a copy of the itinerary. They said they'd send it out right away. I waited 4 hours, called again, and got the same response - right away. By the evening of the next day I still had not received it. I called again. This time I was told the e-mail with the itinerary was ready to be sent but first had to be reviewed and approved by a supervisor. What.....Why? They did not give me a reason. Only that it would be sent after a supervisor reviewed the e-mail and it could be a couple of days or more before I received it. All I asked for was the itinerary. I was courteous etc. It makes no sense. Does it?

 

We had a short window of time to make a claim with the travel insurance Co. So we sent the copy with my notes on it. We did not complain about the shortened port time while on the ship or after we got off the ship. We knew we had insurance and would be reimbursed. So why? I don't know. Do you?

 

OP IMO you are not giving it enough time..

 

I worked for an International Travel company about the same size as HAL.. First of all our Agents were not permitted to send correspondence to Psgrs or Agents without a Supervisor's or Managers approval.. And that takes time!..HAL is dealing with thousands of Psgrs, & your request could be one of many handled by a small staff..

 

Our normal Correspondence Dept. was handled by our Legal Dept. & many times correspondence had to be approved by one of our Attorney's..

 

You should not have a "short window of time" to submit a claim with a Travel Insurance Company.. Once a claim is started the Insurance company will keep their file open until all documentation is received..

 

If you said you waited 4-6 weeks that could be excessive.. But a period of 4 hours or even 4 days is not excessive or realistic..

 

You should have a covering letter or e-mail within a week, stating they are looking into your request/complaint..

Edited August 17, 2016 by serendipity1499

[geoherb]

I wonder how much the itinerary changed. One on Cruisecal had it in Flaam from 8 a.n. until 6 p.m. The Flam railway had lots of available times to fit in an excursion even if the sailing time moved up a couple of hours.

[Bobocasey]

Just a suggestion, if this problem should ever happen again, after the change in port or time or whatever and you need official documentation of the change for insurance purposes, go to the front desk and ask for a signed letter stating what the changes were and why they happened. This happened to us on Oceania and we missed an entire port because of high seas and we had a private nonrefundable shore excursion booked. I asked for an official letter stating the facts and included it with our claim. Had no trouble getting our travel insurance to cover the nonrefundable shore excursion. good luck

[OlsSalt]

HAL is a large company - serving thousands of passengers and crew daily all around the world. Not sure it is set up to immediately serve an individual post-cruise request.

 

I assume when someone on the phone in a situation like this tells me they will get on to something, it can or may happen ...sometime.

 

Sorry in your case you were under a time deadline and glad you had a copy you could clean up and use anyway. Best wishes getting your refund. Good reminder about what can happen.

[JJPacer]

Are you looking for a copy of the original itinerary with times? Or the revised one...

Does it have to be from the HAL website? You can go to Cruisecal.com and print out a copy of the original itinerary with port times. Though it is a member site, you can use Itinerary Lookup from the menu bar, choose your ship, then your dates. I just did it without logging in. Easy. EM

 

Yes, we wanted a clean copy of the original itinerary. I was not aware of this site, so thank you for sharing. I included the copy of the itinerary I had, as well as the letter the captain sent advising of the change. We were supposed to be in Flam from 7:00 AM - 7:00 PM. The change made the last tender at 3:00PM. Yes there are many times available for the train ride. But we were not informed of the change in itinerary until the evening before our arrival in Flam. By that time every time slot was sold out. We booked ahead of time so we could be guaranteed a spot. I thought e-mailing a copy of the itinerary would be as quick as typing in our e-mail address. She pulled up the itinerary when I gave her our reservation number and said it'd be sent right away. It seemed like such a simple request. It took us by surprise that a simple request would become so complicated. We didn't ask for anything other than a copy of the original itinerary. They didn't have to compose a reply. We're moving on. From now on, we'll be sure to keep a copy of the itinerary in the file we use for all documents pertaining to that particular trip. We've never made a trip insurance claim. So now we know.

[Cruise Belle]

I was also on the Koningsdam July 17-31 cruise. We were advised by a letter delivered to our staterooms late on the afternoon before we reached Flam of the change in departure time from Flam. The original time of 7:00 p.m. was changed to 3:30 p.m. due to road work along the route that the Holland America all-day tour would be taking.

 

Late in the afternoon after leaving Flam on our way out of the fiord, we made a short stop at another town, whose name I do not recall, to pick up the tour passengers.

[nycruiser80]

I was on this sailing too, and I was just putting away the paper work I collected over the trip. I skimmed this post, but do you need a copy of the letter that advised us of the change in port time in Flam? I have the letter in the paper work I saved. Let me know and I could scan you a copy.

Edited August 18, 2016 by nycruiser80

[sail7seas]

Somehow it see3ms to mfecould be more to this than .mentioned here. I don't know what but I efel there could be 'somethin'g more..

Edited August 18, 2016 by sail7seas

[jtl513]

I was thinking you might have used your Cruise Log ... if you got one.

Edited August 18, 2016 by jtl513

[Boatdrill]

OP IMO you are not giving it enough time..

 

If you said you waited 4-6 weeks that could be excessive.. But a period of 4 hours or even 4 days is not excessive or realistic..

 

You should have a covering letter or e-mail within a week, stating they are looking into your request/complaint..

 

Agree with this, however if the HAL agent had told the OP during the initial contact that his request would take a few days, it would have prevented the inconvenience of him having to follow up.

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

That is what we would do

[colonialinnkeeper]

I was also on the Koningsdam July 17-31 cruise. We were advised by a letter delivered to our staterooms late on the afternoon before we reached Flam of the change in departure time from Flam. The original time of 7:00 p.m. was changed to 3:30 p.m. due to road work along the route that the Holland America all-day tour would be taking.

 

Late in the afternoon after leaving Flam on our way out of the fiord, we made a short stop at another town, whose name I do not recall, to pick up the tour passengers.

 

The town we stopped at to pick up passengers was called Vik (pronounced "veek", I believe). Such a pretty town, as they all were. What a fabulous trip--on of our favorites.

[serendipity1499]

That is what we would do

 

What would you do? :confused: Are you answering or agreeing with another poster?

 

If so it would help if you would quote it..

 

I doubt that I'm the only one confused by your post..Just a friendly suggestion:)

Edited August 20, 2016 by serendipity1499