Onboard Now, Serious Issue - How to Handle?

[CapeCodCruiser]

Very sorry for your loss and the poor manner this news was handled.

 

Clearly there was a breakdown in the process - it happens with humans - we make mistakes. At this point it can not be undone, you may or may not get a satisfactory apology from Carnival.

 

I would post to John Heald - he seems to have the ear of the powers that be and can pass along your experience.

[LHT28]

They are probably on the way home by now

They were on the Magic by the roll call they posted in

[sail7seas]

Sorry if tyhis has been asked and answered but if so, I missed it.

 

Was the family member seriously ill when this couple boarded the ship to begin their cruise? Did they know of this medical emergenc y when they left home?

Edited October 16, 2016 by sail7seas

[EGG]

Condolences on your loss.

 

To answer your question, I would wait to contact corporate til I got off the ship. You have enough to deal with right now.

 

Several years ago there was a thread relating to this subject and it seemed pretty evenly divided between those who wanted to know and those who felt there is not much you can do after a person dies. You do the best you can for a person when they are alive, but sometimes when you are on a cruise someone passes.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Forums mobile app

[cbr663]

My condolences on your loss. Failing to deliver the message promptly is unforgivable; not taking ownership of the situation on the ship just demonstrates poor service, a lack of empathy and a do not care attitude.

 

I would imagine that if I were in your place, I would want the cruise line to make things right. Sadly, I don't think that that is possible at this time. My concern is that by seeking out a remedy, you may end up taking a bad situation and making it even worst.

 

If possible, I would use the amenities provided by the ship to focus all my attention and energy on dealing with the situation at home and getting off the ship. Deal with the very poor service later when things have calmed considerably.

 

All the best.

[slidergirl]

responding to a post:

I have to agree to disagree with you. The OP posted that had they been contacted in a timely manner, they could have participated in the decision regarding life support issues. So at the time contact was made to Carnival (Monday) their loved one was still alive, presumably in a hospital. They subsequently died before OP received notification via cell phone on the following Thursday. This was not just a post-death notification.

 

cherylandtk: I agree with you. To be denied participation in making a life-support decision with family members because someone forgot/neglected to inform the OP is heartbreaking. To the OP - I am so sorry this happened to you.

Edited October 16, 2016 by slidergirl

[sail7seas]

OP put in the threadtitle, How to Handle? Handle what? getting yourselves home? What else do you have in mind to 'handle? as far as I see it, the only thinhg to handle at this pointi s get home. SOMETHING THA IT is painful not being with your family.

 

Do you ha ve insurance?.

Edited October 16, 2016 by sail7seas

[NMLady]

To the OP, I am sorry for your loss. I'm also sorry that you weren't notified in a timely fashion.

However, I don't think there is any future in pursuing a complaint. Obviously, the ball was dropped somewhere along the line, but it will be very difficult to found out whose fault it was. ....

 

On the contrary, if corporate isn't notified that an emergency message was not delivered after the emergency number was called, how will they know to fix the communication chain?

 

The OP does not want this to happen to someone else. If corporate isn't notified of the problem, it won't be fixed.

[NMLady]

OP put in the threadtitle, How to Handle? Handle what? getting yourselves home? What else do you have in mind to 'handle? ....

 

OP asked how to handle contacting corporate, whether to do it now from the ship or to wait until they get home.

[navybankerteacher]

OP asked how to handle contacting corporate, whether to do it now from the ship or to wait until they get home.

 

Somehow it seems that handling contacting corporate is the primary concern. I suppose focusing on a distraction can help to deal with loss.

[sail7seas]

OP asked how to handle contacting corporate, whether to do it now from the ship or to wait until they get home.

 

 

Yah, I unerstand, but am having a hard time processing he is on gthe ship right now and cannogt get a stgreet, snail mail, or e-mail address I read more into this thread than some others here do. I am not naive to some of ther things I read on forums and the internet. :) I lost a that naivity after about 10 years on the internetPerhaps there is another mottive

Edited October 17, 2016 by sail7seas

[DirtyDawg]

I am currently onboard a ship. In brief, we have experienced a serious issue regarding an emergency phone call from home (involving the imminent death of a family member, which has since occurred). We never received the message. The way the situation has been handled onboard has been abysmal.

 

My immediate question: Should we contact the corporate office now, while we are still onboard? Or wait until we debark? We have been given a "ticket number" documenting the issue. But the onboard staff is basically blaming everything on corporate, and I feel like it could easily get brushed aside once we are off the ship.

 

I am able to post because they did give us permission to use the internet for free as well as to make phone calls - to make funeral arrangements and contact family. That, and a form letter, is how they are handling it onboard.

 

I appreciate any input.

 

To answer some of the questions asked - The call was made to Carnival using the emergency number from their website around 11 a.m. on Monday. We learned of the death when we reached a port where Verizon had coverage - we called the hospital and were informed that the death had occurred.

 

Per the Guest Services Assistant Manager, corporate didn't code the call correctly. The email was received on the ship within an hour of the call on Monday, but as of Thursday morning the email was in "unread" status. They will not provide us with a copy of the email.

 

So at this point I would like to caution other cruisers not to rely on the emergency number published on the cruise ship's website. To me, any call that comes in on that number should be treated as urgent.

 

What would have been a different outcome? We could have been a part of the decision that was made to remove life support. It probably would have been the same decision, but at least we would have had some input and would have been a part of the process.

 

I am not looking for anything from the cruise line except for this to not to happen to anyone else.

 

I for one, would like to thank the OP for posting this. Obviously the Emergency contact system on Carnival needs some improvement.

[j0el]

Of course I am sorry for your loss.

 

I am not sure how you can best handle it now, but I thank you for sharing.

 

I am going to make sure that the people who may have to call me for an emergency realize that there may be problems in getting a message through. I will ask them to call every hour until they hear back from me. That way there is a way for them to be sure I got the message.

 

Many years ago I was in the NAVY and got a message that my dad was in a serious car accident. I do not remember much about the time from when I got the message until I was in the hospital visiting.

 

I just saw a statistic that there are 14M cruise passengers in North America each year, so unfortunately there must e many emergency calls. I hope that no matter what, the cruise line ensures that their procedures are appropriate for the urgency and seriousness of the situation.

 

Again, so sorry for your loss and your having to go through this.

[NMLady]

... I read more into this thread than some others here do. Perhaps there is another mottive

 

Sail, if you think there is another motive, then imo you are definitely reading more into this thread than is in it.

[sail7seas]

In your opinion :)which is different than mine.

[D&L Thomas]

OP here. We are home now and I thought I should provide an update. Again, thank you to those who provided helpful insights. I posted on the Carnival site as well and that thread got ugly really fast; it has been shut down.

 

Someone contacted John Heald (I didn't know who he was; this was our first Carnival cruise). He reached out on his FB page asking me to email him so we could "take this offline." I sent an email to the address he provided and received a form letter/email in reply, stating my concern would be addressed within seven business days.

 

Our sister was in the hospital at the time of our sailing date. She was stable and the doctors were giving her a good chance of recovering from pneumonia. We made the difficult decision to go on the cruise because it was our son's wedding cruise, planned a year and a half ago. Had it been just a vacation for us we would have canceled. We left some close family friends with our sister, they had equal powers of attorney, and we had a care plan in place with the doctor and nurses.

 

Our friends called the emergency number provided on Monday around 11 a.m. when our sister took a sudden and severe turn for the worse. The call "was not coded correctly" and went to the ship as a regular email, received within an hour of the phone call. There it sat, unread.

 

We missed our first port because of the hurricane so we were at sea on Monday. Our first port was St Thomas on Tuesday, and for whatever reason our Verizon phones had no signal there. This was also the day of the wedding, and frankly we were pretty tied up with that. We figured we would call the next day, Wednesday, from San Juan.

 

This is when we called the hospital and were informed that she had passed away.

 

Her outcome would not have been different had we received the message. But we could have been part of the decision process (at this point she was on a respirator) and we could have told her that we loved her.

 

Think of the other scenarios when an emergency call might be made:

"This is your neighbor, or your house sitter, and your house has caught on fire."

"This is your mother, who is taking care of your child while you cruise, and we were involved in a serious car accident today."

 

Again - we are only asking that the emergency notification system be carefully reviewed in light of this breakdown. And we would really like assurance that this won't happen to anyone else on a Carnival ship. It won't happen to us, because we will not cruise Carnival again. This was by far the worst thing that happened (really, what could be worse?) but it was not the only misstep.

 

To those who would ascribe some ulterior motives to my posting - perhaps if you were in my shoes you would be trying to get something for nothing. That's you, not me. I came here looking for advice and okay, perhaps, some sympathetic words that what I experienced was NOT acceptable.

 

If anyone is still interested I will provide an update, if I ever hear back from Carnival.

[SPacificbound]

I am so sorry for your family's loss.

[NMLady]

In your opinion :)which is different than mine.

 

Hope you read the update. Someimes, most of the time, things are exactly what they appear to be.

[Cruise Junky]

Op. I'm so sorry this happened and I'm glad you're taking steps that it doesn't happen to anyone else. Please ignore the shrews and post an update.

[VennDiagram]

D&L Thomas, I've been reading this thread but only tonight had the time to comment.

 

You did the best you could, your surrogates did the best they could. I'm so sorry you could not participate in the decision. I'm so sorry you didn't get a chance for a final few words with your sister. She knows you love her, she knows you will miss her, and she knows that you will remember her. Please trust that.

 

I hope that you will be able to communicate to Carnival how critical their failure was.

[cherylandtk]

D&L Thomas. Thank you for coming back to share details of what is an intensely personal and private family moment.

[Laughing Angel]

To the OP:

 

Condolences on the loss of your dear sister.

 

Hopefully, your sharing this experience will help Carnival review/revise their protocols for emergency messages, and prevent another family from having to deal with this pain. I would be interested in hearing their response.