Unacceptable handling of missed cruise by Celebrity

[bubbie1]

We were traveling with another couple to go to Carnival in Rio in February, 2019.  We missed the flight to Buenos Aries due to the faulty booking to make the connection from a flight leaving DCA to a flight from JFK.  The Minimum connection time is 1 hour and 15 minutes and Choice Air through Celebrity Cruises sold us an itinerary which only allowed 40 minutes.  We missed the flight due to significant problems leaving DCA.  Celebrity should have offered us the complete cruise fare to be used toward another cruise, but instead offered only a paltry 57% of what we paid.  Once we missed the flight Celebrity's handling of the situation was unacceptable to be able to catch up with the cruise.  

We have gone on Celebrity 9 other times and expected better planning and handling of this situation.  Celebrity advertises that they take care of you from start to finish of a cruise experience,,,this time they completely shirked their responsibility.

Edited May 9, 2019 by bubbie1
The date you have posted is incorrect.

[jelayne]

I’m sorry to hear that your trip went awry.  I’m sure that was very disappointing.

 

It is unusual for Choice Air to book a flight that doesn’t meet the minimum Connection time.  I tried to book a flight thru them thst was 7 minutes short of the minimum time and they refused. Did the flight times change after you booked?

 

Were you able to catch up to the ship at the next port and if so did Choice Air make the arrangement for flights & transfers to catch the ship?

[Bo1953]

May I inquire as to what your third (3rd) party travel insurance will cover or did you take out X's insurance?

 

If neither, 57% FCC is quite generous, I would think.

 

When did you realize that the connection time was not going to work?

 

Was the 40 minutes connecting time always 40 minutes or were the fights changed? I have read here on CC that CA cannot force a connecting time, for the very reason you are upset.

 

Were you flying in a day or two before your sailing? As I understand it, CA will try to reroute you to the next port to catch the ship, was that offered to you and your friends?

 

Yet, you cite there were 'significant problems leaving DCA.' Is it possible that the 40 minutes would have been fine, if the JFK departing flight was in the same terminal?

 

It sounds like DCA departure may have been the real issue and even if there was 1 hour 45 minutes connection time, you may have missed the flight regardless or have we missed some of the details here?

 

Sorry you missed the sailing and sorry that you believe that you were not treated well at all in this situation....

 

Over time you will be able to reflect back on the situation and really figure out where blame really needs to be placed or not.

 

bon voyage

Edited May 10, 2019 by Bo1953

[guy999]

2 minutes ago, Bo1953 said:

May I inquire as to what your third (3rd) party travel insurance will cover or did you take out X's insurance?

 

If neither, 57% FCC is quite generous, I would think.

 

When did you realize that the connection time was not going to work?

 

Was the 40 minutes connecting time always 40 minutes or were the fights changed?

 

Were you flying in a day or two before your sailing?

 

Yet, you cite there were 'significant problems leaving DCA.' Is it possible that the 40 minutes would have been fine, if the JFK departing flight was in the same terminal?

 

It sounds like DCA departure may have been the real issue and even if there was 1 hour 45 minutes connection time, you may have missed the flight regardless or have we missed some of the details here?

 

Sorry you missed the sailing and sorry that you believe that you were not treated well at all in this situation....

 

Over time you will be able to reflect back on the situation and really figure out where blame really needs to be placed or not.

 

bon voyage

 

So I don't book with choice air because I prefer to book my own transport, but I thought the point of booking with them was to prevent these problems?

[Bo1953]

1 minute ago, guy999 said:

 

So I don't book with choice air because I prefer to book my own transport, but I thought the point of booking with them was to prevent these problems?

Generally it is.

 

Yet, without more details it is, IMO, very difficult to pin this solely on CA...

 

CA will also, as I understand it, will do their best to get the passengers to the next port as quickly as possible.

 

Without more info, there is no way to make a judgement either way where the fault goes to, one or the other or both...

 

We can only guess at this juncture about what really happened.

 

bon voyage

[cruisestitch]

Welcome to Cruise Critic -- I see this is your first post.  In order to be able to comment effectively and perhaps give advice, as you can see there are a lot of questions that need to be answered.  Bo made a good start, and here are a couple more --  when did you actually get to the ship? How many days late were you?  You wrote "Once we missed the flight Celebrity's handling of the situation was unacceptable to be able to catch up with the cruise" and the title of your thread sort of implies that you missed the whole cruise, but that can't be right, can it?  Missing the cruise entirely is the only way that you might consider that you should receive a refund for the whole cost, and it would be helpful to know all the details.  Did you join the cruise at a later port?  If not, what lead to your decision not to join the ship at a later port?

 

Regarding your connection, would it have made a difference if you had the minimum connection time built into your itinerary, or was DCA so backed up that you would have missed the connection regardless?  What alternative flights were offered?  

 

 

[SunNFunCruzer]

I'm confused as well.  If you arrived late and missed sailaway and a few days (maybe it was a transatlantic/repositioning and there was no other port?) but caught up to the ship somewhere, 57% seems fair.  If it was a TA with no way to get on before the crossing then 57% seems unreasonable.  I would also never take a 40 minute connection, even if an airline calls it legal. I book a minimum of an hour and have still misconnected.

 

Hope you come back and update us and have smooth sailing moving forward!  😉

[cruisestitch]

In February 2019, Celebrity Eclipse was in Brazil for Carnevale. It was not a trans Atlantic cruise. After that cruise the ship went to Buenos Aires. From there around the Horn.

[hcat]

Title says "missed cruise"

[SunNFunCruzer]

15 minutes ago, hcat said:

Title says "missed cruise"

 

Exactly. How do you "miss" a cruise that has more than one port stop?  Was it a "delayed" arrival?  Still confused... And thanks CruiseStitch for the details.  

[SunNFunCruzer]

2 hours ago, bubbie1 said:

.  Once we missed the flight Celebrity's handling of the situation was unacceptable to be able to catch up with the cruise.  

 

 

 

What?  Did they not offer you a hotel and a flight to the next port?   Curiosity is killin' this cat.

[jelayne]

Got a feeling this is a 1 and done vent post.

[harrywpb]

As an additional caution Choice Air recently booked us on a flight to Vancouver via San Francisco our of Florida with a 35 minute turn around for an international flight.  When we contacted them they told us the airline would not have booked the tickets if the time wasn’t sufficient .  We called United and they apologized for the mistake and rebooked us.  We then informed Choice Air of our rebooking.   There have been other instances where our flight times have been changed and they didn’t notify us.  We won’t be using them any longer. 

Harry

 

[chemmo]

OP...

 

I think many many of us would like further details of what happened...Sharing your experience in more detail could alert others to potential issues.

[tallnthensome]

9 hours ago, bubbie1 said:

 The Minimum connection time is 1 hour and 15 minutes and Choice Air through Celebrity Cruises sold us an itinerary which only allowed 40 minutes.  We missed the flight due to significant problems leaving DCA.  

I'm sorry you missed your flight. Why would you not have addressed the 40 minute connection time beforehand? There is no way I would have allowed that to begin with. I also wouldn't let any cruise line book my airfare either though. 

[Highpeaklad]

52 minutes ago, tallnthensome said:

I'm sorry you missed your flight. Why would you not have addressed the 40 minute connection time beforehand? There is no way I would have allowed that to begin with. I also wouldn't let any cruise line book my airfare either though. 

 

Sometimes things change without noticing it. I had a similar returning from Florence to Manchester via Paris. Outbound was fine but when we turned up they had changed the Paris to Manchester flight so we only had half an hour to change. Needless to say we missed it so we were put in a hotel and in the next days flight. 

At no point did they let us know of the change and it wasn’t flagged up on the outward flight. 

[msmayor]

My experience with Choice Air was that I chose the flights...I had the ability to pick the day and time I flew...so it would have been on me to choose from the available flights that worked best with my schedule.

 

Did someone else book the flights for the OP?

[Wine-O]

For all our cruises we always leave a day earlier just because of Murphy's Law.

[waterbug123]

11 hours ago, bubbie1 said:

 The Minimum connection time is 1 hour and 15 minutes and Choice Air through Celebrity Cruises sold us an itinerary which only allowed 40 minutes.  We missed the flight due to significant problems leaving DCA.

 

You say the problem was a 40 minute connection at JFK, but then say you have problems leaving DCA.  I assume your DCA-JFK flight was delayed.  You will need to share more information before anyone can advise you on whether Celebrity treated you fairly or not.  How long was the delay at DCA?  What caused that delay?  Did you miss the entire cruise?  If not, how many days did you miss?

[ggo85]

Agree we need more info from the OP. 

 

Most experienced cruisers arrive a day early for an international cruise, if at all possible, in case there are unanticipated delays.  Most also allow several hours for an international connection, especially if there is only one flight per day to the destination (and it would be surprising to me if Choice Air "forced" passengers to accept a 40 minute connection).  If the above isn't possible (or even if it is), trip insurance is your friend. 

 

I've seen them hold the ship for folks who were delayed using the cruise line's air program.  Not for an entire day of course, but from 1-3 hours.  It's more likely to occur if the ship will be at sea for several days vs. immediately going to another port and, of course, you can never count on that happening. 

 

 

[mayleeman]

1 hour ago, msmayor said:

 

Did someone else book the flights for the OP?

 

Was a travel agent involved?

[TMLAalum]

What a stressful departure day for the OP, but there were RED FLAGs raised with his air itinerary that could & should have been addressed as soon as flights were assigned. Short connection was the first and  February flights from the Eastern seaboard was another.

 

Our next overseas flight isn't for several months from now, but we booked it using AA miles last fall. We had a connection that was a little over an hour in CLT to make our flight to FRA. No way we'd have made it....

I called AA and had our leg from CLE-CLT changed at no charge. Now we have a 4 hour layover- time for a leisurely lunch and a relaxing wait til boarding time.

 

[bobndee]

Just two weeks ago I booked a flight to Santiago Chile through Celebrity.  Several of the options that showed up in the search had layovers of about an hour or even less.  That's way too short for an international flight, IMO.  I ended up booking an itinerary with two layovers instead of one just to get decent time between flights.

 

The moral of the story - don't assume that just because it shows up on Celebrity's list that it is a good choice.  Do your homework.

[Mike981]

I guess we'll see, but it looks like the original poster just wanted to vent. And that's fine.

On another note, ever wonder how many "regular" posters come up with a pseudonym and post like this?

[bigdawgs]

We booked with Choice Air for a flight from MIA to PRG via FRA, prior to a Greek Island Cruise a few days later out of Rome. CA feels that a 1 hr. Connection time in FRA is sufficient. We disagree and CA will not agree to book us on a later flight. However, since there is another flight one hour later, I presume that if we miss our connection, that the airline will book us on the later flight without penalties.  Is my thinking correct?

 

Larry