Princess let me down badly

[Phantom of the Seas]

Love to see Princess take care of this the right way......all $$$$ taken care of.....what better way for Princess?

[JF - retired RRT]

37 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

Excuse my ignorance but I am unfamiliar with Princess this being my first cruise with them,  I assume these people are important and would be grateful for any email addresses anyone can offer. Thank you.

Jan Swartz is Carnival #1 (I think)

John Padgett is Princess #1

If I've got that wrong, someone will correct me. 😉

[Megabear2]

4 minutes ago, JF - retired RRT said:

Jan Swartz is Carnival #1 (I think)

John Padgett is Princess #1

If I've got that wrong, someone will correct me. 😉

Thank you. I have now emailed both with the text of my original post plus a little more information.  I will wait with interest if anyone reacts!

[JF - retired RRT]

1 minute ago, Megabear2 said:

Thank you. I have now emailed both with the text of my original post plus a little more information.  I will wait with interest if anyone reacts!

Good Luck!!🙏😁

[CynCyn]

I am so very sorry for your aunt’s emergency and the way you were treated.  It seems that the promise of help in an emergency has been lost with the pandemic.  Please let us know about your aunt’s condition and also what happens with the credit card dispute.  

[memoak]

It has always been required 

to pay Princess medical bills when leaving ship and then get reimbursed by insurance after getting home.  We have had this happen numerous times over our 30+ years of cruising   This is not unusual 

[Level six]

I am so sorry.  What a horrible thing to happen.  I hope things work out.  

 

I am glad you emailed.  I once sent an email to president of Holland America and I heard from their office the very next day and the problem was taken care of.  I wish you the same 

[Level six]

1 minute ago, memoak said:

It has always been required 

to pay Princess medical bills when leaving ship and then get reimbursed by insurance after getting home.  We have had this happen numerous times over our 30+ years of cruising   This is not unusual 

It was not her bill, it was her aunts bill.

[PacnGoNow]

Just now, Level six said:

It was not her bill, it was her aunts bill.

Exactly, they were not even in the same cabin.

[Mary loves to travel]

I am so sorry for what you are going through!.

in case it's not clear, the suggestion to dispute the charge:   this means directly with your credit card company (not with Princess).    Make sure the card company does understand that this is not your charge.    The credit card company should take this up with Princess directly, and very likely will refund the charge to you.

 

Best,

Mary

 

 

[memoak]

13 minutes ago, Level six said:

It was not her bill, it was her aunts bill.

Then her aunt should have paid her bill. She was not unconscious as far as I can tell. If you travel with your parents and they have a heart attack you wouldn’t pay their bill and settle up with insurance later ?

[Mary loves to travel]

3 minutes ago, memoak said:

Then her aunt should have paid her bill. She was not unconscious as far as I can tell. If you travel with your parents and they have a heart attack you wouldn’t pay their bill and settle up with insurance later ?

I think when the aunt got taken away by ambulance.... that interfered with paying the bill.

[Level six]

6 minutes ago, memoak said:

Then her aunt should have paid her bill. She was not unconscious as far as I can tell. If you travel with your parents and they have a heart attack you wouldn’t pay their bill and settle up with insurance later ?

 I hope that if you have a heart attack onboard a ship, they will not be asking you for payment while you are gasping for air.  How heartless can people be?  

They could have just sent her a bill!! It legally is not the niece's  responsibility.  

 

Edited July 12, 2022 by Level six

[Coral]

31 minutes ago, memoak said:

It has always been required 

to pay Princess medical bills when leaving ship and then get reimbursed by insurance after getting home.  We have had this happen numerous times over our 30+ years of cruising   This is not unusual 

Though how are you supposed to pay when you are having a heart attack?

------

@Megabear2 I am truly sorry. I sure hope your aunt recovers soon. This should never have happened this way. I am extremely disappointed in how this was handled. I would be furious.

 

Edited July 12, 2022 by Coral

[JimmyVWine]

21 minutes ago, memoak said:

as far as I can tell

And you weren’t there, so you can “tell” exactly nothing. There is nothing about the OP’s story that suggests that the aunt could have met with the billing department to settle up, head to the MDR to tip out her favorite servers or go down to the IC for one last Latte. She was in severe medical distress. Imagine if you came upon someone who was all alone and who you found passed out in the hallway. If you acted as a Good Samaritan and brought them to the medical office, you wouldn’t expect to be billed for your good deed. Same here. The OP is related, but not legally or financially responsible for the aunt. 

[Coral]

31 minutes ago, memoak said:

Then her aunt should have paid her bill. She was not unconscious as far as I can tell. If you travel with your parents and they have a heart attack you wouldn’t pay their bill and settle up with insurance later ?

Stopping to pay the bill would have slowed down her travel to the hospital. It literally could mean the difference between life and death. She had difficulty breathing and was probably having a heart attack.

 

They could have sent a bill to her home through the mail. The niece mentioned they had travel insurance. 

[Pizzasteve]

Extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary patience.  From what I can tell, the OP wanted passionately to go to the hospital to 'help', but in these times that was simply not possible.  Here in the US, my MIL was hospitalized for an urgent condition and we could not visit at all, only pick her up when discharged and to get her a phone charger was quite an ordeal involving a nurse leaving her station to go outside and meet us.

 

If they are having a surge of Covid, medical staff just may not have any capacity to facilitate family interactions without risking care shortages to those who really need them.  The ship staff should not have promised her she would be able to go with the aunt, as it is never usual to allow family in an ambulance, etc., that I know.

 

Im not making excuses for Princess, as the billing situation seemed poorly handled.  That said, their staff tend to try to tell passengers what they want to hear, rather than sometimes being frank.  Likely they should have said to her, you will not be able to see her until doctors release her, so give the medical team her documents she will need now and dont assume you can do anything else.  I tend to discount ship staff provided information about on shore stuff.  They often dont know and have been at sea for weeks or more.

 

Then focus on getting yourself situated and waiting for further contact with hospital staff.

 

Anyway, financial things can be resolved.  Curious that the ship didnt just charge the aunt's card.  They would have an in-hand CC authorization and the cruise contract would seem to allow this to have occured.  Pretty clear Aunt is responsible for the medical, which one may note is likely a sub-contractor to Princess and may not even be the same company behind the bills.  I havent dug into how those services occur, but a friend did provide shipboard care under contract once.

 

Best wishes to all.

Edited July 12, 2022 by Pizzasteve

[brisalta]

@Megabear2 Jan Swartz  jswartz@princesscruises.com is the head of HAL Group of which Princess Cruise Lines is part of.  She used to be head of Princess but takes a direct interest in what goes on at Princess.

 

John Padgett jpadgett@princesscruises.com is now in Jan's former role at Princess.

Edited July 12, 2022 by brisalta

[leck57]

1 hour ago, memoak said:

Then her aunt should have paid her bill. She was not unconscious as far as I can tell. If you travel with your parents and they have a heart attack you wouldn’t pay their bill and settle up with insurance later ?

 

Not one of your more thoughtful posts.

[dreaminofcruisin]

36 minutes ago, Pizzasteve said:

Anyway, financial things can be resolved.  Curious that the ship didnt just charge the aunt's card.  They would have an in-hand CC authorization and the cruise contract would seem to allow this to have occured.  Pretty clear Aunt is responsible for the medical, which one may note is likely a sub-contractor to Princess and may not even be the same company behind the bills.  I havent dug into how those services occur, but a friend did provide shipboard care under contract once.

 

 

It is all a bit confusing. However, it sounds like they needed a pin for the Aunt's card? If that's the case, apparently she had a Debit Card on file instead of a Credit Card? It does seem that Princess needs to look at their policies if they allow people to pay in cash or use a Debit card, they should have a billing method available so there isn't such chaos at such a tremendously stressful situation. 

 

Prayers to the Op and her aunt.

 

 

 

[Coral]

8 minutes ago, dreaminofcruisin said:

 

It is all a bit confusing. However, it sounds like they needed a pin for the Aunt's card? If that's the case, apparently she had a Debit Card on file instead of a Credit Card? It does seem that Princess needs to look at their policies if they allow people to pay in cash or use a Debit card, they should have a billing method available so there isn't such chaos at such a tremendously stressful situation. 

 

Prayers to the Op and her aunt.

 

European credit cards use chip and pin technology. It is more secure than cards that are issued in the US. Some in the US use chip and PIN also but most US cards are signature cards. Europe has been using chip and pin for probably 20 years.

 

https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/money/chip-pin-cards 

Edited July 12, 2022 by Coral

[CynCyn]

2 hours ago, memoak said:

It has always been required 

to pay Princess medical bills when leaving ship and then get reimbursed by insurance after getting home.  We have had this happen numerous times over our 30+ years of cruising   This is not unusual 

It is unusual to demand payment from someone who is not financially responsible for the person receiving treatment.

[pris993]

This obviously was a very complex and challenging situations for all involved. I am sorry OP went through this stressful situation and do hope Aunt recovers. 

 

 Hopefully this whole situation gets resolved in a reasonable way in the end.

 

I travel with my significant other who is 90, I am 75.  We get emergency medical insurance and I carry a credit card with a high limit just in case something happens. I also travel with more than one credit card, just in case.   Since we are not married, I also travel with a POA for health for both of us and each other.   With covid, visiting family at hospitals is impossible at times.   

 

As bad as this situation is, it points out when we are traveling, we need to be prepared to handle situations ourselves and not rely on the cruise line. I think it is reasonable to expect the cruise line to respond to the immediate medical emergency and transport the Aunt to a local hospital, plus arrange for transportation locally for the niece.   If it was my Aunt I would have paid the medical bill on the ship asap, so that I would get off the ship and pay attention to what was happening with my Aunt at the hospital as best I could.   Realize the OP is from the UK, so possibly flying back to UK was a good idea.  If I needed some assistance, I might contact "social services" at the hospital and/or the US Embassy in Rome.   Traveling overseas today is very complicated and that does not help in a medical emergency.  Most travel insurance also has phone contacts for assistance as well.    I would have made good use of that contact information. 

 

I don't feel Princess let the OP down.  I am glad she shared her story because it is a good wake up call for us travelers.  As I say in the end I hope things get resolves in a way that is helpful.  Good luck to the OP and her Aunt. 

[dog]

Princess definitely let you & your aunt down. 
over the bill you are not responsible for.

 

Over keeping your aunt’s documents 

 

Over  not being able to put through payment to aunt’s on-board account

 

Over the luggage hassle

 

over having you in close contact to Covid + passéngers

 

over not being able to find you a hotel, BNB room. ( they did not put the effort in)

 

support crews are probably not trained, new to the job, understaffed

 

you would not be let into the hospital in Italy

 

Edited July 12, 2022 by dog

[HappyInVan]

6 hours ago, Megabear2 said:

This experience has left me battered and bruised and i feel extraordinarily guilty at having been forced to leave Italy while she is so ill. I thought I could cope with anything, unfortunately this has proved not to be the case.  My faith in Princess has been destroyed by the lack of care shown to me. The so called family liaison in Southampton offered nothing in the way of help while I was at the port and calling them today has elicited recorded messages stating there is no one there... 

 

This is my first Princess cruise, my aunt however has elite status with them and was actually one of the most travelled guests on this voyage.  This experience means I will never contemplate another Princess cruise myself.  I'm interested to hear from other Princess cruisers their opinion on the situation I was placed in.

 

 

Very very sorry about your ordeal. Hope that your aunt recovers fully.

 

Thanks for sharing. 

Edited July 12, 2022 by HappyInVan