A bit of an unusual ? regarding lost luggage...

[misha1]

What do you do when the airlines loses your luggage and you have to get on the ship? Luckily, this has never happended to me...yet, but, it is a huge stressor. When we go to Alaska this year, we are flying in the day before but leaving right away in the morning for Seward. If our luggage does not show up, what in the world would I do? Anyone with experience in this matter?

[Longboysfan]

Hopefully you can get in contact with the airline.

Leave them your cruise ship name and ports.

Get in touch with the cruise line rep at the airport give them the same information.

Get in touch with the front desk as you get on the ship give them the same information.

 

Hopefully the airline will send you luggage to one of the ports you will be hitting. If they have a service that does this.

I would think this does happen sometimes in the Alaska cruises with so many planes coming into Seattle and Vancouver each weekend.

They should have a procedure in place to help you out with the forward send of the lost luggage to the ship.

 

Our friends had this happen on the flight from Atlanta to Houston. One lost piece.

The airline got it to the ship before we sailed.

Arrived at their cabin lat that night.

[gooch47]

They get it to you ... eventually. Some combination of the airline and the cruiseline shipping it to the next port of call. Our missing luggage was caused by a missed connection and it not getting put on the plane.

 

It happened to us in New Zealand. When we arrived, they already knew it wasn't on the plane. It took 3 days for part of it, and 4 days for the final suitcase. That was when I learned to pack a carry on with enough stuff to last a few days and second, to never pack all my stuff in one suitcase and all my hubby's in another suitcase. I now pack half 'n half. The last suitcase to arrive had all my clothes, naturally.

[fleckle]

If our luggage does not show up, what in the world would I do? Anyone with experience in this matter?

Been there, done that. Far too often throughout many years of frequent travel we have landed at our final destination airport and found ourselves among the last people standing at baggage claim watching the luggage carousel go around and around without our bags showing up.

 

When that happens, what you do is take your baggage claim checks directly to the baggage claim office for your airline and file a report before you leave the terminal.

 

That is why we always, always carry all essentials and enough clothing to get by for a few days in our rollaboards. If our checked luggage does not arrive when we do, we have only a minor inconvenience instead of a major catastrophe.

 

The good news is that nine times out of ten your luggage will arrive on the next flight, so if you are staying overnight at a hotel, they will deliver it to you there. If you came in on one of the last flights of the day, your bags may not arrive until the following morning, in which case leave instructions to have them delivered to the ship instead of the hotel.

 

If you fly on a major airline that uses an automated tracking system, they usually provide a number you can call to track the bag's progress. In any case, leave your entire itinerary -- which dates your ship will be in which ports-- and the phone numbers where they can call the ship and the cruise line to find out if any ports are missed or changed. As the previous posters have stated, the chances are very good that the bags will catch up with you eventually no matter where in the world you go.

 

The one time we really thought we would never see our checked bags again was on a trip to Africa where it took four flights on three different airlines to reach our destination. Knowing how frequently luggage gets screwed up by major US airlines, we figured we didn't have a prayer dealing with a couple of third-world airlines.

 

We had taken all the essentials with us in our carry-ons, as usual, so we were not going to let lost luggage ruin our vacation. We figured we would just buy some new clothing and luggage after we got to our final destination. A few days later, we were sitting on the porch of a house in a village in Namibia when, to our utter amazement, a taxi pulled up with our luggage.

 

In all our years of flying, there was only one time when our luggage was ever permanently lost, and that was on a domestic trip within the USA, on a major airline.

 

Both men and women can rent formal wear on most cruise lines. I heard of a case where someone's luggage didn't arrive, and the ship let them have the formal wear at no charge. (Don't remember which ship it was, or if it makes a difference whether or not the cruise line makes your flight arrangements.)

 

One more thing: we always tag our checked bags with our final destination, not our home address, unless we are heading home. If the airline's tag should come off and they read our own tag, we want the bag sent to our destination, not back to our house.

[Happy ks]

Without reading all the responses in detail, this is what we do:

 

Cross pack with your travel partner.

 

Pack a change of clothing (including undies) in your carry on.

 

Put at least two luggage tags on the outside of your bag and one on the inside. Have your itinerary typed up, reduced and tucked behind your luggage tag and in a conspicuous place inside the luggage.

 

Don't worry so much, you will always be able to find a store, even onboard the ship, to buy a few things to wear.

[misha1]

I do practice many of the things you all mentioned. I worry about shopping with only one thing in mind...I am 6 feet tall and my DH is 6 foot 5. There are not alot of stores out there to choose from when so tall. Alterations are almost always a requirement for us. Well, if it happens, it happens. Hopefully Anchorage has a few nice palces to gather some pieces. FOr now, I will keep my fingers crossed. We do have a direct flight from Minneapolis so....Thanks everyone, just wondered what you did when this happened to you, or, if you had a plan, should it happen to you.

[woodofpine]

Did the airline refund your airfare or did it "only" offer you 25% off on your next flight?

[Cabb]

Make sure you use the luggage tags X sends. At least if your stuff is temporarily misdirected, the tag will get it to the ship. That's the idea anyhow...

 

We just got back from Alaska, and half the pretour we were on got to Fairbanks without their luggage. It arrived at 4 the next morning; I was so glad to see it I didn't mind being woken up.

[Spender Nui]

Buy insurance before you go. For luggage and many more serious reasons.

[misha1]

I don't understand the question about refunding of airfare. I have not lost any luggage. I just wondered what people did when this happened. In regards to the Celebrity tags...if you mean the cabin tags that are in the documents, I never apply them until the morning of the cruise. I have heard horror stories about arriving a day or more early and the bags being sent to the port instead of to the luggage carousel for pick-up. The advice given was really helpful. Thanks alot.

[julinue]

We've had one bag missing for both our Celebrity cruises .

First time all our formal stuff was in the one that was lost. The steward arranged for my DH to get a tux from the ship's supply of rentals. I just bought a sundress to wear. The luggage caught up with us in a couple of days.

We learned our lesson as some of the others have said about 'cross-packing'

 

When we went to the Med last summer, our celebrity air took us from Philadelphia to Toronto and then to Rome. One of our cases (this time the one with shoes and some clothes) didn't even go to Toronto but straight to Rome...somehow it got lost, went to several Greek islands that we didn't go to and eventually found us four days later.

 

I bought flip flops on the ship and we both bought tennis shoes in Santorini.

On that cruise there were 50 families with lost luggage!!

It does find you eventually. Makes you wish it could talk so you could hear its story!! :-)

[aaklang]

Make sure you use the luggage tags X sends. At least if your stuff is temporarily misdirected, the tag will get it to the ship. That's the idea anyhow...

 

We just got back from Alaska, and half the pretour we were on got to Fairbanks without their luggage. It arrived at 4 the next morning; I was so glad to see it I didn't mind being woken up.

This is my first cruise, so this may seem like a silly question. We did not book our air through Celebrity. Are we still supposed to use the luggage tags that they sent us?

 

Only 10 days to go!

[GramaFran]

You put the luggage tags on the day you board the ship - unless you have purchased X air and transfers.

Our story is one of good luck - we flew to Paris 1 week early for our Crystal cruise out of Athens. Upon arriving in Paris 1 bag was missing - it contained all our formal wear and other clothes for our cruise. So we had 1 week traveling around France without the suitcase - the airline called us in Reims and told us they had the suitcase in Paris. We arranged to pick it up on our way to Athens. So we did not have to haul an extra suitcase around France and it was waiting for us at deGaule. The outcome could not have been better.

We always add to the top of our suitcase a 8x10 sheet of paper listing our name, home address, phone numbers, itinerary with hotel name, addresses, phone numbers, cruise details ship phone numbers and ports of call. So if we lose a suitcase enroute the airline can find all the info inside.

Hopefully for our cruise in Sept. all our baggage will make it with us, although we have 3 days in Amsterdam for it to catch up if it get lost.

Francine