Couple left at the dock in Papeete - PG leaves early

[chick geek]

This is bizarre - comments? Guess we won't be taking any tours before embarkation on June 30...

 

The Washington Post – April 8, 2007

COMING AND GOING

Left at the Dock

Sunday, April 8, 2007

CRUISE NEWS

Left at the Dock . . .

Carol and Peter Ostrowski of Alexandria arrived at a dock in Tahiti for a Regent Seven Seas cruise 4 1/2 hours before the ship was slated to leave, and hours before the boarding deadline. But the ship was gone."We were told that 'the captain can sail whenever he wants,' " said Peter Ostrowski.

"Yes, the ship did leave earlier than we had published," Seven Seas spokesman Andrew Poulton told CoGo. "These guests hadn't informed us of their travel plans. We had no idea they were going to show up that evening, otherwise of course we would have waited for them."

The ship, the Paul Gauguin, holds only 320 passengers. The crew looked over forms on which most passengers had indicated their flight plans, confirmed that all those flights had arrived in Tahiti, and departed.

Cruise line reservation forms routinely ask guests to reveal their travel plans, including flight numbers, on reservation forms. "If there is a cautionary tale in this, it's that you should always let the cruise line know your plans in case of something like this," said Poulton.

"At the same time," he added, "obviously we admitted we were wrong." He said the line apologized, paid for overnight expenses, flew the couple to the ship the next day and offered them a $500 voucher that they chose not to accept.

The Ostrowskis said most of that is true: They're still waiting, they said, for the apology.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

My first instinct was to find this shocking. My second instinct is to doubt the veracity of this report.

[cruiseluv]

I would feel the same way if names had not been given. But names of the passengers and of the Regent's spokesman were quoted.

 

Do you believe the passengers made up the story ? Or that it was concocted by the Washington Post?

 

I would expect that if it isn't true Regent will follow with a swift denial. We'll see.

[PaulaJK]

What a story! I,also, find it 'curious' --balanced by its apparent quotes and source. Many, many pax come into Tahiti early to spend some pre cruise time, so how would checking everyone's flights ever be a 'go' signal. Peculiar.

[scubarobin]

I don't believe this for a minute! Have been on the PG and this would never happen!

[cwc]

For the 7, 11 & 14 days trip, the depart time is 22:00 from PPT. If the ship left 4.5 hrs early = 17:30?! The earliest Air Tahiti flight don't get in until 18:00.

 

For the 10days one, the departure time is 02:30, so for the early departure the PG would have left at 10pm. I wonder where did Mr & Mrs Ostrowski had dinner that night. I wouldn't miss any meal on board:D if I was them.

[canadagal]

Go to the Washington Post online and type in "passengers left at dock Tahiti" in the search engine and up pops the story with today's date. So, unless the Post didn't check this out properly, then I'm inclined to believe it's true and it is totally bizarre that the ship would leave so early. Could they not see from the manifest that this couple had not checked in yet?

Pat

[catmommy]

I also looked it up on the Washington Post but it seems to be on some kind of special section or blog called "comingandgoing." I couldn't go any further in looking because I didn't want to register. Also a search of Google news seems to find this only in the Post. I'd expect a story like this to be picked up by one of the wire services if only for the "odd news" section.

 

But Andrew Poulton is a Regent bigwig according to the Goggling of his name.

 

For those of you not using Regent Air/Sea did you have to tell them your travel plans? I know there is not anything about this on the guest information form I filled out but we are doing Regent's air.

 

And why not accept the $500? I would be very upset but they paid for a night in Tahiti and caught them up the next day.

 

The story seems to have been posted on the 6th of April, so that might mean the March 31st sailing.

 

Anyone from that sailing hear this? Its a small ship and I can't imagine it not being a topic of conversation.

 

How very odd.

 

Caroline

 

PS. Testing out my second snorkel mask today, the first one leaked when I had the snorkel in my mouth. Thanks for all the great tips and support.

 

PSS. My DH who is learning to SCUBA says you can also crabwalk in fins to keep from falling.

[canadagal]

You don't have to register at the Post in order to read it. I know it says register.........but if you click on the article it will take you right there......at least I was able to read it and I never registered. Below is what was on the end of the article/blog or whatever you want to call it. I also don't think it's that ground breaking a story to be found on the big wires unless someone was to purposely feed it to them and even then.......it's not a big deal as it only happened to 2 people and not a whole cruise ship pax load so why waste tabloid space when there are other juicy stories to print.

 

Help feed CoGo. Send travel news, road reports and juicy tattles to cogo@washpost.com. By mail: CoGo, Washington Post Travel Section, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071.

 

.

[Portolan]

it was on the front page of the Washington Post Travel section today.

[chick geek]

I just emailed Regent. Maybe they will clarify.

[JoAnne B]

I have been on crossings where the ship left early...but not before the sceduled boarding time and all passengers had boarded. I never give them my info because I book independently.

 

Why would the line claim they didn't know if the people were boarding? They paid and didn't cancel, it wasn't even embarkation time. Sounds strange to me. Will be anxious to hear their response.

 

JoAnne B

Houston

[KLG]

GOCO is a regular feature in the Sunday Washington Post travel section, and the reporters do their research pretty thoroughly. (It's one of the things I read every week.) I, for one, don't question the truth of the report.

 

And if it IS true? Unless Regent asks about travel arrangements for all pax, then leaving early is simply wrong. We've always let our TA know our independent travel plans, but I don't think we've told Regent our arrival times in advance. While on ship they ask about our return plans, so that's all we've ever given them.

 

I'll join the group waiting to hear what Regent has to say.

Karen

[Pincus]

I'm also waiting to get some sort of official word on this one....

 

Pincus

[Hblanton]

Its been over 3 days since the incident, which has been covered by a major news paper, as well as on this and other leading internet boards.

 

Regent's total silence on the issue would suggest that the report is, in large part, true. Otherwise they would have put out a press-wire piece correcting the story, no? It would take all of an hour.

 

If it is true, as appears to be the case ,it is really a failure of stupendous proportions.

 

10 years ago or so I needed a computer part and so called the local Egghead store (I feel free to use their name because they are out of business.) I confirmed that they had the part and were open until 7PM. I arrived at the last minute - 6:55 but they had already locked up the doors and closed the store. "It was slow" the manager told me through the glass door, and "No, he wouldn't open up to sell me the one item I needed."

 

Good customer service suggests saying that you are open until 7, and then not actually closing until 7:15 so you can greet latecomers with "I'm happy were still open to help you out."

 

Egghead was plagued by lame cusomter service and ultimately went down the tube.

 

Here, RSSC committed two equally unacceptable customer service errors. The first was to depart early (the talking points about everyone having arrived by plane made less than zero sense, as has been discussed.) Error two was in trying to defend the actions and assign any blame whatever to the jilted passengers. Compere this minor faxu pas and its response, with what Jet Blue did after their wintertime disaster. They moved forward aggressively to take responsibility for their conduct, and to put in place procedures and policicies to lessent the chance of future disruptions and to make passengers know that they would be taken care of.

 

In this case RSSC should have fallen overitself appologizing, have made a gesture of compensation not equal to the discomfort felt by the passengers, but well in excess of it so as to show that it knows how wrong they are. When people fly to FP and pay the tarriff on PG they have reason to feel catered to, and being left at the dock doesn't count.

 

Oh, and if there IS more to the story - shame on RSSC for not responding promptly.

[Pincus]

We are anticipating our first Regent cruise next month.

 

It is my hope that Regent will address this publicly. Their non-comment makes them seem "indifferent," even if they aren't. This is a scary illustration of how to treat passengers.

 

Let's hope there is some reasonable explanation forthcoming.

 

Pincus

[chick geek]

Regent has not emailed me as of yet. Wonder if they ever will...We are still looking forward to our June 30 cruise, but when I saw the article, we did decide not to do any late afternoon tours in Papeete. However, I have a notion that they won't be leaving early again.

[canadagal]

Well, I hope someone does respond as it's bad PR and leaves one not full of confidence that it won't happen again. We all know that Regent reads this board and the other board, where it has been discussed there too.....so Chick Geek and all, I'll be thoroughly disappointed in Regent if they fail to say something and continue to stay silent......it does make them seem indifferent!

 

Pat

[annierie]

OK, I just don't get this. What were these people doing? They live on the East Coast like I do. They have two basic choices. JFK to Papeete or LAX to Papeete. The ship leaves at either 10 pm or 2:30 am. I don't believe the ship would have left at 5:30 pm (4 and a half hours before 10 pm) since the LAX flights don't arrive until 9:30 pm. They would have been missing a whole heck of a lot of passengers if they left before then.

 

By process of elimination, it had to be the 2:30 am departure cruise, and they must have left at 10 pm, after the 9:30 pm passengers had arrived, presumably early to have gotten to the ship for them to leave at 10 pm. Doesn't that make sense?

 

The only other arrival time in Papeete from LAX is 5 am, more than adequate to get passengers to the ship in time to leave that night, yes?

 

Obviously, these people arrived some other time and did whatever they wanted in one of the islands, maybe their own pre-cruise on another island. AND, they didn't bother to send RSSC their travel plans. RSSC admits that they screwed up not to check on someone when they didn't know what they were doing.

 

BUT, I'll bet that the vast majority of the time, people are on board way earlier than 10 pm. Why pay for dinner somewhere else if you can get it on board? If they came in on the 9:30 flight, why didn't they arrive at the same time as those cruisers who took the cruise line's air?

 

Something is strange here. Like maybe they did a pre-cruise on their own and for whatever reason got to the ship after 10 pm at night. That's pretty strange in my book, but obviously Regent admitted they should have held up the ship to see if anyone arrived independently between 10 and 2 am.

 

Bottom line for those of us cruising, let the ship know of our travel plans so they can account for us if we are missing. Call the cruise line if we are delayed. Call if we have an emergency and we know we can't make it.

 

None of us are perfect. RSSC screwed up and admitted it. What else do you all want? If I eliminated cruise lines from my choices because I found a screw up somewhere, I'd never cruise again, because they all make mistakes.;)

[Hblanton]

Maybe the article is wrong. If it is RSSC is NUTS for not getting the right info out there.

 

If the core of the story is right - that the passengers arrived before the scheduled departure, but the ship had left, then no explaination is sufficient. Its horrible corporate behavior. Its not an error like getting your steak medium when you asked for medium rare. It is a consious decision.

 

No common carrier should EVER leave prior to the published departure time, unless they have made reasonable (and by reasonable I mean really substantial) efforts to let passengers go.

 

As far as I can tell, RSSC's silence since the original report pretty much says it all. And their half hearted attempt to make the passengers whole only makes it worse.

 

imo

[canadagal]

OK, I just don't get this. What were these people doing?

Obviously, these people arrived some other time and did whatever they wanted in one of the islands, maybe their own pre-cruise on another island. AND, they didn't bother to send RSSC their travel plans. RSSC admits that they screwed up not to check on someone when they didn't know what they were doing.

 

BUT, I'll bet that the vast majority of the time, people are on board way earlier than 10 pm. Why pay for dinner somewhere else if you can get it on board?

 

None of us are perfect. RSSC screwed up and admitted it. What else do you all want? If I eliminated cruise lines from my choices because I found a screw up somewhere, I'd never cruise again, because they all make mistakes.;)

 

Who cares what the pax were doing? That's irrelevant....so is the time they arrived on the island. For all we know they arrived a week before. Plenty of people like to explore the island before boarding as that's the only opportunity they may ever have to see Tahiti. They were given a departure time and were at the dock ready to board long before that published departure time and the ship had already left early. If you want to make assumptions then how about assuming that the PG should have known that a paid in full cabin with two pax had not checked in yet. Yes, Regent admitted that they were in error but $500.00 compensation hardly cuts it. Just think how disappointed you would be missing the first night of your cruise and part of the next day due to no fault of your own. I also don't like how they tried to place the blame on the pax when it was clearly the PG's fault. Somebody at Regent dropped the ball on this one as this is not the Regent most of us know. Regent has a good past reputation for making things right when they screw up and making it better for the pax but someone really dropped the ball on this unfortunate couple. In their own words.........they still are waiting for an apology. I would have hoped that would have been the first thing Regent would have done......apologize.

Also, I see no where on this thread where anyone has said they would eliminate Regent from their cruiseline choices just because they made a mistake. You ask what else do you all want? I want to hear that an apology was made and some better type of compensation offered for that couple's displacement. I would like to hear from a Regent spokesperson their explanation and assurance that it won't happen again. I'd like to hear that Chic Geek receives the courtesy of a reply to her email. Anything less leads me to believe, like the others that Regent is indifferent. That I find very disappointing as they were always so quick in the past to right a wrong and they appear to be sliding down that slippery slope of treating paying guests like the mass market lines do........indifferent!

Pat

[joannapvb]

GOSH!!! I hope you all are wrong about Regent - anyone have an update??

[JDRMYS]

I am really surprised at this. A couple of years ago a group of 5 or 6 of us was late getting back from a RSSC shore excursion to Tikal. The airplane was delayed by several hours. The captain of the Navigator kept the ship waiting at the dock for hours after the scheduled departure time to make sure that we weren't left behind. For the Paul Gaughin to have departed early when all passengers were not yet on board sounds very strange.

[JDRMYS]

"Something is strange here. Like maybe they did a pre-cruise on their own and for whatever reason got to the ship after 10 pm at night. That's pretty strange in my book, but obviously Regent admitted they should have held up the ship to see if anyone arrived independently between 10 and 2 am. " Posted by Annierie

 

I don't see anything strange about arriving at the dock later than 10PM when the ship is scheduled to depart at 2AM.

[Dreps]

Yesterday, our TA posted this email that she just received from Regent about the incident. I think it helps to put things into perspective. Note the incident happened in November 2005.

 

 

Dear XXXX,

 

I feel the need to respond to the recent article in the Washington Post.

 

Firstly, we would never blame a guest for our mistake.

However, we would suggest that if guests are arriving at an unusual hour to the ship because of their independently-arranged flight or tour schedule (in this case the guests arrived at the pier after 10 p.m.), it is a good idea to let us know, because typically we would not expect them to arrive that late at night, several hours after the main embarkation had taken place.

 

It is not unusual for there to be “no shows” at our vessels (or any cruise ship for that matter). In this case the assumption was made (incorrectly, as it turned out) that the guests were not going to check in that evening when they were not onboard by 10.00 pm. The ship sailed at 10 p.m., instead of the published 2.30 a.m. sailing time.

 

The article states that the guests are still waiting for an apology from Regent. We apologized profusely to them at the time (verbally), and then later in writing.

 

This incident occurred in November 2005, almost eighteen months ago.

 

Thanks for the opportunity to set the record straight.

 

Best regards

Andrew

 

(Andrew Poulton, Director of Public Relations for Regent Seven Seas)