Has anyone ever missed their flight to cruise?

[Sea Hag]

I'm not convinced that any other cruise line would behave in a different manner. HAL did what it said was 'policy'.

 

You're probably right about no other cruise line behaving differently. I think it's a pretty bad policy, but you can't fight policy! And this is good to know in case it ever happens to us. Thanks for the post.

[fiveparty]

Has anyone ever missed their flight to their cruise departure because of weather or flight delay and what did you do to catch up?:eek:

 

Yes - our family of 5 missed the flight because of the huge snowstorm last year --- March 8th. No planes were flying out so we had to wait until the ship reached the next port and catch a plane then. Thankfully we had purchased cancellation and trip interuption insurance and EVERY single cost we incurred was covered. Carnival was great since they also gave us (and the other 280 people affected by this) an additional OBC for our disappointing start to the vacation. :)

Our 7 day cruise ended up being 4 days. :eek:

 

If you can fly in the day before - do it. If not, cross your fingers and try to fly out really, really early in the morning! :D

[DebbieS732]

A friend and her family missed their departure cruise to Alaska. It was the middle of summer - so weather wasn't an issue - there was a mechanical problem with the plane and since they were flying from the south to Vancouver, there was no direct flight.

 

They did book their flight through HAL and bought insurance, so HAL put them up at a hotel for 2 nights and got them a flight to the next port -which was 2 days later. There were several other families that missed the departure from different parts of the country.

 

It's tempting to fly in(or drive) the day of because of work time-off but you are taking a risk.

[Honbun]

My Mom and I almost missed our 1st cruise (sometime back in the late '80s). We were sailing on NCL out of San Juan. We lived in New York and were booked, through the cruiseline, on Eastern. Well, this was just before Eastern went belly up and everything was a real cluster! We arrived at LaGuardia and all of their planes to the Caribbean were delayed. I felt really bad for the gate agent 'cause it looked like someone was going to string him up. We were waiting at the gate (with 100's of others) for a good 5-6 hours. Eventually, Eastern got one plane to SJU. Thankfully (for us) they gave the cruise ship passengers seats first. The ship was due to leave around 6 PM if memory serves me. We got to the dock around 10 PM. Lovely captain! He held the boat (we thought, just for us!). Come to find out, there were so many passenger delays caused by Eastern and many more arrived after us. We eventually set sail around midnight.

 

I have our boarding photo framed and I get a chuckle out of it every time I look at it. You see 2 frazzled (picture completely wrinkled clothing and hair sticking straight up) but very happy women.

[SeaTeach]

Has anyone ever missed their flight to their cruise departure because of weather or flight delay and what did you do to catch up?:eek:

:DNope , we've not even come close to missing. We usually fly in at least 5 days prior to sailing to enjoy the port city. If we take car service to a pier it is usually within a 125 mile radius with a 10 hour start from home. When a flight is very early, no matter how close to home , we sleep over.

At all cost, I'm really bent on not missing the ship!!!

[LindaKE]

I thought part of the protection cruise insurance gives you is reimbursing you if you get in a situation like the ones described. Is this not true?