Live from mercury 180 degree course change

[dbasta]

Live from the Mercury 20:00 PDT

 

We abruptly changed course 180 degrees at about 17:00 and seem to be retracing our route back to Vancouver. Very strange.

 

Several GPSs and the onboard video display show we are heading SE at 17-22 kts,

 

No annnouncement from bridge during this 3 hour timespan.

 

Rumors are man-overboard, debris-overboard, or medical emergency.

 

Most likely tomorrow's port of Sitka cancelled, awaiting news on on-board credit and shore excursion refunds, if any.

 

Kind of frustrating to be left in the dark for 3 hours.

 

Sorry for the short post, tiny netbook keyboard

[Imagineer]

...here you go, check this out:

http://www.timescolonist.com/Girl+airlifted+cruise+ship+taken+Victoria+medical+help/1787508/story.html

 

Wow!!...talk about fast news service!!

 

...you had a medical emergency, that will always take precedence over any port call, and it will be interesting to see how Celebrity handles any upset guests in view of the reason for the delay or cancellation...

 

cheers,

 

the Imagineer

[c-legs]

Wow....

Thank God for the Comox base ...close enough to air-speed her right along to the nearest hospital facilitty ( I would have tought Nanaimo general....).

Yes, the call in Sitka might be cancelled outright...but more likely shortened as I suspect the ship didnot have to ''back track'' too far S.E .for the medivac to take place; she might alter course and sail right up west of the Charlottes after Hecate Strait ,thus enabling her to make Sitka with a workable delay....

The most important item: the little one is in good hands to get her condition fixed; serious indeed.

Quite stressing for her parents too....

Good luck to the family., specially the little 5 year old.

 

Cheers

[dbasta]

Live from the mercury 22:40.

 

We are headed back north at 19 knts.

 

Captain made announcement about medical need to return - none of the info in the above news link was announced to the passengers.

 

Sitka is cancelled. No compensation other than refunds of Celebrity booked excursions.

 

Nobody on board seems angry that port is going to be missed due to circumstances, however, many looking forward to Sitka disappointed.

 

Anybody out there know if Celebrty should be obligated to refund port taxes for Sitka?

 

Hopefully we'll have a great rest of cruise

[amc aaa]

We missed one of our stops in Mexico due to the Swine flu outbreak. Shore excursions and port taxes were refunded to our ships accounts. Good Luck.

[uktog]

You will probably find they will work out something once they have talked with HO - their priority would be

a the emergency

b. giving out basic information (ie a stop being cancelled)

c. reworking the itinerary/route plans

d. working out the recompense, though as others point out given the circumstances I suspect it will be port taxes only. I do not think you can expect the cruiseline to do any more

 

As a Mum who had a child who had a similar emergency, fortunately on land, I know how scary it will be for the parents and, if it is a full blown blockage, the difficult time they will have in the next few days

 

My thoughts to the family

 

A

[lysolqn]

Live from the Mercury 20:00 PDT

 

We abruptly changed course 180 degrees at about 17:00 and seem to be retracing our route back to Vancouver. Very strange.

 

Several GPSs and the onboard video display show we are heading SE at 17-22 kts,

 

No annnouncement from bridge during this 3 hour timespan.

 

Rumors are man-overboard, debris-overboard, or medical emergency.

 

Most likely tomorrow's port of Sitka cancelled, awaiting news on on-board credit and shore excursion refunds, if any.

 

Kind of frustrating to be left in the dark for 3 hours.

 

Sorry for the short post, tiny netbook keyboard

 

Change of course, rumors of man-overboard or medical emergency and the first thing that comes to mind is "awaiting news on on-board credit." Typical.

[Prada Cowboy]

Didn't miss anything in Sitka anyhow!

Sure people want something, because of the inconvenience...propably they just booked the cruise to see Sitka and now their vacation is ruined!

 

Sometimes I just do not get the humans! I believe the little 5 years old girls live is more importand then a little town with nothing to offer beside a couple T shirt stores!

[CruisingChick]

My prayers go out to that little girl and her family. How frigthening that must have been for her. I hope she is okay.

[Nancyquilts]

Didn't miss anything in Sitka anyhow!

Sure people want something, because of the inconvenience...propably they just booked the cruise to see Sitka and now their vacation is ruined!

 

Sometimes I just do not get the humans! I believe the little 5 years old girls live is more importand then a little town with nothing to offer beside a couple T shirt stores!

I agree completely with your concern for the little girl, but Sitka is our favorite Alaska port - the Raptor Center, Heritage Totem Pole Park, Bishop's House, St. Michael's Cathedral, Sheldon Jackson museum, etc. Please don't put down what, imho, is the best Alaska port. Nancy

[M&A]

This was the latest report:

 

Sorry it didn't come out. I'll try again

[carri cruiser]

Well, Praise the Lord, for a reason to go back to Sitka. my prayers are with that child and her family.

[TCF]

Local news tonight interviewed the Rescue Tech on the Comox Helicopter that took the little girl from the ship to Port Hardy.

 

He called the young girl,".....a real trooper! She was in considerable pain but she cooperated the best she could with the nurse.....".

 

The child was transported to Victoria where she underwent surgery for a bowel obstruction...no report on the outcome.

 

A big cheer for the Canadian Coast Guard and the ship's crew....apparently everything went off like clockwork. It's not easy taking a loaded stretcher off a moving ship at sea!

[scottbee]

...here you go, check this out:

http://www.timescolonist.com/Girl+airlifted+cruise+ship+taken+Victoria+medical+help/1787508/story.html

 

Wow!!...talk about fast news service!!

 

 

CFB Comox (442 Squadron) do an amazing job of this sort of thing. I am surprised that they airlifted her to Vic Gen. St Josephs in Comox would have been the closest, after that, the Vancouver ( VGH, StPauls, Childrens) in Vancouver are closer than Victoria, and dont suffer the overcrowding that Nanaimo does. I wonder if her family was from Victoria, and they decided to go the extra 40 miles south for that reason.

[MattyB1931]

My wife and I were on that cruise and are very dissapointed about missing Sitka. I would have wanted them to do the same thing if my kid was sick but it still sucks to miss an entire day. We emailed Celebrity about compensation and they did not return our email. We then went through our travel agent and received this response back:

 

 

 

"Thank you for contacting our office regarding your sailing onboard the Celebrity Mercury. We appreciated hearing from you, and we welcome this opportunity to address their concerns.

 

As great measures are taken in all areas of operation to ensure that our guests' cruising expectations are completely fulfilled, it is especially disconcerting when circumstances threaten to disrupt the voyage despite all our best efforts. We are very sorry to learn of your dissatisfaction with the itinerary changes that occurred during their sailing. We understand your disappointment in the fact that you considered SItka a highlight of the cruise, and were very much anticipating our call in that particular port.

 

Additionally, we recognize and understand that you remain disappointed due to the change of itinerary, as well as the manner in which our company handled the situation onboard. While we sympathize with the concerns expressed, please understand that Celebrity reserves the right to change an itinerary without notice, as reflected in our brochures and Cruise Ticket Contracts. However, we make all efforts to adhere to originally advertised itineraries. Unfortunately, as this situation proved, circumstances beyond our control, such as medical emergencies, may occur that prevent us from doing so. We genuinely apologize for any inconvenience they encountered due to this change of itinerary. Regretfully, we must decline your request for service recovery.

 

Thank you for contacting our offices. We hope this unfortunate occurrence has not discouraged you from sailing with us again. It would be our pleasure to welcome you back onboard one of our ships in the future. We are confident you will enjoy a special sailing, memorable for all of the best reasons a Celebrity Cruises sailing can offer.

 

Sincerely,

Joseph Rigal

Corporate Guest Relations"

We are very dissappointed with this and will not be sailing with Celebrity again.

[CruisingChick]

We missed a port once because of bad weather, giving us an "EXTRA" sea day. To my knowledge no one on the sailing received any type of compensation. Unfortunately it's part of the cruise contract and they can basically skip/change ports of call if they need to.

 

I'm sorry you are unhappy with the response you received from Customer Relations. What were you hoping for?

[firstplacechef]

Me thinks MattyB1931 may be a one post wonder. "IT" happens! Like CruisingChick stated it's part of the cruise contract. We missed a port once on a cruise and we were given an OBC of 25/pp for the port charges. No big deal if we had not as we love the sea days. Did you have excursions booked and paid for? If so, you should have been able to get your money back for that.

[A&A]

The only time that it happened to us was on a Nordic cruise with Princess a couple of years ago which gave us two days at sea back to Southampton at a leisurely rate.

 

The decision was made early in the morning when we were anchored off port. Princess refunded the excursion costs and we, and no one else we spoke to on the day, even considered that we should have received any compensation for a missed port.

 

Its one of those things, and to be perfectly honest watching the one tender that they did launch bob uncontrollably on the high waves was enough to convince me that the Captain had made the right decision.:)

[Imagineer]

We are very dissappointed with this and will not be sailing with Celebrity again.

 

...bye bye...:rolleyes:

[willie2845]

I think firstplacechef is right about a one post wonder!!! I just hope Mattyb1931 reads other contracts they agree to, or sign a little closer then the cruise contract.

As the cruise contract says the cruise line has the right to miss a port, or change ports, that's what you agree to when you make your final payment. It seems to me the little girls health would be more important to most people then missing a port. So to Mattyb1931 as Imagineer said so well bye bye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[harryfat1]

So the guy is upset in not receiving future OBC on a cruise line that he will never sail on again? And what will he do with the OBC if he receives it since he won’t sail on Celebrity again? Sell it on EBay? Yeah, I know it’s non transferable…

 

All kidding aside, the only recourse I can see might be the “port tax”. We all pay port tax/fees as part of the cruise fare. Now if the ship does not dock at the port, does the cruise line still get charged for the port tax? Does the cruise line pay this on a per use basis or it’s a set fee – the “use it or lose it” principle? Would the cruise ships get any refunds if they don’t dock?

 

I know Alaska has the $50/pp head tax, but since this particular cruise visited other Alaska ports, that tax will be levied when the ship docked at the other ports, but don’t know how Sitka calculates its port tax/charges on the cruise ships.

 

Any experts want to shed some light on how the port tax is calculated?

[MattyB1931]

Checking back. Sheesh, tough crowd here. Are you sure this isn't the MMA forum? As you've so warmly pointed out, I'm not a regular member of this forum, I was just adding some post cruise customer relations info to this existing thread for those who might be interested.

 

What did I expect? Not sure. Some sort of compensation, credit, or incentive I guess, even a small port tax as someone mentioned above would be more on par with the level of customer service I expect from a cruise line that supposedly prides itself on that.

 

The health of the girl is infinitely more important than any of this refund stuff. We're still dissapointed.

 

Interestingly enough, we had breakfast with a family that got off the plane prior to the cruise, in Vancouver, and they said that little girl had to be rushed off the plane because she was sick. As you probably know we were made to fill out a medical questionaire form before boarding and if you had any sickness in the last week the ship's doctor was supposed to check you out to see it you were fit for sailing. Not sure if the family disclosed the girl's sickness or not. I do hope the little girl makes a full recovery. Gotta find a way to get back to Sitka someday.

 

Thanks for your warm welcome fellow cruisers.

[Cruisenouvelle]

In all fairness, her situation likely was not a 'pre-existing condition'.

You'll find that when someone posts a similar situation, everyone is very conspicuous in berating the OP for even thinking of money in such a situation, and in wishing all the best to the afflicted passenger, and there's nothing wrong with that. Your mistake, if there was one, was to mention the 'M' word ($). Please note that all the cruise lines, for the most part, would have handled the situation the same as Celebrity did. If you like their product, cruise w/ them again. But don't switch thinking another cruise line will give you a refund, onboard credit, etc., for something over which they had no control (the little girl's illness).

[firstplacechef]

MattyB, sorry for the cold shoulder, but welcome to CC. When your first post is only negative about something the cruiseline (any cruiseline) had no control over, you will most likely get the responses that you got.

 

Was there nothing about your cruise that good? If you had mentioned a few good things along with your disappointment maybe the responses would not have been so "harsh". Cruisenouvelle summed up the contract pretty much. As I posted earlier, I have been on a cruise and we missed a port (hurricane) and we did get back the port taxes. I have heard of some cruises that missed ports due to hurricanes that did not get anything..

 

Again, welcome and I hope you can find a cruise line that you enjoy, but I have yet cruised any line that was "perfect".

[dkjretired]

In all fairness, her situation likely was not a 'pre-existing condition'.

You'll find that when someone posts a similar situation, everyone is very conspicuous in berating the OP for even thinking of money in such a situation, and in wishing all the best to the afflicted passenger, and there's nothing wrong with that. Your mistake, if there was one, was to mention the 'M' word ($). Please note that all the cruise lines, for the most part, would have handled the situation the same as Celebrity did. If you like their product, cruise w/ them again. But don't switch thinking another cruise line will give you a refund, onboard credit, etc., for something over which they had no control (the little girl's illness).

 

There was another thread about this incident and the girl had a pre-exsisting condition but was not sick at the time of boarding.

 

I don't know if the OP was serious or just trying to stir things up but you are absolutely correct, this situation would have been handled the same by any cruise line. We had medical emergencies and missed ports and it is something you have to deal with.