My nightmare with Disney cruiseline and irma

[undertheradar]

Op I'm sorry that you went through the disappointment you did with the inability to know in advance before you left home if your cruise would be canceled. Also, the additional stress you endured when the cruise was eventually canceled. I understand the frustration you must have been feeling being stuck in Florida with difficulty finding hotel rooms with a hurricane approaching. I hope you learned a valuable lesson and always have emergency funds available to you when you travel. (A tip for the future have cash because in hurricanes credit cards machines & ATM's don't work without power.) I understand why it would be frustrating that Disney Cruise Line had not officially canceled the cruise before you left home. Yet, since you made the decision to proceed to Florida knowing there was a possibility that a hurricane was headed here and hence the very big chance that your scheduled cruise would be canceled I would suggest that in the future you make hotel reservations that an be canceled without penalty before you arrive to a possible hurricane zone. If you don't have the funds to do so then I would suggest cutting your losses before you leave home and not proceeding to Florida with an impending hurricane in the forecast.

Weather is one of those uncontrollable factors in life. I have been trapped in many a snow storm when traveling for work where airlines cancel flights. I have had to pay for many unexpected nights in hotel rooms and meals. We own our business so all added expenses are mine and my husbands. It's expensive and stinks but life is at times unpredictable.

I am a Florida resident and with all due respect I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for your situation right now. After enduring several days of boarding up ours and several of our elderly neighbors homes and spending an unplanned fortune on hurricane supplies for us and our neighbors. We watched on Friday afternoon as the hurricane path took a turn and we were projected to take a direct hit. Due to the possibility of storm surge we had no choice but to evacuate our family. Within a matter of less then an hour at around 1am on Saturday my husband and I grabbed our 3 children, dog, cat, insurance papers, vital records and about four changes of clothes each and piled in our truck. Our college age son was behind us in his car loaded with 4 of our elderly neighbors & their vital belongings. We had no time to plan before we were forced to leave. Other then heading north and praying we would be able to get out in time. It took 23 hours of straight driving to get from Sarasota, FL to Pigeon Forge Tennessee which was the first place we were able to book last minute that would accept pets. We stopped only for gas and bathroom breaks. It was an exhausting trip which no one had budgeted for. I'm dreading seeing what my credit card statement will be this month. Yet, we were safely out of harms way and felt blessed to be so. Then we had to wait to see IF we would have homes to return to. Thankfully we did.
After another 24 hours of driving in bumper to bumper traffic we returned home this morning. We were very lucky and only suffered minor roof damage, lost a fence, some trees, and our screen room is gone. None of this matters. It's all repairable and given a little time life will go back to normal.

I tell you all of this not to gain your sympathy. We are very happy and counting our blessings as many have lost so much more. Yet, please keep in mind that those DCL cast members you spoke with were trying to do their job while probably trying to figure out their own messy hurricane situation. Honestly, a canceled cruise, why expensive and disappointing is nothing compared to what those cast members on the phone were probably facing. I'm sorry you had to figure out last minute lodging and how to get food with limited funds available to you. I'm happy for you that the Port Orleans manager stepped in to help you out. I would bet my bottom dollar that that same manager was more then likely worried about how they would feed their family without electricity for days, a possible storm damaged home, if he or she has children who will keep them for the next several days as our schools are all closed, and where they would have the funds to come up with to pay for all the added expenses placed on a family in a hurricane. Yet, the well trained Disney cast member kept a smile on their face and did all they could to help you out because that is how Disney treats their guest. True you didn't receive the same Disney treatment from DCL as you have come to expect. Yet, when DCL realized in an emergency situation that they could not provide guest with a safe situation on board they canceled and will be returning you your cruise fare. It's disappointing I know but trust me you had it pretty darn good compared to what most of Florida just endured this week. So please understand in my world at the moment your complaint is ridiculous given the situation in Florida. You had a beautiful resort to stay in, someone cooking your meals, and maid service why you suffered to loss of a cruise. Not a bad life considering you knew a hurricane was headed here a elected to come anyway. I hope you make it home safely and the cruise fare refund takes care of your addition days at Disney World.

 

[ILoveMyKellen]

I'm not expecting individual reps to call for individual people. When you cancel a cruise, you can expect that you are going to be displacing hundreds if not thousands of people into a place where there are few hotel rooms. Yes, it is a LOT faster for a company to call another company and negotiate a mass reservation for people as they come off of ships or are unable to get onto their ships. Hmmm I wonder what hospitality company in Central FL could they possibly coordinate a mass booking with??

Just out of curiosity, where did you expect DCL to put possibly thousands of displaced cruisers when the resorts were near to or at capacity before the cruise was even cancelled?

Also, Disney stopped taking new reservations so they could put the people in the campground and first responders into the empty rooms and extended those people who already had reservations but had no way home until some mode of transportation became available.

As many people have commented on this thread, Disney cruises are expensive. How much more do you think it would cost for Disney to hire personnel to find people accommodations much less emergency accommodations and who do you think would pay for that extra cost? The consumer would.

 

[DnA2010]

Just curious what continency plans do you make when traveling to WDW or a cruise. Other then having a credit card or some extra cash I'm not sure what you can do. I generally don't draw up disaster plans and evacuation routes when I travel.

I can only imagine the horror stories cruisers endured in Houston. Airports closed, road closed...really no way in or out. It does make me think twice about cruising in hurricane season again.

I was referring to having contingency money available- I think that's what most people were referring to- travelling without having access to the funds that would be needed to make emergency lodging/travel plans...although in this specific situation, I may have some back up plans in place actually.

 

[lanejudy]

I'm not expecting individual reps to call for individual people. When you cancel a cruise, you can expect that you are going to be displacing hundreds if not thousands of people into a place where there are few hotel rooms. Yes, it is a LOT faster for a company to call another company and negotiate a mass reservation for people as they come off of ships or are unable to get onto their ships. Hmmm I wonder what hospitality company in Central FL could they possibly coordinate a mass booking with??

Other than those coming off ships for cruises cut short, how is DCL supposed to know whether any given guest is already in FL or maybe across the country at home in CA? It doesn't make sense to mass-book hotel rooms for all those guests not knowing who needs it. Secondly, you are assuming all those hotel rooms were sitting empty at WDW just waiting for all these cruisers. WDWs run on little vacancy any more. Yes, people due to arrive were cancelling, but others already onsite (like OP) needed to extend. I don't think they could negotiate any such mass booking if they'd tried. People spent up to 6+ hours on the phone with WDW adjusting reservations due to the storm; WDW didn't automatically take care of their own onsite guests in that manner, to say nothing of offering up their space to displaced cruisers.

Let's look at some numbers:

• The Dream and Fantasy each hold 4000 passengers. For the sake of simplicity, let's just assume that's 4 per cabin and round it off to 1,000 families (which I'm sure is an understatement).
• 2 cruises were cut short, one for each of those ships. So that's 8000 passengers or 2,000 families.
• 3 cruises were cancelled, 2 for the Dream and one for the Fantasy. So that's 12,000 passengers or 3,000 families.
• Added together, that's roughly 5,000 families impacted by DCL's changes/cancellations.
• I doubt WDW had 5,000 resort rooms sitting empty waiting for DCL to "mass book" for displaced cruisers. That's nearly 18% of the total rooms onsite. Not to mention the entire campground as well as some rooms onsite were evacuated as well (the Cabins, Bungalows and Treehouses), not only reducing the number of available rooms but a double-whammy by shifting those guests into other resort rooms. And one can rarely count on DVC units for last-minute availability. Plus WDW needed rooms held at each resort for their own ride-out staff who needed to serve all the guests stranded at the resorts. And WDW was a staging area for many utility workers coming in to help with the aftermath of the storm, so that also further reduced availability.

It's easy to sit back and say "they should have done this and that" to help, they have this whole massive resort system at their disposal. DCL had to look at the big picture and recognize that level of service simply wasn't something they could provide.

I do believe OP took the best possible option by dealing directly with the front desk onsite. Nobody else would have gotten her a room any quicker or better than that. It was her expectation that DCL handle it all for her that was off. And I'll even chalk that up to miscommunication and/or misunderstanding between OP and the DCL phone rep. Stating DCL would "take care of everybody and keep everybody safe" sounds exactly like company-speak for how the ships will modify itineraries to avoid storms. Not what happens if cruises are outright cancelled.

 

[ILoveMyKellen]

Deleted comment. Posted the wrong thing. Having a blonde moment kind of day.

 

[LYSE]

This is a strong case for why Disney systems need to integrated.

But of course it's all our faults for accepting that they aren't (and dealing with the existing broken websites)

 

[hanscarlet]

Yes, God forbid. We should all know better than to ever trust anything a representative of a company tells us over the phone. YES I understand that they are often wrong, and that they don't always know their policies, and they aren't "on site", and all the other trillion mitigating factors. But the FACT is that this is the person that DCL makes available for a customer to talk with.

Random but my sister was trying to arrange flights home from PA to Miami in the aftermath of the hurricane and the airline reps were awful and straight up lied about things. I am not making excuses for reps but in times of disaster I think they get stressed often (regardless of the company they work for) and so I don't know, I guess the learning is to triple check when it comes to emergency situations like this.

They did a better job with this one than RCCL did with Harvey.

Some of the optics that could have contributed to OP's motivation to rant is that some of the other cruise lines, like NCL, was highlighted as being awesome by bringing passengers out to sea on an extended cruise and so they looked awesome where as DCL didn't really benefit from that type of promotion. DCL unfortunately doesn't have the large fleet so I am glad they used it for the crew where they could.

I miss @bavaria...

However, I am happy that she posted about it as it will hopefully be a warning for other people who plan to book cruises for September and October in the future. While we all hope that Florida will get another long spell with no hurricanes, they are not uncommon and it is better to be prepared than to be caught up in events.

I am happy too because hopefully it's been a good learning lesson. I am sorry OP if you feel like the sacrificial lamb a bit here. I kind of found the word choice of "nightmare" off putting because it implies DCL is completely at fault and obviously we've debated that topic but anyways sorry if you feel like you got piled on OP. The positive news is that your post probably has and will help others.

 

[Dug720]

Some of the optics that could have contributed to OP's motivation to rant is that some of the other cruise lines, like NCL, was highlighted as being awesome by bringing passengers out to sea on an extended cruise and so they looked awesome where as DCL didn't really benefit from that type of promotion. DCL unfortunately doesn't have the large fleet so I am glad they used it for the crew where they could.

Yes. And luckily it worked out for those cruise lines. But had the worst happened and Irma took a turn completely unpredicted and something happened to those ships with guests on them, it would have been BAD. (Not saying that it wouldn't have been bad for DCL with their crew on their 2 ships - my sister was on one of them!! - BUT it would just look 100% different for a line to have willingly taken passengers out.)

 

[wombat_5606]

It appears like a number of people would benefit from this article.

https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=884

 

[bumbershoot]

I'm not expecting individual reps to call for individual people. When you cancel a cruise, you can expect that you are going to be displacing hundreds if not thousands of people into a place where there are few hotel rooms. Yes, it is a LOT faster for a company to call another company and negotiate a mass reservation for people as they come off of ships or are unable to get onto their ships. Hmmm I wonder what hospitality company in Central FL could they possibly coordinate a mass booking with??

Another poster laid out the reasons why this is an impossible request. Unless they are paying how on earth could they meet the needs? Who needs a room, who can afford what room, who needs how many beds, etc etc etc.

I think, as a general rule of thumb, we can assume that Sir Richard's wine cellar is probably built to a standard well above that of most basements, or, possibly, even of most bomb shelters.

Because, like, Sir Richard, KWIM?

Of course. Just responding to basements having no place in hurricanes.

I do believe OP took the best possible option by dealing directly with the front desk onsite. Nobody else would have gotten her a room any quicker or better than that.

Absolutely. They did an incredible job and I wish they were celebrating themselves rather than disliking dcl! They did better than many people! They even got the manager to delay billing them. That is amazing.

The op needs to be joyous about what she accomplished and not angry with dcl imo.

 

[ashley0139]

I'm sorry, I just can't possibly imagine traveling out of state without having some sort of funds that I could access if needed. That is mind-boggling to me.

 

[IRLdisneyprincess]

I may be completely alone in this, but I really don't appreciate the comments given to the OP about not having sympathy for her because others have had it bad or they have had it bad during the hurricane. Sure, her problem maybe be vastly smaller compared to what many people of Florida are going through, but putting her down for being upset about losing her vacation is insensitive.

We just went through Harvey. Most of my family was fine, but a few were affected. We saw so much devastation. Some people lost just their lights, others lost everything. We almost ran out of food and I missed a few days of work. Sure, it all really put things in perspective; you really start to see what's truly important and what isn't. But I've noticed that it all causes this attitude of, "I have it worse than you for [insert reason]." and that's not how it should be. If anyone's vacation was cancelled because of Harvey or Irma, I have sympathy. You never know what's going on in someone's life; the vacation that was cancelled might be the only thing that was keeping them going. I don't know the OP and I agree that the criticism of her being unprepared was fair, but to completely tear her apart and say that she had it easy, doesn't deserve sympathy, etc. I don't think that's right. It sounds like to me she was between a rock and a hard place. Disney should have made the decision to cancel the sail date earlier. They should have considered the cruisers who were traveling from other states and then made the decision to refund.

Another perspective: I don't know OP or claim to know her finances but I'm thinking she doesn't have a lot of money. It's totally okay if she doesn't; I don't either. For my upcoming cruise I had to make a lot of sacrifices in order to pay it off. I set a reasonable budget and had to stick with it. When you don't have a lot of money, the reality is that 25% of whatever your cruise price was (I'm guessing in the ranging of mid $1500s) is a large amount to say goodbye too. You may see it as her "flying into a hurricane", but I see it as not being able to eat the cost. And that's a reality for many people. Some of us do not have credit lines or a huge savings account to fall back on, even in emergencies. I don't think it's irresponsibility, it's just living life paycheck to paycheck. Those of us who are lower income want vacations too, which is why booking during hurricane season is the only option for some. Like I said, I'm not claiming that I know OP's life or her financial situation, but I am saying that she probably felt she had no choice but to go... her flight wasn't cancelled yet and neither was her cruise date. She had a good deal of money invested in her trip. She might not have been able to reschedule due to work or life, etc. But I can tell from her posts that had Disney just cancelled the cruise and had offered her a full refund before leaving she would have stayed home.

Once again, I agree with some of the criticism. Disney cannot fix everything and they had a lot of stuff going on. Too many passengers to really be able to help and place everyone. But OP, you do have my sympathy. Anyone affected in any kind of way, big or small, by these hurricanes have my thoughts and sympathy.

 

[IRLdisneyprincess]

I'm sorry, I just can't possibly imagine traveling out of state without having some sort of funds that I could access if needed. That is mind-boggling to me.

I'm sure it's a reality for many, specifically those that are lower income. I did my best to budget for my upcoming cruise. I tried to factor in emergency costs. In case of an emergency, I have enough to fly home and maybe for a few extras, but probably not stay at a hotel for a week or two if I had to. I just don't have that kind of additional money. I don't know a lot of people within my own social circle that actually do. I paid off what I owed and tried to save for fun stuff and for incidentals.

It may seem irresponsible, but I'm just hoping for the best. I'm sure OP did the same and then an emergency happened and she had little to fall back on.

 

[iamporch]

It appears like a number of people would benefit from this article.

https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=884

And my only complaint being on the 9/2 cruise the debarked early was that we were not given the free internet to make arrangements. I had thought that I heard from a cruise a few weeks early that was altered was given that. Yes you could stand and wait hours at guest services to make free calls but who has hours when everything is booking up in minutes? I paid $40 in internet to make a few arrangements. Small price to get everything worked out, but the free internet would have been nice.

 

[nikkyluvsmickey]

I may be completely alone in this, but I really don't appreciate the comments given to the OP about not having sympathy for her because others have had it bad or they have had it bad during the hurricane. Sure, her problem maybe be vastly smaller compared to what many people of Florida are going through, but putting her down for being upset about losing her vacation is insensitive.

We just went through Harvey. Most of my family was fine, but a few were affected. We saw so much devastation. Some people lost just their lights, others lost everything. We almost ran out of food and I missed a few days of work. Sure, it all really put things in perspective; you really start to see what's truly important and what isn't. But I've noticed that it all causes this attitude of, "I have it worse than you for [insert reason]." and that's not how it should be. If anyone's vacation was cancelled because of Harvey or Irma, I have sympathy. You never know what's going on in someone's life; the vacation that was cancelled might be the only thing that was keeping them going. I don't know the OP and I agree that the criticism of her being unprepared was fair, but to completely tear her apart and say that she had it easy, doesn't deserve sympathy, etc. I don't think that's right. It sounds like to me she was between a rock and a hard place. Disney should have made the decision to cancel the sail date earlier. They should have considered the cruisers who were traveling from other states and then made the decision to refund.

Another perspective: I don't know OP or claim to know her finances but I'm thinking she doesn't have a lot of money. It's totally okay if she doesn't; I don't either. For my upcoming cruise I had to make a lot of sacrifices in order to pay it off. I set a reasonable budget and had to stick with it. When you don't have a lot of money, the reality is that 25% of whatever your cruise price was (I'm guessing in the ranging of mid $1500s) is a large amount to say goodbye too. You may see it as her "flying into a hurricane", but I see it as not being able to eat the cost. And that's a reality for many people. Some of us do not have credit lines or a huge savings account to fall back on, even in emergencies. I don't think it's irresponsibility, it's just living life paycheck to paycheck. Those of us who are lower income want vacations too, which is why booking during hurricane season is the only option for some. Like I said, I'm not claiming that I know OP's life or her financial situation, but I am saying that she probably felt she had no choice but to go... her flight wasn't cancelled yet and neither was her cruise date. She had a good deal of money invested in her trip. She might not have been able to reschedule due to work or life, etc. But I can tell from her posts that had Disney just cancelled the cruise and had offered her a full refund before leaving she would have stayed home.

Once again, I agree with some of the criticism. Disney cannot fix everything and they had a lot of stuff going on. Too many passengers to really be able to help and place everyone. But OP, you do have my sympathy. Anyone affected in any kind of way, big or small, by these hurricanes have my thoughts and sympathy.

 

[cruiser21]

I'm sorry, I just can't possibly imagine traveling out of state without having some sort of funds that I could access if needed. That is mind-boggling to me.

I think that's been mentioned a few hundred times already.

 

[mevelandry]

Just curious what continency plans do you make when traveling to WDW or a cruise. Other then having a credit card or some extra cash I'm not sure what you can do. I generally don't draw up disaster plans and evacuation routes when I travel.

I can only imagine the horror stories cruisers endured in Houston. Airports closed, road closed...really no way in or out. It does make me think twice about cruising in hurricane season again.

Many people told me they book extra nights "cancellable up to 24h in advance" for before, during and after the cruise in case they need them.

I'm not sure I would go that far unless there was a hurricane coming our way.

 

[Dug720]

Many people told me they book extra nights "cancellable up to 24h in advance" for before, during and after the cruise in case they need them.

I'm not sure I would go that far unless there was a hurricane coming our way.

The only problem with that is waiting until the hurricane is possibly heading that way, the hotel rooms may fill up with evacuees from other areas and not be available.

 

[cruiser21]

Many people told me they book extra nights "cancellable up to 24h in advance" for before, during and after the cruise in case they need them.

I'm not sure I would go that far unless there was a hurricane coming our way.

I would probably have done something like that. What happened with Harvey was just unfathomable. I can't imagine being stuck in a hotel in Galveston watching it rain for days with no way out. Truly a remarkable event that hopefully is never repeated.

 

[SteveMP]

Are you joking? Where would these magical shelters be built? Also what about earthquake regions, tornado alley, etc? There is no way that many shelters could be built much less kept stock for the one in 10 year chance they are needed.

You seem to have missed the first 4 words of the post...