Yes, you heard it straight from me. The self described frequent floater, avid cruiser, cruise junkie, cruise advocate, and promoter of the cruising lifestyle will admit that things don’t always go well. No, I’m not talking about the obvious….that being the tragic Costa Concordia accident. I’m talking about something a little more mundane. Ships, much like airplanes are extremely complicated mechanical contraptions that sometimes fail. Case in point, Royal Caribbean’s Enchantment of the Seas, scheduled to sail from Baltimore this past Saturday, February 18. You can read this thread on Cruise Critic (the Milepoint/Flyertalk of cruising) if you’re really interested in the details, but the short story is that Enchantment had a mechanical issue that impacted her propulsion system.
Even after reading the thread, I’m still not clear if it was an engine issue, a propeller issue, or something in between, but what I do know is that the ship could not sail as scheduled and actually spent the first night of her cruise tied up at the pier in Baltimore. In fact, Enchantment did not sail until the next day and I even caught a glimpse of her sailing down the Chesapeake Bay as my flight on Sunday descended towards Baltimore around 1pm. From what I can tell, the onboard services were not impacted by this issue so there was plenty of booze and dinner was still served on Saturday night as if nothing was wrong, it just happened while sitting in port. When the ship finally did set sail, it did so at reduced speed and some of the ports of call were deleted from the planned itinerary.
After an initial offer of onboard spending money to help make up for the problem, it is my understanding that Royal Caribbean will be refunding the price of the cruise for all passengers. I should be so lucky as to have been on this cruise!!! That’s easy for me to say as an experienced cruiser, but I’m certainly sympathetic to those on board who may be first timers, and really have no idea that sometimes things can go wrong with ships as they can with airplanes. Frankly, I think this offer is more than fair, but I have to wonder if the compensation offered for those impacted by this would have been as generous prior to the Costa Concordia accident. In any event, I think Royal Caribbean deserves a shout out for handling things they way they did. I wonder if there are some passengers onboard Enchantment right now who are feeling less charitable than me?
I was on this cruise. I have sailed Royal Caribbean many times. Yes, there were many who were dissapointed about the canceled ports (Key West & Coco Cay) but Royal Caribbean did an outstanding job in customer service throughout the whole cruise! We do hope that level of customer service continues as we wait for our promised full refund, but regardless, mechanical problems do happen, we were all safe, comfortable, and embarking on a free 9 night cruise ($3700 for my family) shame on anyone who still wants to throw out complaints.
Beth, sorry about the cancelled ports. Thanks for your reply. Knowing RCL the way I do, I don’t doubt that they did the best they could do to take care of you. Frankly, I wish I’d been on the cruise too!
@Brant – – – having an “open bar” for the length of the cruise may end up costing the cruise line more than reimbursing the cost of the entire sailing!
Good info, thanks 😀
There are a number of reasons that a ship may be delayed in sailing, however, very few of them would actually cause any discomforts for the passengers or inhibit the functioning of services on board the vessel. If delayed I would much prefer the comforts of the ship versus an airplane. It is also just personal preference but cruising for me is about being on the ship-not the destination (in most cases). If you are there only to relax, get away, enjoy a drink, good food, and the cruising atmosphere you may not even notice you never left port (with the exception that Baltimore isn’t exactly where you would tan on the upper deck in February). At any rate I feel it overly generous to compensate the cost of the cruise-it would have (in my opinion) been sufficient to make the bars free of charge for the length of the cruise and only compensate directly if there was an excursion (bought and paid for) that would be missed by late sailing or reduced port calls. I’m sure there are plenty of people on the ship who feel they deserve to become millionaires over this incident and are probably unhappy with all the compensation they got–to them I would ask “have you ever inconvenienced anyone in your life because your car broke down?”
Brant,
Excellent commentary! Like you, I’d be fine tied up at the pier or just sailing in circles in the bay.
I’ve never seen that cruise critic site before. Wow! One sure has to wade through a LOT OF CRAP to follow the thread! Hope they have a nice cruise. That buy-back cost them a LOT. And agree, before the Italian event, they would not have been that generous.
Cruise Critic is quite informative once you figure it out, but it can be a labor of love getting to the real information you are looking for sometimes.