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Carnival Miracle Re-Route Causes Havoc
By Dave | September 7, 2008
An article was posted over at The Cruise Log by Gene about the re-routing of Carnival Miracle due to Tropical Storm Hanna. What happened was, the cruise, which is exactly what I sailed on a couple months ago, was supposed to go to the Eastern Caribbean (Grand Turk, San Juan, St. Thomas), and was re-routed to he Bahamas and Nassau. Then, Nassau was dropped from the list and was replaced by Newport, Rhode Island. From what I gathered, this caused a major uproar among the passengers. They were protesting in front of the purser’s desk, dropping all their tips, etc. It seems the captain’s “attitude” was the straw the broke the camel’s back.
Being on this same cruise and ship just a couple weeks ago, I find it just a bit easier to relate to the people in this story. My view is pretty split on this. I do understand their concerns and anger. You pay to go on a cruise to the Caribbean and you end up going to Rhode Island. And that’s after your itinerary has been changed several times on you. For a lot of people, their vacations only come once a year. This is a huge disappointment understandably. We probably would have been quite upset if our July 4 sailing went to RI instead of the Caribbean.
On the other hand, Carnival’s policy does state that they can change the itinerary at any time without notice. Also, Carnival’s Vacation Guarantee plan states that if they weren’t happy with the changes they could leave at the first port and receive a refund. So while I do understand their gripes, they had the chance to back out and receive money back. Not to mention that sailing during hurricane season is always risky, and Carnival is only doing what’s safest for the passsengers, ship, and crew. Sailing through hurricane waters is not fun, and those people probably would have been much worse off had they kept their original itinerary. While I’d probably be upset as well, I’d rather go to Rhode Island than be sick.
It’s easy for me to say that though since I wasn’t on the cruise. What would other people have done in this situation?
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Topics: Cruising | 6 Comments »