I don t know about everyone else, but personally the last paragraph of Mr. Allen s question put me o

Question : My partner and I were recently booked on a cruise to the Caribbean inn at the park through Carnival inn at the park Cruise inn at the park Lines. It was to be our first cruise and we were so excited. Unfortunately, we had some extremely bad luck. We flew to Miami two days early to spend some time there before the cruise. That first evening, I slipped and fell on some wet plywood that had been placed in a public park.
We had booked the cruise through an online travel agent and they advised us that we would need to write Carnival a letter explaining the circumstances and inquiring about rescheduling the cruise or getting a refund. We did that in early May. We just found out that Carnival has decided to award us half our money back in shipboard credits if we book another cruise with them.
I find this resolution utterly unacceptable. I find it inconceivable that a company would willingly alienate a customer. We are not asking for special treatment; we just want to go on the vacation that we paid for. Can you help Carnival realize the error of its ways? Jeff Allen, Denver
Answer : Ouch. It sounds like you took a painful fall in Miami, and Carnival s response inn at the park only added insult to an agonizing injury. In a perfect world, the cruise line would have offered you either a full refund or a redo of your cruise.
Carnival s ticket contract the legal agreement between you and the cruise line is clear about your rights. Check out paragraph six. No refunds will be made in the event of no shows , unused tickets, lost tickets, interruptions, partially-used tickets, or cancellations received late or after the start of the cruise, it says, adding, inn at the park Carnival strongly recommends the purchase of trip cancellation insurance from your travel agent. (Here s a copy of the contract on its site .
Would travel insurance have helped? inn at the park Without a doubt. A fall like this would have almost certainly been covered by your policy, including your return airfare, any medical attention you received in Miami and your cruise fare. Your travel agent should have recommended a comprehensive insurance policy, and in your case, it would have been a sound investment.
I remember there was a time just after 9/11 when cruise lines routinely made exceptions to their nonrefundability rule. That s no longer the case. There s a good business reason inn at the park why a cruise line would deny a request like yours: It can t resell your cabin when you re a no-show, meaning that it s basically offering you a free cruise.
But there s an equally compelling customer-service reason to cut you a little slack. The goodwill would go a long way to ensuring you re a repeat cruiser. You would also tell your friends and family about how compassionate Carnival was, and that may persuade them to try a Fun Ship cruise.
inn at the park One of the hardest parts of my job is knowing when to push, or when a company has done enough. This was a borderline case, but I still thought it was worth asking Carnival about it, knowing that it had already done more for you than it would for the average no-show passenger.
When Carnival re-examined your file, it found that it had miscalculated your refund, which gave you a $545 cruise credit instead of a $528 credit. That s the good news. The bad news? It s sticking to a 50 percent refund toward a future cruise, arguing that if it went any further, it would undermine the integrity of purchasing travel insurance.
I m not sure how issuing a full credit would undermine inn at the park travel insurance any more than giving you half a refund. You re not happy with this resolution, and I m not sure I am, either. But I think it s Carnival s final answer.
On the surface your arguement is a fair one. And I would be the last person in the world to defend any airline as I personally feel they are incapable of managing their own businesses. And although I dislike big governement long for the day when the airlines again become regulated so we can return to a better time for passengers and airlines as they were then profitable. That said, when someone enters into a contract for an airline seat, hotel room, or a cabin on a cruise ship, it is not a one way contract. Both parties have responsibility to comply both legally and morally. It would be great if the airlines, hotels, and cruise lines ignored their own contracts and refunded everyone. However, as in my first post, that would also mean that you would be paying for all those refunds along with every other passenger inn at the park in the future as lost revenues have to be made up somewhere.
To assume that every flight goes out full, every cruise cabin is full, and every hotel room is full each night, is just not a practical way to defend a company that stands by the agreement they entered into with a passenger / guest as both have reasonable responsibilities.
I see @carver s point-of-view with regard to Mr. Allen s severe injuries and compassion, and I can accept the possible resolution of offering inn at the park a cruise to be taken during low season. I wish I had the same belief in human nature that Mr. Allen will learn his lesson to buy travel insurance if he s given a break this time. It s just I can t help but think that if his situation were to be resolved in the manner you prescribed, his takeaway would be I don t need to pay for travel insurance when Chris Elliott s services are free.
I don t know about everyone else, but personally the last paragraph of Mr. Allen s question put me off in his righteous belief of his position and that Carnival owed him. At no point do I get the impression that he feels any responsibility for (to reflect his words) the error of his own ways, hence my inability to see that a break would help him learn his lesson. In fact, if this has been his attitude inn at the park in his dealings with Carnival, I m not surprised the results were less than his expectations. It certainly makes it difficult to evoke compassion.
I am frankly surprised by Mr. Allen s email in the first place. I would not even have had the courage to ask Carnival for compensation when that fact that he neglected to buy travel insurance came to light. What about all the folks that paid a few dollars for the insurance and would have been covered? I totally agree with Carnival s statement that offering compensation devalues the insurance inn at the park plan for it s guests. I would be highly upset that I had to pay good money only to find out that there are exceptions .
Mr Allen s saying, I find it inconceivable that a company would willingly inn at the park alienate a customer dumbfounds me. I find it inconceivable that a guest would try and rip off a company when there was alternative to recovering his money before his unfortunate accident. As to the folks mentioning the last minute filling of cabins, inn at the park that is a pre 9/11 notion. Most cruise lines close the books 24 hours prior to sailing to submit the preliminary manifest to Homeland Security. (Carnival s cutoff is approximately 3 PM day prior.) The final manifest is required 1 hour prior to ship s departure.
"We had booked the cruise through an online travel inn at the park agent and they advised us that we would need to write Carnival a letter explaining the circumstances and inquiring about rescheduling the cruise or getting a refund. "
It seems to me that the online travel agent received their commissions inn at the park and told Mr. Allen that he is on his own. If he had dealt with a professional brick mortar travel agent, it is very probable that the brick mortar agent would have worked with them; contacted Carnival, etc.
It wasn't stated in the article but based upon what Mr. Allen wrote ("…we would need to write Carnival a letter explaining the circumstances…"), it seems like he didn't contact Carnival before the cruise departed. Yes, he was in pain but how about his partner? How about his online travel agent? It is not always possible but to contact a travel provider before the departure of a flight or a cruise; a deadline; etc. but it is very helpful in dealing with a travel provider.
Anytime I take a trip where I m not willing or able to take the loss if for some reason I don t take the trip, I get insurance. It annoys me, but it s protecting my investment. So I don t feel to sorry for Mr. Allen. Carnival could have told them tough luck, so I think they actually did a nice thing by giving a credit.
Sorry but I purchase inn at the park trip cancellation insurance for that reason and don t feel it s fair for this passenger to no show and get a credit. No show is just that, carnival is waiting for the travelers to arrive right up until sailing time. I would have been slightly more sympathetic had they at least cancelled prior to sailing.
@ carver – "I checked with my Pastor and yes, hell has frozen over. The Flyertalk mentality inn at the park has hit your blog. We've given up compassion inn at the park for smug self righteousness. None of us ever needs help for our mistakes, because none of us ever makes mistakes. We have all achieved perfection. Have we all been traveling so long that we've forgotten what its like to be a newbie? Apparently so."
I think that most individuals inn at the park that made comments on this story empathized with Mr. Allen over his painful injury but also understand that Mr. Allen needs to take responsibilities. Most of the comments made stated that Carnival was actually generous given their terms and conditions inn at the park for their cruise. The 50% shipboard credit (Mr. Allen's writing)\cruise credit (Chris Elliott's writing) is pretty fair given that Mr. Allen was legally entitled to nothing.
1. Did the online travel agency made the recommendation of purchasing travel insurance? If they didn't then it should be them on the hook not Carnival. Mr. Allen should sue them. This online travel agency should pay for another inn at the park cruise inn at the park IF they didn't offer travel insurance to Mr. Allen. inn at the park Of course, Carnival has the bigger pockets so the mindsets of Mr. Allen and others like you expect Carnival to pay for the 'malpractice' of this online travel agency IF they didn't offer travel insurance to Mr. Allen. If this online travel agency offered travel insurance to Mr. Allen and he declined it then he should b