Have you ever ever missed a flight since you confirmed up late on the airport? It may be a painful lesson within the significance of constructing wiggle room into your journey plans. However, in lots of instances, it will solely trigger a modest delay in your travels, with little or no add-on prices.
Not so with cruises.
Late arrivers for flights usually can hop on one other airplane to their vacation spot just some hours later, typically even with change charges waived on account of quasi-official “flat tire rule” insurance policies. However vacationers who’re even just some minutes late for a cruise can typically discover their complete journey ruined.
On the very least, cruisers who miss a ship’s departure usually face big bills and logistical challenges attempting to meet up with the vessel at its subsequent port of name. In some instances, on account of legal guidelines that limit the place ships might be boarded, they won’t have the ability to be a part of the vessel in any respect.
It is because of this that just about anybody having something to do with the cruise enterprise — cruise line gross sales professionals, cruise-selling journey brokers and cruise-focused journey writers like me — will let you know to at all times journey to your departure port at the least a day earlier than your cruise, even for those who’re touring by automobile. It’d appear to be overkill, and it will add to the journey’s expense. However the penalties of lacking a cruise departure might be so disastrous that it is a smart transfer.
For these whose preliminary impulse is to withstand such recommendation, let’s deal with a few of the key issues surrounding what occurs for those who miss your cruise.
Can I board a cruise ship late?
Not solely are you able to not board a cruise ship late, however the cutoff time for boarding is definitely a lot sooner than the sail-away time.
It is a case the place every part you have realized about airplanes is true for cruise ships, too. Simply because your ship is listed as leaving at 4 p.m., it does not imply you’ll be able to stroll as much as the pier at 3:57 p.m. and anticipate to make it on board.
The standard cutoff time for boarding ships is a full hour earlier than departure. That mentioned, it may be even longer (and, in some instances, shorter) relying on the road, port and itinerary. To be secure, learn the documentation that you just obtain after reserving (nowadays, it usually arrives in digital type) for particular details about boarding occasions on your crusing.
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It is also a dangerous transfer to purpose to reach precisely on the cutoff time. Needless to say a few of the larger departure ports, equivalent to Fort Lauderdale’s Port Everglades, might be jammed with site visitors on departure days, slowing down the arrival course of. I as soon as acquired caught in an enormous site visitors jam round one of many guard gates at Port Everglades that added at the least quarter-hour to what ought to have been a fast five- to 10-minute Uber experience from a close-by lodge.
Will a cruise ship go away with out me?
If you don’t arrive on the port earlier than the boarding window ends, the cruise ship will most definitely go away with out you — even if you’re standing on the pier, waving frantically. That is as a result of a cruise ship’s departure time is fastidiously deliberate, and extra than simply your trip is at stake.
Similar to airplanes, cruise ships are on tight schedules — a lot tighter than you would possibly notice. If a ship delays its departure by an hour whereas it waits so that you can arrive, it may additionally arrive an hour late at its subsequent port of name.
That is a scenario that, on larger ships, can have an effect on 1000’s of individuals — not simply passengers who will see their expertise at that port diminished, but in addition dock staff, tour guides and bus drivers on the vacation spot who’ve deliberate their day across the vessel’s arrival.
At many ports, a local harbor pilot might be ready on your ship on a ship simply offshore to assist information it in, and they are going to be anticipating your vessel at an appointed time. This service usually comes with a excessive cost, and if the ship arrives too far not on time, it may end up in hefty charges. Ship captains will do all they will to keep away from disrupting the deliberate schedule.
Associated: Can a cruise ship leave without you?
One frequent misperception amongst cruisers is that cruise traces will maintain a ship for late-arriving passengers if they’re arriving on cruise line-booked flights. This usually isn’t the case. Even if you’re arriving on a flight booked by way of the cruise line, the ship will nonetheless sail with out you if that flight is delayed and you aren’t on the pier on time.
What cruise traces will do for those who miss a cruise departure on account of a delay on a cruise line-booked flight is make it easier to get to the ship at one other port. That’s, if they will achieve this legally (extra on that in a second).
The insurance policies fluctuate from line to line on this challenge. Some traces are a bit obscure about what precisely they’ll do to assist passengers attain the ship. Others spell it out fairly clearly. Carnival Cruise Line, for example, says right on its website that for those who miss a cruise departure on account of delays in flights booked by way of its Fly2Fun air program, it “will make alternate preparations as wanted for company to fulfill the ship at … the primary port of name,” until doing so would violate the Passenger Vessel Providers Act.
The Passenger Vessel Providers Act is a U.S. regulation that limits the place a passenger can board a ship crusing between U.S. ports (extra on this in a second).
If no viable choices can be found to affix the ship, Carnival provides that passengers “might be given a Future Cruise Credit score to use in direction of a future Carnival cruise.”
Can I be a part of the ship on the subsequent port?
Even in instances the place it’s logistically straightforward to get to a ship’s subsequent port of name, you is probably not legally allowed to board the vessel at that port. Some nations, together with the US, have “cabotage” legal guidelines proscribing the variety of ports the place foreign-flagged vessels equivalent to cruise ships can decide up and drop off passengers. These legal guidelines are designed to guard home delivery industries from overseas competitors.
In the US, for example, the Passenger Vessel Services Act of 1886 says overseas vessels can not transport passengers from one U.S. port to a different U.S. port, both instantly or by the use of a close-by overseas port (outlined as ports in most of North America together with most Caribbean islands). The act doesn’t apply to sailings that start and finish in the identical U.S. port, supplied the sailings embody at the least one cease at any overseas port. It additionally has an exception for journeys between two completely different U.S. ports that embody a cease at a distant overseas port.
What which means, in observe, is {that a} cruise line can not allow you to be a part of a ship at a U.S. port equivalent to Florida’s Port Canaveral for those who later might be disembarking at a distinct U.S. port — say, New York or Miami — until a go to to a distant port equivalent to Aruba is on the itinerary. It is a rule that may severely restrict your choices if you wish to be a part of a ship partway by way of a cruise.
Associated: Ways you can ruin your cruise in an instant
To present one particular instance: Underneath the regulation, it is completely effective for the Bermuda-flagged ships of Princess Cruises to function Alaska voyages that start in Vancouver, British Columbia, and finish in Whittier, Alaska — a typical itinerary for the road. For the reason that voyages do not start in a U.S. port, they’re exempt from the regulation.
But when somebody misses the departure of such a voyage from Vancouver, they cannot merely board at a later cease. All of the later stops on this route — the Alaskan cities of Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway — are in the US. Somebody boarding in a type of ports and disembarking on the finish of the cruise in Whittier can be touring between two U.S. ports with no cease at at distant overseas port, making a violation of the Passenger Vessel Providers Act.
Cruise manufacturers do, sometimes, violate the regulation. As an example, it is commonplace coverage within the trade to evacuate a passenger with a medical emergency to the closest appropriate port, even when it means triggering a Passenger Vessel Providers Act violation. In such instances, a line would face a U.S. Customs and Border Safety penalty at the moment set at $941 per individual, until the road was granted a waiver by the company.
Observe that some traces will cost you the price of this penalty if it’s important to go away a ship early on account of a medical situation.
Some traces additionally will sometimes enable waylaid passengers to affix a ship at a forbidden port if they comply with pay the penalty themselves. Nevertheless it is not frequent, if solely as a result of the penalty is so excessive. A household of 4 would pay $3,764 for the privilege — greater than the price of many cruises.
If you happen to are legally allowed to board a ship at a later port, you may be chargeable for paying all the prices associated to attending to that port. One exception, as famous above, can be a scenario the place you missed the unique departure due to a delay with a cruise line-booked flight. One other exception can be a case the place you had a sure kind of journey insurance coverage (extra on that beneath).
Can I get a refund or credit score for the missed cruise?
Cruise traces usually don’t provide refunds or future cruise credit for passengers who miss a cruise on account of journey delays. This contains partial refunds for missed days for those who be a part of a cruise a day or two late.
The one exception right here is that some traces would possibly provide at the least a partial refund for those who miss a cruise on account of a documented emergency. However they do that on a case-by-case foundation, and you may’t depend on it.
Associated: Future cruise credits: What they are, how they work and when they expire
Will journey insurance coverage assist if I miss my cruise ship?
If you happen to miss a day or two of a cruise due to a delayed flight, you would possibly have the ability to get some reimbursement by way of a travel insurance policy, assuming you’ve got one. Then once more, you won’t. Most journey insurance policy provide “journey interruption” protection that kicks in after missed connections. However there usually is okay print that limits the circumstances the place it’s legitimate.
“Some plans provide missed-connection protection just for weather-related delays, whereas different plans may cowl delays attributable to … mechanical breakdown,” Stan Sandberg, co-founder of TravelInsurance.com, a number one journey insurance coverage comparability web site, famous in an interview on the subject with TPG.
As well as, whereas the missed-connection protection in lots of journey insurance policy solely requires a delay of three consecutive hours to be legitimate, some much less dear plans might need a six- or 12-hour delay requirement, Sandberg mentioned. Protection maximums for missed-connection claims additionally fluctuate broadly. Some are as little as $250, in accordance with Sandberg.
If it does kick in, missed-connection protection would cowl the price of flights or different transportation wanted to succeed in your cruise ship at a secondary port in addition to “affordable” prices for lodging, meals and phone bills incurred whereas in transit to the ship, Sandberg mentioned. Such insurance coverage additionally would reimburse any pay as you go bills for unused land- or water-travel preparations.
If you happen to drive to a cruise and miss the ship on account of site visitors delays, journey insurance coverage is not as accommodating. Site visitors delays sometimes aren’t thought of a coated purpose for reimbursement beneath missed-connection protection, in accordance with Sandberg.
That mentioned, “some journey insurance policy will present journey cancellation protection if the insured is concerned in a documented site visitors accident on the best way to their departure level,” he added.
Even when you have not purchased journey insurance coverage particularly on your cruise, you would possibly have the ability to faucet journey interruption insurance coverage that is a benefit of some credit cards for at the least partial reimbursement of bills associated to lacking a cruise departure. Many premium Chase playing cards, together with the Chase Sapphire Reserve®, for example, present journey interruption insurance coverage with comparatively excessive most protection quantities for journeys booked utilizing the playing cards.
Simply be warned that this profit usually comes with loads of effective print that may make it robust to gather in lots of circumstances. The effective print on the Chase Sapphire Reserve’s journey insurance coverage profit, for example, says its journey interruption protection doesn’t apply to “journey preparations canceled or modified by a journey provider until the cancellation is the results of extreme climate or an organized strike affecting public transportation, or until particularly coated herein.”
To our ears, that sounds fairly limiting.
Might a journey agent assist me?
Loads of vacationers nowadays pooh-pooh the notion of reserving by way of a journey agent. However within the case of a missed cruise departure, a travel agent specializing in cruises is usually a massive assist.
Most of the massive journey company teams do many thousands and thousands of {dollars} of enterprise with every of the most important cruise traces, giving them clout they will deploy to your benefit. Additionally they have brokers with private relationships with downside solvers at varied traces who can leap into motion in your behalf.
“You might have an advocate obtainable to you to assist if one thing does not go as deliberate,” mentioned Jill LaBarre, vice chairman of enterprise improvement at Palm Coast Journey, proprietor of Oasis Journey Community and SmartCruiser.com. “I am unsure the occasional cruiser would know the place to start to salvage their journey [after a missed departure].”
LaBarre recalled the case of a household that missed its flight to Miami for a Norwegian Cruise Line journey by minutes. Whereas the household did not make the flight, its baggage did, making a scenario with some sophisticated logistics to repair.
For starters, she shortly rebooked the household on a flight to St. Thomas, the place the ship, Norwegian Escape, can be two days later. The household would have the ability to be a part of the ship there. She additionally booked the household right into a resort in St. Thomas for the 2 days till the ship arrived.
However the extra sophisticated challenge was reuniting the household with its baggage. The luggage now had been stranded on the Miami airport. LaBarre sought assist from the assistant lodge director of the ship, which had but to go away Miami. He, in flip, organized to have Norwegian’s switch firm decide up the luggage and rush them to the vessel earlier than it departed.
Two days later, when the household lastly boarded the ship, the luggage had been there within the household’s room. Talking of the room, LaBarre’s contact on the ship had the household upgraded, too.
LaBarre mentioned she had urged the household to fly to the port a day early and purchase journey insurance coverage. However they hadn’t heeded her recommendation on both depend.
“All of it labored out, however with loads of pointless stress and expense,” she mentioned.
Backside line
It is not going to be straightforward to salvage your journey if you’re late on your cruise departure. My recommendation is to at all times journey to the port of departure at the least a day prematurely of a cruise.
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