# One more reason why flying in a day early when cruising is a good idea.



## dougp26364 (Oct 12, 2009)

We recently returned from our 7 night Med cruise which departed out of Barcelona. We flew in a day early since I just don't trust the airlines to get me there on time.

As it turned out, there was a air traffic control problem in the UK which delayed flights and I suspect was the cause of evening flights being badly backed up in Philly (longer than an hour on the tarmac waiting to take off). But that's not the killer.

The killer was our connecting flight out of Chicago was overweight so, I suspect luggage got left behind rather than passengers who would have to be compensated for missing the flight. Who's luggage got left behind? Ours of course and one other family also leaving our our cruise ship. This always seems to be our luck.

Fortunately, we did arrive a day early and I was able to go to the airport and pick up our luggage on USAirways flight arriving from Philly that next morning. Getting past the Spanish police to get into the luggage carousel arrea's was quite the trip but, once they were satisfied I had the lost luggage claim, I had come in on this same flight a day earlier and had my passpport in hand, they reluctantly allowed me in.

The alternative was to trust the airport personel to find my luggage, transfer it to the pier and for it to be identified with the correct cruiseline and then for the cruiseline to match our names to our cabin number. To much risk involved in that scenario so, I opted to hunt down my own luggage, pick it up, let the agents at the airport know it had been found and take it away myself. My greatest fear was not seeing it again until the 3rd night of the cruise when we were in Rome, which seems to be the port that is most convenient for the airlines to delived luggage to for whatever reason.


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## Cathyb (Oct 12, 2009)

You have so much patience!  I would have been a nervous wreck.  How did the cruise go?


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## Elli (Oct 12, 2009)

Looking forward to your cruise pictures, Doug.  We took a similar cruise out of Barcelona last year, couldn't get a flight on points the night before, arrived in Barcelona about 11 am and boarded the ship at 1 pm.  We were taking a chance but, fortunately, our luggage arrived with us, and all worked out well.


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## x3 skier (Oct 12, 2009)

We always fly in early, sometimes a few days or so ahead just to visit the port or other city. Last Med cruise, we spent three days in Madrid before flying to Barcelona for another day.

Cheers


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## rickandcindy23 (Oct 12, 2009)

That's my dream cruise!  Which cruiseline?  We have been wanting to do this for years, but we have to get rid of some of those timeshares first.  If I sell four of the timeshares, I would bet Rick would be all for a cruise!


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## dougp26364 (Oct 12, 2009)

Cathyb said:


> You have so much patience!  I would have been a nervous wreck.  How did the cruise go?



I can't say we weren't nervous wrecks or extremely ticked off with USAirways when I remembered the statement made by their empoyee that the flight was weight restricted. I had made certain to pack some of each of our clothes in each suitecase in the event one didn't arrive. Who'd have thought they'd keep all three cases. Even packing 1/2 of each others clothing in a suitecase didn't work and we wound up spending 57 euro's plus 22 additional euro's on cab fare (! $115 after exchange fee's et....), just to make sure we had some clothes if our cases didn't arrive the next day.

The cruise was great but, service with Royal Caribbean seems to be slipping. The stateroom attendant missed a turn down one night and never could keep our fridge stocked with diet Coke despite one verbal and one written request. I finally had to say something about the dining room assistant waiters not wanting to bring anything to drink to the table other than water. We drink iced tea and Shelley had to ask three times for a glass one day before finally being served.  I pointed out that even at a Denny's restaurant, the first thing they do is ask you what you want to drink and then bring it to the table while you're reading the menu. If a cruiselines service can't match that at a Denny's restaurant, then there's a problem. 

Then there was the experience with service at the additional pay for restaurant. I had ordered an appitizer, a pasta dish and the main course. They completely forgot the pasta dish until I pointed it out after the dinner. I didn't point it out earlier because they had already brought the main course. I wanted the pasta served before the main course, not during or after. Therefore it would have been a waste to receive it once I had my main course. They offered to take our drinks off our bill but, once we recieved our final accounting, the cost of those drinks were on the bill, even though we hadn't signed for them. It takes a good deal of time and effort to go through customer service on the last day just to get $17 removed from the bill so I've let it go for now. There will be a letter to Royal Caribbean's customer service department about their lapses in service even though I'm not expecting great results from writting it. 

These things are small little annoyances for the most part and we'll still cruise with Royal Caribbean. However, I won't be so bold as to brag about the great service nor will I attempt to get my in-laws to switch from Princess to Royal Caribbean for fear they'll tell me Royal Caribbean's service doesn't come close to matching what they've recievd on Princess.

Other than those small things, the cruise was great. We missed our port day in Marseille's France (sp?) due to high winds but, things like that happen. Getting the $108 we'd paid for shore exursion plus $6.98 refunded in port taxes didn't hurt my feelings all that bad and I was ready for a sea day anyway.


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## dougp26364 (Oct 12, 2009)

rickandcindy23 said:


> That's my dream cruise!  Which cruiseline?  We have been wanting to do this for years, but we have to get rid of some of those timeshares first.  If I sell four of the timeshares, I would bet Rick would be all for a cruise!



We're a little overloaded on timeshare weeks as well although I don't believe we own as many as you do. Even though it wasn't a good exchange, we used two years worth of HGVC points to offset the cost of this trip. The value was a little less than the two years MF's we'll pay. 

Even though it wasn't a good deal, we enjoy cruising and wanted to make this trip (second time in the Med). We're at a point were we either need to get rid of a couple of weeks or we have to do something else with one or two weeks when we want to cruise. This time we elected to exchange our HGVC points. Sometimes we'll bank weeks and figure out what to do with them next year. Sometimes we'll exchange weeks for points. We've considered renting units as well and may do that when the travel industry starts to show signs of improvement. 

I'm still considering getting rid of two of our seven weeks we own. The savings on those two weeks of MF's would pay for a 7 night cruise every year. The remaining weeks would include two units that are LO units and have been successfully traded up in size for the last few years. One is a 3 bedroom LO with the third bedroom locking-out into a full one bedroom unit. If all we did was LO that one unit, I'd still have six full weeks of ownership to stay at or exchange plus we'd be taking one cruise a year. We'd still have 7 weeks of vacation time to use and the cash to pay for that one week of cruising without having to juggle our timeshare ownership just to take a cruise without losing to much money.


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## elaine (Oct 12, 2009)

*50+ people missed our cruise last year!*

they were flying into London from DC and weather delayed the flight until the next day.  Luckily, our ship was only going from Dover to France--unlucky for them, there was a fire in the chunnel and it was closed the day they arrived.  They had to ferry over the old fashioned way.  Luggage did not make the flight or ferry and arrived 3 days later in Spain.
We have heard too many stories and ALWAYS fly a day early--even if it is just to Fla.
ps-we do not expect too much anymore from the mainline cruises--however, we were pleasantly surprised--actually amazed at the service on our Carnival cruise out of Dover last year--they made special meals on a whim, and had cappuccinos and even special macchiatos (sp?) after the 1st night without being asked.


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## chriskre (Oct 12, 2009)

Aside from the lesson on flying in early learned, I think a carry on these days with at least 2 days clothes is a must.  You never know when you'll need a change of undies.


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## dougp26364 (Oct 12, 2009)

chriskre said:


> Aside from the lesson on flying in early learned, I think a carry on these days with at least 2 days clothes is a must.  You never know when you'll need a change of undies.



I would agree but, since the airlines are no charging upwards of $60 round trip for each piece of luggage, everyone is trying to carry on ever larger sized pieces of luggage, resulting in not enough bin space for your carry on. To top it all off, they're not trying to check the carry-on luggage through to your final destination, which puts carry on baggage at risk of missing a connecting flight, just like you're checked baggage. IMHO, the airlines are making a real mess of things with their checked baggage fee's.

My problem is that I carry upwards of $2,000 in camera equipement and electronics when we travel. The camera body, lenses and accecories alone add up to $1,700 and that's one of the less expensive DSLR camera bodies. Tack on the netbook, external hard drive, iPod, cell phones (mobil devices in reality) et... and there's a lot of stuff that must go on the plane with us. It's a lot less expensive to pay for travel insurance and then buy clothing if necessary when the bags are delayed. It's just a pain to have to go out and buy something if/when it happens. 

In our case, we spent an additional $115 in clothes and transportation due to the baggage delay but, it won't be reimbursable through our trip insurance coverage. Our bags arrived within the 24 hour period allowed under the policy. I look at it this way, we'll get usage out of the clothes even though we really didn't need additional clothes, it was an experience going to a shopping mall where most people didn't speak English (isn't it fun to communicate with facial and hand gestures) and even though it turned out to be unneccesary, it gave us a little piece of mind.

We did manage to cram one change of clothes each in our carry on as well as toiletries. We had that one change of clothes but, it would have become real old real fast having clothes washed on a daily basis.

The ship did have clothing for sale onboard but, it was pricey. If it had come down to that, the $500 allowance with our trip insurance would have been reached pretty quickly. At least we would have been able to purchase enough clothes onboard to get by for a couple of days until our luggage finally arrived.


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## dougp26364 (Oct 12, 2009)

elaine said:


> they were flying into London from DC and weather delayed the flight until the next day.  Luckily, our ship was only going from Dover to France--unlucky for them, there was a fire in the chunnel and it was closed the day they arrived.  They had to ferry over the old fashioned way.  Luggage did not make the flight or ferry and arrived 3 days later in Spain.
> We have heard too many stories and ALWAYS fly a day early--even if it is just to Fla.
> ps-we do not expect too much anymore from the mainline cruises--however, we were pleasantly surprised--actually amazed at the service on our Carnival cruise out of Dover last year--they made special meals on a whim, and had cappuccinos and even special macchiatos (sp?) after the 1st night without being asked.



Our first cruise was the only cruise we flew in the day of the cruise. There was a delay getting out of our home airport and that was enough to convince me to never pull that trick again. Airlines are just to unpredictable and anything can happen at anytime. Strikes, mechanical failures (both airline and airport), bomb scares, unrulely passengers that cause the flight to be diverted as well as weather are things that come up from time to time.

While I'm thinking about it, everyone probably should pay attention to when we fly. If something odd is going to happen, it always seems to happen on at least one of our flights. This time it appears to have been an outage with ATF in Scottland the delayed oversea's flights going to the UK. Flights were really backed up in Philly despite good weather. Once again we say on the tarmac away from the gate for somewhere in the neighborhood of an hour. We seem to be getting pretty good at the 1 hour to 1+ hour delays sitting on the ground waiting to take off.


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## Elli (Oct 13, 2009)

Thanks for detailing the service on Royal Caribbean.  We were on the Voyager last year for our Med. cruise, and I agree that service wasn't the greatest.  We are booked on Princess for a Panama Canal Cruise in Jan., so it will be interesting to compare the two.

P.S.  I just clicked on your pictures, and there was the Voyager.  The Junior Suite sure looks a lot larger than our Stateroom, which had a balcony as well E2-7568.  Did you take a lot of shore excursions, and will you post those pictures as well?


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## grest (Oct 13, 2009)

Actually, we were compensated once when our flight was too heavy.  They first asked for volunteers to be bumped, but no one volunteered.  They asked again, with the same result.  Finally they asked for people willing to leave their luggage behind, to be delivered the next day...for a free round trip ticket.  Needless to say, we volunteered.  Yippee!


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## dougp26364 (Oct 14, 2009)

grest said:


> Actually, we were compensated once when our flight was too heavy.  They first asked for volunteers to be bumped, but no one volunteered.  They asked again, with the same result.  Finally they asked for people willing to leave their luggage behind, to be delivered the next day...for a free round trip ticket.  Needless to say, we volunteered.  Yippee!



USAirways didn't bump any people. They just bumped luggage. I guess they found a unique way of NOT having to compensate passengers as luggage doesn't complain and the passneger doesn't know until he lands that his luggage didn't make the trip. 

If I hadn't overheard the one gate attendent telling another passenger that the flight was already weight restricted, I wouldn't have been able to make a guess as to why our luggage didn't make the flight. My bet is all the freight the flight might have been carrying made the trip but luggage, who really needs their luggage?

In the end it was our three cases and another family's cases didn't make the trip. If I recall, it was a family of four which probably meant they had at least 4 cases of their own. That would have been 7 pieces of luggage that I'd estimate the weight at 40lbs per suitcase or 1 average size person. Saved the airline $200 to $300 rather than bumping a passenger but made for two anxious cruise ship passengers about getting their luggage for the cruise. 

I'd like to say I'll never fly USAirways again due to how they handled the situation but, I know any other airline would have done the same. Cost is the only thing that drives the airlines. Service is just a byproduct. No one buys a ticket due to the great service they recieve unless all prices are essentially equal. If one airline cuts service and then cuts prices, all others will follow. It's just the way of the world when flying.

That old saying of, "If you've got time to spare, go by air" never seems to change.


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## dougp26364 (Oct 14, 2009)

Elli said:


> Thanks for detailing the service on Royal Caribbean.  We were on the Voyager last year for our Med. cruise, and I agree that service wasn't the greatest.  We are booked on Princess for a Panama Canal Cruise in Jan., so it will be interesting to compare the two.
> 
> P.S.  I just clicked on your pictures, and there was the Voyager.  The Junior Suite sure looks a lot larger than our Stateroom, which had a balcony as well E2-7568.  Did you take a lot of shore excursions, and will you post those pictures as well?




We got lucky with the Junior Suite cabin. I caught a price reduction and, when we moved up from our E2 balcony cabin to the JS cabin, I also got a price reduction of ~$40. Plus, we still had a stateroom close to one of the elevator banks. 

I've started putting up the pics from our shore excursions. I'll be putting them all into one album this time rather than seperating them out into many different smaller albums. I have about 3/4 of the photo's up at this point and will be trying to finish the album up tomorrow evening. So far I have Villerfranch, Nice, Eze, Rome and Pompeii photo's up. I still need to get Hurculanium, Livorno and Pisa posted. 

I took in excess of 1,500 photo's on this trip so it takes a little time to go through them and figure out which photo's to post. Fortunately I had time to organize them into files on that 9 hour flight back. When they're already organized, it's not such a big job.


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## Patri (Oct 14, 2009)

dougp26364 said:


> That would have been 7 pieces of luggage that I'd estimate the weight at 40lbs per suitcase or 1 average size person.



Oh my goodness, I hope not. We're not that fat.


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## dougp26364 (Oct 14, 2009)

Elli said:


> Did you take a lot of shore excursions, and will you post those pictures as well?



I've cut some 1,500+ photo's down to 173 in one album from our shore excursions. You can go directly to the album by clicking on the picture below or by following the link in my signature below.


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## Talent312 (Oct 14, 2009)

My personal rule is that, if the embarkation-point that is more than a three-hour drive or requires a flight, I try to get there the day B4. Too many things can go wrong -- an airport or aircraft issue, a traffic accident or car-trouble.... and I'm happy to bear the expense of a hotel night for peace of mind.


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## Elli (Oct 14, 2009)

dougp26364 said:


> I've cut some 1,500+ photo's down to 173 in one album from our shore excursions. You can go directly to the album by clicking on the picture below or by following the link in my signature below.


Great pictures, Doug, especially the close-ups are very sharp.  We had exactly the same itinerary - waiting for the rest.


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## dougp26364 (Oct 14, 2009)

Patri said:


> Oh my goodness, I hope not. We're not that fat.



OK, maybe 280 lbs is a little heavy for the "average size" person.   Perhaps they could have sent at least ONE of our three cases along for the ride. If they'd have done that, each of us would have had a couple of changes of clothing as we mixed our clothes between the cases rather than having his and hers suitcases.


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## dougp26364 (Oct 14, 2009)

Elli said:


> Great pictures, Doug, especially the close-ups are very sharp.  We had exactly the same itinerary - waiting for the rest.



At this point I think I've put up about all I'm going to post on Webshots. I may have taken >1,500 photo's but that doesn't mean they're all good. I'm still learning how to use my DSLR and I'll take a shot, check the exposure, make adjustments and take the shot again. I'm getting better but setting white balance, exposure and focus is still a work in progress. Sometimes it looks good on the camera's small screen but the histogram shows over/under exposure so, I adjust and retake. I'm never really sure of what I have until I can get home and put the shots up on my screen at home. The netbook I carry helps but, the screen is still small enough that it's tough to see what really looks good and what's over/under exposed or just doesn't look good for my tastes.


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## bobcat (Oct 14, 2009)

*cruise*



rickandcindy23 said:


> That's my dream cruise!  Which cruiseline?  We have been wanting to do this for years, but we have to get rid of some of those timeshares first.  If I sell four of the timeshares, I would bet Rick would be all for a cruise!



Celebrity had some great deals on the Med cruises for 2010. They had an 11 day cruise ,outside cabin higher deck with a verenda. Always make sure you purchase insurance for the cost of the whole trip. We are going in May for a total of 15 days. That includes 1 day before, 11 day cruise and 3 extra days in Italy.


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## Kathy Q (Oct 19, 2009)

dougp26364 said:


> At this point I think I've put up about all I'm going to post on Webshots. I may have taken >1,500 photo's but that doesn't mean they're all good. I'm still learning how to use my DSLR and I'll take a shot, check the exposure, make adjustments and take the shot again. I'm getting better but setting white balance, exposure and focus is still a work in progress. Sometimes it looks good on the camera's small screen but the histogram shows over/under exposure so, I adjust and retake. I'm never really sure of what I have until I can get home and put the shots up on my screen at home. The netbook I carry helps but, the screen is still small enough that it's tough to see what really looks good and what's over/under exposed or just doesn't look good for my tastes.



Hi Doug,

Those are great pictures.  I enjoyed both albums and you've obviously got talent when it comes to taking pictures!  The Cruising TUGgers will be doing what looks to be the same itinerary next June.  The information and links to the Yahoo group webt site is one of the stickeys at the top of the TUG Lounge page.  We'll be on the NCL Jade.  

Do you mind if I post link of your pictures of the shore excursions on the Cruising TUGgers Yahoo web site?  I know the people in the 14 cabins we've already booked would love to see them.  We've still got 15 more cabins available (at a group rate with amenities) if anyone's interested.

Thanks again for sharing!   

Kathy Q


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## dougp26364 (Oct 19, 2009)

Kathy Q said:


> Hi Doug,
> 
> Those are great pictures.  I enjoyed both albums and you've obviously got talent when it comes to taking pictures!  The Cruising TUGgers will be doing what looks to be the same itinerary next June.  The information and links to the Yahoo group webt site is one of the stickeys at the top of the TUG Lounge page.  We'll be on the NCL Jade.
> 
> ...



Sure you can post the link. I keep all of my albums as public albums and post them for the exact reason you mention, for other people who are interested to see.


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