When Things Go Wrong

I DEVOTED a couple different blog posts a few weeks back to some of the potential "negatives" of cruises, including why they sometimes come up, and who may be responsible. Following up on that theme, and from our own personal experience, I wanted to talk about some things that might go wrong and how to address them.

I THINK the most important thought here is to keep it all in perspective. To be sure, there have been some pretty horrible things that have happened to cruise passengers, including sinking ships, passengers (wrongfully) left behind by a ship, and some of the more nefarious things that happen to people aboard some cruise ships. I will mostly leave that coverage to the 100's of vloggers and bloggers on cruising in general. The majority of mishaps are probably less earth-shattering and that is what I am addressing here, when I talk about perspective. We have had a few things happen to us, or to people who were traveling with us or on our ship. The most significant thing I took away from all of those incidents was that in the end - we were on vacation. Often something many of us don't get to do often - if ever, and so the key is to make the best of it. Put it in perspective, knowing that, in most cases, it probably could be worse.

the most important thought here is to keep it all in perspective

FOR THE most part, we are probably not going to be able to remedy a lot of things that could go wrong on a trip after they occur. We can, however, address some pro-active measures.

WHEN YOU think about it, there is actually a pretty long list of things that could go wrong. Just a few include: lost luggage (including it being dropped into the sea), missed and cancelled airline connections, health issues and personal family emergencies. With a little forethought, contingency plans can be in place for all of these.

INSURANCE

ONE OF the most common proactive measures is to purchase travel insurance. Obviously, insurance is not going to stave off any of the things noted above. But it can economically compensate you for losses if something does happen. And when you know you have that contingency, it makes the occurence - if it does happen -much less stressful. Whether or not to purchase travel insurance will probably depend upon your personal circumstances. There are some, for example, who are able to personally economically absorb any imaginable emergency situation. For them, insurance probably isn't necessary. The rest of us will vary. Some people will always purchase it. Some of us will take "calculated" risks and insure for some instances and not for others. We have personally gone both ways.

AT THE same time, it is advisable to consider just what kinds of losses the insurance will cover (and perhaps whether some other coverage you may already have in place - like personal accident and health insurance, homeowner insurance or personal articles/inland marine endorsements would already provide coverage).

WHEN CONSIDERING insurance, it is also pretty important to know whether your personal health insurance will cover health emergencies - and where they will be covered. For example, some policies will cover you in countries you are visiting, but may not cover medical care and/expenses on board the ship. It would be useful to know that before embarkation. If not, it may be important to consider some kind of additional, supplemental health insurance.

CONTINGENCY PACKING

ON A more practical level, there are things you can and should do as part of your cruise preparation. Most cruise lines have a facility for loading and unloading luggage onto the ship. In every case we have left larger bags in the hands of porters along side, and carried just smaller items personally on board. In more recent years, I have personally deviated from that, and generally take a small rollaboard on board personally. I make certain I have my necessities in that bag. The includes all my medications for the trip, at least one change of clothes, and any valuable items (watches, jewelry, cameras, etc.). I have seen passengers personally carry larger bags aboard. At the very least, though, carrying on at least one small bag with those things in it that could not live without for the remainder of the cruise is a good practice. I get that most of us didn't pack very many things we couldn't live without. Clothing maybe being among the most important. But in most instances (especially knowing you have that insurance policy) you should be able to purchase clothing enough to get by.

CARRYING EVERYTHING on is not a completely bad idea, but could create logistics issues, depending on the circumstances. In the old days, it was not uncommon to have to board the ship and then wait for several hours for your stateroom to be available. in that case it would be very inconvenient to drag all those bags around the ship and find a place to keep them out of the way. As well, they tend to clog elevators at a time when boarding is in full swing. I suspect those would be reasons for the cruise line to discourage this practice. In our experience (with Celebrity, Princess, HAL  and Oceania at least) the ship lines have gotten much more efficient about that part of the boarding process. Today (at least on the mentioned lines) we board and proceed to our cabin immediately, where our ship card is waiting for us. This means that any carry-on baggage can be deposited in the room, making the process more convenient. We generally do that, check in with our muster station, and head to our favorite bar onboard. 😁 It has also been our recent experience that our bags arrive very soon after we board. The other logistical issue, though, may be that the boarding scanner system has physical limits for how large a bag you carry on.

EITHER WAY, it has been my personal practice to carry all my bags off the ship when disembarking. My main motivation there is that I don't like having to have any of my bags put out into the hallway the night before. It always seemed like something didn't work well with that, and often I had to engage in "re-packing" once of the ship. Sometimes there were things I would need in the morning that I didn't want on my airline carry on bag. The added advantage is that I have all my bags in my possession as I leave the ship. And while it isn't a common occurence, if you carry both on and off, the chance of your bag going overboard into the water is avoided (in my method, it is substantially lessened, but I have only really protected myself in one direction).

ON THOSE bags you do plan to check with the porter, every experienced cruiser knows the cruise line provides you with luggage tags well in advance of the embarkation day. We have purchased plastic tag holders on Amazon (you can find them in cruise-line specific sizes). They are relatively inexpensive, and in spite of the cruise lines' assurance that printing out the paper tags, folding an stapling them are sufficient, we just don't trust that. Redundancy is also a good idea. I print out extra tags, as well as other cruise/cabin/personal identifying information and put that information inside each of my bags. We also have "airtags" (in our case, the Android version) in our bags.

OF COURSE, the above precautions are not failsafe. But they are advised. If your bag gets dropped overboard, the airtag is probably not going to work and even if it does, if they find the bag, it is unlikely anything in it will have survived. At that point, you will probably be shopping. One of the problems with that is that for most of us reasonably large people, there is very little available on board in the way of clothes that will fit. When in other countries - particularly in Asia, but also in Europe, larger sizes will be hard to find, and depending on the itinerary, availability to shop may be limited. Nobody wants to spend valuable shore time shopping, but it may become a necessity. In most cases, the cruise line is probably going to eventually reimburse you (and if not, that travel insurance policy you bought should cover it). Eventually is the operative word, though. Be prepared (mentally and economically) to "front" these expenses.

OTHER CONTINGENCIES

WE HAVE learned over multiple cruises to be sure to carry certain items when we travel, including small scissors, a small sewing kit, some tools (pliers, screwdrivers, etc. - be careful about multitools - you cannot carry them on airplanes), a first aid kit (especially bandages). We also like to carry battery-powered backup chargers for our electronics in case of an emergency where we do not have electric power handy.

PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE

AS I have grown older, I have in many ways become that predictably "grumpy old man." But happily in most ways, it has probably been just the opposite. I have become more patient and accepting both of things I cannot change and of the differences in other people around me. One thing we have learned by our cruises around the world is that there are many different kinds of people and many different cultural views. For example, I so often read on boards people complaining about children on the ships, rude people, poor treatment of disabled and older people. Ironically it seems to be that same group, by the way, are often the ones complaining about both 😏 the children and the old people on the ship. In many cases if you are one of those, you might want to realize that you are "the old people." 😁 When I was in my 50's I was taken aback ocassionally by a youthful person thinking of (and referring to) me as "old." It's all relative. Every person: old, disabled, or otherwise, deserves respect, and when I see them aboard, it makes me happy that they are having the experience and being accomodated. If they slow something down, be patient and know you are blessed not to be in their situation. I think pretty much the same about children (though I do lose patience with parents who think that because they are on vacation, they are not responsible for their children's behavior. Thankfully, I haven't really seen this much. And I have found the children I have encountered to be generally delightful). I always remember and think about one particular family. We were on Princess. On the sea days (we were in a warm and sunny clime) we would be out on the pool deck and a family from Canada was near us almost daily. They were fun and interesting. They had a teenager who was a Downs Syndrome child who was absolutely adorable. And happy. And delighted to be aboard. A year later, we were on a different Princess ship. On the pool deck. In the warm sun. I looked up and there was my little girlfriend, standing there greeting me! Same family, different ship, different time. Cruises are like that!

ANOTHER THING - and retirement has certainly been a huge contributor to this - is that nothing is really that urgent! Sure, we are living on borrowed time (but philosophically, we always were). I get, too, that for some people it may be their once-in-a-lifetime experience, but still you really can't control life. You can live it, however. Everything can be an experience - or an ordeal. Much of it is how you look at it. I am not discounting the truly negative things in life (like health issues). I just think it is a matter of - as I said above - perspective. Things aren't always going to go as scheduled. Things break down. Weather (especially at sea) can be unpredictable. People get sick and have to be taken to port. This is all part of the "flow" of cruises. Learning to take this stuff in stride and find the positives will bring down our anxiety levels and make our cruise still a memorable and fun experience overall.