We heard the news of Irma brewing into a serious hurricane a few days before we were set to leave Miami on our 6 night Western Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Vista.
What bad luck, I thought, although I wasn’t worried. I completely trusted that Carnival Cruises, or any cruise line, would not commit business suicide by steering us into a hurricane.
Could you imagine the fall out if the Captain did that?
There was still doubt about Irma’s path. It was early days anything could happen. We kept updated on the cruise and the clear, sunny days we were having let us know we were far from Irma’s fury.
And then it happened. The path pretty much determined, save some angelic intervention that this mammoth storm – the largest recorded hurricane over the Atlantic was headed straight for Miami and the entire state of Florida.
We’d gotten back from our day (Wednesday) on Grand Cayman, our second island destination on the cruise, to the Captain’s message – we would not be returning to Miami on Saturday.
We had a choice.
We could alight at our next destination, Cozumel in Mexico and find our own way home, or stay on the ship waiting until the hurricane had passed and it was safer to return to Miami.
The decision was easily made for those passengers who did not travel on the cruise with their passports.
On Caribbean cruises it’s okay for American’s to cruise without their passports and just use their drivers licence for photo id. So many did – some don’t even own a passport. I’m so glad we had ours.
The answer was pretty simple for all the Floridian guests – stay on the ship, enjoy the facilities, food, drink and shelter and remain far from the worst hurricane ever.
For us out-of-staters, we had a decision that required more thought.
Then there was the fact that Irma was moving up the Carolina’s so we may not even get into Raleigh.
I had spoken to a guy from another Carnival ship who said those stuck on the boat waiting for Harvey to pass so they could return to Galveston remained on the boat for an extra 8 days as the port was wiped out.
No way. That was a a risk I was not willing to take.
Plus we couldn’t afford any more time offline away from our business which was already amounting due to the bad internet and little time we had available for work on the cruise – there are TONS of fun activities and shows!
We knew that wifi would be challenging going in and factored that into the cruise by preparing before hand. But 6 days was the max time off and we have a lot of upcoming travel to prepare for and too many unfinished projects.
We decided to jump ship in Cozumel, Mexico a day earlier and make our own way home.
First we wanted to check our insurance options before booking flights. Thank goodness for collect calls which helped me talk to someone to clarify coverage.
He couldn’t give me a definite yes or no as to whether we’d get reimbursed for flights, as it is up to the claims department, but he advised me to provide them with as much documentation as possible including cancelled flights and a letter from the cruise saying they couldn’t get back to port.
He brightened my day a little when he asked to clarify if we were leaving the ship by helicopter. Lucky our plight was not that bad or expensive!
But, it was going to be expensive to get out of Cozumel. Whether insurance would cover it or not, we knew it was a price we had no other option to pay. It was either going to be in Mexico or Miami. At least Mexico would get us home faster and help us avoid hell.
I didn’t bother phoning the airlines to see if we could transfer our cancelled flights from Miami to Cozumel. I knew that futile task would waste precious time. Based upon all the stories I heard I am glad we didn’t!
Here are a couple of the stories I heard:
- On the phone to the airline for three hours, no real solution came about.
- “To transfer my flights, my option was a $6,000 one way flight from Cancun to Oklahoma. I was looking at the same flight online for $1,800 one way.” Both of those prices are scandalous. The $6,000 was offered by the customer service on the phone. Shame American Airlines.
- $2,000 one way to transfer my flights from Cancun to Houston.
Friggin outrageous!
Apparently, once they figured out what the “Algorithms” were doing, they capped the prices. Too bad for the man that paid $8,500 for a flight that was now reduced back down to normal prices. I wonder how he feels. If the airlines have any decency they’ll reimburse everyone the “algorithms” overcharged.
As soon as we heard the news I checked online to get an idea of flight prices. From Cozumel to Raleigh it would cost us at least $2000 for all of us to get home, which wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t money we had lying around. It was Wednesday and the earliest flight was Friday.
We stupidly said we’d sleep on our decision and went to enjoy the night time entertainments.
I woke up at 4am the next morning tossing and turning over the situation and finally decided to get up at 6am and sat on our balcony to just book the flights.
No flights available for Saturday. Or Sunday. Or Monday.
“Faarrrk you stupid idiot. Why did you not book them last night? Of course every passenger of the 5 boats in Cozumel are wanting to get out right now!!”
I started crying thinking of being trapped on that ship for god knows how much longer. I was so mad at myself and did not know what we could do.
And then I saw the little check box – search flights nearby. My Mexican geography is not good but I did recall we were close to Cancun and it’s a big tourist destination.
I was grateful for Skyscanner because I trust them and to save time, I turned to them and quickly found a flight leaving from Cancun which was just a two hour journey from Cozumel.
I was so glad that tossing and turning forced my out of bed early to do this as no one else was awake and I could get faster internet. Otherwise we’d be screwed.
The good news is the flights were actually cheaper by $500 total. A lot of people paid $1500 just for a one way ticket out so we were very lucky.
Next we had to inform the cruise and fill out a mountain of paperwork, print off plane tickets, given them a hotel name in Mexico and pay $31 each for an immigration fee.
One of the travel tips I share in my free email series on taking your travel dreams to reality is to have a couple of search engine booking sites you like and trust to save you time. Sometimes the savings you get in checking multiple sites for the best deal is not worth it for the time you spend finding it.
I had to very quickly find a hotel for our stay in Cancun so we could get our paperwork in on time. Booking.com is our trusted hotel site so I went straight to them and in five minutes found a good villa near the airport with excellent reviews for only $80.
To get to Cancun, we had to take a ferry to Playa Del Carmen on the mainland (Cozumel is an island off the Mexico coast) and then take either a local bus or private transfer.
Most people said with more than two people, a private transfer was better. Plus, it was local Mexican buses – they’d leave once the bus was full and all the roosters had found enough laps to sit on.
For $65 for the van, it was a fair deal and less stressful. We met two ladies from the boat who were going to Cancun and so jumped in our van which further reduced our costs.
One thing this taught me was the importance of listening to your gut. It never fails.
My gut told me not to go on this cruise some time ago – for various reason. I went against that voice and look what happened! Although we had fun for the few days we were on it, it ended in stress and it didn’t bring me the value I would have gotten elsewhere.
My voice also kept nudging at me to get up and book those flights – and look what happened – we got on a flight for about a quarter of what many others ended up paying. Just before those naughty algorithms played up real bad.
I’ll be keeping an eye on my fellow Vista passengers and hope they can get back to Miami port soon and home to their loved ones. May they be relaxing and enjoying the cruise in the meantime! Those chocolatini cocktails will certainly help!
