Thursday, September 8, 2011

Royal Caribbean Apologizes for Stranding Passengers in San Juan September 07, 2011

By Theresa Norton Masek
Royal Caribbean International President and CEO Adam Goldstein, in his blog, apologized to passengers who missed their ship in San Juan after it was forced to depart early due to Hurricane Irene. As the storm approached, the Port Authority in San Juan ordered Serenade of the Seas to depart early and 150 people missed the ship. Royal Caribbean assisted those passengers that had booked the lines Choice Air, but others were on their own to find hotel accommodations and flights to the next port of call. A similar situation befell Carnival, which found hotels and flights for its 300 passengers, leaving Royal Caribbean open to widespread criticism. In his blog, Goldstein wrote: Although our standard position for weather-related disruptions is to encourage guests to work directly with their air carriers in reaching the ship, in the case of Serenade of the Seas in San Juan, we should have recognized immediately that the forced departure of the ship, albeit out of our control, created an out-of-the-norm situation. Although more than half of the 150 guests who missed the ship in San Juan were able to join Serenade in Aruba, earlier recognition would have resulted in us providing the best and fastest alternative travel arrangements to reach the ship and also providing more support in San Juan and/or over the phone for hotel and other arrangements. Goldstein said all guests who missed Serenade of the Seas in San Juan received compensation equivalent to the number of days they missed of that voyage. Although we have heard from very few of the affected guests, I apologize on behalf of Royal Caribbean that our situation awareness was not at its customary high level, he wrote. We have learned some valuable lessons for the future

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