Image: Royal Caribbean
A delay on one cruise doesn't necessarily end when that cruise does.
Passengers preparing to board Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas in New Jersey on Sunday are finding that out, with the ship expected to arrive around eight hours later than originally scheduled.
The delay occurred after the current sailing needed to return to Nassau so two passengers could receive urgent medical care.
Those passengers aren't the story here.
What happened afterwards is.
Oasis of the Seas is now expected back at Cape Liberty considerably later than planned on 20 September. That means thousands of passengers can't disembark on schedule, the ship can't be prepared for its next guests on schedule, embarkation has to move... and eventually something has to give.
In this case, it's a port.
Oasis of the Seas will return around eight hours late
Oasis of the Seas was originally due to arrive at Cape Liberty Cruise Port in Bayonne, New Jersey at approximately 6am on Sunday.
Royal Caribbean has advised passengers that the ship is now expected to arrive at around 2pm.
That's an eight-hour delay before the turnaround process even begins.
Once the current passengers leave, crew still need to prepare the 226,838-gross-tonne ship for thousands of new passengers.
Royal Caribbean has therefore advised guests booked on the next sailing that embarkation will also be delayed by around seven to eight hours.
Passengers have been given revised arrival times and asked not to arrive at the terminal earlier than instructed.
The next cruise has now lost a port
The delay also means Oasis of the Seas won't be able to operate its next itinerary exactly as planned.
Port Canaveral, originally scheduled for Tuesday, 22 September, has been cancelled.
The ship is still expected to visit Perfect Day at CocoCay and Nassau before returning to New Jersey on 27 September.
Royal Caribbean is providing affected passengers with onboard credit as a gesture of goodwill following the disruption.
It's a useful example of something that's easy to forget when looking at cruise itineraries.
Cruise ships generally don't have a spare day sitting around between sailings.
One group gets off and the next group gets on, often within a matter of hours.
So when a ship arrives significantly late, the effects can carry straight into the next cruise.
Cruise delays can snowball surprisingly quickly
There are plenty of reasons a cruise ship might arrive late.
Bad weather can slow a ship down or force an itinerary change. Mechanical problems can affect its speed. Ports can close. Search and rescue operations can require ships to divert from their planned route.
Sometimes another person simply needs help.
Whatever the cause, a substantial delay can affect much more than the ship's arrival time.
It can mean later disembarkation, delayed embarkation, altered itineraries and cancelled ports.
And for passengers, there can be another layer of problems waiting on shore.
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
What if you have a flight booked after your cruise?
This is where a late cruise arrival can become expensive.
Someone with a Sunday afternoon flight booked from New York after leaving Oasis of the Seas could potentially find themselves still aboard the ship when their flight is supposed to depart.
Then there are hotels, transfers, connecting flights and other prepaid arrangements.
The cruise line may assist with some costs depending on the circumstances, but passengers shouldn't assume every consequential expense will automatically be reimbursed.
It's one of the reasons leaving a sensible buffer between your cruise and onward travel matters.
An early flight might look perfectly achievable when your itinerary says the ship arrives at 6am.
It looks rather different when the ship actually arrives at 2pm.
This is where travel insurance can become important
Travel insurance isn't only about becoming sick overseas or losing your suitcase.
Depending on the policy and the circumstances, appropriate travel insurance may provide cover when unexpected disruption causes you to miss prepaid transport or other arrangements.
For example, some Australian policies include benefits for missed connections where scheduled transport or a cruise is unexpectedly delayed and the traveller can no longer make a pre-booked connection.
That might help with eligible additional transport or accommodation expenses.
But there is a very important word in that sentence:
May.
Travel insurance policies aren't all the same.
A cruise ship arriving late doesn't automatically mean your insurer will pay for a new flight, hotel and dinner.
The reason for the delay matters. So do the wording of your policy, applicable limits and exclusions, and whether you've allowed what the insurer considers sufficient connection time.
Smartraveller recommends Australians check exactly what their policy covers for cancellations and delays and read the Product Disclosure Statement before buying.
Royal Caribbean itself recommends passengers take out appropriate international or cruise-specific travel insurance and specifically mentions travel delays and interruptions among the reasons for doing so.
Cruise cover isn't necessarily included automatically
This is another detail worth checking, particularly for Australian cruisers.
Some travel insurance policies require cruise cover to be specifically added to the policy.
Depending on the insurer and policy, cruise-specific cover can include things such as onboard medical expenses, emergency evacuation, missed cruise departures or connections, cabin confinement and missed shore excursions.
Other policies structure their cover differently.
So simply having travel insurance doesn't necessarily mean you've bought the cover you think you have.
Before travelling, check the PDS and look specifically at:
- cruise cover requirements
- travel delay benefits
- missed connections
- additional accommodation and transport expenses
- cancellation cover
- applicable waiting periods, limits and exclusions.
And keep copies of receipts and any written notification from the cruise line if something does go wrong.
Australian insurers offering cruise cover make clear that eligibility depends on the cause of the disruption and the particular policy purchased.
Don't book onward travel too tightly
Insurance is useful when something unexpected happens.
Giving yourself some breathing room in the first place is even better.
Cruise lines publish arrival times, but those times aren't guarantees that you'll be standing outside the terminal with your suitcase five minutes later.
The ship needs to be cleared by local authorities before passengers can leave. Thousands of people may need to disembark. Luggage needs to come off. Transfers take time.
And occasionally, as Oasis of the Seas passengers are discovering this weekend, the ship itself arrives hours later than expected.
For international fly-cruise trips, adding a little extra time between different parts of the journey can save an enormous amount of stress when something doesn't go according to plan.
Because sometimes the disruption happens on your cruise.
And sometimes it happens on the cruise before yours.
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