The Worst Travel Experience of My LIfe. (Royal Caribbean)

       A few months ago my Mom and Aunt planned a trip to Australia to visit us in Sydney.  We wanted to do something really fun while they were here.  It had been a hard year we had lost my Grandpa and we really just wanted to do something that he would have loved.  When he was young he sailed around the world in the United States Navy and it's always something he loved talking about.  He even remembers coming to Australia and seeing the pines on Manly Beach.  So as my mom and I were doing research we found a cruise that went to Fiji, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia.  It was 12 days which was really long for us, and a little pricey but we knew it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and decided to go for it.

       A week before the cruise we were all preparing for my Mom and my Aunt to fly in a few days early.  We were so excited.  Then the unthinkable happened.  My husband suddenly came home early from work,  and my Mom called and told me my brother had passed away.  Everything for me fell a part.  Theres no other way for me to describe it.  We realized we needed to cancel the cruise and instead of my Mom and Aunt flying in I would fly home.

My Mom called me again upset and said she had called Royal Caribbean and was talking to some outsourced customer service in Ecuador.  They would only read from their script basically saying there was nothing they could do. They told her they would cancel the cruise and she could send in some documentation of my brothers death and it would go to a board to be reviewed where they would decide if it was appropriate to refund or not which could take weeks.  The supposed manager got on the phone and said she had about a 50-50 chance of getting any refund.  WE WERE SHOCKED. Not only were we going through one of the darkest times in our life Royal Caribbean basically said that's too bad,  but we can't do a thing for you. What we really wanted was just to move the cruise to later in the year, they had the exact same one in October with availability and they said No.

 A few people told us just to go and take care of things when we get back. I knew that wasn't an option with the amount of pain we were in.  We considered just loosing all of the money which made me even sicker.  Jason finally said maybe we go half way through the cruise.

Against my Mom's warning I tried calling too.  After reaching out on twitter I just couldn't imagine with the situation they wouldn't try and help us.  When I was talking to the man on the phone he seemed to be helping me, he heard our situation and put me on hold.  When he came back he gave me some info to send our details to.   I asked when we would get a response and he told me it can take a while and then said he already cancelled our cruise.  I LOST IT.  UNCONTROLLABLE SOBBING SAYING "NO WE DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO YET, WHY AREN'T YOU TRYING TO HELP ME!"

At this point Jason made me give up the phone because my mental stability had been compromised.  He somehow got them to UN-cancel and we were back trying to decide what we do.  This is all within one horrific day.   At 1-2 in the morning and after my mom not sleeping for 48 hours in the states we said a prayer and ultimately decided I would go home and we would try to meet the cruise next week sometime.

So Royal Caribbean I will most likely NEVER return to one of your cruises, I will NEVER recommend you, and I sincerely hope someone figures out how insane it is you don't have some sort of policy for families going through horrible crisis and FREAKING HELP THEM!!!  Also I understand we didn't have cruise insurance, I have never purchased travel insurance in my life and maybe in the future I will.  But I would by it in case of unexpected illness, or a missed flight NOT because I expected my brother would be found dead 4 days before a cruise.  So thank you for your insincerity, and the emotional damage you caused me, and even more so my Mother!

PART 2 THE JOURNEY

       To make things worse after a week of no sleep because of our circumstances we flew out the night after my brothers funeral.  We flew from Salt Lake, to LA on Delta and barely made a connection.  We also flew Delta from LA to Sydney in a 15 hour flight.  Our Plane circled the airport for 30 minutes because of a problem on the runway.  We were running low on fuel so were forced to divert to Brisbane to refuel.  We were stuck there for over 3 hours.  By the time we had landed back in Sydney we had been on a plane for over 20 hours. We missed our connecting flight to Suva Fiji that my husband and two children were forced to get on without us.  We went to the Qantas desk to ask for help getting on a new flight. The woman at the desk was rude and unsympathetic.  At one point after my Mom and I were discussing options she took her hands off the key board and rudely asked, "Do you even want to get there?" I was shocked and started to cry, "yes I have to get to my children we are just trying to figure out the best way."  They ended up charging us another $1000 and had another 6 hours to wait for our flight now again to Brisbane, then to Nadi Fiji, and finally to Suva.  So thank you Qantas also for your lack of customer service and help.  At this point I lost track of the time we were on planes and airports. My brain shut down.  We did eventually meet my husband and children in Nadi where their connection also got cancelled to Suva and they were forced to pay for a different hotel for the night. We got one a plane at 7 am to Suva and taxied to the ship.

Stuck in the Plane in Brisbane realizing we wont make our Fiji connection.

My Aunts Swollen Ankles after the 6 flights

2nd time in Brisbane but at least this time there are chairs we can lay down on.

So many tickets, when I was so excited I was just going to be able to train and walk on a cruise ship instead of having to fly to a port. Jokes on me.

To be honest the rest of the trip went fine.  The ports were really lovely but the underlying problem was we just didn't really want to be there at that time.  I was a little upset that no one notified the staff at all about our situation.  Just at least warning them a family that has been through a death recently will be boarding late.  Nope they seemed surprised we even showed up.

So that was the worst travel experience of my life.