Here is a cruise education for everybody. Most people don't know these facts:
When you book a cruise, you essentially give up most of your rights by a contract called "The Conditions of Carriage."
If you suffer an injury or damage or loss of your property, your rights are going to be very limited and the limited remedies usually involved being forced to arbitrate in an inconvenient forum in front of a very cruise ship friendly board. You are a lobster trying your case in a boiling pot under those arrangements. They also invoke very short notice periods for you to make any claim, if a family member wants to file a claim for your death, that time period may lapse before they even learn about it.
If an event occurs that sinks the ship, results in a cancellation of the trip, and causes port cancellations, trip cancellations, or results in you being dumped off in a port other than that you originally booked at the end of the trip, that is your problem, not theirs. You are on your own.
On the last and final cruise of my life on Silverseas Cruise line, I was booked from South Hampton to New York. The boat hit something en route, or had a mechanical problem that caused an oil leak. A stop in Newport was cancelled, the trip terminated early, and we were dumped off of the boat at a shipyard in New Jersey, and told we were on our own.
It was a god-awful trip, and we had to make our way back to New York at our own expense. During that trip my wife was seasick in high seas in our cabin about half of it. A lot of the crew seemed to be falling ill, and I contracted a virus that took me months to get over.
Cruise ship lines make their money by filling their boats with people and then using various schemes to extract as much money from those people as possible. Although the schemes vary, they usually involved the following:
Premium dining charges. The ships have a number of choices for food service, buffet lines, beach bar food service, a formal dining room, and often a restaurant where you make a reservation to eat really good food at exorbitant prices.
Spa services. Haircuts, ladies spa services and massages are also very expensive.
Liquor sales. Most won't let passengers bring their own booze aboard, and that drink or two you have with dinner or by the pool adds up. On top of the high drink prices they also automatically add a "service fee" of 20% or so and expect you to tip on top of that.
Crew tips. The cruise ships expect you to tip everybody you see practically, the stewards, the maids, the bartenders, the head waiter, the sommelier, among others.
Casino revenue. Don't even think about it.
Shore visits. The ship lines heavily market their shore excursions because they are over priced and mislead people on expectations before they buy. The fact is the ship lines put the screws on the locals who do the excursions by extracting huge kick backs and the locals barely make ends meet.
Beach visits. In some cases the cruise ship line may drop you off at a beach and recommend the local beach bar for you to dine. They probably own the bar and thus get you to pay for food on shore when you could eat for free on the boat.
Jewelry shops and merchants. Often the cruise ship lines may own them, or they take you to shops where they extract high rents from the local merchants because the own the properties.
What the cruse ship line did in my situation was invoke the so-called "force majuer" clause and made their magnanimous offer of giving us a ten percent discount on a future cruise with Silverseas. Some big offer, huh?
Cruise lines always market their trips by showing pristine boats, huge abundant buffets, beautiful beaches, smiling faces, and smooth water. It is possible you might experience some of that, it is doubtful you will see advertising showing the other possibilities:
Boats that are just plain worn out and dirty. Interior windowless cabins that smell of mildew and are damp.
Boats where inadequate sanitation, ventilation, improper food handling practices result in huge blooms of norovirus outbreaks amongst both the crew and passengers.
Boats being driven into storm conditions or sea states that make walking around difficult and potentially dangerous.
Staying in your cabin with your spouse who is to seasick to get up and can't keep food down.
And finally, being forced to leave your cabin and sit in a stairwell or hallway for a couple of hours while you wait for your deck to be called to another longer line to clear customs and immigration.
So now, do you have a better grip on what happens?
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one of out friends gained 10 pounds on a two week cruise. His quote I can not afford to eat like this home but at sea I indulge.
