{"id":4165,"date":"2010-10-23T01:47:59","date_gmt":"2010-10-23T08:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=4165"},"modified":"2010-10-23T01:47:59","modified_gmt":"2010-10-23T08:47:59","slug":"celebrity-century-cruise-deal-damaged-ship-compensatio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=4165","title":{"rendered":"Cruising Notes on the Boats"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE RIGHT PRICE………………………………………………………….$299
\nNovember 7-14-28, 2010:<\/strong> 7 days, Caribbean, Miami round-trip
\n<\/strong>Ship:<\/strong> Norwegian Pearl<\/a> Extra: <\/strong>$25 <\/strong>onboard credit per inside cabin
\nPorts:<\/strong> Eastern Caribbean (Nov. 14-28), Western Caribbean (Nov. 7)
\nContact:<\/strong> American Discount Cruises and Travel<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Celebrity Cruises was reporting yesterday that it is repairing the broken rudders on the Century<\/a> and everything’s looking good. Repairing Celebrity’s broken relationships, it appears, is going to be far more difficult.<\/p>\n

The mechanical problem was discovered a week ago Thursday, the second day of\u00a0 a 12-day Mediterranean cruise that would have ended tomorrow. The ship was close to Nice, and still is, but in drydock. Accommodating its 1,800-plus passengers was compounded by labor problems and strikes in France, and in some cases the best the cruise line could offer displaced passengers was a 10-hour bus ride to Barcelona<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the waves hit the fan.<\/p>\n

The Internet is heavily populated with complaints from passengers. Far too many to share but if you’re interested, check out comments on Gene Sloan’s blog at USA Today<\/a> or go to the appropriately named CruiseCritic<\/a> and poke around.<\/p>\n

The firestorm was such that Celebrity<\/a> has now dramatically sweetened the compensation pot with refunds for transportation expenses, full refund for the cruise, and 25% of what they paid to put towards another cruise.<\/p>\n

In the hope of getting the Century shipshape by Monday, when it’s scheduled to cross the Atlantic from Barcelona to Miami<\/a>, Celebrity brought in divers from the United States and Canada to assist the French. It may take more than divers and enhanced compensation to rescue Celebrity from its sea of bad press.<\/p>\n

* * *
\n\"\"<\/a>When Disney<\/a> does things, it’s usually with a flair. So why should anybody be surprised that within a space of just 15 months, Disney is increasing its fleet of cruise ships by 100%. In January, along comes the Disney Dream<\/a>. In April 12, it’ll be the Disney Fantasy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And that will make four.<\/p>\n

This week, the company founded by ol’ Uncle Walt and made famous by a mouse named Mickey announced that passengers can now make bookings on the Fantasy. The ship will begin Eastern and Western Caribbean cruises on April 7, 2012.<\/p>\n

The Fantasy’s home will be Port Canaveral<\/a>, just down the road from Disney World<\/a> in Orlando, and that means the Disney Magic<\/a> will be on the move. Four Disney ships in the same waters is too many \u2014 obviously two too many because the Disney Wonder<\/a> is heading to the West Coast and will sail north to Alaska<\/a> and south to Mexico, depending on the season.<\/p>\n

It’s not official, but Disney is expected to send the Magic to the Mediterranean. Yes, for alliterative reasons.<\/p>\n

* * *
\nHere’s some good news. Every cruise ship sailing North American waters has earned a cleanliness score of 86 or higher, during inspections by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a> over the last three months. We always told our kids that any mark starting with an ‘8″ or higher in school was excellent, so cruise ship “parents” surely feel the same way.<\/p>\n

Perfection (100%) belonged to seven ships: Diamond Princess<\/a>, Carnival’s Valor<\/a>, Costa’s Atlantica<\/a>, Norwegian’s Spirit<\/a>, Sapphire Princess<\/a>, Royal Caribbean’s Jewel of the Seas<\/a> and NCL’s new mega ship, the Epic<\/a>. It was the Epic’s first inspection.<\/p>\n

We couldn’t be happier about that. We’ll be on it next month.<\/p>\n

* * *
\nThat’s it, we’re done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE RIGHT PRICE………………………………………………………….$299 November 7-14-28, 2010: 7 days, Caribbean, Miami round-trip Ship: Norwegian Pearl Extra: $25 onboard credit per inside cabin Ports: Eastern Caribbean (Nov. 14-28), Western Caribbean (Nov. 7) Contact: American Discount Cruises and Travel Celebrity Cruises was reporting yesterday that it is repairing the broken rudders on the Century and everything’s looking good.… Continue reading Cruising Notes on the Boats<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,19,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deals","category-ships","category-stories","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}