2/13 Magic -So Annoyed At Disney !

[5lilfish]

Just returned home after the 2/13 cruise on the Magic and not at all happy with Disney over our compensation or our treatment at the time !
It was certainly no 'party' or picnic, as I have previously seen it described on here before.... and now looks like their so called 'compensation' is not what it appeared to be at first either !!


First, we arrived at the port on the day to find no ship - they knew the ship failed to make it home (it takes 12 hours back from CC and the ship was still there when we arrived) so why no phonecall or email, to prevent this needless journey ?

Little, to no, informaton when we got there - we were railroaded into following their plans for the day, in order to keep informed with what was going on - thus we were denied any chance to make our own arrangements for where to stay, and to eat, and therefore the ability to claim off our own insurance.

We were told to leave our luggage & board their bus to go to Epcot - this was not possible for us; too much hand luggage and too heavy ...plus alcohol in it as this is how it must be carried on board. Alcohol is not allowed in the parks. We had to keep our hire car and I have since heard they are refusing to meet claims for this.


Arrived at Epcot 12.30pm - 90 mins wait to get ticket to enter park to just to get further information - no alternative.
$60 gift card given to us for food for 4 of us - barely bought us burger/chips & soda (we should at that time been eating from a top quality buffet with free issue soda on the ship).
Queued 30 mins to get burgers - park is packed as Presidents weekend.
Park tickets no good - 120 mins wait times for practically everything !
Had to wait till 3pm for special pavillion to open......joined another 90 minute queue just to be told where to stay for the night ! I heard people say there was a party going on in the pavillion - never heard about it...I would not have called it a party - most people there were utterly miserable as you can well imagine ? They were showing 3 (old) Disney kids' films, balloon model making and some characters came out.... there were free issue drinks but they hadn't told us that until we'd already bought ours at lunch) ...not what I'd call a party !

Allocated the distinctly average Rosen hotel on I Drive - waited another 30 mins to check in as they were awaiting final instruction from Disney . Paid for parking & internet myself which apparently Disney are not refunding people.

Allocated $80 for 4 of us for dinner...have they seen the prices in the Rosen dining room ??? ..this did not even buy us our meal in their cafeteria, when we should have been sitting down to 4 couses of 5* dining on the ship !!
No further instruction received from Disney, though I believe others in the hotel received letters/instructions regarding the next day...very poor communications again.

Breakfast the next day the Rosen staff were blank as to what was happening ...had to ring Disney to be told we'd have to wait for a buffet at 9am ..it was 7.30am and my kids were hungry ! Eventually, Disney reluctantly agreed we could go to the Rosen's breakfast area & eat, and charge them.

Left the Rosen and returned to the Budget rental at Port Canaveral - chaos ! No information coming frm Disney other than they were not allowing Magic passengers to arrive at either terminal !
Another 90 min wait until a fellow Disboarder heard from another Disboader, that they were letting people check in at the Magic, and we were left to persuade Budget to take us there.

Now I hear the 20% refund they said they were offering us is only 13% in real terms over total the cost of the cruise. ..
They gave us a less than impressive $25 OBC each
They are not apparently refunding people's hire car, gas, tolls, or any other incidental costs.

I know that it was not DCL's fault that The Magic got stuck, but I paid for a seven night cruise and ended up with a six day one plus a whole 24 hours of waiting in queues, needlessly driving around stress and not getting information in a timely manner and am out of pocket on many of my expenses !!
Basically it stinks - they may have scraped up just enough to call it a refund on part of the missing cruise, but I don't feel they have been generous in the least, nor made any compensation for the complete run around and endless queuing we got the day before !!

I'm sorry you had such a rough experience. I hope you had a great trip once you were onboard. Unfortunately, there is no way that any company could make every passenger satisfied/happy. We were on this cruise too. I think Disney did the best they could. Since, technically, they are not obligated to do anything, we were very satified and impressed with what they did for us. When we first found out about the delay, we honestly did not think DCl was going to do anything. We figured we'd work it out with our insurance later. With a bit of luck, we decided, on our own, to go to Epcot. We bought our tickets before they announced they were giving us tickets (they refunded our ticket costs later that day). We also hurried up and made lunch arrangements for the buffet in 'Germany.' Again, we did not expect DCL to give us any money so it was nice to get the $15 per person back. My husband and my 12 yr old son went over to the pavilion before me and our 4 girls. When I got there, my son found me and said (wit a huge smile on his face and holding a heaping bowl of gummy worms), "Everything here is FREE!" LOL. My kids were in heaven. They loved the characters, food, movies, charactatures, etc. We were lucky enough to have our own van so that helped us avoid a lot of hassle. Turthfully, we had a great day! My only minor complaint would be that the breakfast buffet was a bit of a joke...but we made up for it once we got onboard. The extra onboard credit ($100 per room and $20 per person extra...amounted to $340 for us) was great! The partial refund was great (20% off the base price before taxes/fees) and we took Full advantage of the rebooking bonus (20% and $200 onboard credit per cabin).

Again, I am very sorry you had a bad experience. I am not taking away from it at all....I believe it was what you say it was. We just felt that Disney did the best they could and that they did MUCH more than we expected.

I do hope your overall vacation was great!

Jess

 

[Pluto 2]

why was epcot the only place disney gave tickets to? on the 6 night cruise did you get to all your ports?

 

[TChrist05]

Very well said Jess.....and I think the OP knows that it is difficult to please and inform so many people. When we had our cruise cancelled, they really did what they could for us and we got to them for information before they could get to us via telephone. Did we have extra expenses...yes...just changing our airline reservations was expensive....and I never even thought of asking Disney to compensate us for it.....
Great that once you guys got on the ship and really got to start your vacation things went well. Hopefully eventually all will be happy with how things worked out and you booked another DCL vacation.....
Tom

 

[MissMet]

I am so very sorry this was the way you had to start your cruise. From reading your day's events, I would have been saddened, but I would have been jumping up in down in comparison to what my parents had experienced on a Princess cruise 5 years ago.

They arrive to port finding out that their ship had "crashed" into the dock the night prior to their arrival & that embarkation would be delayed, due to divers trying to fix the broken ship. All the ships passengers were brought to a warehouse of sorts & sat on folding chairs for over 5 hours. Then they offered to bus them to a local mall on school buses with all of their carry-ons. Then upon arrival at the mall they were told they needed to head back to the warehouse, because they would be boarding the ship soon. They turned around and went back to the warehouse, were given pre-made sandwiches for dinner. Then they were bused in school buses to the port where they hit traffic & sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic for over an hour, in school buses, due to a Mariners game ending. After an almost 8 hour day on folding chairs & school bus benches, they were told that the ship would not be fixable & that they were given the choice to not board the ship. The cruise staff did not explain to them anything at all & all they were told was that the ship wouldn't be able to get up to full speed. This was my parents first cruise & didn't understand what they would face. Ended up the ship was damaged to the point that they couldn't go full speed, therefore the ship's stabilizers could not be used & due to the accident they never got to even see the glaciers on their 7 day alaskan cruise, which is the whole point of an Alaskan cruise! They missed a bunch of ports & everyone was terribly seasick. At the first stop they made, a quarter of the passengers got off the ship at their own expense & flew home.

In the end princess gave each cabin, regardless of what category you were in (i.e. what you spent) a $200 obc to be used on that cruise only.

These are the risks you take with cruising. I would say though compared to my parent's experience 5 years ago with princess, Disney did a fantastic job!

I am sorry you had a terrible experience. Hopefully this hasn't put a bad taste in your mouth for cruising. It did for my parents, but I convinced them to give cruising one more chance & took them on a Disney cruise- they've been hooked ever since.

 

[Morty Fieldmouse]

...We were all told multiple times that we would be refunded 20% of our cruise price. Not 20% of some phantom subtotal that we had never seen before...

I believe in INDUSTRY terms cruise price is the base price before taxes, port fees, etc. As customers, we usually think of price as being what we pay. When two people use different definitions for the same terms, this can lead to confusion.

This reminds me of the near falling out between Disney and Pixar. They had a contract to produce a set number of "original feature films." Pixar thought the contract was fulfilled and wanted to make a new contract for additional movies and Disney told them they had to make one more movie to fulfill the contract. Toy Story 2, in INDUSTRY TERMS, did not count towards the contract as it was a sequel and not "original." Things eventually worked out and Pixar is now a Disney company.

To the OP: As the family member dealing with the "business" of your vacation, I recommend you do what you have to to contact DCL and/or insurance to get what you feel is fair, but between emails and phone calls try to focus on the positive experiences and help the rest of your family remember the good times too. Hopefully things will work out for you and your next Disney vacation will be true Disney Magic.

 

[Tea]

Opps

 

[mmouse37]

They arrive to port finding out that their ship had "crashed" into the dock the night prior to their arrival & that embarkation would be delayed, due to divers trying to fix the broken ship.

Hi
This is the first Im hearing that it crashed. I too was on this ship leaving on the 13th. I was told they could not depart due to winds.
I would greatly appreciate if some one could clarify this with me.
Thanks
Tea

Sorry, you misunderstood. That poster was referring to a cruise on Princess cruise line that their parents took 5 years ago that crashed into the dock....they were not talking about the Disney Magic.

MJ

 

[sayhello]

They arrive to port finding out that their ship had "crashed" into the dock the night prior to their arrival & that embarkation would be delayed, due to divers trying to fix the broken ship.

Hi
This is the first Im hearing that it crashed. I too was on this ship leaving on the 13th. I was told they could not depart due to winds.
I would greatly appreciate if some one could clarify this with me.
Thanks
Tea

The poster you quoted (MissMet) was referring to her parents' Princess cruise 5 years ago, not the issue with the Magic from Feb 13th.

The Magic was, indeed, delayed at Castaway Cay due to high winds and rough seas.

Sayhello

 

[MagicMe]

Opps

The OP was referring to a cruise his parents took on Princess not the Magic.

Sorry - you changed your message before I could finish mine!

 

[justmestace]

Well I was sick of reading what a fantastic job Disney were doing... when really it was hell on earth for most of us !

Glad you had a great time - perhaps you were one of the lucky ones that were told to stay put in your Disney resort right at the beginning, and were able to make the best of it ? Lucky you.

If DCL had simply told us to turn up again the next day in our case, we would have been alot better off - we would have made our own arrangements and claimed off our own insurance.... instead of being herded around like sheep and forced to stand in endless queues for the entire day simply in pursuit of more information.

Their compensation is a joke but OK some people might be happy if they only got 13% of their costs back when they were told it would be 20% ?

Sorry about the whining......I will try to get over myself despite my aversion to queuing and losing money LOL !

I for one am very GLAD you posted this. First off, it's pretty courageous, since people here will defend Disney to the death....and it's true. Everyone is entitled to recall things the way they see them and the way it effects them and their family.

Besides....I was beginning to wonder if there weren't at least a few people out there who were terribly disappointed in the way things went. I wouldn't have been happy either....it sounds like you were herded around like cattle.

And before anyone goes tossing flames at ME....I know Disney did what they could, and that the weather wasn't their fault....I understand that....but it still doesn't mean that everyone HAS to be happy about it.

 

[kcashner]

Forgive me, but when I read about how this was being handled, I thought that DCL had gotten it right this time. They put you up, fed you, and entertained you. It sounds like the biggest issue was lack of communication--AGAIN.

I was on the hurricane Jeanne cruise. Our cruise actually departed on Tuesday instead of Saturday although we boarded the ship about 8:30 pm on Monday. We got a 40% refund and $100 OBC, No hotel, no food. And we got no special deals for the hotel rooms we booked for ourselves. The additional 2 nights at WDW cost me almost as much as the previous week since I'd been able to take advantage of a "special" for the week and had to pay full rack rate for the additional 2 nights. When our bus to the port did not depart at 9 am as we'd been told....and didn't depart at noon....we were given coupons for a quick serve lunch. Oh yeah, the bus left about 4.

Like your situation, our biggest issue was lack of communication....or as I really felt, DCL lying to us. At the same time they KNEW the ship had been taken out to sea to ride out the storm and passengers had already been let off at PC, they told us that the ship would sail on schedule on Saturday. This level of mis-information continued thru Monday.

I'm really sorry for the loss of a day of your cruise. However, it really sounds like Disney did everything reasonable given the circumstances. You lost 1/7 of your cruise which is roughly 14%, and by the worst of calculations are getting a 13% refund. In addition, you got food and lodging for that day as well as entertainment. No, it wasn't the same as you'd planned, but it wasn't nothing either.

 

[WDWKevin]

Dear OP:

This whole thing is sad. At the end of the day, DCL is under no obligation to do ANYTHING other than say 'see ya tomorrow!' The fact that they adapted to a situation that they had never faced before and that had developed overnight when ALL shoreside cast members are off is amazing. No, it wasn't perfect. But have some compassion for the cast members and crew members that bent over backwards to try and make it the best they could.

At the end of the day, the problems you encountered due to a delayed cruise ship pale in comparison of the people dealing with devastation in Haiti, Chile, and other parts of the world. I bet they would love to be in your shoes dealing with the 'hassle' of a delayed cruise ship and long lines at Epcot.

 

[mmouse37]

Again, OP and everyone else is entitled to their feelings/opinions and let's not turn this into a debate about world disasters and how a delayed DCL cruise compares. We all know it doesn't compare so let's not go there.

MJ

 

[ychcjbn1]

It's a shame that your cruise didn't start out as planned. I would have been a little bummed out too.

I'm sure the lack of communication from Disney was your reason for posting this thread and it sounds like they could have done a better job with that. It also sounds like Disney tried to make it right and I was really suprised to hear all that was provided by Disney for a one day delay.

On our first cruise (with RCI), we didn't get to go to the bahamas as planned due to a hurricane. While in route, the captain had to change to a different port. (We spent a day in Key West instead.) It turned out to be a great day and I was so happy to visit Key West. We did have to cancel our shore excursions for Nassau but we got to do some cool things at Key West instead.

Sometimes you gotta roll with the punches and try to look at the positive. I hope the remainder of your cruise was nice.

 

[insureman]

Well I was sick of reading what a fantastic job Disney were doing... when really it was hell on earth for most of us !

Hell on earth? That would be what our military (Brits included) have to endure in Afghanistan and Iraq everyday and also what the poor people in Haiti are enduring along with relief workers trying to help. Hopefully it was your emotions that got the best of you because of a day of inconvenience. Let the flaming commence.

 

[shmoogrrrl]

On our first cruise (with RCI), we didn't get to go to the bahamas as planned due to a hurricane. While in route, the captain had to change to a different port. (We spent a day in Key West instead.) It turned out to be a great day and I was so happy to visit Key West. We did have to cancel our shore excursions for Nassau but we got to do some cool things at Key West instead.

We had something like that happen on one of our Disney Cruises. It was like the Magical Mystery Cruise. We never knew where we were going to be the next day. We made it to Key West, Cozumel, and Castaway Cay (although in a totally different order. We missed Grand Cayman, but we got to be on the first DCL cruise to visit Costa Maya! We even got to see a Great White Shark lurking in the water there as we left! Totally not what we signed up for, but we still had a blast.

 

[quentina]

Although it is sad and I understand your disappointment....I hope...you can look back on the good memories that you and your family made that week!

We just never know what is going to happen day to day.....

 

[cmash95]

actually since the cruise lost only one day, DCL was more than generous in giving back 20 %. and if you still went to the ports of call on the itinerary, DCL had to pay the port charges and local taxes so those couldn't be refunded. Also I recall the OP stating that they used other transportation to get to epcot and not the busses provided. Is it possible that info was taken (ie email and phone numbers)? I don't know I was just asking. I feel bad for everyone that had their cruises cut short, but frankly think of how much worse it could have been if the magic tried to sail back to canaveral and it got caught in the storm in the middle of nowhere.

 

[scootch]

We went on a 3 night cruise in November and there were a ton of people on there that were given a $99 bounceback offer from a previous 4 day Feb cruise(that was just fine, no problems) just an incentive to fill the November ship. Shame they didnt' offer you something like that. I am so glad that we were not on your cruise, I take my kids alone to disney and cruising and cannot imagine all you went thru, I would have been thoroughly exhausted before ever boarding. Hugs to you.... and I hope you found some time to make some memories.

 

[Sleepyluke]

I am sorry that this happened and it seems that the communication is the biggest issue, but for anyone out there, how do you propose that DCL communicate with everyone. I am not being sarcastic, either. Unless you have everyone in a common area, like the pavillion, I am not sure there is a way to get everyone on the same page. Granted it is not what you wnated, and when you plan for several years for each cruise, I would defivitely be upset too, but not real sure what else could be done, sure things could have been different, but would they have necessarily been better. Does DCL have a way to communicate to everyone? I would think you can get the DCL transportation and resort people, but what about those driving in or living in the area? Short of making 2,500 phone calls to a number that may be ringing at the house. Anybody know?