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