If you're considering passports and/or insurance

[Lisa F]

That’s definitely rough-

I hope they don’t consider it a preexisting condition if he had it before he boarded and not cover it

Pre-existing refers to when you purchased the policy not when you cruise. You'd never be able to cancel if you're sick before a cruise it counted as pre-existing from the cruise date.

 

[Dug720]

That’s definitely rough-

I hope they don’t consider it a preexisting condition if he had it before he boarded and not cover it

I think the OP said he had the scratch before, but was it infected before? That may be the demarcation line for the insurance - if there had already been infection I could see them possibly counting it as pre-existing.

 

[Lisa F]

I think the OP said he had the scratch before, but was it infected before? That may be the demarcation line for the insurance - if there had already been infection I could see them possibly counting it as pre-existing.

Read your travel insurance. It's preexisting the effective date of the policy, which is when you purchase it... Not embarkation of the cruise. There is a look back period of 60-120 days before you bought it to see if there are any conditions that would be excluded from either being a reason to cancel OR requiring medical care while on vacation.

So you can't have a heart issue and then buy travel insurance to protect your vacation against having a heart attack either before or during unless you get one that covers preexisting conditions.

Travel medical insurance would be useless if it worked the way you are implying.

 

[KashasMom]

No dog in the fight, but... Has anyone seen/heard anything other than from the mother who, as I bolded, "is already worried about her child" that the "You cannot leave until your bill is settled" is exactly what NCL said? When we are upset we often hear part of something or hear something in a way that was not intended.

I'm not saying that they are handling this well, but it may not be as hard-hearted as the mother's report is making it out to be simply because of her stress level.

I agree. It's very doubtful that's what NCL said. They're not holding up the next cruise for this.

 

[Lisa F]

I agree. It's very doubtful that's what NCL said. They're not holding up the next cruise for this.

You don't think they are capable of making a threat to pressure people into paying even if they don't intend to follow through on it?

 

[AnnaS]

The article is updated and the boy is/should be in the US. I hope he recovers soon and is well.

Such a big risk cruising without insurance and a passport especially when kids or the elderly are involved. Travel insurance is a must for cruises and international travel.

If you are going to spend a thousands, please add the insurance - I doubt anyone of us would have a home or a car without insurance. It's worth every penny if we need it. If it's too much, wait a little longer to save for it.

 

[Lisa F]

The article is updated and the boy is/should be in the US. I hope he recovers soon and is well.

Such a big risk cruising without insurance and a passport especially when kids or the elderly are involved. Travel insurance is a must for cruises and international travel.

If you are going to spend a thousands, please add the insurance - I doubt anyone of us would have a home or a car without insurance. It's worth every penny if we need it. If it's too much, wait a little longer to save for it.

Yes he is at the hospital now! I just came back to post an update. They put him on a stronger antibiotic last night and it seemed to be helping a bit as well so hopefuly he will just get better and better.

For anyone curious the final bill was $10,300 for medical only.

They DO have insurance but people should realize when they purchase it that the way it works is that you need to have the means to pay the bills up front and then file a claim and be reimbursed by insurance. The ship (and presumably foreign hospitals) do not bill travel insurance directly the way it works with health insurance here in the states.

So the problem was they could only pay about 60% of their bill up front and the cruise line was threatening to not let them off the ship until they settled it in full.

It should all work out in the end but if they had passports they would have been evacuated back to the US earlier, which insurance WOULD have paid for directly, at which point their regular medical insurance would have kicked in - which would have been preferable on many levels, not just financial, as the mom had a highly stressful 3 days hoping the facilities aboard the ship would be enough for her son and also being treated kind of poorly by at least the officers of NCL who were probably pissy she declined their offer to be put off in Mexico without passports (on advice of the consulate who advised that the nearest hospital, a 3 hour drive, was a worse risk than being on the ship and the mother also realized they would be stranded there until passports could be acquired whereas the ship was a sure shot back to reentry to the USA.)

 

[hrhdhd]

We don't know anything about the officers, never mind that they were "pissy." She was offered the option to get off, but due to a lack of passports (not NCL's fault), it wasn't an option.

 

[vegs1]

Read your travel insurance. It's preexisting the effective date of the policy, which is when you purchase it... Not embarkation of the cruise. There is a look back period of 60-120 days before you bought it to see if there are any conditions that would be excluded from either being a reason to cancel OR requiring medical care while on vacation.

So you can't have a heart issue and then buy travel insurance to protect your vacation against having a heart attack either before or during unless you get one that covers preexisting conditions.

Travel medical insurance would be useless if it worked the way you are implying.

Reading your travel insurance and UNDERSTAND it is the BEST advice I would give to anyone.

However, all insurance policies are not the same so your policy may say the effective date is the day you purchased the policy. My insurance policy indicates that I must be stable (stable meaning no new symptoms, medication, change of condition, new tests, etc) for 60 days prior to my date of departure, not the date I purchased the policy. For my policy, if I buy the policy January 1, 2020 but don’t cruise until January, 2021, I would have to be stable 60 days prior to my departure date. As well, it indicates my effective date is January 2021. Not this year.

All policies are different so we shouldn’t advise anyone based on our own policy. Read what you buy and please understand it. Especially the stability or lookback period.

Also, I have a medical condition and have travelled WITH coverage as I bought a rider which provided an insured sum for those pre existing conditions. It is a much lower amount than the actual medical coverage portion of the policy would be but it is an amount I am comfortable with as I know it would cover me for what I have. This is why it is best to shop around and compare coverage. If you aren’t sure, ask questions. Know what you’re buying.

 

[monkeydawn]

Was there any update as to if NCL helped expedite getting them off the ship or if they made it a PITA?

 

[MarkLT1]

Frankly, I was shocked to find out a few weeks back that you don't need a passport to go on a cruise in the Caribbean. Our whole family has passports, but mine expires in August- less than 6-months after our cruise is done. I was nervous, as I travel Europe a lot, and your passport must be valid for 6 months after your planned departure date, and so I wasn't sure if I would have a problem. Called DCL, and found out that as long as it is valid for the duration of the cruse, it is good, and that I could get onboard just with my license and a birth cert. There is no way I'd ever leave the country without a passport. I definitely feel for this family, and especially for the little boy, but it sounds like they are back in the states, and he is being treated, and that he was treated on the ship.

 

[MillauFr]

Such a big risk cruising without insurance and a passport especially when kids or the elderly are involved. Travel insurance is a must for cruises and international travel.

Agreed. No reason not to have the insurance especially when it is free if you have a credit card like the Chase Sapphire Reserve. It would have paid for all of her medical bills and the medical evacuation. It wouldn't have cost them anything to book the trip using the Chase Sapphire Reserve.

 

[Starwind]

Reading your travel insurance and UNDERSTAND it is the BEST advice I would give to anyone.

However, all insurance policies are not the same so your policy may say the effective date is the day you purchased the policy. My insurance policy indicates that I must be stable (stable meaning no new symptoms, medication, change of condition, new tests, etc) for 60 days prior to my date of departure, not the date I purchased the policy. For my policy, if I buy the policy January 1, 2020 but don’t cruise until January, 2021, I would have to be stable 60 days prior to my departure date. As well, it indicates my effective date is January 2021. Not this year.

All policies are different so we shouldn’t advise anyone based on our own policy. Read what you buy and please understand it. Especially the stability or lookback period.

Also, I have a medical condition and have travelled WITH coverage as I bought a rider which provided an insured sum for those pre existing conditions. It is a much lower amount than the actual medical coverage portion of the policy would be but it is an amount I am comfortable with as I know it would cover me for what I have. This is why it is best to shop around and compare coverage. If you aren’t sure, ask questions. Know what you’re buying.

This.

The policies I have for the travel emergency medical insurance part count stability as X days before departure date. I have two policies because the first is part of a larger policy with trip cancelation and other coverage but the medical stability period is 90 days which doesn't work for me, so I have a second travel emergency medical only policy which has a 7 day stability period prior to departure date, which is the shortest I could find here in Canada.

 

[KashasMom]

Agreed. No reason not to have the insurance especially when it is free if you have a credit card like the Chase Sapphire Reserve. It would have paid for all of her medical bills and the medical evacuation. It wouldn't have cost them anything to book the trip using the Chase Sapphire Reserve.

I think CSR only covers $2,500 for medical but evacuation would have been covered.

 

[Lisa F]

You cannot evacuate without a passport.

 

[GatorMomInNC]

Agreed. No reason not to have the insurance especially when it is free if you have a credit card like the Chase Sapphire Reserve. It would have paid for all of her medical bills and the medical evacuation. It wouldn't have cost them anything to book the trip using the Chase Sapphire Reserve.

They had insurance. The problem was they had no passports and thus could not be medically evacuated to the US; and apparently had difficulty coming up with $10k to prepay the medical bills.

My mom had about $2-3k in medical bills from a cruise. She had to prepay them, then submit the insurance claim. They in turn required her to submit to Medicare and her secondary insurer and be denied before she was reimbursed. Took about 9 mos. Fortunately she had the means to be out that money for that time. $10k would be a little harder.

 

[tarheelz]

We all need to remember this story the next time a debate starts over whether to bring your passport with you as you enter a foreign country or whether it is best to leave your passport on the ship.

 

[Mommb]

We all need to remember this story the next time a debate starts over whether to bring your passport with you as you enter a foreign country or whether it is best to leave your passport on the ship.

That's a reasonable debate, but not relevant to this situation. If this boy's injury had worsened while ashore but his family had passports back in their room, someone could have gone back to the ship to retrieve them while he was being stabilized and transport back to the US was being arranged. The issue here was that transport couldn't be arranged because the family had no passports at all. If the family was able to fly back to the US, they would still have wanted to go back to the ship to retrieve their luggage.

 

[DVC_HK]

For those who are Disney cruise vets, we are going on our first one and I have never had a passport before so it's taking a minute for them to get it to me. Our online check in is March 4th but I won't have our new passports by then so can we do the online documents or wait till get to the port to show them?

 

[DisBNewB]

For those who are Disney cruise vets, we are going on our first one and I have never had a passport before so it's taking a minute for them to get it to me. Our online check in is March 4th but I won't have our new passports by then so can we do the online documents or wait till get to the port to show them?

You don't need it for initial online check-in. You can say you'll provide other forms of ID, and then when they arrive, you can go in online and update it.