Nowegian Cruise Lines bumps booked passengers for Rosie O'Donnell

[luvbeaches]

Well, if Rosie really wants to defend herself, she should cancel her cruise and let the original passengers have their spots back - even if it wasn't her fault they got bumped. I wouldn't even want to be on that cruise anymore if I was her. Surely it isn't that hard to find a cruise that still has enough openings for her amount of people...

Charters are different, especially ships that are chartered by gays. There are many places that would not allow the ship to visit their island (I watched the program, and saw how the picketers were harassing people who were on the Rosie tour...BTW, I think this blew big time).

These cruises usually go to more "gay friendly" places, which is why her "group" couldn't just go with other groups. Not to say that there aren't smaller groups of gays that are on board every cruise every week, but something as big as her thing was needed its own ship. It just stinks how it works out.

There are all sorts of charters...from religious to nude cruises, and they almost all end up bumping someone. I really blame the cruise lines from doing this. I also blame Rosie to an extent, she could have worked out a contract prior to the cruise being available to others, and then NCL could have just blocked this particular cruise off the list of non-chartered cruises.

Right now...the cruise lines really don't answer to anyone. I was really surprised when I found out that they can do this.

 

[luvbeaches]

That is what I was thinking... what about the people who have to put in for vacation a year in advance.

Come on, certainly someone like Rosie can plan in advance too and she shouldnt use her celebrity status to screw the little guys. That blows.

And it does stink for those that really have no other options. I booked our airfare and hotel the same day I booked the cruise. If we'd been bumped, not only would we have had to find another ship, we would have had to deal with changing airfare and hotels. And that doesn't happen without some expense.

Rosie should have know this would be displacing others who had already booked a cruise. I think most cruises usually open up a year or so in advance (the ones we've gone on did). How hard would it have been for her to charter a cruise prior to it being released to the general public? But cruise lines do this sort of thing all the time. HAL seems to have a lot of Caribbean charters in Jan/Feb, and our TA said that NCL is really bad about doing this also.

I can't even begin to tell you how annoyed I be if this happened to me. And we have a very flexible schedule.

 

[luvbeaches]

I also meant to add that I've read that these charters also cost more money than a regular booked cruise. So the cruise line is going to make more money off the deal. When someone charters a ship, they sign an agreement for the entire ship. It doesn't matter if they can't sell all the cabins, they still have to pay. This is good for the cruise line who many times will have to discount cabins to unload them.

 

[luvbeaches]

I think that it stinks that NCL would do this however I really don't see where it is such a big deal. When I first read it, I thought that it was done at the last minute and that no one would be able to book another cruise. The cruise is not until July 7th. I cannot understand why anyone would not be able to book a crusie on another ship with that much time. Shouldn't be a problem matching it up with flights if they were already booked too. Maybe I'm missing something. Does anyone know what port they were to sail out of? It might take a little research but I really can't understand why it couldn't be done.

But the cruise lines aren't necessarily telling already booked people upfront about this. Like I said, I know of people who were bumped off a HAL cruise, and it was like pulling teeth to get HAL to even acknowledge that there was a charter on the week that they had booked.

As for being a big deal...well, there may be other ships, but it may not be what you want. It's like booking one hotel for a vacation, and find out you are being booted out. You may or may not be able to find something in the same location, the same price, or even something similar to what you'd booked. And the big deal is that your destination is leaving. At least with a hotel, you'd have a lot of other choices, but you do have limited choices when cruising.

 

[mymeow]

Did she book the entire ship? If not, could someone like, say, Donald Trump come along and book the entire ship, bumping her group off and they would have to re-schedule? Just a thought

 

[czechmate7]

I think at the point that Rosie found out that she had bumped all the others; instead of saying the snafu wasn't her fault, out of the goodness of her heart she would have opted to do the proper thing and reschedule her booking. That would have been the "right" thing to do for whichever party did the bumping...IMO

 

[czechmate7]

Did she book the entire ship? If not, could someone like, say, Donald Trump come along and book the entire ship, bumping her group off and they would have to re-schedule? Just a thought

LOL Meow...maybe you can get in touch with the Donald and suggest a cruise!!

 

[JanetElaine]

I think at the point that Rosie found out that she had bumped all the others; instead of saying the snafu wasn't her fault, out of the goodness of her heart she would have opted to do the proper thing and reschedule her booking. That would have been the "right" thing to do for whichever party did the bumping...IMO

That's what I mean.

 

[luvbeaches]

Did she book the entire ship? If not, could someone like, say, Donald Trump come along and book the entire ship, bumping her group off and they would have to re-schedule? Just a thought

Her group was a charter and they book the whole ship even if they don't sell all the cabins, they pay for all of them. The cruise line is a winner in this situation.

If I had to take a guess, and that's all it is...I'd bet that when a charter is booked, they are protected from being "bumped" like they did to the others. I'd bet the farm it's in their contract. So even "The Donald" wouldn't be able to knock Rosie off the ship. Now if Donald bought RCL...and he can probably afford that...then who knows! lol