Jessica MacMaster was two days into a 12-night cruise through the Aegean Sea when an announcement interrupted the karaoke contest.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you may have noticed we have stopped. There is a boat in distress, and we are negotiating a rescue,” she recalled hearing.
The cruise had diverted from its voyage to Istanbul, Turkey, to help the Greek coast guard with a rescue off the island Zakinthos. Rushing to the window, MacMaster saw a small sailboat carrying 117 people rolling dangerously with each wave.
“We watched what we could from the window until their vessel disappeared beneath our massive berth,” said MacMaster, 29, of Fort Collins. The passengers then resumed singing to Adele.
The next morning, July 12, MacMaster awoke to learn that the migrants had been brought on board the Island Princess and were being delivered to the Greek mainland. Reminding passengers that they had likely saved lives, the captain announced that the cruise no longer had the time to go to Istanbul and would visit the Greek island of Santorini instead.
“You could kind of sense in the air on the ship that people were mad but at the same time understood,” MacMaster said. “They knew they couldn’t really voice their opinion because they had to be human.”
The migrant crisis in the Mediterranean, gang violence in Mexico, terrorism in Turkey, storms in Australia and low water on the Danube and the Elbe rivers in Europe all resulted in changes in itineraries — or canceled trips — for passengers on scores of ships this year. It represents only a tiny fraction of cruises, but for passengers on those itineraries, there is little recourse.
On the Island Princess, passengers who had paid for activities in Istanbul were given refunds. “There was a long line at the excursion desk,” MacMaster said. “Everybody was busy rebooking and figuring out what to do.”
But there was no discount offered for a future cruise to Istanbul, nor any other sort of compensation for the missed stop.
Ocean-going cruise lines declined to give numbers on the frequency of disruptions, and the Cruise Line Industry Association doesn’t track them. Roger Frizzell, a spokesman for Carnival Corp., whose holdings include Carnival Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, Holland American Line, Cunard and Costa, among others, said they “rarely” cancel stops. (Costa, along with Celebrity Cruises, in August canceled all overnight stops in Istanbul for the remainder of the year because of security concerns.)
“In those few instances when it is deemed necessary, we adjust itineraries to accommodate a change in one of the planned destinations to an alternate port location,” he said.
Unlike the passengers on the Island Princess, not everyone is complacent about being rerouted. In May, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and Disney Cruise Line canceled three ships’ stops in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, after criminal gangs fought with local authorities. About 100 passengers on one of the ships held an hour-long protest, according to postings on .
Viking River Cruises will end up making some sort of adjustment to more than 5 percent of its 1,400 trips this year. Between March and July, it canceled 12 trips and bypassed low water by moving passengers from one ship to another on 62 other sailings. That compares with 40 affected voyages in all of 2014, according to spokesman Richard Marnell.
He said whenever possible, passengers are notified ahead of time. And if their itinerary is significantly impacted, they are given the option of cancelling. For the trips that Viking cancels outright, guests are offered a generous incentive to rebook, or they can receive a refund. In addition, when airfare was booked through the company, it will assist in dealing with refunds or change fees.
The CLIA recommends passengers work with a travel agent when booking their trip and consider different options for travel insurance. However, trip interruption insurance doesn’t work in all instances. It likely would help if a cruise were canceled while underway because of mechanical problem, but it wouldn’t cover a change of itinerary where there are no actual financial losses.
Despite her missed visit to Istanbul, MacMaster hasn’t soured on cruises. Car trips can be affected by traffic jams, and flights are routinely cancelled or delayed because of weather or mechanical issues.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily cruise-specific that your plans can be interrupted,” she said. “You never know what is going to happen.”
Karen Schwartz is an award-winning Colorado-based freelance writer. You can email her at karenlschwartz@yahoo.com or follow her on Twitter @WanderWomanIsMe.
