There is so much I could report about today but I have been up for almost 22 hours now and have set an alarm for 2 1/2 hours from now. I will go into detail later, but please be assured that we are safe, and that everyone who was on the Pacific Princess when it hit the breakwater this morning while docking in Nice is safe; however, we were asked to pack and disembark the ship on fairly short notice late this afternoon, two days before the end of our cruise. Our next cruise is also cancelled, but we are being told that the cruise beginning October 28 in Civitavecchia, the port for Rome, is still going to take place.
We are currently in a hotel in Nice. Princess provided the room and the bus transfer to get us here. They are busing most passengers 8 1/2 hours to Barcelona tomorrow morning and paying for a hotel there tomorrow night so the passengers can continue on with their plans on October 16, which was to be the end of our cruise.
We are not going to Barcelona. We have no reason to go to Barcelona. We have no flight home from Barcelona.
While the reimbursement terms for people on our cruise and the next cruise are quite reasonable, we spent two hours on the phone with Princess this evening and they are doing nothing at all to accommodate our unique position. If we fly home, it will be at our expense. If we stay in Europe, it will be at our expense. We do have Princess insurance but they are making no commitments about whether it will reimburse us even a cent. They feel the cruise reimbursement covers their liability; we cannot comfortably stay in Europe for 12 nights and fly to Rome for what they are reimbursing us.
We are much discouraged right now. And exhausted. I also received a call a short time ago notifying me that my brother had a serious fall and is in surgery. That would be difficult to hear any time but is particularly excruciating tonight.
Our plans are totally up in the air. I will post more as they become clear, and as time and Internet permit.
This will make a great story some day. But not just now.
