I am starting this post while en route from Frankfurt, Germany to home. I am trying hard not to sleep (eastward travel=sleep; westward travel=don't sleep. Unless, of course, flying more than 14 hours, in which case I advocate whatever means necessary to get some sleep). Despite a close connection in Frankfort (earning our checked baggage "HOT" tags) and a bit of stress at immigration when computers went down, today has been fairly uneventful so far. In my effort to relax but not sleep, I've consumed a vegetarian pasta lunch, two glasses of "good German Reisling" (per the flight attendant) and a Bailey's Irish Cream.
So this is the first opportunity I have had to back up a couple of days to the events of last Friday in Nice. I will leave the technical discussions, as they belong, to others way more qualified than myself to comment on (so, that would be just about anyone other than me). I will simply relay the events of the day from a passenger perspective.
My first awareness of the day was at 6:31am when I heard Captain JP make an announcement for the 'Damage Control team' to go somewhere and do something. Even that wasn't enough to have me leaping out of bed; it took Captain JP's next announcement, just a few minutes later, to convince me to do that. He told us that we probably had already realized that we had hit the breakwater when a strong wind gust came up while we were entering the port of Nice and the ship had been damaged but divers were going to inspect the ship below the water line. Captain JP assured us that the ship was securely docked and we were never in any danger as "the safety of its passengers and crew were Princess' highest concern". Most importantly, all passengers and crew had been accounted for and there were no injuries. We never for a moment felt at risk at all and it was wonderful news that no one was hurt, because our initial concern was for the crewmembers working on the lower decks of the ship.
Captain JP also said that, as a result, we had no water and the cabin stewards would be distributing bottles of water. Of course, the first thing G did was to go into the bathroom and check the faucet. Why do we all do that? It's like being told a dish is hot and still feeling compelled to touch it, to see for ourselves. Well, sure enough, there was no water so I threw on a robe and opened our cabin door to look out. There was already a box of liter bottles of water in the corridor and I snagged one and delivered it to G. When it was my turn, I used a still-damp washcloth from the night before to wash my face and then bottled water to wash and insert contacts.
G said he had heard a sudden noise just before 6:30am; I, with my foam ear plugs screwed in deeply, heard nothing until the announcement. Obviously, in our Deck 8 inside cabin, the noise of the impact was less noticeable than the subsequent announcement, which did wake me up.
Our first thought, naturally, was of our stomachs...and snagging some hot coffee before it was all gone, and we went to the Club Restaurant trepidatiously, unclear that there would be any food at all. Sure enough, we had a good, hot breakfast and even hot coffee brewed using bottled water. There was no suffering on our part! Still, we eventually needed to use a bathroom; toilets had become inoperable when we lost water. Cruise Director Sammi had already made an announcement about that, too, that we would be using the bathrooms at the port, and that the Accommodations crew would be keeping them clean for us throughout the day. (And thank God that the port toilets were a whole world better than Italian train station toilets!!!!)
Honestly, the first heroes in all this were those Accommodations crew members who kept 4 ladies' toilets, 2 men's toilets and two urinals, and two handicapped toilets spotlessly clean and stocked while over 1000 passengers and crew members beat a steady trail through the rain to use them. And have I mentioned the rain yet? Of course the weather was horrid; if it had been good we wouldn't have had the wind gust that caused the Pacific Princess to hit the breakwater.
We returned to our cabin for our rain jackets and joined the line of people heading outside of the security fence and around the corner to the public bathrooms. It was pouring, torrential rain blowing sideways in the strong wind. The pier was lined with emergency vehicles with lights flashing and we saw the team of divers on the pier after inspecting the ship. The weather dispelled any notions we might have had of going sightseeing. Well, the weather and the fact that the tourist information tent right next to the docked Pacific Princess had free WiFi. We settled in under the dry tent and got caught up on with the first fast internet since Dubrovnik.
At some point during the morning the wind gusts blew so hard that the tent over the tourist information booth began to shimmy and shake and I saw the TI attendant casting a wary eye upward. That would have been a good time to return to the safety of the ship but at that moment the lightning started and we were stuck there, trying to decide our safest course of action. Finally the lightning stopped and we returned to our cabin, which had already been serviced for the day. The first time I became aware of the severity of the damage was when I heard an announcement asking the displaced crew members from cabins 2xxx to 2xxx (meaning on Deck 2) to go to the Cabaret Lounge. Hmmm...
<<<5:53 left in our flight. We are somewhere over the green of Iceland or the ice of Greenland. I will continue with my story...>>>
Becoming increasingly aware that the ship would not be leaving Nice at 5pm as scheduled, we were still oblivious to the seriousness of the issue. Many passengers were off on their tours, and were even more unaware than we were about what was going on. There may have been continuous meal service in the Panorama Buffet but we didn't really check on it until early afternoon when we tried to get some hot tea to warm up and were still able to; beverages were being made with bottled water.
I was back on the pier using the WiFi when an email from a Princess popped up; the next cruise, voyage K620 was cancelled due to damage the Pacific Princess had sustained while docking in Nice. That confirmed what we were starting to suspect. I was walking back on the ship to find G to tell him about the cancellation when Captain JP made an announcement that our current cruise was ending in Nice and we should begin to pack up our cabins. I found G (it's a small ship!) and we returned to the cabin, discussing what we should do next. We knew that then was not the time to be disturbing the Passenger Services Desk with questions about our unique situation; however, at that same moment the phone rang and it was Gidea, the Customer Relations manager and someone we have known for years. It was just like her to be on top of our situation.
Gidea said that they had only us and one other, more elderly couple that were planning to stay on the ship past the next cruise, and asked what we would like to do. Well, of course we wanted to stay in Europe and return to the ship for the October 28 cruise, but we felt certain that the refund of the cruise fare for the cancelled cruise would not be enough to stay in hotels for 12 nights and provide two meals and day and fly us to Rome to catch up with the ship. She said she thought the other couple would just return home as they might not want to deal with travel on their own in Europe and that she would get back with us. I told her I had just been about to go back outside to use the WiFi to phone Princess and she said that would be a good idea also.
I called Princess using Vonage (For free! Get the app!!), but at that time it wasn't yet 5am in California and, though the representative had heard about an issue on the Pacific Princess, nothing had yet been decided and, in particular there was no information about we should do. She gave me two different phone numbers and told me to call back mid to late afternoon California time.
I returned to the ship to find G in full packing mode and announcements already being made about luggage tag colors and buses and transfers to hotels in Nice. In fact, the first luggage tag numbers were already being called and I heard 'Last and final' announcements and flew into action. I packed as sloppily as I have ever packed in my life, and, just as we were squeezing everything in there was a knock at the door and there was our cabin steward Ionut, with the laundry I had sent in the night before in his hand, cleaned and on hangers. I still have no idea how it got cleaned. I imagine Ionut would have washed it himself in his own bathroom sink using bottled water if that was what was required. He was just that good.
Once it all started to happen, it was fast. We sat on our bus (we were Purple 2, I think) and looked out at the rain and the late afternoon twilight and wondered what the heck had happened and what was in store.
For most passengers, it was extremely straightforward. The cruise was ending two days early and we were being given 50% refund of our cruise fare and a future travel credit good for 100% of our cruise fare to be used on any Princess cruise booked by the end of 2017. Given that we had enjoyed 10 days of our cruise, I thought that was very fair. For those passengers either staying in Barcelona beginning October 16 (when the cruise was supposed to end there) or flying home from Barcelona, Princess was transferring them to hotels in Nice, driving them the 8 1/2 hours to Barcelona the next day, and putting them up in a hotel that night. Meals would be reimbursed and people could continue as planned on Sunday.
It was dark and cold and gloomy by the time we arrived at our hotel, the Hotel West End right on the Promenade des Anglais, where the terror attack occurred last July. In fact, though it was dark, we could see the makeshift memorials lined with flowers along our drive to the hotel, providing as much of a perspective adjustment as possible. G and I were the last ones to get on the bus (with dainties and dirties still trailing behind us) and so we were the last off the bus and made ourselves comfortable in one of the hotel's beautiful salons while the other passengers waited in line to get room keys. This worked to our advantage when the hotel ran out of regular rooms and we were assigned a huge corner suite facing the Mediterranean Sea. Our first thought? Oh yay, we have room to straighten out this packing mess!
Of course, it never goes exactly as planned. G and I had had the presence of mind to pack enough in our roll aboards to keep us going for a couple of days, and we kept those with us while our big bags were going to the hotel (we hoped) a different way. But some people got to the hotel with nothing...and our luggage was not delivered until the middle of the night. When it continued to rain, some passengers were stuck at the hotel and the fancy on-site restaurant quickly ran out of reservations. We just donned our rain parkas and set off down the Promenade in search of dinner. We found it in a restaurant just down from the hotel.
Our discussion at dinner centered around how we were going to spend the 13 days before we could reboard the Pacific Princess on October 28 in Rome. We had so many ideas; I, of course, wanted to spend a few days in Provence and then take the train to Paris (which I adore) and then at some point fly to Rome and spend the last several days there. G was less interested in multiple stops because of all of our luggage. He wanted to spend several days in Nice and then fly or take the train to Rome. At that point, we hoped that, instead of refunding our cruise fare from October 16-28, Princess would help us with the costs of the days until we could reboard the ship.
First night in Nice. We didn't go hungry!
Hotel West End at night
About midnight or so, we made the first phone call to one of the two numbers I had been given when I talked with Princess the previous afternoon. It was then 3pm in California and we figured they had had some time to decide on how this was going to be handled. That's when I discovered the first number I had been given was for Princess Vacation Protection insurance. They could tell us nothing but advised us to keep our receipts and submit a claim when we returned home and at that point they would see what was reimbursable...but no promises.
The sccond number was for a 24 hour international travel assistance company. Their job was to simply book travel on our behalf, paid for using our credit card. They said that flights home would cost $3000pp...plus $55 for their travel assistance fee. They are basically a travel agency and anyone with internet access could do the same thing on their own for less. But they did connect us with Princess and stay on the line while we were repeatedly put on hold. It took almost an hour of that conversation for us to finally convey that we were in a series of seven back to back cruises. They kept telling us that some other B2B passengers were simply going to stay in Europe until they could fly home using their October 28 flight reservations. Of course, we had no flight reservations to return home.
All in all we were on that call nearly two hours, most of it being kept on hold while Customer Relations was repeatedly contacted. But at all times the answer was the same. We had not booked a flight home through EZ Air and so our flight home would be at our expense. They would not fund any of the costs of our 12 days of travel in lieu of refunding the cost of that cruise, just as they were doing for all the passengers. And if we did go home, we would have to fly back for any subsequent cruises on the Pacific Princess or use our Princess Vacation Protection's Cancel For Any Reason coverage to get future travel credits. In other words, they were treating us as if we had chosen to jump ship after just the first of our seven booked cruises.
After we ended that phone call (cost $107 for being on hold and getting no new information), we tried to use the hotel's free WiFi. Unfortunately, in our room it was mostly non-existent and we didn't want to sit in the lobby at 3am. We decided to try to sleep and simply be in the lobby the next morning at 7:30am when the buses came to take the other passengers to Barcelona. We needed to tell whoever was there that we were not going to Barcelona. I moved into our little sitting room and managed to get very intermittent WiFi. Using it, I checked for all the other cruise ships in the area. All of the other Princess ships had already left Europe, so that was not an option. Several cruise lines were still operating cruises out of Barcelona or Rome or Venice so they might work. Then I used Cruise Timetables to see if there was anything going out of Nice (it's a very small port) and -wow- there was a Windstar cruise leaving Nice on October 20 and arriving in the port of Rome (Civitavechia) on October 27. We could get a hotel room in Civitavechia for one night until the Pacific Princess cruise starting October 28. We could stay in Nice until October 20. There would be no flights or trains and no hauling all this luggage anywhere; Windstar would get us and our luggage from Nice to Rome. It was absolutely perfect, and even had a last minute price of $1271pp base cruise fare for 7 nights.
Around 2am our luggage was delivered to our room so we didn't have to worry any longer that it had been put on a truck to Barcelona to be picked up at the hotel there. That was a relief!
Early the next morning G negotiated a rate with the Hotel West End of 135€ a night. We would, of course, have to move out of our suite but that was no issue. While we were in the hotel lobby looking for someone to tell that we were not taking the bus to Barcelona, two crew members from the Pacific Princess appeared to help with the entire process (they were even riding the bus with the passengers all the way to Barcelona in case any emergencies came up. The ship was amazing through all this). When they heard our story, they immediately called the Hotel General Manager on the ship and Leo asked to talk with us. He said Princess would fly us home after all. I told him we had worked out something that would allow us to stay in Europe. It was more expensive than the money we'd be getting from Princess for the cancelled cruise but still more reasonable than hotels and food and transportation to Rome. Leo said that of course we could do whatever we wanted...but he advised us to fly home. I told him we would not be going to Barcelona. I knew that there were 7 or 8 cruise ships in Barcelona that day; it would be much easier to fly us out of Nice where the airport is very close to our hotel and there was not the mass of cruise ship passengers doing turnarounds. I asked about the October 28 cruise and he said it was still scheduled...but advised us to fly home. We trust Leo. Not knowing what he knows, we decided to fly home. Leo said they would be in touch from the ship.
Meanwhile the buses to Barcelona left and we went for the breakfast that was included with the hotel. It was a feast by European breakfast standards. The day was also starting out to be sunny and much warmer. While we were hugely disappointed, things were looking up. We returned to our suite and opened up the suitcases and tried to make sense of it all. The worst part was all those heavy liquids- we had three months of toiletries, after all- but we decided we would simply dump some of the cheaper items to free up space and weight. Everything takes more space going home because nothing is packed as neatly.
We were either going to be flying home on Saturday or moving to a smaller room- our suite was not available for another night- but stuck around the room in case Princess called. By noon I could see we weren't going to fly out that day; the only remaining flight in the late afternoon was through Istanbul and I felt certain Princess would not route us that way. The ship even phoned a bit later to confirm they could not fly us out until Sunday. We gathered up our luggage to take to the hotel lobby until our smaller room was ready. That was the first time we actually had some time to do something other than deal with this issue, and we left our luggage with the porters and went for a long walk along the Promenade des Anglais. We walked far to the east, back to the port area, just to see the Pacific Princess still docked there.
I was fascinated by the busker we named 'Bubble Boy'
Still beautiful!
Coincidentally, my cell phone rang again while we were near the port. It was Gidea from the ship, asking if certain flights the next day would work for us. They were exactly the flights we were hoping for, and she said she would be in touch with reservation numbers. Then we walked back a street from the waterfront and discovered tiny markets selling the most gorgeous produce and had fun talking with the seller who used his iPhone to translate and tell us the names in English of everything we were looking at. It was the first moment of fun and frivolity we'd had, but knowing our plans were in place- even though they were not our first choice- lightened our moods considerably. Back along the Promenade des Anglais, we took pictures and enjoyed all the growing numbers of fellow walkers and street entertainers and the beautiful blue of the Mediterranean Sea. Life was feeling better.
We returned to the hotel and checked into our (considerably smaller) hotel room. The funniest thing is that we couldn't find the toilet. It was not in or near the tiny bathroom. We finally found it in a tiny cubicle near the door to the room. So using the bathroom meant using the toilet in one room and walking back down a hall and around a corner to wash hands. Harious.
We rested a bit after our three hour walk. We had not slept much the previous night and were getting very tired. I could have been talked out of dinner all together (we still had at least 20 protein bars we had packed for excursions and it wouldn't have hurt to eat a few of those to reduce their weight in our luggage) but G wanted to enjoy our last night in Europe. We went back to the same restaurant we had eaten at the previous night and I had the best bowl of bouillabaisse and G had a steak and we ordered a half bottle of the local wine and watched the sea and passers by and generally felt relieved that all that stood between us and home was one long day.
Mediterranean sunset our second night in Nice
When in Nice...eat bouillabaisse!
Luckily the WiFi in our new room was considerably better, and I made a few phone calls using Vonage (For free! Get the app!!) to share information with people at home. But by 10pm we were asleep. We set the alarm for 6am and were packed up and ready for the day when the hotel restaurant opened for breakfast at 7am. We checked out of the room and were picked up by 8am. Our fights were all on time and we were delivered to our front door by Uber just under 18 hours after we left the hotel that morning.
We started our day saying that if the Pacific Princess was operational by October 28 that we would fly to Rome just 10 or 11 days from now. I'm not sure we felt that way when we finally got home after all the travel. We walked in the house and it immediately occurred to us that we have to undo all the preparatory things we did to leave just two weeks ago...and then re-do them again if we leave. There is still deck furniture in the family room and belongings and keys with friends and no car insurance on the cars which have their batteries disconnected anyways. We have no food and the refrigerator is turned off. We still don't know if or when we might be leaving again and so it will be hard to know just how much we should resume normal living until we do. But it will get worked out eventually. At least we have the ability to do our laundry and are sleeping in our own bed tonight.
In the end, I have nothing but good things to say about how the Pacific Princess handled this situation. Every step of the way was as smooth as it could be given the circumstances. So many specific people stepped up in a big way; we were very happy this happened on a small ship so that personal attention could be given. We were never in any danger, there was never any drama, our worst hardship was using the port toilets in the rain, which wasn't a hardship at all. We will be well compensated for the cruise that ended early and the next cruise and (hopefully) all the incidental expenses we incurred along the way, like meals and phone calls and taxis and the second night in the Hotel West End. The truly amazing thing is that we never heard one passenger- not a single person- utter one word of complaint. People weren't thrilled, of course, but we stood in line holding umbrellas over us to use the bathrooms and packed up and boarded a bus in the rain and I heard nothing negative at all. There was just an air of acceptance. I'm sure complaints were received but it wasn't the mob mentality that we've seen come from other cruise ship incidents. And I think the reason is that everyone knew that the Pacific Princess was doing a fantastic job with the cards that had been dealt.
I have no idea what comes next. I don't even know when we'll know what comes next. But uncertainty is much easier dealt with at home. I will adding a lot of photos to my blog posts over the next few days (I wanted time and WiFi to do that, but not this way!!), so you might want to check back if you'd like to see them. Thank you for following along and even more so for all the emails I've received. Many people went to great lengths to offer suggestions and give us options and they were all very much appreciated. You are so kind and we were deeply touched by your concern, and I'll be responding to each one over the next week or so. This is not how we wanted this season to go, and even though it is wonderful to have arrived home there won't be a single moment that we wouldn't rather still be in Europe waiting to board the Pacific Princess on October 28 (and we may be back there by then!). We enjoyed the few days we had so much and feel fortunate to have had them.
I'll start to blog again if our near term plans include cruising. We were never going to cruise after January; instead we had made other land-based plans for later in the winter, so the 91 days were going to be all the cruising we did this year. I hope that we'll be back on the Pacific Princess over the holidays (yes, you heard me say that) and seeing Bequia and Tobago for the first time and singing carols in the tiny Reception Hall while Jere Ring accompanies us on a keyboard and generally feeling like it's almost like being home for the holidays.
My fingers are crossed...