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Disney Cruises

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Sarosh of Edmonton, AB April 28, 2009

My family and I were denied getting on a Disney Cruise because they (Nurse on the ship who is not even a doctor) felt my daughter was contagious, without checking her temperature, or performing any other test. They gave us a letter that we can use as a future cruise voucher (which we didn’t want at the first place) or we could void that vouched and utilize travel insurance. My daughter had vomited on Sunday Apr 19, 2009 due to a common cold. At the time of boarding, which was Apr 22, 2009 I was asked if any one in your family had vomited in past three days, I answered yes to it. We explained to the medical rep on board that our daughter is fine. She hasn't vomited in last 48 hours. She does not have stomach flu or any other disease that is contagious. We are really upset how Disney has treated us. We asked for a full refund which, for the cruise but Disney denied refunding our money. We were told to file a claim with the insurance company Access America, but access America is stating that we will not be refunded for the trip as denied boarding is not a valid clause. We were told to have my daughter checked by a Physician within 72 hours and obtain a letter stating her condition, which we did by taking her to a Walk-in clinic on the Orlando Airport. However now the Access America is saying the just a letter from the Doctor will not satisfy their requirement, same Physician has to fill out form which they faxed me today on Apr 28th 2009.

One thing I don't understand how a nurse can make a decision, if a person is sick or not, when he did not check the temperature or performed any other test on my daughter. I personally think an on board doctor should have check my daughter. Please let me know what options we have. We had paid 2000 for the airfare separately and another 1400 for the cruise. Disney cruise has given us a voucher for future cruise, but they are not covering the cost of airfare. After this experience I don't want to sail with them in future at all. I just want to get my money back for airfare & cruise trip. Overall our experience with Disney Cruise line was not good at all. Please also let us know what is your opinion and what should we do next. Thanks

Sarosh of Edmonton, AB April 28, 2009

My family and I were denied getting on a Disney Cruise because they (Nurse on the ship who is not even a doctor) felt my daughter was contagious, without checking her temperature, or performing any other test. They gave us a letter that we can use as a future cruise voucher (which we didn’t want at the first place) or we could void that vouched and utilize travel insurance. My daughter had vomited on Sunday Apr 19, 2009 due to a common cold. At the time of boarding, which was Apr 22, 2009 I was asked if any one in your family had vomited in past three days, I answered yes to it. We explained to the medical rep on board that our daughter is fine. She hasn’t vomited in last 48 hours. She does not have stomach flu or any other disease that is contagious. We are really upset how Disney has treated us. We asked for a full refund which, for the cruise but Disney denied refunding our money. Instead they offered us the following which we denied. 1. Stay at Disney resort, tickets for all 4 Disney Theme parks, and 150 food voucher. (Food voucher was useless for us, as we only eat Kosher meat). 2. A letter that we can use as a future cruise, which does not cover the air fair, from Edmonton, Canada to Orlando, Florida. Please give me your opinion, on what should I do.

I am thinking of doing the following. 1. Try to file an insurance claim for Disney Cruise only. 2. Ask Disney to refund me the air fair. 3. Also the money that I spend over their, after we were denied boarding. (Rental Car, staying at Hotel, food cost, Disney Magic Kingdom One day pass and Sea World day pass Or Sue Disney for 1. Not refunding the Cruise line fare (including, extra insurance & money we spend for Transportation) 1,373.44 USD 2. Air fair 2000 CND 3. Lodging charges, included in the money spent on Food while are stay at in Disney) a. Hotel = 200 b. Rental car = 204 c. Food = 240 4. Missing work for 5 days ( I work as contract no money for time off) = 1840 CAN 5. Lawyer’s expenses and filing a claim. 6. Apology from Disney Cruise line, for ruining our vacation. (Because this was a surprise for our daughter. She didn’t know about it till we were about board). Please give me your opinion what route should I take, in order to get my money back from Disney Cruise line.

Marta of Porter Ranch, CA February 27, 2009

I called on February 27th to make sure this reservation was cancelled. On my final payment reminder, it states that if payments are not received by due date reservation will automatically cancel, I did not pay the final payment and I called them on Friday February 27th at 9:30 am they informed me that there will be cancellation fees of 200.00 p.p. How is that possible when it says that the reservation is automatically cancelled. If that is the case I should be entiled to all monies paid as it says it automatically canceled so I in affect had to do nothing.

They want to charge me 200.00 per person cancellation fee.

John of Lawton, IA February 26, 2009

To whom it may concern, My family and I were denied getting on a Disney Cruise because they felt my kids were contagious. They gave us a letter that we can use as a future voucher or we could void that vouched and utilize travel insurance. We are trying to utilize the travel insurance but Disney Cruise Line will not cooperate and give them the report that says they denied us boarding because they felt our kids were a medical issue. My daughter had a little motion sickness traveling over an hour to the port. She slept on the way there and got up too excited when she saw the ship.

First of all my kids were not sick. I have video tape of them looking at the ship we were denied getting on. Second we were told by them about an hour after we were denied that our room was already giving away to someone else. Sounds pretty fishy to me. Sounds like they were overbooked and looked to get people off. Third they refused to have their doctor come off the ship to evaluate our kids. Fourth we were escorted out of the port by GUN ( supplied by a county sheriff ) when we were waiting to get our luggage. Let me make this clear, me, my wife and two young children had a guy with his hand on his gun escorting us out. Lastly we went to a doctor after we were transported back to the Orlando and they were giving a clean bill of health. He could not beleive we were there. We have a letter from him dated on the day we were denied boarding.

It has been over two months with no money back from a trip we were told we couldnt take. As far as I am concerned, they have stolen our money and I want to know what my next step is. This is a felony in my eyes. I do have further documentation regarding exact quotes used by a High Ranked official that I can supply. Plus I took many notes on how we were treated and will gladly share that with anyone. Please get back to me one way or the other because I will not quit until I get someone to help me stand up to Disney Cruise Line and not be treated like this. Their company is a disgrace and nobody should be treated like this.

Economic - we saved up for years to take a once in a lifetime vacation to celebrate my youngest daughters birthday on a disney cruise. This was part of a land and cruise travel package. Land was fine but cruise ruined everything. Disney will not give us our money back for a trip they refused to let us on. We purchased third party insurance and they refuse to give our insurnace holder the paperwork for them to do the claim. Disney even gave us a letter stating that we can have a voucher for a future trip with them or void that if we use travel insurance. We want to use the travel insurance but we can't.

The thing is, the package included airline tickets so we could do both. Now we have to buy plane tickets again if we decide to try Disney Cruise again. But I will never trust Disney after the way we were treated. My wife took off work and I put off starting a new job to take this trip. So we wasted valuable vacation time to do this and put myself behind the eight ball right away with my new company, missing training. Now for the emotional side of this. This was really hard to swallow. My kids were devasted and still are. Plus my kid was unable to celebrate her 6th birthday on the cruise. Not to mention for both my daughters to be escorted out by a sheriff with a gun walking behind them. I still hear jokes about this from people I know.

Melanie of Whitleyville, TN December 31, 2008

My parents gave each of their children, as a Christmas gift, a Disney cruise. We were to go as a family this Christmas, in celebration of my sister's recovery from cancer. You see, my sister Mandi was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in August 2007. She underwent chemo and a stem cell transplant in an effort to be in remission. The cruise was booked for December 18 - 21, 2008. On December 11th, we found out that the lymphoma had returned and she would be unable to go. We, her family, did not want to go without her and proceeded to call the cruise line in an attempt to reschedule the cruise.

The Disney Cruise line told us that we needed to call Expedia, who we booked through. So, my mom did. On Friday, the 12th, she was told that rescheduling would be no problem and that as long as she called them back on the 14th with a definitive date, they could do it.

When she called on the 14th, someone at Expedia told her that they could NOT reschedule the cruise and that she needed to contact Disney. After playing phone tag for several days, she was told that someone named ROY at the Disney Cruise Line made the decision that they would NOT reschedule our cruise and that the money was just lost. After speaking with Roy on numerous occasions, she managed to get him to reschedule my sister's cruise vacation but he steadfastly refused to reschedule the rest of the family. He said that my mother should have spent an extra 1000 to take the vacation insurance.

My mom saved for TWO YEARS to give us this gift so she didnt have the money to take out the vacation insurance! One woman that my mother talked to in the course of calling stated that she was sorry about my sister's illness but there was nothing she could do and that we just needed to leave her here and go on the cruise. My mother has the documentation to prove that my sister was unable to travel. And, who would leave their daughter and sister alone at Christmas, while she is going through such a traumatic time, to go on a CRUISE?

Disney is not family oriented. They don't give a crap about anyone. It's all about the money. I don't know that this will make a difference in anyone's life or if anyone really cares. But, I do know that my family and I will NEVER return to Disney again. And, seeing as how my parents make a yearly trip to Disney and have done so for 25 years or more, maybe that will get their attention. And, you know, the sad part about all of this is that my mom did not ask for the money back. She simply wanted to reschedule the cruise date..

My mother lost close to 10,000 that she had saved for two years so that we could have this.

Angel of Carrollton, VA October 8, 2006

We took the 7-night Eastern Caribbean Disney Magic cruise on 9/30-10/7/06 based on the great experience we had onboard the Disney Wonder last Sep/Oct 2005.  However this trip was not a great experience.

On the 3rd evening my husband became violently ill from the escargot at dinner.  My husband had never been that sick before and the fact that he was that ill indicates food poisoning.  Had that been the only thing that went wrong on the cruise I wouldn't complain, but the next day we took our little girl play to play in the "fountain pool". She played there for approximately 2 1/2 hours.  Around midnight my little girl started vomiting every 30 minutes and it lasted for five hours.

The only advise from the on-call nurse was to give her Dramamine and they said the Doctor's office wasn't open until 11am.

In the doctor's office I began to hear of other children who were violently ill after playing in the pool.  I spoke to five other mothers whose children all had the same symptoms as our daughter within 12 hours after playing in the pool.

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