AARP The Magazine - March/April 2010

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On Your Side
Ron Burley
Sick Ship
Sinks Trip

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THE COMPANY

Holland America Line

THE COMPLAINT

We were duped at dockside
THE RESULT
No refund, no satisfaction

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WHEN TERRY PAGE and his wife,
Cecilia, arrived at a San Diego dock for
their 16-day Holland America cruise
on the M.S. Zaandam, cruise officials
gave them an unappealing choice:
cancel their trip or sail on a ship that
had just had an outbreak of norovirus,
a stomach bug. “We were told there
would be about a five-
hour delay because a
thorough sanitation had
to be performed,” Terry
Page wrote to me. “We
were never told what
was going to take place
after we sailed. Had we
been, we would have
canceled our trip.”
bugs, serious outbreaks are rare. Out
of more than 2,000 sailings in the first
half of 2009, the Centers for Disease
Control reports there were only

11 outbreaks that affected at least
The cleanup never
stopped. Pools, spas,
arcades, and the library
were closed for most of
the Pages’ $8,500 cruise.
At the casino, players
wore rubber gloves.

Though cruise ships are notorious as incubators of gastrointestinal

3 percent of passengers. Keeping con-
taminated vessels in service is now the
norm for cruise operators, but it wasn’t
always that way. In 2002
hundreds of passengers
on the M.S. Amsterdam
got norovirus, which can
spread person-to-person
or via food; Holland
America took that ship
out of service for more
than a week to disinfect it.
To get the Pages some
money back, I called the
cruise line and reached
Lauren Kaufman in pub-
lic relations. I described
the situation and asked,
“Wouldn’t you say that
the Pages’ experience
was less than ideal?”
“Probably more ideal
than explosive vomiting

Unfortunately, standard trip insur- ance does not cover a traveler’s decision to forgo a cruise on a sick ship. Neither does your credit card’s purchase- guarantee plan. And cruise lines won’t necessarily call to warn you of an outbreak. So it’s up to you to ask be- fore you leave home. INSURANCE WON’T HELP

and diarrhea,” she replied.

The company stood by its policy of giving passengers only a dockside warning and the chance to cancel. In hindsight, the Pages—who made plans months in advance and had journeyed from Arizona—felt they deserved more details on the restrictions they would suffer by boarding.

Holland America didn’t dispute the Pages’ story; still, the cruise line wouldn’t grant even a partial refund. “However, we will offer to host the Pages in our Pinnacle Grill restaurant the next time they cruise,” Rose Abello, then the vice president of public relations, wrote me. So the couple can look forward to a free meal—if first they spend another few grand.

On Your Side tries to create win-win-win situations in which a consumer gets some satisfaction, a company gets to correct an error, and readers learn how to protect themselves. Count three strikes this time. ;