Woman books cruise for family vacation. Right before boarding, Royal Caribbean changes their itinerary ‘twice in 2 minutes’

One of the primary draws of cruises is that the vacationer gets to do less planning. The cruise tells its customers where they’re going and when. It provides them with food and lodging for a fee. It also takes care of all things entertainment. All cruise-goers have to do is pay and pack.

That is, unless the cruise changes the entire itinerary before boarding.

‘It’s taken me two days to be able to talk about this’

Content creator Maria (@mariaaudhd) shares a video about her family’s Royal Caribbean cruise being rerouted. Her video has since accumulated more than 285,000 views.

“It’s taken me two days to be able to talk about this,” Maria says. “I’m autistic, and that was a meltdown. And that was after a cruise line changed our itinerary not once but twice in a matter of two minutes. We planned this cruise for months. It was our first family vacation. It was my husband’s 32nd birthday.”

Maria says she and her family arrived at the New Jersey port “bright and early.” As they walked in, cruise line workers were running around handing out papers. Maria “didn’t look at [them] because they just kept saying ‘itinerary, itinerary.’”

But then, she says a worker looked at her husband and said they’d be stopping at a port in Canada.

“Canada?” her husband reportedly asked. The worker replied, “Yeah, you’re going to the cold. You’re going to Canada. Don’t you know your trip changed?”

Maria says they had dropped off their luggage two minutes earlier, “filled with summer clothes, shorts, bathing suits, flip-flops, not jackets.”

Workers allegedly told everyone they should have received an email at 10 p.m. the night before.

“When I went on to my email, I did not see an email from the cruise line,” Maria says.

‘That’s when I had a meltdown’

At the check-in desk, Maria says an employee told the family, “Oh well, we’re not doing anything about this.” Another reportedly asked how old their baby was.

“I say, ‘She’s 8 months old. She doesn’t even look me in the eyes,’” Maria says. The employee told her the family couldn’t go on the trip, saying, “She’s under a year old and it will be three international sea days.”

Employees then handed Maria a paper with a phone number, which is “when [she] had a meltdown.”

Maria says hundreds of families with babies under the age of 1 were in the same position. Another family that did receive the email told her it mentioned only an itinerary change, not the restriction on babies. That family waited four hours for their luggage.

“[In] my opinion, a refund isn’t enough,” Maria says. “Here’s what would have helped. Texts, calls, and emails sent multiple times, not one email at 10 p.m. the night before a cruise when everyone is sleeping. Should have also stated that babies under the age of one would not be able to sail at all.”

Maria also says Royal Caribbean states on its website that it is autism-trained and autism-friendly, which is “exactly why [she] chose this cruise line.”

She says “there should have been a staff member that pulled [them] aside” to offer more personalized help. In the caption, she writes that both she and her 3-year-old son are autistic.

What are the protocols around these kinds of changes for Royal Caribbean cruises?

Royal Caribbean’s contract allows the cruise line to make last-minute changes. The cruise line’s U.S. ticket contract lets the carrier change itineraries and ports “for any reason at any time and without prior notice.” It limits a guest’s remedy for a carrier cancellation to a refund or credit.

As for the change of port Maria experienced, it seems she was referring to an incident Royal Caribbean Blog reported on Oct. 18.

According to the report, the Oasis of the Seas’ seven-night sailing from Bayonne, New Jersey, was diverted because of a developing nor’easter, replacing stops at Port Canaveral, CocoCay, and Nassau with Halifax, Nova Scotia, and three consecutive sea days.

The company’s letter said the weather made a safe journey to Florida and the Bahamas hard to provide. It offered refundable onboard credit of $200 to $600 per guest and a 50% future cruise credit.

Regarding the baby rule Maria bumped up against, Royal Caribbean’s age policy requires infants to be at least 6 months old.

However, they must be at least 12 months old on “any cruise that has 3 or more days consecutive at sea.” It says guests with an infant who doesn’t meet the policy “will be denied boarding,” with no refund or compensation.

In 2022, USA Today reported on a different cruise line, Crystal Symphony, changing course. Attorney Jim Walker said in the piece that cruise lines can legally change itineraries under their ticket terms, and that any lawsuits would be unlikely to succeed.

This story is republished with permission. It originally appeared on Subplot News.