Waiting for your luggage to arrive whether on a cruise or waiting at the airports baggage carousel is something that everybody dreads. There is always a slight panic within everyone worrying that their bag will be damaged or worse still not arrive. This is something my sister dreads the most and can not rest easy until her bags have been delivered to her cabin door, and she is one of those people who will keep running down the corridor and checking in the crew area if her bag is sitting there waiting to be delivered.
On a cruise guests are advised their baggage (depending on the size of the ship) may not arrive until after dinner that evening, so we would always recommend that if you are wanting to change before dinner to pack the clothes in your hand luggage.
However recently I have heard of more stories where luggage is going missing. On my cruise on the Independence of the Seas, 3 days into our cruise we received a note at turn down service asking everyone to check their cabins that no extra bags had been delivered as someone was missing one – why it took them 3 days to start the search is very strange however in the end I think they did eventually locate the bag an return it to the missing owner.
Another story I read about was a couple parked up in Southampton and unloaded the car, they were advised to leave their bags where they were and they would be collected by the porters and then sent on to the ship. So the couple proceeded to check-in and embarked on the ship. That evening there was no sign of the bags so they reported this to reception. Reception had the ship thoroughly checked no sign of the bags, they also had the docks and check in area at Southampton checked – no bags, they even arranged for the car park to be checked and again advised there was no bags. The customers had to cruise for the 6 days with no cases and purchase clothes on board, in port and also any toiletries etc. When the couple disembarked they went back to pick up their car – and there sitting in the car park where they had been told to leave them were their bags !!! They had been left out in the rain to get ruined, but the scary part of the story is that car park was supposed to have been checked so quite clearly it hadn’t been, and also what about the safety and security of the car park – what if there had been a bomb inside the cases? Nobody would have noticed. Again this happened on a Royal Caribbean Cruise.
So when you get to Southampton, whether you have arrived by taxi, coach or driven – make sure firstly your case is clearly labelled with your cabin number – if you have been lucky to receive a late upgrade make sure you have changed the cabin number/reprinted off the tags, and secondly for a bit of peace of mind make sure you have passed your bag to a member of the porter staff and watched it either be loaded on to the baggage carts or on to the conveyor belt on to the ship. It won’t get your bag any quicker to be delivered to your cabin door but might ease your mind slightly.
Have you ever had a bag go missing on a cruise, do you panic and worry about your luggage until its been delivered to your door?