On January 14th, 2005, I made one last post at Cruise Critic relating to our cruise:
Travel Insurance works!
‘allo all!I doubt anyone remembers me, but since this board was so helpful when we were planning our first cruise, I thought I would “pay it forward” a little and tell everyone of our recent completed dealings with travel insurance.
Based on the excellent advice I read here, we decided to purchase travel insurance for our September 18th cruise on the Triumph. We went through http://www.InsureMyTrip.com and purchased a basic policy through Travelex. It was a minor cost in the grand scheme of things, and since we knew we were cruising during hurricane season – and we had prepaid our hotel stays through Priceline – it seemed like a good idea.
Well, I think everyone here knows about the 2004 hurricane season!!
So, after really lucking out with two extra days on the Triumph, we then had to file a claim for the hotel we didn’t use, the extra hotel we ended up using instead once they made us debark, and a few extra expenses.
The claim form was a little confusing, and I have to admit I dragged my feet on it until I had to fill it out. While filling it out, DH suggested that we claim the extra gratuities that Carnival had added on to our S&S. After all, they were “out of pocket” expenses that we wouldn’t have had to pay otherwise.
(Let me add here that we had no problem whatsoever paying the extra gratuities, and we ended up tipping everyone over the suggested limit anyway.)
Just got the checks today – we have been reimbursed for everything, including the extra 2 days of gratuities. I am very happy, and I am sure that we will not cruise in hurricane season without trip insurance again.
