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Interesting Fairy

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The family cruise to the Bahamas was going great, until four members of the group were asked to pack up their things and disembark in Nassau..

North Naples resident Dave Berg boarded the Disney cruise ship out of Miami on Dec. 30 with 31 family members. Berg said his mother-in-law is sick with cancer and the cruise was part of her bucket list.

Everything was going well, Berg said, until Thursday morning, when his 4-month-old granddaughter began spitting up. Berg’s daughter Jennifer Moak brought the infant to the ship’s doctor, who gave her some medicine for seasickness. But just hours later, someone from the doctor’s office phoned Moak’s husband, saying they wanted to do another checkup on the baby.

Instead of a checkup, the doctor then told the couple they would have to disembark, according to the family.

“He said because of her age, she wasn’t supposed to be on the ship and that they would be — I think the word that he used was ‘terminating’ our stay on the ship,” Moak said Monday.

The family said the medical staff cited the baby’s age and need for safety as reasons they could not keep her onboard.

Disney Cruise Line changed its policy on infant travel last summer. Previously, babies younger than 12 weeks were not permitted onboard, but starting Jan. 1, the cruise line increased the age requirement to 6 months old. A representative from the company said all parents who had existing reservations, like the Moaks, would not be affected.

At the doctor’s request, Berg, Moak and her husband packed up and got ready to leave, expecting that Disney would take care of the accommodations. But they say their experience was unsafe and not up to the standards of the $1,000 nightly rate they had paid to go on the cruise.

“I know that they thought that it was safer for her to be off the ship, and it could have been, if the situation was dealt with in the right way,” Moak said. “Her safety is my No. 1 priority, and they were saying her safety was their No. 1 priority, so we should have all been on the same page.”

Moak said she had to plead for a child car seat for the taxi ride to the hotel, which her father described as a “fleabag motel.” At the hotel, Moak said there was nowhere for her daughter to sleep except in the bed with her parents, which Moak realizes can be dangerous.

The family said Disney only offered to pay for the hotel and flights home after much back-and-forth. A port agent who was supposed to help with arrangements failed to connect with the family, Berg said, and after they returned home, he realized they’d been charged gratuities for three nights they were not on the ship.

Moak said her daughter was checked out at a Bahamian hospital, where staff said the baby just had gas. The bill was $1,200, Berg said.

“No one would care if they took us off the ship and we were in complete safety in comparable accommodations and brought home,” he said. “They were deceitful about it. No one can believe that Disney would send a 4-month-old baby off into the dark in a foreign country that they say in their brochures is dangerous.”

A Disney Cruise Line representative said the company could not comment specifically on the family’s case because of medical privacy reasons. In cases where guests are asked to disembark, the company’s policy is to have an agent help them through the process of getting home.

When the decision is made for medical reasons, a guest’s age and overall condition might play a factor if medical personnel on board do not feel they are equipped to handle the guest, the representative said.

Berg and his daughter say they just want the company to apologize and possibly find some way to make it up to them.

“I’m happy that nothing happened that’s going to permanently affect my family, but unhappy that Disney feels that they owe us nothing,” Moak said. “I will never be able to have the experience that I should have had with my family. My grandma and grandpa are both very ill and this was our only trip together, and that makes me very sad.”


Gasy
Policy says children no younger than six months old...

Dude brings a child that's four months old...

So...who's at fault here?

Divine Whisperer

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Wow, Cruise trip from hell? Makes me never want to go to Disney.
If I were in their position I'd be suing for emotional distress or some such thing. The policy wasn't supposed to affect them since they already had reservations before the change.
Disney should have checked the child's age beforehand so that they could have barred the baby from going on board in the first place. Then the family could have made arrangements for her to be looked after by a family member or something. Instead of kicking them off and then giving them crappy accommodations. That was poor.

Greedy Pirate

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--Sky Kid Tai--
Policy says children no younger than six months old...

Dude brings a child that's four months old...

So...who's at fault here?
Quote:
Disney Cruise Line changed its policy on infant travel last summer. Previously, babies younger than 12 weeks were not permitted onboard, but starting Jan. 1, the cruise line increased the age requirement to 6 months old. A representative from the company said all parents who had existing reservations, like the Moaks, would not be affected.
Disney is at fault as the policy did not apply to the Moaks' infant.

Alien Dog

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--Sky Kid Tai--
Policy says children no younger than six months old...

Dude brings a child that's four months old...

So...who's at fault here?


Policy says no children younger than three months old . . .

Dude signs up with a child between three and six months old . . .

Policy changes to say no children younger than six months old, but assures dude that his own young-un would be grandfathered in since they signed up before the policy was changed . . .

So, the company that changed the terms of their policy and then assured the customer that the new policy wouldn't affect him since he'd already bought his tickets when the old policy was still in effect would be the party at fault.

Alien Dog

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Lady Kariel
Disney should have checked the child's age beforehand so that they could have barred the baby from going on board in the first place. Then the family could have made arrangements for her to be looked after by a family member or something. Instead of kicking them off and then giving them crappy accommodations. That was poor.


Disney DID check the child's age. After the arrangements were already made, the policy changed, but Disney insisted to the man that the new policy didn't apply to people who booked before it went into effect.

Ice-Cold Bloodsucker

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That's messed up.
--Sky Kid Tai--
Policy says children no younger than six months old...

Dude brings a child that's four months old...

So...who's at fault here?
I agree and he obviously does not love his wife if he is more concerned about a refund, his wife is better of dying so she does not have to live with such a jerk anymore
Lady Kariel
Disney should have checked the child's age beforehand so that they could have barred the baby from going on board in the first place. Then the family could have made arrangements for her to be looked after by a family member or something. Instead of kicking them off and then giving them crappy accommodations. That was poor.
You could be right but it is obvious that the husband cares more about the refund than his dying wife and baby. He should be the one with cancer, if anyone deserves cancer he does.
--Sky Kid Tai--
Policy says children no younger than six months old...

Dude brings a child that's four months old...

So...who's at fault here?


Quote:
Disney Cruise Line changed its policy on infant travel last summer. Previously, babies younger than 12 weeks were not permitted onboard, but starting Jan. 1, the cruise line increased the age requirement to 6 months old. A representative from the company said all parents who had existing reservations, like the Moaks, would not be affected.


Disney is.

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very angry now
You could be right but it is obvious that the husband cares more about the refund than his dying wife and baby. He should be the one with cancer, if anyone deserves cancer he does.

very angry now
I agree and he obviously does not love his wife if he is more concerned about a refund, his wife is better of dying so she does not have to live with such a jerk anymore


... ctrl+f "wife", only results are your posts.
The people sick here were Dave's parents/parent-in-laws, who were Moak's grandparents, if I'm reading this correctly. No mention made of Berg's wife or Moak's husband/boyfriend.

Anywho, we're talking thousands of dollars here that they were charged when they shouldn't have been. They shouldn't have been kicked off the cruise, and Berg/Moak believe this would've been the only time they could be together with the whole family, on a cruise, which is something the parents/grandparents wanted to do before they died.

Seems to be some miscommunication between Disney and their ship's crew, but that's not the family's fault. They ruined the one chance these people had to be together, they wouldn't even take care of their accommodations in Nassau without a bunch of complaining, and they're charging them for time when they were already kicked off the ship.

Perhaps it could've been avoided if they had the crew call the corporation and explain the situation, but as it is, people have sued for less.
very angry now
--Sky Kid Tai--
Policy says children no younger than six months old...

Dude brings a child that's four months old...

So...who's at fault here?
I agree and he obviously does not love his wife if he is more concerned about a refund, his wife is better of dying so she does not have to live with such a jerk anymore

you have a disorder
BerserkLeon
very angry now
You could be right but it is obvious that the husband cares more about the refund than his dying wife and baby. He should be the one with cancer, if anyone deserves cancer he does.

very angry now
I agree and he obviously does not love his wife if he is more concerned about a refund, his wife is better of dying so she does not have to live with such a jerk anymore


... ctrl+f "wife", only results are your posts.
The people sick here were Dave's parents/parent-in-laws, who were Moak's grandparents, if I'm reading this correctly. No mention made of Berg's wife or Moak's husband/boyfriend.

Anywho, we're talking thousands of dollars here that they were charged when they shouldn't have been. They shouldn't have been kicked off the cruise, and Berg/Moak believe this would've been the only time they could be together with the whole family, on a cruise, which is something the parents/grandparents wanted to do before they died.

Seems to be some miscommunication between Disney and their ship's crew, but that's not the family's fault. They ruined the one chance these people had to be together, they wouldn't even take care of their accommodations in Nassau without a bunch of complaining, and they're charging them for time when they were already kicked off the ship.

Perhaps it could've been avoided if they had the crew call the corporation and explain the situation, but as it is, people have sued for less.


very angry now
You could be right but it is obvious that the husband cares more about the refund than his dying wife and baby. He should be the one with cancer, if anyone deserves cancer he does.


Quote:
he husband cares more about the refund than his dying wife and baby.


Quote:
his dying wife and baby.


Quote:
dying wife and baby.


where did it say that his family was dying
i mean not even
his wife and baby are not both dying wtf

Omnipresent Warlord

Hell Rides With GSK
--Sky Kid Tai--
Policy says children no younger than six months old...

Dude brings a child that's four months old...

So...who's at fault here?


Quote:
Disney Cruise Line changed its policy on infant travel last summer. Previously, babies younger than 12 weeks were not permitted onboard, but starting Jan. 1, the cruise line increased the age requirement to 6 months old. A representative from the company said all parents who had existing reservations, like the Moaks, would not be affected.


Disney is.


At no point a child 4 months old was permitted on the cruise ship. Ever.

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