TORONTO — Carnival has stepped up to the plate with restitution and quick action for passengers impacted by a dramatic water line break on Carnival Dream.
The move comes as travel companies in particular are under increasing pressure, in these days of viral videos and instant (and potentially scathing) reaction on social media, to handle any crisis right from the get-go, and right away.
At just about dinner time on May 3 water began pouring into the corridor and flooding staterooms on the 3,646-passenger Carnival Dream. The result of a broken water line, the torrents of water affected some 50 staterooms.
What did Carnival do? The water line break occurred at 6 p.m. and in six hours, the crew had replaced hall and stateroom carpeting, dried out other sections of carpeting that were damp and but did not need to be replaced, and restored the 50 staterooms so that all guests could sleep in their beds that evening.
“There were a handful of guests that chose to sleep elsewhere that first night and we moved mattresses to the spa for them,” said a statement from a Carnival spokesperson, adding “both our crew and our guests have been amazing during this voyage.”
The Carnival Dream then continued on its seven-day Caribbean cruise uninterrupted after the water line break and returned to its homeport of New Orleans as scheduled yesterday, May 6. “The water main break had no effect on the safe operation of the ship. The safety and security of our guests and crew is our top priority,” said Carnival.
The cruise line provided a full refund and a future cruise credit as a goodwill gesture. “We offered to fly the impacted guests home at our expense if they wanted to disembark early and only two of the nearly 100 guests that received our offer chose to do so. We never want our guests to experience anything other than a perfect vacation, so we sincerely regret that we inconvenienced nearly 100 guests.”
Not only were passengers taken care of, but Carnival’s July 2017 announcement that it would pay commission on future cruise credits was good news for any agents who booked those clients.
