The following was written by a friend, Allen Appel, and posted in his community publication. I found this a very interesting dossier of planning and then having to cancel a vacation trip, and it is posted here with his permission. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
When My Ship Goes Out
Allen Appel
My wife and I conjure up different images of what would be a dream vacation. In my mind I see us spending two weeks in the Catskills, at the Grossinger’s or Kutsher’s of days gone by. She would view my dream as a nightmare. She loves to be on the go, visiting foreign countries, seeing famous landmarks and soaking up the culture. As an alternative to taking separate vacations we’ve worked out a compromise: cruises.
It’s logical. Cruise ships are, essentially, floating resorts. While in port we can go on guided excursions or just explore on our own. While on board we can lounge by the pool, enter trivia competitions, sing along at a piano bar, enjoy shows, and overeat three times a day.
It was early December, 2019, it had been a while since we’d been away, and we were planning our next cruise. I didn’t care where we went so long as it was someplace warm. I would have been okay with the Caribbean, even though we’d been there many times, but my wife yearned for someplace different, someplace we hadn’t been before. I suggested the Galapagos; National Geographic Wild had intrigued me with programs featuring birds and reptiles found nowhere else on earth. I would have loved to take pictures of them up close. My wife pooh-poohed the idea, maintaining that we were in no physical condition to go trekking around those rugged Ecuadorean islands. She proposed that we visit Croatia. Travel books portrayed it as a Slavic paradise. So which would it be, Galapagos or Croatia? We compromised. This time we’d go to Croatia. I could go to the Galapagos in my next life.
Few cruise lines sail to Croatia. We found only one – Azamara, with whom we’d sailed before and, fortunately, really liked. They had two 2020 cruises that included Croatia and, because they have only three ships and their draw is largely repeat customers seeking new destinations, they rarely schedule the same cruise twice. If we didn’t take one of these two cruises we might never set foot on Croatian soil. I wasn’t happy about both offerings being in October, when it would be too cool for the pool, but we didn’t have much choice.
The first cruise, beginning and ending in Venice, was for only seven days, but included five Croatian ports. The other cruise, on the same ship, was for ten days and immediately followed the first. It would visit Slovakia, Montenegro, only two ports in Croatia and a few in Italy. This cruise would end in Rome.
What a conundrum! The seven-day cruise would let us take in more of Croatia but seven days is too short a time to cross an ocean for. The ten-day cruise would be more to our liking but our time in Croatia would be too limited.
In a moment of madness and fiscal irresponsibility we decided to take both.
Toward the end of December, 2019 we called our travel agent and asked her to make the arrangements for the following October’s trip. We put down deposits for the cruises. Airfare, which was non-refundable, and travel insurance had to be paid for in full in advance. Because at our age anything can happen, and we wanted to be sure the insurance covered just about any reason for wanting to cancel a trip. She assured us it would, but we could confirm that ourselves when we received the policy. The rest of the payment for the cruises would be due by June 5, 2020.
In March, 2020, COVID-19 was spreading like wildfire. By April airline flights were being cancelled and several nations, including Italy, were imposing two-week quarantines on visitors entering from abroad. October seemed a long way off but we found ourselves nervously what iffing. What if, in October, flights were still being cancelled? How would we get to Venice? What if the flight wasn’t cancelled but the cruises were? What good would it do to fly to Venice if we had nowhere to go when we landed? What if neither the flight nor the cruises were cancelled but the two-week quarantine was still in effect? We could make it to Venice but we’d be prevented from boarding the ship.
The balance for the cruises, a substantial sum, was due June 5, at which time no one would be able to project what conditions would be like in October. If we paid the balance, and everything that needed to fall in place by October didn’t, would our travel insurance really reimburse us in full? The travel agent had indicated it would, but was she right? Maybe, I thought, I’d better check the small print in the policy and make sure. Everything looked fine until I got to the clause outlining reasons for cancelling a trip. That clause made reference to a list of definitions, elsewhere in the policy, which spelled out conditions under which the insurer was not liable. Way down on that list was the single word “epidemics.”
The travel agent we booked with was no longer with the company. We were referred to her successor. She told us if we cancelled we could get a credit from the airline but it had to be used by the end of the year. We could also get back most of the cruise deposit and we could carry the travel insurance over to our next trip.
Should we pay the balance due and hope that the pandemic would blow over by October, or cancel while we could? There seemed to be no clear-cut choice. All the medical experts were throwing out guesses as to how long it would take to flatten the curve, to find a cure, to develop a vaccine and, in slow stages, return to a new normal. Each projected a different timeline, convincing me that they were just pulling calendar pages out of a hat. While they made optimistic predictions of imminent cures and vaccines I kept reminding myself that science has, as yet, devised neither a cure nor vaccine for the common cold so I wasn’t going to hold my breath waiting for victory over the coronavirus.
In mid-May we cancelled. We felt we had no choice. If, in the not-too-distant future, we start feeling comfortable that the passing of time will resolve the problem we might book a cruise for 2021. I just hope that, if we do, we won’t have to board the ship wearing masks and gloves.
If you have any business or financial issues you want to discuss please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected].
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