Cruise: Check or carry on gear?

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jonesbf

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I'm taking my full rig on our cruise and was wondering if you guys would check the bag or carry everything on yourself? Either way my reg & computer are being carried on.
 
on a cruise? They take your "checked baggage" to your cabin for you.
 
howarde:
on a cruise? They take your "checked baggage" to your cabin for you.
Oh, I know. My concern is the possible loss of expensive gear. We've been on many cruises before (never to dive) and so far never had an incident with luggage. Maybe I'm just paranoid.
 
I would personally do the same as you would for a flight. For me, that would mean carrying reg/computers and letting them take the rest to my room.
 
jonesbf:
I'm taking my full rig on our cruise and was wondering if you guys would check the bag or carry everything on yourself? Either way my reg & computer are being carried on.

I've always done the reg & computer in the carry-on and checked the rest. Haven't had a problem.
 
jonesbf:
I'm taking my full rig on our cruise and was wondering if you guys would check the bag or carry everything on yourself? Either way my reg & computer are being carried on.

I would definitely carry it on. Get yourself a bag on wheels or a backpack style bag that's easy to carry. Without weights and tank, it won't be that heavy.

I'm speaking from experience here. The first cruise my wife and I ever took...on Carnival...should be named Circus, we checked two bags. One was our dive gear and the other was all of our freshly purchased cruise attire. The bag with all of our clothes ended up on the Carnival ship going in the opposite direction. By the time the mistake was realized, the ships were hundreds of miles apart. They refused to send us the bag, opting instead to reimburse us $350 ships credit apiece(which we had to fight for). They said we had to wait to get back to Miami to get the bag. My wife was heart broken...if you've ever seen the picked over selection and outrageous prices the ships stores have, you'll understand why...The 350 ships credit doesn't go far. And I emphasize ships credit, not cash that you could go spend in a port to purchase clothes at a decent price. She was pissed off for the entire seven day cruise. I figure after markup, the cruise line was out maybe $200 or so. When we got back to port, it took a couple of hours to find the bag thrown in a corner of the warehouse they herd you through at the end of the cruise. It looked like it had been run over by the forklift they loaded it on the wrong ship with. They refused to compensate us for the destroyed bag and the oilstained clothes inside, saying they felt the shipboard credit was compensation enough. All in all, we were out $150 for a top of the line American Tourister suitcase and at least $400 worth of destroyed brand new clothing, not to mention having to endure the cruise in Carnival shorts, Carnival t-shirts and flip flops.

Sorry about the rant...the point I am making is it could just have easily been our very expensive dive gear instead of some pricey cabana clothes. After that, we vowed never to cruise on Carnival, never trust our bags to anyone and to purchase cruise insurance. The funny thing is, during the cruise, when they would distribute the daily ships newspaper, there were a couple of flyers everyday with a "have you seen me?" caption and a representative picture of someones lost bag. So there were some bags that just evaporated and were never found. If those people didn't have cruise insurance, the cruise line is only responsible for $350 per bag.

We have our revenge, though. Since then, my wife and I have become travel agents and have steered literally several thousands of dollars away from Carnival after relating that story to clients and we will continue to do so.
 
On the Carnival Cruise I took in January I carried my Regs, Computers and Camera in a roller carry on. I did take my knife which cruise security held for me during the cruise. I simply called down before I left my stateroom and notified security that I would be down with my gear and will need my knife when I disembark. It really wasn't too much of a pain to have to do this.

DiverDuane
 
A friend told me he would carry ALL his bags on cruise ship from now on because the people that carry their own bags get to check out at the end of the cruise hours earlier than the others.
 
Read their lost luggage policy... Carnival clearly states that they will not reimburse you more than $50 per lost luggage. They said you have to declare the value before you board.

However, when you try to declare the value.... They said they've never heard of such thing, and tell you "you should buy our insurance"... They are full of it.

There are multiple layers of trust - the guy who shuttled you. The guy who load it up in the skid steer. The guy who runs it through custom. The guy who deliver it to your room. And the luggage sits in front of your room till you return.

We had wrong luggages in front of our room. We notified the manager, and it remained in front of our room for nearly 2 hours....

Don't trust the cruise ship with anything more than what you can afford to lose. If they wouldn't let you... Tell them that you want to get their name and their mananger's name in case your $2000 worth of gears get missing.
 
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