My husband and I are going on a land/cruise tour of Alaska with Princess this August. We are trying to decide if we need to purchase the suggested insurance or not. I am 48 and he is 58, both of us in excellent health and our immediate family is in good health (no one close to dying). This cruise is a bit more expensive the other ones we have both gone on or are scheduled to go in the near future. Is it really worth spending the extra money for insurance? My hubby told me to ask you guys - he hears me giving advice that I have received from the chat site all of the time. So all of you cruise experts - let me know what you think.
Lizzyjane
By the way we are spending about $4500. per person for the air/land/cruise.
That is a lot of money to risk losing if something unexpected happens. Good health often has nothing to do with it. An accident, fire, whatever, could cause you to miss the vacation.
A late friend of mine was all set for a cruise with his family, to include his mother-in-law. He didn't get insurance. Three days before they were to leave, his wife and her mother were driving down a street and hit by a drunk driver. The mother-in-law was killed. No cruise, and no insurance for the trip. They eventually recovered the loss with the accident settlement, but why have to go through that mess?
I always get the insurance, even for the cheap little 3-day cruise I'm doing next month.
I always go for the insurance, as well. Make sure that it covers trip interruption as well as cancellation, just in case you need to get home in an emergency.
I'm paying a little over a grand for my August 3-night cruise, including air. This is the price anyone can find on the internet. It isn't a special price. My insurance is costing me $74, and that includes $500,000 for medical evacuation, trip interruption coverage, and many other things. Medical evacuation is something I have personal experience with. It is never cheap and most personal medical insurance policies don't cover all of it. Some won't cover any air evacuations. I'll never forget the bill for $10,000 for a 15 mile medevac helicopter ride for my wife after the accident in 2006.
Two questions, if you had a crisis prior to the cruise, would the loss of everything but a refund of tax and fuel charge be okay? A crisis can be anyhting and you don't have to be in poor health or elderly to get the flu or as Dave points out, have a car accident or any of a thousand other things that can cause a cancellation.
Second, if something serious were to happen while on the cruise, would the cost and lost of the remainder of your cruise on top of the expense be okay? A simple fall while touring a glacier could result in the need for exacuation. A medical emergency aboard the ship. We do things on vacation we don't do in our daily lives. Dog sled, float plane, bear watching? An ambulance probably can't get to your location while on a dog sled excursion. If the float plane has mechanical problems, how will you get back to the ship? If the ships departs without you, who pays for the flight to catch up and continue your vacation? I won't even go into the posibilities with bears or other wildlife excursions. Are these things likely to happen and create major costs? Nope. Could they? Yep. For a small cost insurance policy will you sleep better as your cruise approaches? I would.
Lizzyjane, I have to put my two cents in here! A year ago we were scheduled to leave on our Alaska land/cruise tour. Fortunately we purchased insurance. One week before the cruise we were shopping for luggage when I tripped over a display and broke my wrist.
The trip had to be cancelled. If we had not bought insurance, we would have lost something like $7,000! As it was, we were totally reimbursed for the cost of the cruise, air fares, transfers, etc.
This was a simple accident that could happen to anyone.
Go for the insurance! It will give you peace of mind.
Lizzyjane, good choice in my opinion. By the way, there are sometimes better coverages available than the cruiseline policies. Ask your T/A for a recommendation on what you can get that has the best value and coverage.
Sandy and some others on here have used and recommend Travel Guard often, I understand they offer high limits at reasonable pricing and some things like any reason cancellation protection that you can't get with other companies. I've used and have recommended for a long time a company called CSA Travel Protection with no problems, they're another good company. I know there are other very good sources but have no 1st hand knowledge of any of the others.
Cruiseline coverage is often very limited in the coverage and often as high cost or higher than the outside providers so don't feel like you're limited in what's available to you.
I never get the cruise line insurance. A good place to compare policies is insuremytrip.com where you can see policies from all the major travel insurers. You can select several and compare them on the same screen.
Insurance is a smart buy.....You could be involved in an accident on the way to the ship....or while on the ship....I didn't get insurance until a few years ago, when we sat on the runway in Minnesota, waiting to take off in a snowstorm....I don't leave home without it now:-)....Happy sailing...You will love Alaska...
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