Lessons From a Global Voyage That Wasn’t

Six words you don’t want to hear from a person of authority in the middle of an around-the-world cruise:

“I have bad news for you.”

But that’s what a ship official told passengers on the cruise ship Riviera on the morning of May 23, those passengers recall. The ship was just docking in Papeete, Tahiti. Fresh from breakfast, about 200 passengers were summoned to the ship’s lounge.

The company had run out of money, the official told them. World Cruise Co., the cruise operator, would cease operations, and a trustee would oversee the company’s dissolution. Instead of sailing on to the Solomon Islands, passengers would disembark.

Those passengers had counted on World Cruise Co. to take them around the world in 116 days. Most paid more than $14,000, including shore excursions and extras, and boarded the Riviera in Cadiz, Spain, on April 13. On Day 41, those plans collapsed.

“It was quite a moment,” said Dr. Jose Amador, a passenger from Studio City who attended that meeting with his wife, Betty.

Then passengers and crew turned to logistical issues. Passengers and ship’s personnel tried to find flights home and figure out who would pay for them. Though passengers were initially told that World Cruise Co. would cover their air fares home, five passengers said they ended up paying their own way. The Amadors bought round-trip tickets for about $550 each to fly home on Air France. (Round trip was actually cheaper than one way.)

A week later, a company spokeswoman said World Cruise Co. would cover the Tahiti-LAX flight costs after all and that checks to passengers were in the mail. But there’s no clear answer so far to the question of how much compensation, if any, these passengers will get for the 75 prepaid days of cruising that they lost.

For the passengers who lost that time--which was to have included Indonesian beaches, Indian junkets and African safaris--this was a painful lesson in what can happen when travelers place their faith in a company that has ambitious plans but a short track record.

It also wasn’t a complete surprise. As described in a Travel Insider that ran in this space April 9, the run-up to this cruise was full of irregularities.

World Cruise Co. was founded in 1998 as a sibling of Marine Expeditions. Both company headquarters are in Toronto, and both are headed by Chairman Sam Blyth and President Dugald Wells. World Cruise Co. was unfamiliar to many travel agents but tempting to any traveler who wanted to circle the globe at base prices beginning at less than $100 a day.

Less than two weeks before the scheduled embarkation, the date was changed (from late March), the port of embarkation was changed (from Athens to Cadiz), and the ship was changed from a chartered 800-passenger vessel to the chartered Riviera, which holds about 400.

Many passengers asked for refunds. But the cruise line rebuffed most of them, noting that the ticket’s contract allowed changes in itinerary and vessel. For the Amadors and others, the choice was to take the cruise or accept company credits toward a future cruise. Most decided to board the Riviera and hope for the best.

The ship was noisy, and cabins were just over 100 square feet, Betty Amador said. But until Tahiti, she and her husband were having an agreeable adventure--especially a visit to Easter Island and a rare port call at Pitcairn Island.

“We’re deeply sorry for what happened,” World Cruise Co. Chairman Blyth said last week. He blamed escalating fuel costs for the company’s sudden failure but said he does not plan to file for bankruptcy. “We’re assembling a compensation fund” to pay passengers for the uncompleted part of their cruise, he explained.

In the aftermath of the disembarkation debacle, two more lessons have emerged.

One is that even a large, reputable tour operator can get caught in this kind of trouble. Grand Circle Travel of Boston, a 45-year-old company that handles more than 100,000 travelers yearly, had 56 clients and a program director aboard the Riviera. Grand Circle President Sean O’Neill said his company booked the cruise because it had used Marine Expeditions several times in recent years, always with positive reports from passengers.

The other lesson? If something does go wrong, travelers who signed on with a tour operator may get more protection than independent travelers. When Grand Circle executives began hearing murmurings about a suspension of the cruise, O’Neill said, the company dispatched an advance man to Tahiti to book blocks of hotel rooms and airline seats and help keep its customers informed.

Then, when the rest of the cruise was canceled, Grand Circle executives said they offered full refunds to their clients--an expense likely to surpass $1 million, although insurance may cover part of it.

Prospects for passengers who booked directly with World Cruise Co. are less certain: If Blyth cannot follow through on his pledge to come up with compensation, the next alternative would be travel insurance policies.

But at Toronto-based Ingle Life & Health Assurance Co., which sold travel insurance to many passengers on the cruise, the outlook isn’t good. President John Ingle said the policies for that cruise were not intended to protect passengers if World Cruise Co. failed.

Even if compensation does materialize from somewhere, no check can change the odd conclusion of the voyage. The day after his return, Jose Amador was describing the highs, lows and weirdness of the final hours when a stray thought struck him: He may have lost plenty on this experience and there might be months ahead of wrangling over money and paperwork, but he still has an intriguing leftover from his flight home.

“So,” he said, “if you know anybody who needs a one-way ticket to Tahiti. . . “

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Christopher Reynolds welcomes comments and suggestions, but cannot respond individually to letters and calls. Write Travel Insider, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, or send e-mail to chris.reynolds@latimes.com.