Family claims Disney ruined vacation by not allowing child on cruise

by Leah Zanolla
May 6, 2012

A family alleges, "Disney ruined their family vacation." The family was preparing to go on a Disney Cruise and starting wondering if they had enough documentation for their newly adopted son. The adoption was finalized a few months before the trip, but they hadn't received the boy's birth certificate in the mail yet. The mother claims to have called Disney Cruise Line inquiring if the boy would be allowed to board the ship without a birth certificate. According to her, she was told to "bring everything we have... Hospital Discharge Papers, Adoption Placement Papers, Final Adoption Decree, and the ATIN (Adoption Tax Identification Number)...and that should be fine. They also said they would make a note about the situation on our reservation. So we thought nothing else of it and gathered those documents (everything we possibly could have at this point) and a month later left for our dream family vacation."

When they checked in at the ship a few hours before sailing, they were told they needed to speak with a supervisor regarding the missing birth certificate. The supervisor told them if they couldn't show a U.S. birth certificate, their son wouldn't be able to board the ship. The family says they were then told a "commemorative scrapbook certificate" from the birth hospital would be acceptable, but they couldn't find one.

When time had run out to board the ship, the family called a friend to come pick up their son and keep him while the rest of them went on their vacation. According to the mother, "Disney seemed to feel kind of bad for the family. Guest services on the cruise did reach out to us. They upgraded all 5 of our rooms in our family to deluxe outside balconies, they gave us free phone calls to check on him everyday (normally $7/min), they gave me a single stroller since I had my double, they gave us free internet (normally $1/min) and sweet E. emailed pictures of him and the fun he was having everyday. They tried to make it right but THIS WAS THEIR FAULT!!!!! We wanted a family vacation with our ENTIRE family. My whole side of the family was there except [our son]! Their employees should have given us accurate information when we called months ago, and we would have been saved the trauma!!!!!"

However, one commenter on the original Consumerist.com article claims to have copied the opening paragraph of the family's personal blog before it was locked. It allegedly says, "We had an incredible fun-filled Disney Cruise Vacation minus one very heart-breaking and unexpected set-back. (I will explain later in the post.) Other than this MAJOR problem, we had a magical time and have tons of pictures....so this is long (and I left out about 150 pictures). Hopefully I will be able to re-cap the fun so we will always remember."

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• Last Updated: May 6, 2012 - 9:59:14 AM

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