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Jill and Jay Campbell, of South Carolina, along with four other Americans and two Australians, had to race through seven different countries in 48 hours to reboard the Norwegian Dawn in Senegal on Tuesday. If you decide to bail now, you'll still need to travel back home and then figure out how to get any belongings that were left behind. Most cruise companies can mail your stuff to you, but you will be the one paying the price.
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“The reality is that cruise lines aggressively promote cruise-sponsored shore excursions as a fundamental part of their business model, earning tens of millions of dollars a year in income,” he told news.com.au. US couple Jill and Jay Campbell, who were among the abandoned eight cruisers have spent more than $7,000 in travel costs to get to the port in Senegal. In response, Norwegian Cruise Line called the situation “unfortunate” but shifted responsibility to the passengers for missing the departure deadline. Back on the island, the group encountered yet another cruise passenger who’d been abandoned—an 80-year-old who was hospitalized and then left without money when the ship took off without her.
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Such was the case for a recent South Carolina couple who found themselves left behind during their 21-day Norwegian Cruise Line stop in São Tomé and Príncipe, a small African island nation off the western coast of the continent. The travelers are now having to do just that, with the American couple claiming they’ve spent more than $6,000 to cover the group’s time on the island and travel to rejoin the ship in Gambia or Senegal, depending on logistics. Per People Magazine, four of the travelers are older individuals, and one has an unspecified heart condition. Unfortunately for eight travelers on an African cruise stopped in São Tomé and Príncipe, an island just to the east of Equatorial Guinea, they found out the hard way what happens when you break that rule. When they were late returning to their ship after a day on land, it did what it warned would happen — they were left behind by the cruise.
Eight Passengers Stranded After Breaking the Number One Rule of Cruise Travel
“Weird that the captain wouldn’t let them board if it was still in port? “We truly believe that although there’s a set of rules or policies that the ship follows, they follow those rules too rigidly,” Ms. Campbell told NBC’s the Today Show on Tuesday. “We’ve never had anything like this happen before,” Jill Campbell, one of the passengers, told WRAL. Upon entering the flat on April 9, authorities found Williams’ 8-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter alone in conditions that were far from safe. The home was in disarray, with a smell of urine and leftover food scattered throughout the highrise apartment. The children informed the deputies that their mother had gone on a cruise, as confirmed by Harris County Constable’s Office Precinct 5.
From there, the group boarded a bus and had to take a ferry across a river, Kurt Gies, the son-in-law of another passenger who was left on the island of São Tomé and Principe after she suffered a stroke, told The Post. "The faster we go, the more fuel we have to burn," Royal Caribbean Captain Rob Hempstead said, according to Insider. Basically, waiting for late passengers means that the ship will have to sail faster to catch up and stay on schedule. "It’s because they are on a time constraint with the port. It cost them a ton of money if they stay past their time." The Campbells said she was left at the hospital without any money or her belongings, and her emergency contact was never notified by the cruise line.
Keep up with The Post's coverage of the Norwegian Cruise debacle
The cruise line said the passengers missed the "all aboard time of 3 p.m. local time." It said it was a "very unfortunate situation" but that passengers were responsible for being on time. The stranded guests made arrangements to rejoin the ship in Banjul, Gambia, but the vessel could not safely dock there due to "adverse weather conditions," Norwegian said. It’s one of the main reasons many cruisers exclusively book official cruise excursions, because they’re the only way to guarantee the ship will wait for you if you’re late. (Third-party and independent activity operators are also unlikely to refund you if the ship makes a last-minute change and skips a port of call). Mr. Campbell said the nation’s coastguard service then put all the passengers on a boat and sailed them out to the cruise ship, but still they were refused permission to board.
Please be aware that shipboard time may differ from the port of call and it is the guest’s responsibility to follow the shipboard time. In the event a guest misses the ship, it will be the guest’s responsibility to pay all expenses incurred to rejoin the ship,” reads the company’s “Frequent Asked Questions” page. While I support booking excursions with local operators, it comes with the known risk that you’ll be left behind by the cruise ship if you’re late. That’s exactly what happened in this case, exactly as Norwegian’s website said would happen.
Norwegian Cruise Line passengers stranded on African island - New York Daily News
Norwegian Cruise Line passengers stranded on African island.
Posted: Tue, 02 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]
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They said that their tour’s operator notified the cruise captain that they were going to be late to rejoin the ship and that the local Coast Guard tried to get them on the vessel but that they weren’t allowed to board. But, according to NCL, this wasn't some cruel decision to leave the group stranded without their proper immigration documents, medicine, and personal belongings. In a statement to various news outlets from the cruise company, NCL stated that the ordeal was a "very unfortunate situation." Other cruisers said being on time is a “simple” rule passengers need to follow, adding it’s why they only book tours through the ship. “Despite the series of unfortunate events outside of our control, we will be reimbursing these eight guests for their travel costs from Banjur, Gambia to Dakar, Senegal,” the cruise line said. Most major cruise companies have an agent at every port who will be able to assist you.
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I also love spending time outdoors and play board games with my friends. According to WRAL, none of the other passengers had their medications or even credit cards that were accepted on the island. On Wednesday (March 27), the Campbells and six other people were on a tour in São Tomé and Príncipe, an African island nation close to the equator. The elderly passenger who was concussed was returned to the US, where she has made a "safe return," a spokesperson for Norwegian Cruise Line said. The São Tomé and Príncipe Coast Guard even took the passengers to the ship, but they weren't able to get on and had to turn back, WPDE reported. Norwegian said Lenkoff was escorted on a flight to Lisbon, Portugal, then put in the care of airport staff members to continue her journey back to the U.S., where she has safely returned.
One passenger had a heart condition, and another was a paraplegic, WRAL reported. Jill and Jay Campbell, from Garden City, South Carolina, took a cruise to the African continent aboard a Norwegian liner that started on March 20. "When she never came out to address people, and that boat was sailing off, and we were sitting on that port, people were in tears, people were upset, they were angry," said Goudeau. They say their travel agent passed by and said she would fix things but did not and then disappeared. The Norwegian Cruise Line said in a statement provided to BI by email that eight guests on the tour missed the last tender back to the vessel. They were refused entry to the ship upon their return, according to WPDE, even though they could still see the ship from the shore.
In many cases, the boat knows that you aren't on board because you haven't checked in. (FOX 9) - A group of Twin Cities cruise passengers were left at the terminal last Sunday, watching as the ship left without them. Other passengers may face the stress of becoming stranded in remote locations through no fault of their own. Last September, more than 200 people got stuck in a remote part of Greenland after their cruise ship ran aground.
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