The internet is divided over a video that has surfaced showing a Norwegian cruise ship leaving the Bahamas as a distraught woman and her husband still stuck on the pier desperately plead to get back on board because, get this, their kids are on the ship.
Now it’s easy empathize with these people and even sympathize with them, but before we start slamming Norwegian Cruise Lines for sailing off with this their children, let’s take a look at the facts. We reached out to NCL for their side of the story:
On Norwegian Breakaway’s 7-night Bahamas cruise from New York that departed on April 17, one female guest did not return to the vessel by the widely communicated scheduled all aboard time of 5:30 pm during the ship’s call in Nassau, Bahamas on April 21. The ship’s team located her husband and children on board but the family was not able to reach her nor did they know when she would be returning. Due to the circumstances, the ship went beyond normal protocol and waited alongside an additional half an hour for the guest. When she had still not returned and following consultation with the family, it was decided that the husband would disembark with their travel documents to wait for his wife while the children would stay with their uncle and his family on the ship for the remainder of the voyage.
The company offered assistance to the couple so they could make their travel arrangements to reunite with the ship upon her return to New York on April 24.
So to get this straight, the strict widely communicated all aboard was time 5:30 p.m. This woman was more than a half hour late. Norwegian broke protocol and waited the extra half hour, even sending her husband to go find her. The kids were safely with relatives. And Norwegian arranged for the couple to reunite with the ship.
The lesson here is don’t be late for your cruise because, worst case, the ship leaves without you (maybe with your kids aboard, maybe not). Best case, you make it but get heckled by the punctual passengers who are don’t want to miss a minute of their precious vacation (like this person below).
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