Passengers Onboard A Norwegian Spirit Cruise Ship Rebelled Due To Missed Destinations, Clogged Toilets, And Bad Food
Have you ever been on a cruise? Some people swear they’re floating palaces of delight with all your vacationing needs in one majestically wave-crashing behemoth. Others would describe them much more differently – especially the passengers onboard Norwegian Spirit’s 14-day “Mystical Fjords” tour. The New York Post reports that the 2,000 passengers who paid up to $6,000 for their trip came close to mutinying after the boat wouldn’t stop at their promised destinations due to high winds, some of the toilets backed up, and the food sucked.
The “Mystical Fjords” tour took off from Southhampton, England on Sept 27 and was supposed to dock at stops in Amsterdam, Norway and Iceland. Here’s the ship’s original itinerary, via Business Insider.
Passengers were told that the ship wouldn’t be able to dock in Amsterdam, and then the ship didn’t dock in the replacement destination of Le Havre, France as well as not docking in Reykjavik and Akureyri in Iceland due to high winds. And everyone missing Amsterdam was obviously where it all went wrong because no one could get off the ship to buy their edibles.
Also, some people found their toilets backing up and the food was pronounced inedible. And then the Scotland stop, which was one of the substitution destinations, got it all fucked up, according to one passenger.
A stop in Greenock — outside Glasgow, Scotland — on Monday was delayed at first because another ship was being repaired. But crew members announced mid-morning that the ship wouldn’t be able to dock because of high winds, Rogers said.
“That’s when everyone in the atrium lost it,” he said. “Keep in mind each time they change the itinerary, most people have to change/cancel tours … some of which are nonrefundable.”
Passengers staged a protest demanding refunds and for the ship to turn around and go back to England.
The protest made it to social media and then the networks. One couple from Texas told CNN Travel that it got scary.
“Let me be clear I don’t condone what those passengers were doing,” Matt Rogers wrote in a Facebook conversation with CNN Travel. “It was inappropriate & over the line but the staff could’ve handled it much, much better,” he said.
“They allowed it to get to where people were genuinely nervous for their safety.”
The Twitter account NCLHELL has all of the pictures and footage of angry passengers confronting the crew, people in activewear debating whether to burn down what looks like a 12 story vessel possibly endangering themselves, and next to no shots of people sauntering by with cocktails just drinking to stay alive like I’d be doing. All these people had to do was declare an open bar for the rest of the voyage. They could have avoided all of this televised tumult.
Here’s where the captain tried to address the angry passengers until they started booing him and then he left which made them boo even louder.
As captain tries to speak to angry passengers security offers stand by. Captain is booed until he leaves pic.twitter.com/nIYWqPv0Bu
— NCLHELL (@NCLHELL1) October 10, 2019
And here’s one passenger’s Facebook summation:
And how did Norwegian address the crisis? They released a statement.
“Unfortunately, Norwegian Spirit’s itinerary was impacted by severe weather conditions. While nine ports of call were originally planned for the voyage, the revised itinerary allowed the ship to call on eight ports. We are very sorry for any inconvenience and disappointment our guests experienced.”
They also offered everyone aboard a 25% discount on their next cruise. Crisis management at its finest!
NCL ruins holiday and offers passengers 25% off our next cruise after the captain is booed out of the lobby. pic.twitter.com/FCMJNwpGLX
— NCLHELL (@NCLHELL1) October 9, 2019
You can’t blame everyone for protesting a shitty cruise. But – there were no reports of people actually having to use plastic bags to relieve themselves into as a norovirus swept through the ship. So they had that going for them.
Pic: YouTube