Eight passengers on a Norwegian Cruise, including an elderly man with a heart disease and a pregnant woman, were left stranded on an African island without essential drugs and money when the vessel departed port without them. The passengers, according to a cruise spokesperson, were left on the island "on their own or with a private tour" and missed the "all-aboard time" by more than an hour. Amid this, an Australian couple has spoken about their ordeal and said that it was "the worst experience of our lives", as per a report in the New York Post.
During a visit last week on the island of Sao Tome, Doug and Violeta Sanders said they were left on their own after a private tour that ended later than expected and they were not permitted to board the Norwegian Dawn.
Ms Sandres said, "It's been the worst experience of our lives to be abandoned like that in a strange country, can't speak the language - it's Portuguese and African. We have no money, our credit cards aren't accepted."
The couple along with six others were not permitted on the cruise, which eventually sailed off without them. After receiving assistance from the US Embassy in Angola, the stranded passengers took a flight to Gambia to join the ship in Banjul. However, the ship was unable to dock because of low tide and continued to Senegal, the New York Post reported.
A spokesperson for the company said that they were on a private tour, which was not arranged by them. "We work closely with local tour operators to ensure excursions are planned to our schedule to guarantee timely arrivals back to the port. The excursion this group was on was not organized through us but on their own. As such, we are not in communication with their private tour operator," the spokesperson said.
American couple Jill Campbell and Jay Campbell were also the passengers who travelled to seven different countries to make it to Senegal, where the ship docked. However, they said that now they are "considering whether we are going to board the ship."
"After what we witnessed, we truly believe there is a set of rules or policies that the ship may have followed - they followed those rules too rigidly," the woman said. She continued, "I really feel that they forgot they are people working in the hospitality industry and that really the safety and wellbeing of their customers should be their first priority." Ms Campbell also said that the ship crew had a "basic duty of care that they had forgotten about."
The Campbells also said that several members of the group are elderly, another is a paraplegic and one woman is pregnant. They said one member of the group had been without his heart medication for five days and had become ill.
