Cruise passengers who booked a trip to the Bahamas are headed to Boston instead.
MSC Meraviglia was scheduled to sail from New York to the Bahamas, but poor weather conditions forced a last-minute change in the ship’s itinerary. Instead of going south for the winter, the passengers were told to go in the opposite direction to Boston, New England and Canada.
The change was made “due to unseasonal and rapidly deteriorating weather that would make safe access to the South Atlantic Ocean from New York impossible. The only alternative would be to take the more extreme step of canceling the cruise—and thousands of people on vacation—immediately,” MSC Cruises said in a statement shared with PEOPLE.
The statement explained that “the complexities involved in obtaining last-minute berths for unscheduled stops and resupplying the ship along its new route left sailing to Canada and New England the only viable option.” MSC gave passengers a choice between “sailing to another region or canceling for credit on a future cruise.”
However, according to ABC News, the alternative was presented just 24 hours before they were due to set sail, leaving many tourists traveling to their departure city with a difficult decision to make.
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One passenger, Lakeya Allen, shares her experience from the ship on Tiktok.
She told the ABC that she and her group – including her best friend Val Montgomery and both of their children – were “devastated” by the change in their Christmas plans. “So this is one of my kids’ Christmas presents… We’re from Chicago, so we wanted a change of weather. I had no idea we’d be back in cold weather,” she said.
Montgomery added that the trip is “a bit depressing because you can imagine we’re making the most of it, but most people are walking around in coats, gloves and hats.”
The friends also said that the time they had to make a decision about the “unexpected” change in their plans was “too short” and that they were not clear about their options.
“When they first sent that message, I wish they had given us options in that message and at least we could have had a choice,” Montgomery told ABC. – We had no choice at all.
Still, the group is trying to make the most of their vacation, which so far has included hot cocoa on board, an indoor jacuzzi, and a trip to the Cambridge Mall in Massachusetts.
Allen documented their distinctly non-tropical activities. “When I say, MSC Cruises, baby, we’re crammed into one pool here because it’s cold outside. Literally cold. Families are squishing. What a way to cruise for Christmas. We should have been in the Bahamas,” she said in one video while spun around the crowded indoor deck that included several hot tubs and a heated pool.
Some daring young travelers even took a dip in the outdoor pool, she pointed out.
“Here we are still in Boston. We still have kids in the pool. It’s cold out,” she said in a video of a mostly empty pool including a “wrapped up” employee in a ski jacket. “The pool is not heated,” she added. “It’s not heated. It’s not a heated pool. We’re in Boston right now. It’s not heated.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education