Let me just start of by saying this is going to be long winded and full of grammatical errors as I am irritated and venting about our experience onboard and with dealing with NCL guest relations.
We were aboard the 10/3/22 voyage of the Spirit from Vancouver to Honolulu, while the itinerary and cruise overall were great we did have a minor issue with our room flooding and being unusable for a day, the head of housekeeping was nice and moved us from our balcony cabin to a inside cabin while the issue was resolved. However the big incident happened when we were tendering in Lahaina, Maui. We were on one of the later tenders returning to the ship, so it was my husband and I another couple who sat next to us and a few older couples, the rest of the passengers consisted of crew members. Once we left the dock to head for the ship it quickly became clear that the operator of the tender was either impaired in some way or had zero training on how to operate the tender, we were zig zagging in all directions and were not on the same course as the tender in front of us. Finally another member of the crew assisted the tender operator and we were finally on course for the ship. Once we started to approach the ship we could tell something wasn’t right once again as the operator had put the tender into full throttle, we we’re heading for the side of the ship at full speed, before we knew it we made impact with the side of the Spirit, everyone and everything went flying. We were flung face first into the couple sitting in front of us, those unlucky enough to be sitting in the front of the tender were flung into the sides of the tender, some of these people were injured and required medical assistance. People were screaming in horror and I must say it was somewhat of a horrifying experience and for a brief moment I was scanning the tender for ways out if need be, however another crew member quickly took control of the tender and we managed to dock with the Spirit. Once docked those that needed medical assistance stayed onboard the tender, the crew was silent..no explanation as to what happened or any apology for the incident at all. A day later we were asked to come to guest services to speak about the incident, when we got to the service desk a representative spoke to us and had said rough water was the cause of the accident, we disputed this claim as the water was perfectly calm. We asked to speak with a manager and we’re told she was busy and to come back later. We inquired if we could please get her card so we knew who to ask for once we return. The representative went into the back from a few moments and returned and said it was not possible to get a card so we then asked for her name…the representative once again walked into the back for a few minutes and this time returned with the guest services manager who was clearly irritated that she had to speak with us, she immediately came over to us and said “ you are here to speak about the tender incident, the tender struck rocks and we are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you”. We again pushed back that if the tender had struck rocks the the Spirit itself would have had to hit the same rocks since the ship is what we struck. She maintained that it was a group of rocks that we struck and said there is nothing more so can say or do and said we would have a letter in our room with a case # and to reach out to NCL guest relations once we arrive home for further assistance with the matter. We left the desk and decided to enjoy the last two days of the cruise. Once home I reached out to the guest relations desk with the claim number provided to us and finally got a email back today that more or less read “ we are sorry to heard about the tender incident, we value you as a guest and hope this isn’t a deterrent to book with us again”. I was very surprised by the wording of the email I got this morning, I was hoping for NCL to take responsibility for the accident and acknowledge that the crew handled the situation terribly but that certainly isn’t what happened. We are sapphire and have been very loyal to NCL but the way this whole experience has been handled is making me think it’s time to try another cruise line.