Dawn passengers left “stranded” on African island

[WonderMan3]

2 minutes ago, SomewhereGirl said:

So the ship waited in this port?  Interesting. 

They’re docked with a gangway. The other situation involved an anchored ship where all lifeboats had been restored to the ship before the late passengers showed up. Totally different situation.

[Lonedaddy]

and it sounds like the all abord was at 530 PM so the schedule most likely was to leave at 6:30 pm and the late pax arrived around 6:10 PM.  so ship didn't wait 

[JamieLogical]

I just saw this story reported on CNN. Since when is cruise passengers missing a ship while on a private tour national news?!?! Doesn't stuff like this happen every day? God knows I've seen enough videos of pier runners and heard enough names called over the PA before disembarking to know that this is not at all rare....

[MommaBear55]

3 hours ago, www3traveler said:

The Dawn is NOT in Gambia, She is in Daktar, Senegal.

Odd then that the passengers said they were in Gambia waiting to get on the ship. Hope they are in the right place and just misspoke. 

[Ashlynkat]

7 minutes ago, SomewhereGirl said:

So the ship waited in this port?  Interesting. 

We actually waited longer in San Tome. Last tender was 3pm but I saw from balcony a tender boat returning ~40 minutes afterwards and the ship didn’t leave for another 30-40 minutes after that. 

[www3traveler]

4 minutes ago, MommaBear55 said:

Odd then that the passengers said they were in Gambia waiting to get on the ship. Hope they are in the right place and just misspoke. 

Because of low tides, the Dawn could not dock in Gambia and sailed to the next port of call Dakar, Senegal.

[Ashlynkat]

9 minutes ago, WonderMan3 said:

I thought it was a tidal issue that caused them to miss Gambia? Someone on the ship posted about it here and it was announced the day before they were to even arrive there so it must have been an issue that was impacting the port for days.

 
Yeah, they at first shifted the time to a later arrival and departure when it was hopeful that the tides would be more ideal. This was, ironically, posted on the day we were in São Tomé to give everyone the heads up that Gambia might have some issues. 

[Independent]

Now I am wondering if NCL (or other cruise lines) can decline to book future cruises for these passengers?

[CruisnDeb]

2 hours ago, julig22 said:

So I saw the GMA report - and, other than the fact that they actually ran the story, I didn't feel that they were sensationalizing or taking the side of the poor mistreated passengers. And the moderator's responses were along the lines of "don't be late"  - not sympathy for the passengers or any mention of how terrible is was for NCL to just leave them.

 

I agree, GMA did a much better job of reporting it than the Today show did--loved Michael Strahan's response at the end lol.

[www3traveler]

58 minutes ago, Laszlo said:

Dumb question about Passports. I saw it mentioned their passports were giving to someone at the port. When we cruise we cruise with our passports. Sometimes we put them in the cabin safe and sometimes they are kept in our luggage in a pocket. How does the NCL crew where to know to find them? 

Most passengers keep their passports and other belongs locked in the safe in their cabin.  The ship's Security Team can easily unlock the safes and retrieve the passports. 

[Ashlynkat]

Hmm not sure if the pic loaded. The Dawn doesn’t have Skylink and, with where we are in the world, you can imagine the internet isn’t the greatest. Trying again with a lower resolution but hopefully you can see the times and date and how they were telegraphing that there was likely going to be issues with Gambia as early as March 27th when we were in São Tomé 

[marrashadow]

7 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

I just saw this story reported on CNN. Since when is cruise passengers missing a ship while on a private tour national news?!?! Doesn't stuff like this happen every day? God knows I've seen enough videos of pier runners and heard enough names called over the PA before disembarking to know that this is not at all rare....

Because they contacted the media to share their harrowing adventure and hopefully guilt NCL into paying their cost to rejoin ship. Entitlement at its finest. 

This stems from people doing public post to convince cruise companies to forego printed policies and succeeding. Carnival just did it with a family that posted on Tiktok who didn't purchase insurance and cruiser had a heart attack and wanted it refunded. They went against policy basically to shut them up. It creates this atmosphere that people believe if their story pulls enough heartstrings they can circumvent the rules.

[graphicguy]

Just now, Independent said:

Now I am wondering if NCL (or other cruise lines) can decline to book future cruises for these passengers?

Of course they can. I was just thinking the same thing.

 

Heck, cruise lines used to issue lifetime bans for people who contested their fares with the credit card companies.  They perhaps still do that for all I know.

 

The rules are put in place. We agree to them when we pay our fares.

 

Some don't think they should have to comply with the rules (as in this case).  It's kind of "I like the rules unless they pertain to me" mentality!

 

 

[Acrusa]

Back in the old days before the turn of the century we where docked in Shanghai on the Royal Viking Sky.

Train broke down with ships tour on the train.

Ship due to depart at 5 pm but it waited 6 hrs and departed at 11 pm.

The independent passengers where lucky the ships tour was on the train 

 

[Tyler414]

36 minutes ago, schmoopie17 said:

That gangway must have been at least a mile long, since it was a tender stop.

 

Kind of like the super-long extension cord electric cars need to ensure they can reach a charging station. Except their cords need to be about 200 miles long. But I digress...

I'll do my best to help some folks with English:

gangway /găng′wā″/

noun

1.  
2. An opening in the bulwark of a ship through which passengers may board.

 

 

Nothing about a ramp up into the ship a person can walk on. 🤔

[floridafish]

31 minutes ago, WonderMan3 said:

I thought it was a tidal issue that caused them to miss Gambia? Someone on the ship posted about it here and it was announced the day before they were to even arrive there so it must have been an issue that was impacting the port for days.

We need to merge this thread with "NCL intentionally misses ports"

[MizMoon]

Wait a minute - per the info ASHLYNKAT just shared, San Tome as 3/27 and Ivory Coast 3/29 and then Gambia on 4/01 and Senegal 4/02 - was there an attempt to get to Ivory Coast?   

[www3traveler]

According to the Dawn's webcam, She was sailing out of Dakar, Senegal at about 6:40 P.M., heading for Tennerife, Spain arrival scheduled for Friday 5 April, 2024.

[Ray4Fun]

No matter what is stated. Bad PR is not good for a company. If the story of Julie Lenkoff is true, then they have another incident to be discussed. Leaving a passenger in this situation? Lucky her? I cannot wait to hear the tough love discussion. NCL , do better. 

[Ray4Fun]

1 hour ago, blackwing said:

I fully agree.  Why not discuss their bad decision to take a private excursion, why not say anything about the tour operator, why not talk about all the people who helped them from Sao Tome to Gambia to Senegal.

 

My inlaws just did a two week transatlantic repositioning cruise on  Viking and they said the average age of passengers was above 80.  So mostly retirees who don't work.  But this Dawn cruise is three weeks long.  There's at least one pregnant lady on this cruise.  Must be nice to be able to take three weeks off or not have to work at all in order to be able to go on this cruise.  If I went on this cruise, that would exhaust all of my vacation days for the entire year.  These people, especially the lead couple, must be very privileged indeed.

 

 

What of their social position? 

[exm]

I'm still not sure about the group that missed the boat, but why on earth would you book a private group if you're not a fit, young person in a third world country where private tours aren't used to cruises (and their "hard" time requirements)? I purely blame these passengers for making this decision, and I do not blame either NCL or the ship's captain. Despite all the negative posts, I'm pretty sure the captain waited as long as possible (it seems that the ship already departed late), but there's always a point of no return. And probably the passengers crossed that threshold.

 

Additionally: when I do my private tours (and I do plenty), I *ALWAYS* make sure to be back on-board at least 2 hours before 'all aboard'. These people did so many things wrong with the cherry on the cake their 'blame NCL media tour'.

 

I have cruised NCL once on my Honeymoon, absolutely loved NCL and don't consider myself pro/against NCL one way or another.

[Two Wheels Only]

11 minutes ago, Tyler414 said:

An opening in the bulwark of a ship through which passengers may board.

 

How would she...

 

 

...get from that boat to deck 4 on Dawn?

 

If she's having trouble going down from the dock to the boat, how would she go up from the boat to the ship?

[JamieLogical]

9 minutes ago, Ray4Fun said:

No matter what is stated. Bad PR is not good for a company. If the story of Julie Lenkoff is true, then they have another incident to be discussed. Leaving a passenger in this situation? Lucky her? I cannot wait to hear the tough love discussion. NCL , do better. 

 

What is NCL or any cruise line supposed to do? If a passenger has a medical emergency and has to be medically evacuated, it is on them to get themselves home. That is why travel insurance is a thing! I was on MSC with a friend back in October, he lost consciousness and fell getting out of the elevator, breaking his nose in the fall. There was blood everywhere and he was SUPER out of it. He was taken to the medical center and evaluated. He couldn't even answer simple questions like what year it was. Luckily, we were in port and they were able to call an ambulance and get him off the ship to a hospital. MSC's responsibility ended the moment he was taken away in the ambulance. It was up to him to find local accommodations once he was discharged and make his own way home once he was able to fly. None of us had ANY EXPECTATION WHATSOEVER that the cruise line owed him anything or had any responsibility for anything once he was no longer onboard.

 

Edited April 2 by JamieLogical

[StillPooh]

55 minutes ago, SomewhereGirl said:

So the ship waited in this port?  Interesting. 

Probably because those passengers were late returning from a ship-sponsored excursion. 

[CatMom72]

I don’t feel sorry for these people. They claim to be experienced cruisers, so they knew they were taking a risk booking a tour with an independent operator.  If they had simply accepted the consequences of that mistake, and acknowledged that it was their own fault for not choosing an NCL-sponsored excursion, I would have had some sympathy for them.  After all, we all make mistakes sometimes.  But the fact that they blamed NCL and got themselves splashed all over the TV and internet?  Nope.  I no longer feel sorry for them at all. They are just attention-seekers who refuse to take responsibility for their own bad choices. Have they filed a lawsuit yet? (Eyeroll)