Leaving 14 year old on Ship

[SheriNtexas]

What they did was get back to the dock 8 minutes too late.

It was very stressful for DH and I.

I would not wish the fears that run through a parent's head on anyone.

 

 

Did they miss the ship??:eek: :eek:

[babywewe]

Drag him with you. He may end up having a good time. . . if he doesn't he WILL thank you for the experience in a few years :) .

 

As for leaving him onboard. Its up to you... you know what kind of 14year old he is (mature/not mature...dependable...etc).

[mzloolue]

Did they miss the ship??:eek: :eek:

 

Yes!

 

In Nassau, the first morning of the cruise.

They went to a beach.

I don't know which one.

Taxi fare was $5 to the beach.

What they didn't know was that it would be $20 back to the ship and they had to hunt up someone to share the cab. (They no longer had $20 on them)

 

So we are waiting to sail and we had no idea that she had not made it back.

I told husband that I wanted to go through the "secret door" and watch people come running back; it would be funny.

It wasn't funny.

They started calling her name.

I ran back to the cabin panicked and saw that the shop was moving.

 

That feeling, being on a moving ship with my daughter who knows where, was absolute terror.

 

Then, while we could still see the dock, the purser's desk got the Carnival agent on the dock on the phone and they were with him. I was so relieved, for a while.

 

The purser's desk told us that she would meet back up with us in St Thomas in two days.

 

In St Thomas, still no daughter 45 minutes before the ship was due to sail.

We go back to the purser's desk and they say that they have no idea where she is.

 

They called their agent in Nassau who says that he doesn't know where they went and that all he did was take them to a hotel (that they checked out of the next morning)

 

At our request they get us a list of all the airlines that fly out of Nassau.

 

The ship starts to sail again, early this time.

I feel total panic again.

 

A kindly person at American Airlines found her name on their passenger lists and we find out that she did not go to St Thomas at all, but from Nassau to Miami to St Martin.

 

On St Martin she comes back on the ship.

She had a wonderful (and expensive) time.

(She is still paying for it. Those plane tickets were expensive)

 

She didn't know why we were so upset as the agent in Nassau had helped them get plane tickets.

She thought that we had been told where she would be.

(If they had given us the right information it would have save me some gray hair. Why the agent helped them make arrangements and then said that he had no idea where they went,I don't know.)

[linda_22003]

A 14 yr old doesn't get to decide. You're paying to take him to Europe and let him experience the city, be exposed to the culture, maybe pick up some of the flavor of the language, hopefully gain some insight into the history, art, archtecture, and you'd let him decide to just hang around on the ship and play video games?

 

Bravo! This trip is a terrific opportunity; he needs to see the places he is visiting, IMHO. When I was 14, I was fortunate enough to be taken on a "grand tour" for over two months, to Europe. I got my first perfume and saw my first opera in Paris; Salzburg, London, Vienna, and Venice were just few places on a long list of completely new experiences.

 

It didn't hurt me and it won't hurt him. :cool: