Cruises Become More Exciting

 

by Pa Rock

Land Lubber

Anyone foolish enough to try and go on a cruise during a pandemic probably should not be too surprised if their plans go awry.  Sea-going misadventures, in fact, seem to be the new normal for the cruise line industry.  

A couple of weeks ago the Norwegian Gem, a cruise ship owned by Norwegian Cruise Lines, loaded up with passengers in New York and headed down to the Caribbean for a ten-day cruise.  On day four, however,  a COVID outbreak on the ship forced the company to make an expensive decision to cancel the cruise and head home.   While Norwegian did promise to pay full refunds to all of the passengers on board the Gem, many were less than pleased that their vacations had turned into little more than one long boat ride. 

And then last week 300 vacationers aboard the Crystal Symphony cruise ship got more cruise than they had paid for.  The ship was headed toward its homeport of Miami after a two-week cruise when Peninsula Petroleum Company went to court and sued Crystal Cruises, the company that owns Crystal Symphony - for over $4 million in unpaid fuel bills.  ($1.2 million of that amount was for fuel actually used by the Crystal Symphony.)  The judge hearing the case ordered the Crystal Symphony "arrested" or seized when it reached Miami.

But the cruise ship company, Crystal Cruises, upon hearing of the judge's order, had their ship change course and dock in the Bahamas on the little island of Bimini - beyond the judge's legal reach.  The 300 passengers were then herded onto a ferry and transported,  in inclement weather, to Port Everglades, Florida.

Thus far there have been no reports of Captain Jack Sparrow boarding and seizing any cruise ships in the Caribbean, but from the way things seem to be going, Captain Morgan is undoubtedly all over the place!

Yo, ho, ho!