A family of nine, including six young children, were stranded in a remote Alaskan town when their cruise ship abandoned them late last week.
The Gauls, from Oklahoma, decided to join their extended family for a reunion aboard the Norwegian Encore, costing the group of 16 about $30,000.
But their trip ended abruptly after Joshua Gault’s family of nine disembarked for a Norwegian Cruise Line excursion to a LumberJack show in Ketchikan, Alaska. he told KJRH.
As the event was about to end, he said he and his wife noticed a frantic rush to get back to the bus that would take them to the ship.
‘We went to get on the bus and one of the attendants said, “The bus is full and you have to wait for the next bus,” Joshua said.
But the next bus never showed up.
A family of nine was stranded in Ketchikan, Alaska, after they were told the bus back to their cruise ship was full.
The Gauds now claim that the ticket taker did not actually check the stubs, allowing people from another ship to take their seats.
When they realized another bus was not coming to rescue them, Joshua said they called the port authority and a van came to pick up the family, but it was too late.
They arrived at the port just in time to see their clothes, medications, passports and the rest of their belongings sail away without them as they were stranded in Ketchikan, a city more than 1,500 miles from Anchorage and nearly 300 miles from Juneau.
“You know, it was a nightmare,” Joshua said, describing how he was left with six young children and his 78-year-old mother-in-law, all of whom were on daily medication.
‘We all had to stop taking our medication cold turkey these last few days because everything was on the cruise ship.’
Ketchikan is a city more than 1,500 miles from Anchorage and almost 300 miles from Juneau.
And while most of their passports were transported off the ship, one was left behind, meaning the family was unable to join the Norwegian Encore at its next destination in Canada.
While they were trying to decide their options, Joshua said the cruise line issued a fine of $971 per person for missing the ship.
She described how she discovered her credit cards had been charged nearly $9,000 while she was purchasing flights and hotels to return home.
The Gault family ultimately spent several days traveling through numerous cities and dealing with canceled flights and overnight stays in airports.
They were also forced to pay for every little expense: “all the flights for nine people, all the food for nine people, all the hotel stays,” Joshua said.
The Gault family ultimately spent several days traveling through numerous cities and dealing with canceled flights and overnight stays in airports.
The Gauls have since returned to Oklahoma and some family members have tested positive for COVID.
“Yeah, we’re really bad right now,” Joshua told KJRH. “We’re not healthy and we’re really bad.”
Still, Joshua and his wife, Cailyn, have been pressing Norwegian Cruise Line for answers.
But when they called, Cailyn said, cruise officials would simply tell them, “We’re still looking into it, we haven’t forgotten about you.”
“And I said, ‘No, we feel like you pretty much forgot about us when you dropped us off at the port and told us to go figure it out,'” she said.
Norwegian Cruise Line officials said they asked a local port agent to help the family book a hotel for the night.
Norwegian Cruise Line officials have since acknowledged that the family of nine “wasted everyone’s time aboard the ship in Ketchikan, Alaska, due to a misstep by a local tour operator.”
‘When guests did not return to the ship at the posted time, we attempted to contact them but were unable to get through to them.
‘As such, we alerted the local port agent in Ketchikan and requested that they assist the family in booking a hotel for the night.
‘Since the guests would not be able to land at the next port of call, Victoria, British Columbia, the port agent also assisted the guests in securing flights to Seattle for the following day, July 13.’
Cruise line officials added that they would reimburse the family for the out-of-pocket expenses they incurred, the fee they incurred at U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and a prorated refund for the two cruise days they missed.
‘As a gesture of goodwill, the company will also provide each of the nine guests with a Future Cruise Credit in the form of a 20 percent discount on their cruise fare that they can use on their next voyage.’
The fiasco comes just months after a group of eight Norwegian Cruise Line passengers became stranded on a remote African island.
The fiasco comes just months after a group of eight Norwegian Cruise Line passengers became stranded on a remote African island.
Passengers had “missed the 3pm boarding time by more than an hour” after returning from a private tour on March 27, a spokesperson for the cruise line told DailyMail.com.
Their passports were then handed over to local port officials and the group of six Americans and two Australians was abandoned on the island of Sao Tome and Principe.
In the following days they tried desperately to get back on board, crossing six countries to reach Banjul, Gambia, where the ship was scheduled to dock on April 1. However, adverse weather conditions meant the ship never reached shore.
The group finally concluded their nearly 2,000-mile journey in Dakar, Senegal, on April 2, where the cruise line confirmed they had re-embarked.
