"We want answers": Furious cruise passengers stage protest after itinerary change
Passengers onboard a Norwegian Cruise Line voyage has expressed their outrage after their once in a lifetime trip to Antarctica changed course after the journey had already begun.
Melbourne woman Helen Midler was one of hundreds of people onboard the cruise from Buenos Aires to mainland Antarctica, when staff informed all travellers that their itinerary had changed.
Days into their journey, those onboard were told they would not be visiting Antarctica at all, but would be doing a "South America round trip" instead.
Midler took to social media to share her frustrations, saying the communication between the cruise line and the passengers was very poor.
She explained that she only found out about the change after checking the app a few days into the journey and noticed the name of the cruise had been changed.
Passengers were later told the change of destination was for "operational reasons" after raising their concerns, however no further explanation was given.
Those onboard were allegedly told the decision was made by the head office in the US to not visit Paradise Bay, on mainland Antarctica, before departure on January 31, and that all passengers were notified by email, and again at check-in.
However, Midler claims this was not the case.
"I can assure you that we never got any email and many of our friends here on board, and I'm talking hundreds of people we know, did not receive any email either," she said in a video posted online.
"Until the cruise had commenced, most people on this ship were not aware of the change in the itinerary."
Midler said "everyone was angry", with hundreds of passengers meeting at in the ship's foyer one morning in protest to demand further answers from the crew.
"Customer service are refusing to acknowledge us, they sent a security officer out to calm us down," she said while standing in the noisy crowd. "We feel we're being cheated, being scammed".
Midler said frustrated travellers, some of whom "spent their live savings" on the cruise that costs upwards of $4,000 per person, just "want answers, transparency and clarity" but claims they're being treated with "absolute disdain and disrespect" with little explanation given.
"Everyone on this ship has paid a lot of money to cruise to Antarctica, not to do a round trip of South America at sea," she fumed. "We are being dismissed, ignored, refused answers. They're telling us we just have to accept it.
"They think we're idiots. We're not idiots and we're not prepared to just accept this sitting down," she continued. "We may not get to Antarctica. The chances of this cruise now going to Antarctica are minimal. But we want answers."
In the days after her initial post, Midler updated her online followers and said those onboard were trying to make the best of a bad situation, despite still not hearing any clear answers about the change of itinerary.
"We saved and we booked this two years ago for the trip of a lifetime," she said. "We're feeling very disappointed and dejected about the outcomes here."
"We'll never be able to afford to do this again. And we've lost that trip to the Antarctica mainland that we had all been hoping and waiting for, and that we'd paid for. But we're going to try and do our best to enjoy it."
Image credits: TikTok