An American couple's dream vacation turned into a nightmare when their cruise ship left them behind on a remote African island. Jill and Jay Campbell, of South Carolina, embarked on a 21-day journey from Cape Town to Barcelona aboard a Norwegian Cruise Line ship. However, their adventure took an unexpected turn when they were stranded on the island of São Tomé and Príncipe.
Map of São Tomé and Príncipe
The Missed Departure
On March 27, the group of eight-six Americans and two Australians-had left its Norwegian Cruise Line ship that morning for a day trip across the island. The couple and several other passengers opted to tour the nearby island of São Tomé and Príncipe on the afternoon of March 27, and when the excursion ran late, they said they brought it to the guides' attention. "We were like, 'our time is getting short,'" Jay Campbell recalled, at which point he said the guide let them know, "'No problem we can get you back in an hour.'" But they had car trouble on the way back.
When they arrived back at port, an hour late for their all-aboard time, they were relieved to see that their ship, the 2,290-passenger Dawn, was still there, a white rectangle anchored offshore. Upon their return, the passengers said cruise officials refused to let them aboard the ship, even as the local Coast Guard had ferried the group to the anchored vessel.
As they approached the looming 14 white decks, she got an update: The captain was refusing their request. They would not be allowed to board.
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The harbor master tried to call the ship, the captain refused the call. The captain could have made an easy decision to turn one of the tender boats back, pick us up, safely load us, and then go on the way," said Jay Campbell.
The Norwegian spokesperson said, "Unfortunately the ship was unable to safely dock in the destination due to adverse weather conditions, as well as tidal restrictions that require specific timing for safe passage.
The Campbells, who are from Garden City, South Carolina, told NBC News their tour operator notified the cruise captain that they were going to be late rejoining the ship, but the vessel left anyway. They added that the island's coast guard tried to get them and several others to the cruise ship, but they said they weren't allowed to board.
The stranded guests made arrangements to rejoin the ship in Banjul, Gambia, but the vessel could not safely dock there due to "adverse weather conditions," Norwegian said.
Stranded and Scrambling
After numerous attempts of trying to get ahold of Norwegian, the group is now scrambling to figure out how to get back on the ship to get home. The group consists of seven Americans and two Australians, four of whom are elderly, one has a heart condition and another is a paraplegic. There’s another married couple from Delaware and the wife is pregnant.
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The stranded group was now dependent on the port agent, a São Toméan named Luis Beirão. He had their passports, which had been ferried over to him by the ship (as is cruise policy for late passengers), and helped them get a taxi to a resort near the one-runway airport, from which, he told them, only a few flights left each day.
In the lobby of the hotel, they hit another snag: Though several of the parties had credit cards, only the Campbells’ Visa seemed to work. They paid for everyone; the bill came out to over $1,000. “At that point, it was community money,” Jay says.
Early the following morning, the eight met in the lobby again to wait for Beirão, who had promised to take them to the island’s sole travel agency.
The Campbells are the only ones with a Visa card and they’ve paid over $5,000 in food, toiletries and hotels for the group.
The Campbells are grateful for the help that they have received from the people of São Tomé and Príncipe.
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The Campbells said that their eight person group spent 15 hours traveling through six countries in an attempt to rejoin the Norwegian Dawn ship in Banjul, Gambia, on April 1. However, the ship couldn't dock due to low tide, so they are now trying to get to Senegal where the ship is meant to dock on Tuesday.
The couple then had to make their way from Sao Tome to Dakar, Senegal, where the cruise ship was docked on April 2.
“It’s one of those, ‘You can’t get there from here,’” Jay Campbell said on TODAY on April 2. “I think we flew through six countries just to get to Gambia yesterday.”
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Discovery of Another Stranded Passenger
The number of stranded passengers rose from eight to nine after the group eventually met another 80-year-old woman, who they said was hospitalized on the island after she got a concussion and lost part of her vision following a cruise line tour.
Embassy, which was in Angola, and contacted the office to let the government know six Americans had been left on São Tomé. Carvalho wanted to offer support - and also to know if she’d heard anything about another passenger left behind by the Dawn, a woman who had a “small incident” while on her own tour, the one sponsored by Norwegian.
They saw their fellow passenger immediately: an elderly white woman with short, dark hair, dressed in a gray T-shirt and pants with a black fanny pack and glasses, sitting on the couch. Her arms were covered in mottled purple blotches. Crusty blood was visible underneath a bandage on one elbow. Though she looked like she’d been hit by a bus, she was sitting as quietly and calmly as if she were waiting for one.
Crouching down in front of the woman on the couch, Jill started asking questions as gently as she could: Was she feeling okay? Did her family know where she was? But the woman was in a daze. Her words were halting and slightly slurred. She thought maybe she had fallen and hit her head.
Jill relayed her assessment to Lana, who began to panic even more. The group was stymied by this new development. Everyone had been planning to go their separate ways. But looking at Julia on the couch, and at the other three older passengers, Jill and Jay realized they couldn’t leave them to fend for themselves.
The Campbells said she was left at the hospital without any money or her belongings, and her emergency contact was never notified by the cruise line.
"I truly believe sometimes we’re put in certain places for a reason and I believe we were put in this place for the 80-year-old woman that was left alone. God forbid, what would have happened to that lady if we were not here,” Jay Campbell said.
The Cruise Line's Response
Norwegian Cruise Line told NBC News in a statement that the Campbells’ situation was unfortunate, saying “guests are responsible for ensuring they return to the ship at the published time” and noting the group was on a privately-run tour.
A spokesperson for the cruise line claimed the passengers were left on the island “on their own or with a private tour” and missed the “all-aboard time” by over an hour, according to the company.
They continued, "While this is a very unfortunate situation, guests are responsible for ensuring they return to the ship at the published time, which is communicated broadly over the ship's intercom, in the daily communication and posted just before exiting the vessel."
The spokesperson added that the passports for the passengers who did not return at the all aboard time "were delivered to the local port agents to retrieve when they returned to the port, as per the regular protocol."
"Our team has been working closely with the local authorities to understand the requirements and necessary visas needed for the guests to rejoin the ship at the next available port of call," they said.
Legal and Ethical Implications
Cruise companies are labyrinthine bureaucracies that manage to avoid nearly any responsibility for their passengers, especially in times of chaos, accident, or bad luck.
To start, they’re mostly incorporated in places like Liberia and Panama, although half of their customers are American. The individual ships, too, are foreign; the Dawn, for example, is registered in the Bahamas.
For some cruise lines, this structure equals billions of dollars in tax savings. It means, too, that the web of regulations and agencies that protect a passenger on land during a vacation has no jurisdiction on a cruise.
At sea, cruises are subject to international maritime law - but such laws for passenger safety are largely suggestions. The United Nations’ International Maritime Organization requires vessels to operate with a standard “duty of care” for passengers and cargo, but what that entails is deliberately murky.
The crime data is self-reported and delayed. The true law of a cruise ship is the passenger contract, which everyone signs when they buy their tickets and virtually no one reads.
The ticket also includes a clause that prevents the company from being held liable for anything that happens to you owing to force majeure, like an unexpected storm or illness, piracy, war, revolution, extortion, terrorist action or threat, hijacking, or bombing.
Cruise companies, according to the passenger ticket, are also not responsible for any medical care you receive on or off a ship - despite the outbreaks of illness that regularly plague cruise ships. And despite the fact that the business model runs on the patronage of the elderly.
The ticket also makes it extraordinarily difficult to sue a cruise because, on top of everything else, the companies are protected by century-old American “admiralty” laws.
“Why should a wrongful death on a modern luxury cruise ship be governed by a law passed in 1920?” says Jim Walker, a maritime lawyer who used to work on behalf of cruise companies before he had a crisis of conscience in the mid-1990s and switched sides. Perhaps it’s because it saves the cruise companies billions of dollars.
Following that ordeal, they said they aren’t sure if they’re going to board the ship again to rejoin the cruise.
“After what we witnessed, we truly believe that although there’s a set of rules or policies that the ship may have followed, they followed those rules too rigidly,” Jill Campbell said.
“We believe there was a basic duty of care that they’ve forgotten about so it does concern us.”
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