Norwegian Star: Passengers aboard broken-down cruise ship 'disappointed' over delays
Updated
Some passengers on a stranded luxury cruise ship that was towed back to Melbourne have expressed their frustrations over disrupted travel plans.
The Norwegian Star, carrying more than 3,000 passengers and crew, was on its way from Melbourne to New Zealand when it lost engine power on Friday and became stranded about 30 kilometres off Wilson's Promontory — on Victoria's east coast.
Two tugs helped the ship arrive at Melbourne's Station Pier just before midnight after engine failure.
The company said repairs could take up to 48 hours, but passengers said they had been told they may have to wait between three to five days in Melbourne before the vessel could continue on.
Rita Scher from New Jersey in the US said she spent hours researching her trip.
"We booked this cruise many, many months ago, we planned for hours and hours and hours all our excursions, all our tours," she said.
"Now unfortunately we are missing three-quarters of our ports."
She said she would be out-of-pocket to book replacement flights to visit the places she had planned.
Susan Altman from New York said she would make the best of the stop-over in Melbourne, but was frustrated.
"We really put our heart and soul into this once in a lifetime trip and it's not turning out exactly the way it's supposed to," she said.
'We had a drift-away party'
Other passengers said most people handled the disruption well.
Passenger Mike Clark said the group he travelled with celebrated the occasion.
"We had a drift-away party and we had a tow-away party so our group handled it OK," he said.
"I think some other people were disappointed and trying to figure out how to make their arrangements and I think they may have been frustrated how to make their arrangements on what to do."
The company has said passengers would be financially compensated for the delays, and paid up to $350 per person towards a flight to Auckland — where the cruise was due to end.
Keith Stanley from Texas in the US said he was pleased he would be compensated.
"I'm kind of disappointed we didn't get to see some of the port were were scheduled for, but basically they paid for this cruise — we get our money back," he said.
"So my wife and I have already planned another trip to go to New Zealand because there were several ports we wanted to see. We'll do that next year."
Topics: travel-and-tourism, lifestyle-and-leisure, melbourne-3000, new-zealand
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