Two Carnival cruise passengers found themselves stranded in Mexico this week, after an accident on an unofficial shore excursion.
The two women rented scooters while visiting Cozumel in Mexico, and were then involved in what they described as a “hit and run” incident which left both in hospital with some nasty injuries.
The cruise line contacted the mother of one of the women after they didn’t return to the ship in time for it to leave port, and eventually the women were able to contact family and let them know what had happened.
The accident was quite severe – both women lost consciousness and they also lost their possessions.
The reason the women were stranded was because one was awaiting surgery but needed to find up to $20,000 to cover bills, and neither had their passports with them. As the cruise was a closed-loop cruise, they had been able to board with other forms of identity.
However, cruise lines always advise guests to carry their passports with them even on closed loop cruises, in case of emergencies such as this.
Cruise lines also advise guests against renting scooters in Cozumel, due to the conditions of the roads, the relaxed law enforcement approach to traffic rules, among another challenges.
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It is dangerous taking passports ashore if the couple had: had their passports with them they would have been stolen also, and renting bikes in third-world countries with lax policing is more than foolhardy, the agent which the cruise line uses is printed every morning in the ships daily news and all passengers should take their cruise cover insurance with them which all sensible cruisers should have, it is an addition to Travel Insurance and it usually covers travel to the next available boarding port
Hi Mummy( like we know each other for 40years, when you are not even that old).
We had an accident in Sint Maarten on an official excursion with MSC’s Divina, and the hospital wanted to keep my wife; we were on our own because nobody had reported the accident to the cruise line officials that took care of the tour. We had our passports, but it was a Transatlantic so you can understand that we wanted to make it back to the ship. I had to sign a discharge and a refusal of care to the hospital. Somebody called the ship and we just made it in time onboard. The next day we spent the whole day in Martinique’s hospital. We did not enjoy the cruise after that. Too bad because everybody(but the customers service) were VERY NICE. Sometimes you do things right( bring the passports, buy official excursions…) but it does not pay.
Cordially. Daniel