Family of nine stranded in Alaska after missing cruise ship

A family of nine found themselves stranded in Alaska after a mix-up with a local tour operator caused them to miss their scheduled cruise departure.

What was intended to be a memorable trip of a lifetime might now be recalled for very different reasons as the Gault family faced hefty costs to make their way back to Tulsa, Oklahoma, when the ship containing their clothes, passports and medication sailed off from Ketchikan port without them.

The famil, comprising two parents, six children and a 78-year old grandmother, were also hit with an immediate fine of almost $9,000, working out at $971 per passenger, by Norwegian Cruise Lines for missing the vessel.

That fee stemmed from the US Customs and Border Protection’s Passenger Vessel Services Act, which they violated by not visiting a foreign port before they returned to the US.

The family’s nightmare started when they went on an excursion to see a lumberjack show when the ship they were travelling on, Norwegian Encore, docked in Ketchikan in Alaska.

After watching the show, the group tried to catch a bus back to the port by a local tour operator, but were told that the bus was full and they had to wait for another one.

“We go to get on the bus and one of the attendees is like, ‘The bus is full and you know, you got to wait for the next bus’,” Joshua recounted to KJRH.

However, that bus never came, and after frantically calling the port authority to arrange transportation, they finally arrived back at the docks to see Norwegian Encore sailing away — taking with it their passports, medication and clothes.

“We all had to quit cold turkey medication these last few days, because it was all on the cruise ship,” Joshua added.

Starnded in Ketchikan, a remote port located 300 miles from Alaska’s capital of Juneau with no accommodation or transportation, the family worked out how they could arrange transportation back to where they live in Tulsa. But as they looked into booking flights, they found that Joshua’s credit card had already been charged the customs fee of almost $9,000.

Joshua claims that they had to pay for flights for nine people, hotel stays along the way…