Cruise ship passengers demand apology from tour operator

HONG KONG – Cruise ship passengers who occupied a luxury liner over a canceled stop in Vietnam insist they should not be blamed for their radical action.

HONG KONG – Cruise ship passengers who occupied a luxury liner over a canceled stop in Vietnam insist they should not be blamed for their radical action.

The passengers also refuted criticism that they occupied the cruise ship in order to demand more compensation from Miramar Travel.

Passenger representative Cheung Ho-kun said the 17-hour standoff on board the luxury Costa Victoria on Thursday was the fault of Miramar, and that it should apologize.

“So far Miramar has not given us an official apology for the incident,” Cheung told a press conference, adding it was useless to worry about a possible lawsuit from Costa Cruises.

Fellow passenger representative Leung Kwok-lam said it was unfair to be accused of acting like bullies, insisting Miramar failed to clearly explain why their cruise had to miss the stop in Halong Bay.

Miramar Travel general manager Alex Lee Chun-ting said: “We already reached an agreement with passengers last week and I don’t understand why [ the representatives] came out to make such remarks.”

A spokeswoman for Costa Cruises yesterday said it reserves the right to sue the passengers who occupied the ship on Thursday. But she did not comment on the latest remarks of passenger representatives.

Miramar on Friday agreed to pay passengers more than HK$300 each but less than a third of the tour package price, a day after the 17-hour standoff on the cruise ship.

About 2,000 passengers from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan – half of them Miramar customers – had left Ocean Terminal on February 1 for the six-day trip to Sanya, and Da Nang and Halong Bay in Vietnam.

The voyage was uneventful until they reached Halong Bay on Tuesday when the Costa Victoria was unable to dock because of a sunken ship.

Costa Cruises said the port and channel at Halong Bay were closed by the authorities and the cruise ship sent back to sea.

About 400 passengers staged an onboard sit-in in protest at the HK$340 initial compensation offer by Miramar for the Halong Bay miss.

They earlier demanded refunds of up to a third of their fares, which was up to HK$18,000 per cabin.

The onboard protest delayed the the trip to Sanya and Vietnam of more than 1,000 other travelers.

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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