I was on the NCL Joy last week... or at least part of the week. 126 people got on the ship in Roatan (my brother in law got on in Roatan) and we got on in Belize with 121 other people. So I think it is safe to say there had to be hundreds more that couldn't fly to other ports because they didn't have passports, get flights or chose to give up and go home or go to another destination. I heard the number was around 600, but no one on NCL has been willing to give me an actual number. I'm not asking for personal info on these people, I just wanted a number of people left behind. We didn't have insurance and before you go bashing me... NCL booked the flights for us, so yes... as someone else said on here you think you are going to be good because NCL lined up your flights. Insurance is great if you think going on another cruise at a later date is an actual solution. I only get so many days of vacation and my kids can only miss so many days of school. So flying a day early or driving is also not an option for us. Our flight was Minneapolis to Miami and they diverted us to Jacksonville an hour before we were to land in Miami. We sat on runway in Jacksonville on plane for 2 hours. Deplaned for an hour. Re-boarded and we sat for another hour. We landed at Miami airport at 4:20 pm (5.5 hours after we were supposed to). We sat for another 40 minutes waiting for gate. Miami airport was complete choas. Unless you were at the Miami airport that day you cannot possibly understand. There were thousands of people trying to get to their final destination and zero options for getting out of there soon. There were people everywhere. American airlines had 2-5 agents at reticketing at any given time and hundreds of people waiting to talk to them. We waited 4-5 hours to talk to someone only to find out there was nothing they could do. Even though NCL people on the phone told us American Airlines would help us. There were no hotels in the area due to a music festival and all the people stranded in Miami. There were no rental cars to get out of Miami. It wouldn't have been easy to return home if we wanted to. My sister flew into Fort Lauderdale on a flight that was supposed to land an hour after ours in Miami. They had no issues, no delays, and they made in on the ship in Miami. Our friends connecting flight (also booked by NCL on American Airlines) got canceled the night before. American airlines offered them a 20 hours of travel on 3 planes option to Roatan to get on ship 2 days late. That isn't helpful at all especially when you are traveling with kids (7 and 9). They booked their own flights (on their own dime) to fly to Miami on a delta flight 3 hours later. So 6 of our party of 12 made it on the ship in Miami.
In hindsight, maybe we should have gone home. I don't know... we were probably booking our own flights home too and then spending the night in the airport? We had no idea all the challenges we were going to face to get to Belize. Our thought was we could salvage part of the hotel/food/drink we had already paid for on NCL. We tried to put on a brave face for our kids and act like we had a plan and knew what we were going to do. It was exhausting. I didn't sleep for the 3 nights leading up to getting on the cruise. Once we got on the ship I was afraid to get off at the last 2 ports. I watched the time constantly. We didn't know where things were, the layout of the ship or generally how things ran which you should know by the time you are half way through a cruise. None of it was enjoyable. We've been on 6 carnival cruises and on 4 NCL cruises and never had any issues. Definitely our last NCL cruise. The food and entertainment are not like they used to be on NCL so it's just not worth it anymore.
On a positive note, Placencia, Belize is lovely. I think we'll go back on purpose some time. https://internationalliving.com/a-sidewalk-stroll-in-beach-town-belize/
I was pregnant with my youngest so it would have been 2013 or 2014. I also know that 2013 or 2014 was a while ago too so yea... I just need to stop.
