Imagine spending a hefty amount on a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a round-the-world holiday on a dream cruise but the ship leaves without taking you. You come to know that you are unfit for traveling and are stranded in Phillippines for weeks. Extremely unlucky, right? Well, this happened with a 72-year-old British man, Christopher Chapel.
Well, the British man had spent £17,500, over 17 lakhs in Indian currency, for a dreamy round-the-world trip via cruise scheduled for earlier this year. According to a report, Christopher began feeling sick and nauseous midway through his trip on the cruise. He then visited the doctor on the cruise, who informed him he wouldn’t return on board and asked him to undergo some medical tests.
The British man was then told his case was nothing more than a mild heatstroke. Unfortunately, by the time he got done with his tests, the cruise had abandoned him at the port.
Christopher and his 51-year-old niece Karen Williams reached out to travel insurers and cruise organizers nationwide. He was told his condition was deemed critical, and he was also declared unfit to fly to Manila.
He said, “If there is a critical medical situation, as P&O keeps saying, why haven’t I been told more about it or shown their medical report? They have failed in their duty of care, first by leaving me on the island and now with all this secrecy about my health.”
Chapel took a boat from the island of Palawan to the Philippines’ capital. He could complete the remaining journey by air with a team of medical professionals escorting him. “The doctors who brought me home were lovely, I could not fault them, though they weren’t sure why they were required because they just gave me Diazepam to calm my nerves and there wasn’t anything else wrong with me,” Chapel, who returned home to the UK on April 7 said.
“It seems like a comical cock-up. The person who sent me away from the ship didn’t even examine me and must have known that the hospital tests would have taken longer than the ship would be at the port” the man said.
He informed the cruise organizer that he didn’t require a doctor who assist him during his travel back home as they just gave him a Diazepam to calm down his nerves. The person who advised him to de-board the ship did not even examine him and asked why the ship didn’t wait until the tests and medical checkup were completed by the hospital.
Chapel is now waiting for the luggage from the cruise and charges of the courier will be borne by the company as said by the cruise company.
