Don't die on a Norwegian cruise if you want your family to be notified!

[AliceS]

A friend told me a story of a man that she knew who went on a Carribean cruise and when his wife came to port to pick him up....he never showed. He had passed away in a cabin by himself and Norwegian notified the TRAVEL AGENT!

The TA did not notify the family and the wife was to learn that her husband was in a Miami morgue.

 

Honestly....this just happened. I don't know the family, but my friends do and I will ask them to post here.

 

This is not only brutal and unacceptable...... it is inhumain.

[mscdivina2016]

A friend told me a story of a man that she knew who went on a Carribean cruise and when his wife came to port to pick him up....he never showed. He had passed away in a cabin by himself and Norwegian notified the TRAVEL AGENT!

The TA did not notify the family and the wife was to learn that her husband was in a Miami morgue.

 

Honestly....this just happened. I don't know the family, but my friends do and I will ask them to post here.

 

This is not only brutal and unacceptable...... it is inhumain.

 

What if he listed the TA as emergency contact? Then they followed what they were instructed to.

 

So brutal and unacceptable may be stupidity on someone else's part.

[cml4958]

I'd also hold some blame for the TA. They should have notified the family.

[david_sobe]

The cruise line like anyone else could only notify the next of kin with emergency contact information. If the passenger did not include anyone but the TA, how could the cruise line notify the spouse?

[NLH Arizona]

 

This is not only brutal and unacceptable...... it is inhumain.

You are totally correct and the travel agent should be held accountable, if they had his wife's contact information.

[MizDemeanor]

This appears to me to be a fair share of limited information.

 

Our emergency contacts, which I indicate (each cruise line has their own term for the set sail pass and the info is the same), is listed.

 

If someone listed their TA....sadly they might not have been able to fill out that form alone.

 

Very sorry to hear of the loss, I can only imagine the effects of the learning about the passing by the family members. We have been on cruises with guests who really needed constant supervision and who did not have it for what ever reason. We helped as we could. It was awful for them, and to be brutally honest, it was awful for us too. Security group was life support.

[kcwingwalker]

A friend told me a story of a man that she knew who went on a Carribean cruise and when his wife came to port to pick him up....he never showed. He had passed away in a cabin by himself and Norwegian notified the TRAVEL AGENT!

The TA did not notify the family and the wife was to learn that her husband was in a Miami morgue.

 

Honestly....this just happened. I don't know the family, but my friends do and I will ask them to post here.

 

This is not only brutal and unacceptable...... it is inhumain.

 

Were the police involved? In my experience the police are notified when there is an unwitnessed death aboard. The body is then turned over to the local coroner and cannot be released until an autopsy is completed. All official investigations, documents, etc. will be handled at the final port. If the unfortunate man did not chose to have his wife, relative or close friend notified in the event of an emergency, then perhaps the only contact number that NCL had was the TA.

 

Something is missing here and the only certainty is sadly a life lost.

[sanger727]

I'm confused about when he died. I've been involved with trying to notify next of kins in death cases before. If he died on day 2 of the cruise and no one notified anyone, yeah, big issue. If he died on the day of departure, it just might take that long to get her notified.

 

Realistically, let's say he dies at 0800 on departure day, had a 10 am flight and was due to land at noon. Wife probably left the house at 11:30, maybe much earlier depending on how far they live from the airport.

 

Next of kin notifies are preferably done in person by a local police dept. so first ncl has to find him, then Miami police had to get there, start investigating who next of kin is and where they live, then dispatch local police to her house, when she may very well have already been on her way to the airport. It's absolutely a tragic way to happen, but not necessarily a dropped ball. If he didn't list his wife as an emergency contact, it can take some time to figure out who and where to notify.

 

This all probably happened on the weekend, the normal turn around day for 7 day cruises r sat and sun. Maybe TA wasn't even working, ncl just left info at agency on the chance that they TA would get it and could properly notify someone.

 

 

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[zqvol]

A friend told me a story of a man that she knew who went on a Carribean cruise and when his wife came to port to pick him up....he never showed. He had passed away in a cabin by himself and Norwegian notified the TRAVEL AGENT!

The TA did not notify the family and the wife was to learn that her husband was in a Miami morgue.

 

Honestly....this just happened. I don't know the family, but my friends do and I will ask them to post here.

 

This is not only brutal and unacceptable...... it is inhumain.

 

IF this happened, it is not NCL's fault. It is the fault of the passenger for not providing correct emergency contact information. The TA is also not blameless because when they were notified, if in fact they were, they had an obligation to contact the passenger's family, assuming that the passenger had provided contact information.

 

Reading the other posts, especially concerning timing points more to the fact that no one did anything wrong in this case. The passenger spoke with his wife the morning he died. He was to get on a plane a few hours later and didn't get there. Unfortunately, there are some time elements involved in these types of notifications and in theis case there simply wasn't enough time to notify the wife before she went to the airport.

 

Lesson to be learned . . . you have phones, use them to stay in contact with your family.

 

There is nothing brutal, unacceptable or inhuman about NCL's actions in this situation.

Edited December 3, 2016 by zqvol

[Aquahound]

So, we have a half-story with no first-hand knowledge, told by someone relaying the info from a friend that mysteriously, another poster on this thread happens to know.

 

There is no way anyone can know all the facts in this story, so no one can pass judgement on NCL, the TA, the police or anyone else.

[bzmom2girls]

When hubby and I travel separately, we text each other when we get on the plane, prior to turning off our phones, along the lines of "love you, see you soon."

 

I would have been worried at that point.

Edited December 3, 2016 by bzmom2girls

[RD29P5]

A whole lot of misinformation in this thread. A U.S. Citizen dies on a foreign flagged vessel in a U.S port the Coast Guard is the lead agency, not the local police. It is also the local coroner's job to notify next of kin of a death. What do people expect a phone call from some random stranger, telling them a loved one has died suddenly? I don't know about anyone else but I sure don't want some customer service rep calling me with that type of bad news.

[mking8288]

Even if you had someone's full name, address and social security number, how do you get his wife's cell phone number?

On the matter of cell phone - I don't know about others, we have safeguards against "unauthorized" access (likely, some of you too) such as PINs and biometrics (fingerprint) to unlock the smartphone. If the device was turned off and/or locked, it's not just a simple matter of turning it back on to FIND the "ICE" information to call, text or notify (ICE being In Case of Emergency contacts)

 

Sometimes, even with an unlocked iPhone or Android, it is a guessing game while looking at someone's long list "Contacts" to figure out who's the device owner's "significant" others or parents or children as in "Next of Kin" for making the "notifications" etc. Not everyone stored their directory with entries like ... my spouse, my kids, my parents, my doctor, my insurance agent, etc. ;) Okay ... just talk to first responders and/or those working in emergency medicine/trauma centers & you begin to appreciate their daily challenges.

 

On my Nexus 5X (Android) - it will unlock with a matching fingerprint stored and PIN not used, whereas on my backup iPhone 5S - it's a single PIN code with the lockout - one is easier to access than the other ;) for recovery purposes.