Clark on cruise debacle: “Nothing is the end of the world”

I want to thank everyone who was worried about my wife and I when news broke that we were on a cruise ship as an engine fire broke out.

Adrift in the high seas

For those who don’t know, my wife and I were on Royal Caribbean’s Splendour of the Seas for a 20th anniversary trip to the Greek Isles.

Early Thursday morning, we were woken by emergency alerts and they let us know that the engine room was on fire. So I open the door to our cabin on the upper deck and there’s a terrible odor of burning that’s wafting through the halls. My throat and eyes were burning.

Lower on the ship, people were evacuated and moved to an area on board where they were prepped to get on life rafts if need be. Fortunately, there was no need for any of that.

I want to commend the crew of the Splendour who did a great job in a difficult situation. Nearly 200 were sickened with smoke inhalation.

After the ordeal, we limped back in to a port in Italy. The reality is a lot of crew members suffered, but as passengers we couldn’t have had a better outcome. We never had to get on life boats and the only inconvenience was that we missed a port we otherwise would have made.

So what kind of compensation did we get? The cruise line gave each cabin $400 for the inconvenience of having been through an emergency. How do I feel about the compensation? I don’t feel I deserved any for a minor interruption. The only rough part was when we were floating in the deep seas for a spell with no stabilizers.

There are times where if you suffer real harm, you should expect real compensation. In that case, the best time to advocate for yourself is at the moment, not after the fact. But in my case, in this particular scenario, nothing is the end of the world…except the end of the world!

Read more: Trip and Travel Insurance Guide

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Clark’s phone videos from the trip