Carnival Cruise line has been in the news the last few days because of their ship that was stranded for five days, with a full load of passengers, after an engine fire. The problems were numerous, not the least of which was there were no restrooms.
Passengers are complimenting the staff on doing as well as they could under the circumstances. Carnival is paying people’s travel expenses home and giving them a refund, plus $500, and another cruise. Those are all wonderful things, but the real problem is that money doesn’t compensate people for their time.
It’s always about time, and how you’re spending it. Most of us would certainly not choose to spend five days on a ship with sewage leaking through the walls. It seems it was far worse in some areas of the ship than others. But I think it’s safe to say it’s not the vacation anyone expected when they got on board.
This is one of those situations where no one did anything wrong as far as we know. (Cause of the fire is under investigation.) But, nonetheless something went horribly wrong.
Carnival is between a rock and a hard place. They cannot ever replace that time. Regardless of what they do for passengers, it will never buy back those days and nights, that wonderful anticipation of a great time that was dashed, the vacation time people used to take the trip, or the time they spent getting to and from the ship.
It’s always about the time. Money can’t buy it. Reimbursements can’t buy it. Free cruises can’t buy it. Time once it’s spent, is gone. These folks won’t ever get that time back, and Carnival can’t appropriately compensate them for it unless they happen to have a time machine lying about.
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