A royal screwup.
A North Carolina mother who drove eight hours to surprise her family with a cruise vacation was left stranded at a Florida port after her special needs teenage son was turned away in what the company later admitted was human error.
After more than a year of planning, Shannon Nutting’s dream vacation on a Royal Caribbean cruise with her four kids became a devastating nightmare before it ever got underway this month.
“Everybody was just heartbroken and devastated,” she told ABC 11 last Friday.
The mother, who lives in the town of Pembroke, said she started planning for the trip in November 2023 and when it was time to set sail, she took time off from her teaching gig and even brought the family’s babysitter along to help take care of the children onboard.
When the cruise ship pulled into Port Canaveral, Nutting finally told her kids they were about to go on a voyage vacation.
“My 9-year-old was so excited, she was speechless and started crying,” she told the station.
But a sinking feeling quickly engulfed the family.
Staffers, including a supervisor, told Nutting her 16-year-old son could not board because he only had a student identification even though she checked ahead of time to make sure that document was acceptable.
“I explained to her that my son has special needs, that’s one of the reasons why he did not yet have a state-issued ID and that I called to make sure he could board without it,” she told the local outlet. “She said she didn’t care what he had.”
The disheartened mom and her kids did not make it onto the ship for their dream vacation as a result.
Eventually, Nutting’s travel agent reached a Royal Caribbean rep who said the family should have all been allowed on the ship. The cruise line said they could fly to Cozumel, Mexico to meet the ship two days into the trip, but on their own dime, ABC 11 reported.
She turned that down and the family ended up staying in Florida for a few days to salvage some of their time off.
Royal Caribbean told the station that human error by the staff at the port was behind the family’s devastating rejection.
The company offered a trio of options to make up for the mistake, including a full refund for the cruise, but none of the choices would provide the family with the money they spent in order to reach the port, which Nutting found “unacceptable.”
“If I made the mistake and they offered me anything, any kind of refund, then I would think that would be gracious of them. But I didn’t make any mistakes,” Nutting told the station.
“I made sure we had our documentation. Everybody’s birth certificates were certified. The people who needed IDs had IDs, and I just feel like them offering a refund of the cruise price is just unacceptable.”
Royal Caribbean did not immediately respond to a Post inquiry.
