Traumatic reason Aussie passenger 'will never cruise' with MSC again
Shane Hryhorec says his cruise experience was plagued by a string of errors by the MSC company.
Millions of Aussies jump aboard a cruise ship every year, but one man's recent "traumatic" experience left him questioning whether he would be forced to leave the ship after a string of disastrous errors.
Adelaide man Shane Hryhorec told Yahoo News he was looking forward to his first ever cruise and booked with MSC for an eight-day voyage around parts of Europe in August, leaving from Marseille in France. As a wheelchair user Shane was told by MSC, which also operates in Australia, to simply book the cruise and fill out a specific document to detail his needs. However, all did not go to plan.
He faced the possibility of not having private bathroom access, missing excursions he had paid for due to lack of transport and a whole raft of unpleasant interactions with staff.
"I always dreamed of going on a cruise... but it was just baffling and made me angry," he told Yahoo News. "They pretty much put all the blame back on me even though I showed them all my efforts."
Yahoo News has reached out to MSC Cruises for comment.
Passenger faced 'never-ending' issues on cruise ship
Among the "never-ending" issues on board, Shane said he felt "trapped" in a room that wasn't suitable for him. Due to "company policy", he said he wasn't offered a refund if he disembarked the ship when the likelihood of getting an accessible room looked bleak, told by staff to more or less 'get on with it'.
He was eventually provided with a room that was more suitable two days into the voyage, but no refund was offered despite the room lacking features he had paid extra for when booking. He claims staff made no effort to apologise.
"Look, when you take a step back, there's two things with accessibility. There's the hardware, like the ramps and the entrance and the physical things. And then there's the software, which is the human aspect, the empathy," he said, claiming both were severely lacking.
Accessible rooms can expand a cruise's customer base, passenger says
While Shane hopes his experience was an "isolated incident" and will try travel with another cruise company, he vowed to "never cruise" with MSC again.
"I would like to believe that this is an isolated incident," he said. " I would like to believe that this is not a snapshot of the entire cruise industry."
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With 5.5 million Aussies disabled and almost 200,000 in wheelchairs, Shane questioned why cruise ships are not made more accessible.
"A person that's able bodied can use a disability access room but a person with a disability cannot use an able-bodied room. So I mean, build more accessible rooms!" he said, suggesting cruise company's could broaden their demographic with this move, while prioritising inclusion.
"The other thing as well is lots of people over [the age of] 65 have a disability. And if you look at the percentage of people that are going on cruises, they're not young people," he said.
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