Cruise passengers stranded in Africa and struggling for days to reach the ship

Tour was delayed and passengers were unable to board. Now, they race against time to get to the cruise at the next stop

Eight cruise passengers who were stranded on the African island of São Tomé and Príncipe have been struggling for days to reach the Norwegian Cruise Line ship heading up the west coast of Africa.

Passengers were late returning to the ship on March 27, according to a statement from Norwegian Cruise Line.

“Eight passengers who were on the island on their own or on a private tour missed the last boat back to the ship, meaning they didn’t meet everyone’s time on board at 3:00 pm local time,” the statement said.

“While this is a very unfortunate situation, guests are responsible for ensuring they return to the ship at the advertised time, which is communicated extensively via the ship’s intercom, in daily communication and posted immediately prior to departure from the ship.”

Norwegian Cruise Line said passengers’ passports were handed over to local port agents for customers to pick up. The cruise line said guests are responsible for the costs of getting to the next available port of call to join the ship and said it is working with local authorities and communicating with stranded passengers.

According to Jill and Jay Campbell, a stranded South Carolina couple who have been in contact with CNN affiliate WPDE about their situation, a group of eight stranded passengers spent 15 hours traveling through six countries to try to rejoin the ship on Sunday in Gambia.

But the ship was unable to dock due to low tides and spent another day at sea. To WPDE, the couple revealed that the group will try to reach Senegal, where the ship is expected to arrive at port on Tuesday.

According to the Campbells, several members of the group are elderly, another is paraplegic, one woman is pregnant and one of the group members has not taken heart medication in five days and has become ill.

CNN reached out to Norwegian Cruise Line for more information but did not immediately receive a response.

Lost time on board

The group’s mad dash began after a trip to São Tomé and Príncipe ended on March 27th.

“We said, ‘We’re running out of time,’ and they said, ‘No problem, we can have you back within the hour,'” Jay Campbell said of the tour organizers. Campbell told WPDE that the tour operator contacted the captain to say the passengers were on their way but would be late. The ship was still in port when they returned, but the captain wouldn’t let them on board.

“The harbor master tried to call the ship, but the captain refused the call,” Campbell revealed to WPDE late last week. “We emailed NCL, NCL’s customer service emergency number, and they said, ‘Well, the only way we can contact the ship is to email them, but they don’t respond to our emails'”.

According to the couple, the group ran out of medicine and most of the passengers did not have credit cards that were accepted in São Tomé and Príncipe, so the Campbells spent thousands of dollars from their Visa card on accommodation and essential goods for the group.

The couple also said that another passenger, who had gone on a different excursion, had a medical emergency and was hospitalized in São Tomé, leaving her also stranded. The couple managed to contact that passenger’s daughter in California to help coordinate her return to North America.

The Campbells boarded the ship on March 20th. The website CruiseMapper.com shows that the cruise ship Norwegian Dawn arrived early Tuesday at the port of Dakar, Senegal.

CNN’s Sarah Dewberry contributed to this article.