What was meant to be the trip of a lifetime for 170 passengers has turned into a nightmare after an engine failure put the adventure on halt.
The Swan Hellenic ship set off from Cape Town earlier this month but after it suffered an electric motor failure, the company had no choice but to cancel the entire Antarctic leg of the trip.
The ship will no longer be going to Antarctica (Horacio Villalobos/Corbis via Getty Images)
Passengers have been offered the choice of a 50% refund or a 65% future cruise credit but they’re not happy.
After hearing that they would not be getting a full refund, some of them have taken matters into their own hands and have started a hunger strike.
In a letter to the company, a group of passengers wrote: “For a majority of us, this is our first time visiting Antarctica, and potentially the last opportunity for many.
“Some guests are elderly, disabled, and have struggled already to get to this point, only for the trip to be cut short. For many of us, visiting Antarctica is a life-long bucket list that we want to achieve before death or disability.”
The chief executive of Swan Hellenic, Andrea Zito, said: “We deeply regret having to alter the itinerary due to technical issues. But we believe our offer is fair. Some passengers have already accepted it and even rebooked future trips.”
Unhappy passengers are staging a hunger strike (SteveAllenPhoto/Getty Images)
In a statement, Zito continued: “The initial unease has largely subsided. A select few chose to stage a hunger strike in their protest which is rather counterproductive. We are working towards a swift end to this action.”
He went on to add: “We feel we have offered a very generous compensation package, beyond what is legally required.”
But it isn’t the only cruise ship that has sparked controversy recently.
Another ship has finally set off on its round-the-world adventure after it spent four months stuck in Belfast.
The Villa Vie Odyssey was meant to leave Northern Ireland in May for a three-year trip but was delayed due to unexpected repairs.
It meant that passengers were stranded in the country for the summer, and couldn’t leave due to fears that they might miss the ship’s departure.
This was due to there being no telling of when the vessel could set sail.
The unusual airport is located on a slope in China’s Sichuan province and first opened back in 2013.
Named Daocheng Yading Airport, it stands at 14,472 ft above sea level, making it the highest airport in the world.
The man went viral for his video at the airport (TikTok/@aligoodguy)
It has just one runway and people traveling through the airport need to use oxygen masks to help them breathe at altitude.
One TikToker documented his experience of visiting the airport, posting a video of himself using an oxygen mask outside of the terminal.
The man shared his journey to the airport on his TikTok page, @aligoodguy, where many viewers were shocked to see him needing oxygen aid.
The clip went viral on social media, being seen by 136,000 people.
Taking off and landing planes at high altitudes can be trickier for pilots as the thin air can make for some very unpredictable weather patterns.
To combat this, airplanes need to take off and land at slower speeds.
And it’s not all bad – locals welcomed the opening of the airport because it meant that journeys from the area to the region’s capital of Chengdu was cut down from a two day bus journey to just a one hour flight.
The only other alternative previously was an 11 hour car ride, meaning that the high airport was life changing for local residents.
Despite the airport’s challenges, it isn’t considered to be the most dangerous flight path in the world.
While people are in dispute as to which location takes that title, one of the top contenders is the Tibetan Plateau, which airlines avoid flying over.
It is due to its mountainous area.
The average elevation in the region is around 14,800 ft and while that’s substantially lower than the 31,000 ft to 42,000 ft commercial airlines typically fly at, it can still cause problems.
In an emergency situation, a plane will need to drop down to 10,000 ft within a certain amount of time so that safe oxygen levels can be reached.
With this in mind, should a flight happen to need to drop down this level while traveling over the Tibetan Plateau it would be impossible as the plane would likely crash into one of the region’s massive mountains.
The most dangerous section of the area covers 970,000 square miles, which is five times the size of France.
It’s probably one of the last places you’d expect to see a runway but deep in the jungle of Brazil, that’s exactly what you’ll find.
You wouldn’t be the only one to ask, after a screenshot of the bizarre sight was captured on Google Maps and uploaded to Reddit.
The poster asked: “Who would use this runway?” to which many users queried what the purpose of it could be.
Taking to the comment section, some people were more helpful than others, with one user joking: “A pilot.”
Another pondered if it could be a runway for a ‘drug smuggler’.
There’s a chance that the wild conspiracy theories aren’t completely baseless, after all, Pablo Escobar’s plane was found under the water in Norman’s Cay, the Bahamas, after it crash landed there.
The infamous drug lord was responsible for taking over 4,000 lives and despite the incident, people were too scared to touch the plane.
Even the local government feared him enough to steer clear of it, so the plane has been left to rot in the water.
A third user took to social media to share an even wilder theory, speculating: “I’m not saying aliens but..”
People queried what the runway could be used for (jmsilva/Getty Images)
Not everyone let their imaginations run away with them as others offered more sensible explanations.
One person wrote: “Thinking out loud… ‘There has got to be a bunch of wealthy people paying Google to scrub their homes, helipads, runways, and shits off the public images’.”
While it’s a plausible theory, other people had different ideas, with one user suggesting: “In Brazil and my guess is if you panned out you would see the river breaking off into many smaller ones. Think of this as an Amazon hub for the Amazon. From this strip they can deliver goods to hundreds of small villages.”
However, it seems that people eventually got to the bottom of the mystery after one eagle-eyed user spotted a ‘fishing resort just to the north’.
Others seemed to agree that this could be the answer, with another adding: “River fishing guide?”
Finally, a third person provided some much-needed closure to the case, confirming once and for all who the runway belongs to.
They said: “The nearby fishing resort has a picture of the runway with their plane.”
And one Cuban man took this idea to its logical conclusion almost a quarter of a century ago by deciding to live on cruises all year round.
Mario Salcedo has lived on cruise ships almost nonstop since 2000, with the only long break imposed by the coronavirus pandemic a couple of years ago.
This means he pretty much never leaves a ship, seeing the world and running his investment management business from the laptop.
He was apparently an international finance director at a US corporation in the 1990s when he decided that his lifestyle wasn’t up to scratch, with way too much time spent in the office.
Salcedo quit his job and booked a whole heap of cruises, and never really looked back, deciding fairly quickly that he loved life aboard. Since then, he’s honed in on a favorite vessel in particular, Royal Caribbean’s Voyager of the Seas. As of 2022, he’d been on over 900 Royal Caribbean sailings.
Unsurprisingly, sticking to one provider has helped him surge up through Royal Caribbean’s loyalty program, and that means he now gets some nice perks that cut down on his living expenses, including free Wi-Fi.
This would no doubt help with the hefty price of living on a cruise ship – back in 2016, Condé Nast Traveler reported that he budgeted around $60-70,000 per year for his travels.
Alexander Gutkin / Getty
Stick around on a ship for long enough and you become part of the furniture, so it’s no surprise to learn that Salcedo has a nickname and a big reputation among the many crew members he’s met over the years.
He’s known as ‘Super Mario’ and seems pretty beloved. With all that said, there is apparently one big health drawback to the lifestyle that Salcedo has chosen, and it’s surprisingly basic.
Salcedo now apparently has near-permanent sea legs, meaning he’s so used to the constant motion of the ocean, even as subtle as it is on such a huge ship, that when he gets on dry land he can struggle to walk completely straight.
Salcedo told told Condé Nast Traveler: “I’ve lost my land legs, so when I’m swaying so much I can’t walk in a straight line. I’m so used to being on ships that it feels more comfortable to me than being on land.”
Whether that sounds like a worthwhile trade depends on who you speak to – half a lifetime of cruise living, for the low price of never walking straight again.
