Cuban content creator Mariela Feal reported the lack of medical emergency protocols aboard the cruise ship Icon of the Seas, from Royal Caribbean, after her three-year-old son experienced a vomiting crisis on the last day of the trip and had to be hospitalized upon arriving in Miami.
In the video posted on her Instagram account, Mariela recounts that she took her son to the ship's emergency center, where, in her words, "they treated him with great indifference" and the vomiting did not stop.
At five in the morning, seeing the lights of Miami from the deck, he made a decision: "I'm seeing Miami. I'm getting out of here, I don't care about anything."
Pregnant at 22 weeks, she carried the child in her arms and made the long journey alone from the cabin to the arrival terminal, while her husband stayed in the room with their four-year-old son, who was sleeping, waiting for the luggage.
Throughout the entire journey, Mariela requested a wheelchair without receiving any help. Once at Immigration, exhausted and on the verge of tears with her son in her arms, an officer asked her if she had requested assistance, which only heightened her indignation.
She criticized that her luggage received VIP treatment while she was left to carry the child on her own, who even vomited on her during the trip without her having any way to clean it up.
After leaving the terminal, she called 911, and the minor ended up hospitalized for severe dehydration until Monday. Mariela warned that she would hold Royal Caribbean responsible for any complications in her pregnancy resulting from the physical exertion.
What angers him the most, he emphasizes, is not the incident itself but the complete lack of procedures on the massive cruise ship.
"I can't believe that you don't have a protocol for this, neither at Royal Caribbean nor at the terminal, for something so common that can happen on a cruise like food contamination or a stomach virus."
The Icon of the Seas is the largest cruise ship in the world by gross tonnage, with a capacity for 7,600 passengers and a permanent base at the Port of Miami starting in January 2024.
The ship had its maiden voyage on January 27, 2024 and in March of that same year, it was involved in another incident that included Cubans when it rescued 14 rafters at sea.
Mariela's video sparked a wide debate: some users supported her, while others questioned why she was alone and pregnant instead of her husband, or pointed out that parents should travel with basic medications for such situations.
Mariela is an insurance agent in Miami, and she concluded her report with a direct call to action: "I want to alert parents because cruising is wonderful, but they need to know it's at their own risk, at least with Royal Caribbean."
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