I’m not sure why this is the case, but it seems like cruise lines run aground more often than most industries when it comes to PR fiascos.

As I noted in a 2012 post titled Cruise Ship Flunks Crisis Management 101, the luxury cruise ship Costa Concordia (owned by Carnival), didn’t appear to have much of a crisis plan when it got stuck off the coast of Italy. In 2013, a Carnival ship was stuck at sea for nearly a week. (This and other Carnival incidents are described in Business Insider.)

The latest PR challenge is Norwegian Cruise Line’s refusal to reschedule a family’s vacation after Nicolas, the 5-year-old son, was diagnosed with cancer. Because of surgery and chemo treatment, the family was unable to go on the trip as scheduled.

Norwegian, which partnered with Nickelodeon for this family-orientated cruise, would not re-book the cruise because the family cancelled the trip within 14 days or less of the departure date. And, because the family hadn’t purchased travel insurance, it was out $4,000 – a lot of money for most people – while also suffering through the trauma of battling their son’s cancer.

“It’s just unbelievable that a multimillion dollar company wouldn’t be more compassionate,” the mother told a Long Island TV station.

This is one of those common sense things that is really hard to process. Who at Norwegian made this decision, and what were they thinking?

If Norwegian’s management team was so cold and heartless that they didn’t care about this family’s extraordinary circumstances, were they also completely blind to the PR disaster that was sure to follow?

Predictably, social media began to spread the word. A Facebook page was set up imploring Norwegian Cruise Line to “Please Help Little Nicolas.”

Yesterday, feeling the heat of public outrage (and probably sensing a multi-million dollar problem unfolding before their eyes), Norwegian posted a Facebook message saying that the company had “offered to work with the family when Nicolas was ready to travel to ensure that they took their vacation and we provided a personal contact at Norwegian for the family. . . .”

Does that mean Norwegian will comp the trip or will the family have to come up with another $4,000? Or maybe they’ll discount the trip? It’s not clear what the company is offering.

The Facebook message went on to say, “We contacted the Make-A-Wish Foundation, an organization that we work closely with to grant the wishes of hundreds of children each year who want to take a cruise. If the family chooses to participate in the Make-A-Wish program, we will make sure that they receive the cruise they were looking forward to.”

So now the family has to go through Make-A-Wish to get their trip. Hmmm.

I don’t know which advertising and/or PR agency Norwegian uses (or if all that work is done in-house), but surely some outside adviser must have said, “Hey wait, refusing to re-book this family’s trip due to your inflexible cancellation policy is not a good idea. Even if you don’t really care about them, you need to act like you care or you’ll face a huge PR backlash.”

Unfortunately, advertising and public relations agencies can only advise their clients; they can’t make them do anything, and there are times when management makes decisions that prove to be very costly to a company’s image in the long run for short-term gain.

In this case, sticking to a rigid cancellation policy and pocketing $4,000 from the family will likely cost Norwegian exponentially more in the months and years to come.

There is a happy ending to the story, though, at least for this family. After hearing about the family’s plight on “Fox & Friends,” the CEO of another cruise line contacted them and offered a free cruise.

Even more impressive, the CEO reportedly requested to remain anonymous.

photo credit: pasukaru76 via photopin cc