The SH Diana crawled into Ushuaia on December 1 after a fault caused the ship to skip its calls in the Antarctic peninsula, leaving passengers so disappointed that several staged a hunger strike.
The Swan Hellenic ship departed from Cape Town on November 13 for a 21-day repositioning cruise. According to The Times, the ship was due to call at Elephant Island, Heroina Island, Paulet Island, Brown Bluff, D’Urville Monument, Yankee Harbour and Deception Island in Antarctica over a period of three and a half days. A fault with the ship caused the cruise line to cancel this part of the voyage.
Although the cruise line offered passengers a 50% refund or 65% future cruise credit, which is “significantly higher than the legal requirement of approximately 30%,” Swan Hellenic said in a statement to Fortune, some passengers went on hunger strike.
According to The Telegraph, three passengers began refusing to eat in protest at the company’s refund policy.
“A select few chose to stage a hunger strike in their protest, which is rather counterproductive,” said Swan Hellenic. The cruise line added that passengers “tried to build up pressure through discussions on board and by making demands on the captain and senior staff in order to obtain an even higher compensation for themselves”. Some passengers delivered a letter to the ship’s captain demanding a full refund.
The ship was forced to travel at a pace of only 4-7 knots as it limped to the southern tip of Argentina where passengers disembarked.
