Construction on Cruise Vacation Made Woman Sick

Jennifer Carey Walker likes to cruise and she was looking forward to a vacation with her family in March.

“It was kind of a Spring Break / family vacation,” she said.

The nine people in her party occupied four staterooms aboard the Norwegian Sun that left Miami on March 9.

She took pictures onboard, but not of the view, of the conditions onboard.

“Each day as the cruise progressed, more work was being done,” said Carey Walker. “There was sanding, there was painting - really, really strong odors of painting.”

Her photos look similar to what passengers on the same ship saw during their cruise that left Miami for a two-week vacation on the Panama Canal on March 16. The passengers on that cruise created a Facebook page that has more than 1300 members to share their stories.

In response to the complaints that garnered international media attention, Norwegian Cruise Line said in a statement "At Norwegian Cruise Line, the travel experience, safety and satisfaction of our guests is of the utmost importance to us. Recently Norwegian Sun underwent enhancements as part of our continuous efforts to ensure that every ship across the fleet delivers a consistently high-quality passenger experience. While we do our utmost to minimize any impact to our guests when these enhancements are being implemented, we do recognize that during a recent sailing, we did not meet the expectations of our guests, nor our own standards, for which we truly apologize."

Passengers aboard this cruise were offered a 100 percent future cruise credit, but Carey Walker says she had the same complaints about her cruise the week before but wasn’t offered any credit at all.

“They haven’t even made a statement about the March 9 cruise,” she said. “We were subjected to the same horrible conditions.”

She says the construction onboard left her sick.

“I went to the doctor’s and I was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection, a severe sinus infection and double ear infection,” she said.

NBC 6 Responds reached out to Norwegian Cruise Line. They told us, “Our guest relations team is currently in conversations with any past guests of Norwegian Sun that may have any questions regarding their cruises.”

Carey Walker then received an email apologizing about her experience and offering a 50 percent cruise credit off the fare paid, but not the 100 percent credit the other cruise got.

The cruise line wouldn’t address why the two different cruises are being offered different credits despite complaining of the same issues.

Carey Walker has not decided if she will take the credit that is being offered to her family.

The ship went into dry dock after the March 16 cruise ended to finish up the work. It is back out sailing again.

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