Cruise ship intended for Florida, Bahamas reroutes to Boston

“The guy helping us with our luggage said, ‘You’re going to Canada’ and we all laughed it off,” said Girish Keswani, who runs a design school with his wife in India. “We thought it was a joke.”
It sounds like a prank engineered by climate-change activists, or a vengeful ex-lover. But the situation was all too real: At the last minute, because of adverse weather, thousands of passengers who thought they were about to cruise from New York to Florida and a private island in the Bahamas were informed that they would instead be sailing to Boston, Portland, and Canada. Dreaming of sunshine and piña coladas, they were now facing clam chowder and Bruins fans. And rain, lots of rain.
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Ha ha ha! Who needs a beach cover-up when you can rock one of the flimsy ponchos that MSC Cruises was giving out?
Keswani and his family had flown in from India for the seven-day cruise. The ship departed New York on Saturday, and on Monday, when his daughter, Aashima, 17, should have been posting tropical-weather selfies on Instagram, she was instead futilely clutching a poncho around her body and fighting off suggestions from friends that she salvage the trip by visiting colleges. “I’m supposed to be on vacation,” she said.
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Girish Keswani, with his family from California, was on his way to Harvard University for a quick visit but they all got hit with a strong blast of wind for their welcoming at Black Falcon Pier. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
The Keswanis learned about the switcheroo as they were boarding, but the notification from MSC Cruises was sent the night before, and it’s a master class in chutzpah.
“To ensure the safety and well-being of everyone onboard, we will sail to New England and Canada instead, where we expect to encounter fairer weather conditions that will allow us to offer you the pleasant cruise experience that you expect,” it read.
Pleasant cruise experience that you expect?
With the doomed ship — the monstrous, 214-feet tall, 19-deck big, 5,700-guest capacity Meraviglia— docked at the Flynn Cruiseport Boston, in the “at the end world” part of South Boston, it felt a little late for “pleasant.”
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The city was under a “damaging winds” alert. The rain was rushing sideways. Umbrellas and shoes were history.
MSC Cruises gave customers the option to rebook. But because the Good news — you’re sailing to Boston in December! alert went out the night before, it’s safe to assume that many/most/all passengers had already: lined up pet sitters, taken vacation time, paid for hotels and gas and airfare and the cruise itself.
On the MSC Cruises website, a cruise slated to leave Dec. 23 with the same itinerary, starts at $739 per person and goes up from there.
Passengers who spoke with the Globe outside the ship, on Black Falcon Avenue, as they waited for Ubers, had traveled to New York from India, Atlanta, Aruba, and, perhaps most cruelly, Canada, where the ship is poised to land on Dec. 21.
At the the Flynn Cruise Port Boston, on the Black Falcon Pier, passengers from the Meraviglia cruise ship got to stop off in Boston because of a coastal storm. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
Actually, perhaps the Canadian passengers, angry though they were, didn’t have it worst of all. That honor may go to Connie C. She lives in Pennsylvania but regularly travels here for work. On her company’s tab.
“I did not want to pay $5,000 [for my family] to come to Boston,” she said angrily as she took shelter under a covered area. “This was supposed to be our Christmas vacation.”
Many passengers decided to stay onboard rather than schlep around the city trying to make the best of things. But others headed out, wearing either the light clothes they’d packed in happier times, or winter coats they had just bought (how fun to spend your vacation shopping for puffers to wear on a trip you didn’t want to take!).
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As for passengers whose idea of a good time isn’t New England and Canada in winter, MSC Cruises offered an option-ish. “If you are not satisfied with this change,” the company wrote, “you can cancel your cruise free of charge and receive a refund in the form of a Future Cruise Credit **”
MSC Cruises did not return a Globe request for comment by deadline, so heaven knows what that double asterisk means (maybe that you can only rebook to Alaska in February, or to the underworld itself).
Before the ship even left New York, news of its bad luck was already going viral on Reddit.
“We have all of our holiday plans built around this cruise, lots of money, hotel bookings, airfare, etc.,” one person wrote. “Really upset. In my 30 years of cruising, almost 50 sailings, this has NEVER EVER happened, with such a drastic change in itinerary with almost zero notice. Advice?”
Among the tips: Enjoy the emptier ship. Life is short, go with the flow. And considering that the cruise line is expecting high winds and rain in the waters off Florida and the Bahamas, be GLAD you’re not heading south.
“I’m sitting on a drillship in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico and if the seas there are as bad as what we’re getting right now, you’ll be glad you didn’t sail in these seas,” read one popular response. ” We’re currently getting 25ft waves and our rig is completely shut down … It wouldn’t be a fun vacation being sea sick 75 percent of the time.”
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Meanwhile, with reports that New England is warming faster than the rest of the world, perhaps we should lean into this thing. Start selling ourselves as a warm weather winter get-away. Just don’t expect us to develop southern charm.
Beth Teitell can be reached at beth.teitell@globe.com. Follow her @bethteitell.