Passengers refuse to disembark after cruise liner skips one stop in Vietnam

About 300 disgruntled cruise passengers refused to leave their ship at the end of a five-day trip yesterday, claiming the tour company was not offering adequate compensation for cancelling a visit to Vietnam's Ha Long Bay.

Some 40 to 50 of the passengers remained on board the Costa Victoria in Tsim Sha Tsui until abut 10.30pm, delaying the journey of 2,000 passengers booked on a cruise to Malaysia which had been due to depart yesterday afternoon.

Tour company Miramar Travel persuaded the protesters to adjourn to a hotel for talks and the Costa Victoria was finally able to leave Hong Kong around midnight. The meeting at the hotel finished around the same time but it is not known whether an agreement was reached.

Miramar had promised to pay each of the 1,000 passengers HK$340 in compensation after a "sunken barge" forced the ship to turn back from the bay, known for its spectacular rock formations, on Tuesday.

The company said that sum represented the approximate cost of the stop at the bay, a Unesco World Heritage site. It also offered US$50 credit per cabin, to be spent onboard during the cruise, which also called in at Sanya , Hainan province. Passengers said that was not enough and refused to disembark without higher compensation and an explanation.

"Their attitude was horrible," passenger Windy Kwok Pui-fong said after disembarking earlier in the evening.

"They said HK$300 was all we'd get and did not even give us an apology or proper explanation. This is a very inhumane travel agency. They didn't give us food [during the protest] and even turned off our water supply for a while. There were children and elderly people aboard."