One family's dream Disney cruise turned into a nightmare when they were forcibly quarantined after their daughter was prescribed antibiotics for a viral infection by the ship's doctor.
TikTok user @themomladytm shared a series of videos documenting her experience during her 10-night sailing aboard the Disney Wonder from Honolulu to Vancouver, Canada.
According to her first 9-minute video, she and her husband were off on an excursion in Maui when their three-year-old daughter fell in the Oceaneer Kids' Club.
Thankfully, they were traveling with a close friend, who also happened to be their daughter's godmother. She stayed on the ship that day and was able to pick up the child around 9:00 a.m.
However, the youth staff didn't inform her of the incident. Rather, it wasn't until the toddler began confiding in her parents about the fall that they learned about it.
"At that time, our daughter had shared with us that she fell at the kids' club. We asked her how she was feeling [and] where did she fall. She pointed to...the side of her face, and she said that she 'fell off of something,'" the mom explains.
While she initially appeared to be okay, her daughter woke up around 2:00 a.m. in extreme discomfort and asked to go to the ship's doctor.
"The doctor comes in because she was on call...," she continues, "She comes in, and she assesses my daughter. They take her temperature. She has a slight fever, but it's not too high. My kids just run hot, especially at night."
After completing the exam, the doctor told the family that her daughter had a viral infection and prescribed her antibiotics.
They thought that was the end of the saga until the cabin's phone began ringing early in the morning
When she picked up the phone, just hours after they had returned from the medical center and fallen asleep, she was greeted by the medical team asking her and her family to return to the medical center "as soon as possible."
"We can't move as 'soon as possible.' We have two toddlers, and we're not going to put our daughter back in the Oceaneer's Club at this point because we don't know what happened," she says.
About an hour after they received the phone call, they finally made their way to the ship's medical center, where they were sat down and given a diagnosis based on the symptoms their daughter had presented hours earlier.
Supposedly, the diagnosis wasn't for anything viral, and the mother questioned how they reached that diagnosis when they didn't take any swabs. Rather, the medical staff claimed that they had to be isolated for five days on the ship.
In the final video uploaded on Feb. 25, the mom reveals that her daughter was suspected of having mumps, with the onboard doctor conducting contact tracing to identify anyone who may have been exposed. Mumps is a contagious viral infection that's caused by the mumps virus and usually affects the parotid glands, which make saliva, on each side of the face.
"The first thing they start saying is, 'You guys can exit the ship and fly home.' And I'm like, 'What?' You don't even wanna know how much I paid for this trip...This just wasn't adding up to me," she comments.
At that point, she claims her "spidey senses" were fully activated, so she called her mom and others back home to begin documenting everything — from when her daughter began feeling under the weather to when they were given each diagnosis and the team's refusal to address what happened in the kids' club.
When she posted her first TikTok, it had been 48 hours since the incident in the youth club, and she claims that they had not received any follow-up information.
"Yesterday, we had a conversation with two doctors on board, our doctors, and everyone is giving us different information. They want to check our immunization records, but our immunization records don't even mean anything, even though everyone in our family is fully vaccinated against everything," she continues.
In her eyes, the Disney team was forcefully trying to get her and her family to disembark, with crew members saying that their insurance would help cover the hotel, flights, and other associated costs, "without closing the loop on what happened to my daughter in the kids' club."
Leaving wasn't an option without splitting up the travel party due to last-minute availability from Hawaii's Big Island to San Diego, California, where the family resides. As such, they ended up remaining on the ship and isolating in their Concierge stateroom.
The story quickly went viral on social media
Her first video received over 5 million views in just a few short days. As such, her comments were flooded with people wanting an update on how her daughter was doing and their overall situation.
In a follow-up video, she further explains that the issue wasn't with her daughter's diagnosis, but rather how the ship was handling the incident at the kids' club, specifically when she asked for the team to review footage and speak with a manager.
"Without them reassessing, because we didn't bring our daughter down, [the medical team] said, 'Parents, we need you to come down,'...they say, 'Oh, she doesn't have that viral issue, she has this viral issue, and she needs to be isolated for five days.'" the concerned mother adds.
Because the ship was docked in Hilo at the time, she brought up the idea of going ashore and getting a second medical opinion — only to be told that if they disembarked, they wouldn't be allowed back on board.
Even if they decided to disembark the ship, they had already been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), so they would have had to isolate on the island before returning home to California.
After insisting that her daughter be reevaluated, the family was seen by a doctor in their cabin, and according to the mother, the symptoms cited during the initial assessment that prompted the diagnosis were no longer present.
"None of this is making any sense. I am beyond upset and, really, all I have...is this phone to document my mom journey and talk about it. Things have to change...[My daughter] is still a human; she still has rights, and the only person who can advocate for her right now is me," she says.
In another video, she shares that, from what she understands, her daughter isn't the only cruiser who has been impacted by the suspected viral infection. Moreover, she's frustrated as to why her entire family is quarantined when nobody else has shown any symptoms of the infection.
"They won't even give me paperwork, no documentation, no email, nothing. They have given me and my family nothing," she claims.
Thankfully, she and her family were eventually released from quarantine. Despite being able to enjoy the final few days of their vacation, she says that the situation has been one of the worst experiences of her life.
Elizabeth Wright
Elizabeth graduated from New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute with her M.A. in Journalism in May 2023. Having sailed on over 30 cruises across different lines, including Royal Caribbean, Carnival, MSC, Margaritaville at Sea, and Princess, she loves sharing her insight and expertise on all things cruising!
In addition to writing for Cruise.Blog, Elizabeth has bylines in Business Insider, Royal Caribbean Blog, and Cruiseshipfood.com.
