SOUTHAMPTON, NY – A long-awaited mother-daughter dream cruise turned into a nightmare for a Southampton woman and her daughter this week.
CBS Miami reported that a Virgin Voyages ship was headed back to Miami after a passenger fell from his balcony to a deck below and died Sunday, just hours after leaving port. Virgin Voyages released a statement to CBS Miami: “This passenger passed from his balcony to a lower deck and although he received immediate medical attention, he died.” The investigation is ongoing, the report said.
Virgin Voyages did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Allison Rappa-Feliciano, who owns The Beauty Bar in Southampton and Saks Fifth Avenue — she also had a store in Southold — wrote on social media that she was a passenger on board as the tragedy unfolded.
“Get me off this cruise,” Rapa-Feliciano wrote. “This is a nightmare.”
The woman fell from the 15th floor to the 7th floor, he said.
“They turned the ship around and we're on our way back to Miami,” he wrote. “How traumatic for the guests who saw this and how incredibly sad for her family.”
On Monday, Rappa-Feliciano told Patch, “I'm still on board. It's crazy.”
The plan was originally to sail from Miami to Roatan in the Caribbean, then to Costa Maya, Mexico, Bimini in the Bahamas and back to Miami.
“Now they've rerouted us,” he said. “We went back to Miami, where the ship had been docked since 1:30 a.m. until 10 a.m., when we sailed back on a completely different itinerary.'
She and her daughter were at the pizza restaurant when the woman fell, Rappa-Felliciano said. He added, and TMZ reported, that the woman bumped into another passenger who was also eating at the restaurant and was not believed to be injured, Rappa-Feliciano said.
Rappa-Feliciano, who splits her time between Southampton and Miami, said the trip was booked three months ago, which was meant to be her first mother-daughter trip with daughter Daej, to celebrate her 25th birthday her.
Now, the mood has turned somber, he said.
“It's scary,” he said. “The mood on board is very sick and sad. No one is smiling.”
Some are also upset that their plans were disrupted and changed, he said.
But for Rappa-Feliciano and her daughter, what matters most is the horrific loss a family has suffered.
“It's sad all around, for sure,” he said. While both are disappointed about their plans, he added: “We know what happened – and we understand that, obviously, it's more important.”
