Cruise Bound for Bahamas Rerouted to Boston and Canada, Passengers 'Devastated'

An MSC cruise ship did a 180 after severe weather forced a last-minute switch in the itinerary

Cruise passengers who booked a holiday trip to the Bahamas are instead en route to Boston.

The MSC Meraviglia had been scheduled to sail from New York City to the Bahamas, but severe weather forced a last minute change to the ship's itinerary. Instead of heading south for the winter, passengers were notified they'd be heading in the opposite direction to Boston, New England and Canada.

The switch was made "due to unseasonable and rapidly worsening weather that would have made it impossible to safely reach the southern Atlantic Ocean from New York City. The only alternative would have been to take the more extreme step of cancelling the cruise—and thousands of people’s vacations—outright," MSC Cruises said in a statement shared with PEOPLE.

The statement explained that "the complexities involved in obtaining last-minute berths for unplanned stops and provisioning the ship along its new route left a sailing to Canada and New England as the only viable option." MSC gave passengers a choice between "sailing to a different region or cancelling for a future cruise credit."

However, according to ABC News, the alternative was only presented 24 hours before they were scheduled to set sail, leaving many vacationers who'd traveled to the departure city with a difficult decision.

One passenger, Lakeya Allen, has been sharing her experience aboard on Tiktok.

She told ABC, she and her group — including her best friend Val Montgomery and both of their children — was "devastated" by the change to their Christmas plans. "So this is some of my kids' Christmas gifts . . . We're from Chicago, so we wanted to change the weather. I never fathomed that we will be back in cold weather," she said.

Montgomery added that the voyage is "a little depressing because you can imagine we’re making the most of it, but most people are walking around in coats, gloves and hats."

The friends also said the time they had to make a decision about the "unexpected" change to their plans was "beyond short" and they felt it wasn't clear they had options.

"When they first sent out that message, I wish they would have given us options right in that message and we could at least have a choice," Montgomery told ABC. "We didn't have a choice at all."

Still, the group has been trying to make the most of their vacation, which so far has included hot cocoa on board, an indoor jacuzzi and a trip to the Cambridge Mall in Massachusetts.

Allen has documented their decidedly un-tropical activities. "When I say, MSC Cruises, baby, we are packed in here in one pool area because it’s cold out. Literally cold. Families are squishing. What a way to cruise for Christmas. We were supposed to be in the Bahamas," she said in one video while panning around a crowded indoor deck that included several hot tubs and a heated pool.

Some daring young passengers were even taking a dip in the outdoor pool, she showed.

"Here we are still in Boston. We have kids in the pool still. It is cold outside," she narrated in a video of the mostly empty pool area including a "bundled up" employee in a ski jacket. "The pool is not heated," she added. "It’s not heated. It is not a heated pool. We are in Boston right now. Not heated."

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