The following post is long, but I hope it saves somebody from the same nightmare that my wife and I suffered.

I was scheduled for a business trip to Houston this week, so my wife and I went a few days early for a mini vacation. One thing we were looking forward to was a day cruise on the Texas Treasure II from Freeport, mainly because this boat was originally the Contessa I sailing from Palm Beach, and we always had good luck on it.

The boat left port Sunday at 2 pm, scheduled to return at 8pm. The buffet was pretty good, and I was doing well playing video poker, so I still had good memories of this boat. But then the fun began.

Around 6:45, when the boat should have started back to port, some people said that we might be a little late because there was some fog outside. However, no announcements were made until 8pm, when they said that the port was closed because of fog and we would have to wait for an opening to go back. Meanwhile, the casino was still open, of course. At 10:30, word spread that the fog was lifting and we would be heading back. They closed the casino, but about five minutes later word spread again that the fog was back and we would still have to wait. So they opened the casino up again, trying to get every last dollar from the passengers. However, there was no official announcement made.

At 11pm, the buffet re-opened with powdered eggs, bacon, and some fruit. It wasn’t bad, but it was the last thing I had planned on doing Sunday night. I really started to worry when the staff started talking about a few days earlier, when the boat wasn’t able to return to port until 8am. I was supposed to meet my boss at the airport on Monday morning at 9am. How was I going to explain to him that I was stuck in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico on a gambling boat?

At this point, I was resigned to spending the night. We found a couch in the lounge, and slept the best we could (which of course wasn’t too good). At 5 am another announcement was made, that we were still stuck. Finally, the fog started to clear up around 9am. We finally got back to the dock at 11:15am. A six hour cruise turned into a 21 hour nightmare. I felt like I was on Gilligan’s Island.

Luckily, I was able to call my boss before my cell phone battery died, and he understood that this whole incident was beyond my control.

This was the worst example of customer service that I have ever seen. I am sure that they knew that the fog was likely to get heavy, but they didn’t bring the boat in early because the casino was losing money at the time. Instead, they kept it open as long as they could in an effort to suck every last dime from the passengers. No announcement was made until it was after the time we were supposed to be home. If they let us know earlier, I wouldn’t have gotten stuck paying for a hotel room that was guaranteed for late arrival. And then no announcements until 9 hours later.

They offered us free passes for a future cruise, but nobody was interested. The casino host with a fake smile glued on his face tried to make jokes about the trip, but he was lucky he wasn’t thrown overboard. I’ve seen many ships open and close with no notice here in Florida, but this is one company that deserves to go belly up. The boat itself was as nice as we had remembered it, but the management leaves much to be desired.