40 freshmen unable to board class boat cruise due to delayed bus arrival

A group of 40 students who had purchased tickets to attend the Class of 2016 boat cruise in Weehawken, N.J. on Friday evening was not able to board the cruise, as one of the buses carrying students arrived too late, according to information provided by the members of the Class of 2016 Class Council and reports by students who attended but did not board the boat cruise.

The buses carrying students had originally been scheduled to arrive at the dock in Weehawken at midnight to depart on a cruise hosted by Entertainment Cruises. While several buses did arrive late, the last bus of students arrived shortly before 12:45 a.m. and was not able to board the cruise.

Members of Class Council, which organized the event, confirmed that the bus driver had gotten lost.

Gwen Lee ’ 16, a member of the Class Council, said she was in contact with the student captain throughout the night and said that the boat's captain set 12:45 a.m. as the latest time that the boat could leave and held to his deadline even as the last bus of students arrived.

“The deadline at 12:45 was very strict, and once they start pulling out, they said ‘we can’t pull back at all,’” Lee said.

Priya Krishnan ’16, also a member of Class Council, said the cruise staff said that returning to shore at 12:45 would mean canceling the cruise.

“I talked to some of the staff on the boat, and I was like, ‘Is there any way we can turn it around?’ and they were like, ‘We can’t do that without ending the whole cruise,’” Krishnan said. Council member Molly Stoneman ’16 added that the Council members were in touch with University administrators, including Joe Ramirez ’ 07 of the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students, during the incident.

“We are in contact with the bus company to find out details on what happened with that bus driver and how this situation can be avoided in the future. And we are potentially seeking remuneration from the bus company for the incident,” recently elected Class of 2016 Treasurer Richard Lu Richard Lu explained. The bus company contracted for the trip was First Student Busing.

Students who weren’t able to board received an email from the Class of 2016 Class Council stating that the students would receive a full refund for the price of their tickets for the event, which cost $25.

Lu explained that the students would be refunded the ticket price cut of Class Council’s accounts, regardless of whether the Council received any remuneration from the cruise company.

Stoneman said that, despite the unfortunate turn that the night took for some, feedback from the event’s roughly 400 attendees had been “overwhelmingly positive.”

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“This was overall a success of a night, but we are incredibly, incredibly sorry about this unfortunate event. But overall the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive,” Stoneman explained.

Lee said the Council would be meeting personally with the students who were not able to board the cruise and that the Council was hoping to arrange another event for the 40 students.

Emily Wang ’16, who attended the event, said she enjoyed it.

“It was nice. There was food, there was a dance floor where everyone could go and dance. You could go out and look at the sights,” Wang said. Wang said the bus she rode also got lost during the trip, but that it arrived at about 12:30 a.m. and its passengers were still able to board the cruise. She said they stayed on the boat until about 2:00 a.m.

The students attending the event were carried in 11 buses that began leaving campus at 10 p.m. that evening. The buses left in staggered departures to allow for the students to be checked as they boarded for alcohol possession, Class Council member Justin Ziegler ’ 16 explained. The bus that arrived last was the sixth or seventh to leave, he said.

Nabeel Sarwar ’16, one of the students who missed the boat, said the bus originally got behind its schedule when it stopped at a rest stop because one student needed to use the restroom. Sarwar said he thought that a few other buses stopped along with theirs, so this stop could not have been the determining factor that caused them to miss the cruise.

The bus, along with others, was further delayed by highway traffic. When the bus was very near its destination, it became separated from the two buses ahead of it as the buses were searching for the correct entrance to access the port. The bus driver then parked in a location from which the students could not access the boat’s port. The bus’s captain, James Weldon ’16, explained that the students were dropped off in an area from which they could see the boat in its dock.

The 40 students found that they were separated by a gate from the port where the cruise liner was docked. When some students attempted to climb the gate, they were chastised by a boat owner nearby who believed they were trespassing and threatened to call the police. Then the group saw the cruise liner pull away, Sarwar explained.

“We tell him, ‘What’s going on? ... That’s our cruise right there. Can you please help us out?’ And as we’re talking to him, the boat leaves,” Sarwar explained. “So now we’re flipping out.”

Then Weldon called Lee, who he said had not been aware that the final bus of students had not been able to board the cruise. When Weldon learned that they could not board the boat, he asked the students on the bus whether they wanted to return to Princeton directly.

They left the dock area at 1:40 a.m. or 1:45 am, Weldon said. The bus driver took them to a McDonald’s on the way back to Princeton, where the students purchased food. The students returned to Princeton at around 3 a.m.

News Editor Anastasya Lloyd-Damnjanovic contributed reporting for this article.

Correction: Due to a reporting error, an earlier version of this article misstated Richard Lu's title. He was recently elected Class of 2016 treasurer. The 'Prince' regrets the error.