The operator of the Excellence tour boat has apologised to patrons left stranded on the sister island on Monday following the Caribana festivities.
The vessel is operated under Tropical Adventures and the company’s Executive Director Patrick Ryan wished that those people never had that experience.
“To all our patrons and those who had a difficult time over there, we must apologise and we sympathise with any difficulties they went through,” Ryan said in an OBSERVER media interview.
He explained that the quality of operations declined after one of the boat’s engines developed some problems.
“What happened is that we had two charters to go over to Barbuda on Saturday and two more on Monday. On Monday morning, we carried over the first group very early in the morning to spend the day. When they were looking to leave around
1 o’clock, one of the throttles developed some problems and we just couldn’t get any power from one engine. We had some mechanical issues and that upset the whole operation,” he said.
He continued to recount what happened on Monday, saying that they discussed the issue with the Barbuda Express and they agreed to assist in bringing some of the 200 people back to Antigua outside of their regular operating hours.
“When we developed the problems in the afternoon, we started to contact our support teams. We contacted the Barbuda Express. They were our best bet and we asked them to operate two charters for us. They were already operating in the afternoon so it meant they had to go back that night.”
Ryan confirmed that Excellence went back for those left stranded very late on Monday night, but some people preferred to come back yesterday morning.
(More in today’s Daily Observer)
Excellence apologises to stranded patrons
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