Winning a free cruise should have been the vacation of a lifetime.
But the devil is in the details.
And a man won a free cruise but what happened next became his worst nightmare.
Man wins a free cruise but gets stuck with a $47,000 bill for the flu
Mike Cameron and his girlfriend Tamra Masterman of Braham, Minnesota won a free Norwegian cruise vacation while playing at the Grand Casino Hinckley.
The free cruise set sail from Miami, Florida on January 5 with stops in the Caribbean and Mexico on their week-long trip.
Cameron and Masterman thought they hit the jackpot by winning the cruise.
She was coming off a successful recovery from cancer after she had a mass from her lungs removed in October 2024.
What started as a dream vacation quickly turned into a nightmare.
Cameron came down with the flu four days into the vacation.
He went to the medical center aboard the Norwegian Encore ship.
The medical staff gave him oxygen, an IV, and an x-ray for his treatment.
Cameron spent the night in the medical center and felt better the next day.
He asked the medical staff if he could spend the rest of the cruise in quarantine in his room.
But they balked at the idea and ordered him to stay in the medical center for the remainder of the trip.
Cameron’s free cruise came to an end, and he felt disappointed that he was laid up with the flu for so much of the trip.
But that was just the beginning of his problems.
Cameron was handed a bill for $47,000 for his treatment at the cruise ship’s medical center.
“I was just flabbergasted by the whole thing. I guess I am just used to the medical system in the United States. I can’t believe it happened,” Cameron said.
Free cruise turns expensive fast
The medical staff told Cameron not to worry about the bill when he was there.
“One lady in the medical ward said that she had the traveler’s insurance and that meant $20,000 of coverage,” Cameron explained.
He and Masterman purchased traveler’s insurance before the trip that covered up to $20,000.
Norwegian Cruise Lines charged two credit cards that Cameron had on file $21,000 for the medical treatment.
Cameron is stuck in the crossfire between his health insurance and the travel insurance about who is responsible for the bill.
“The traveler’s insurance doesn’t want to pay it until we run it by our health insurance. The health insurance doesn’t want to pay it because it’s abroad,” Masterman stated.
He is not sure who, or if either of the insurance companies will ever pick up the rest of the bill.
The Minnesota man is prepared to have to find a way to pay off the steep medical bill the cruise surprised him with.
“I don’t know how I’m ever going to pay them off, I’m going to have to, but, I don’t know how,” Cameron told Fox 9.
He had a warning for anyone thinking about going on a cruise.
“We want people to be aware, if you go on a cruise make sure you got good traveler’s insurance,” Cameron explained. “Once you are out on international waters, it’s a whole different story.”
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
