A person has gone overboard from the Norwegian Star cruise ship, according to a passenger on the Norwegian cruise ship who contacted me this morning.

The Norwegian Star was returning to Venice, Italy from a “7-Night Greek Isles from Venice” cruise when a person went overboard after the ship left from Dubrovnik, Croatia and before it reached Venice. The cruise began in Venice and sailed to Kotor and several ports in Greece before stopping in Dubrovnik.

The passenger complained that the Star was delayed returning to Venice until around 3:00 P.M. local time rather than its scheduled time of 8:00 A.M.

There are unconfirmed reports that a passenger went overboard from the ship, apparently late last night/early this morning.

The AIS data show that the Norwegian Star eventually retraced its route and apparently conducted a search in north Adriatic Sea off of the coast of Croatia before eventually heading back to Venice. After NCL stopped searching, the Croatian Coast Guard reportedly located and reportedly rescued the overboard person.

If this information is accurate, this is the second recent case where an overboard person from a NCL cruise ship was rescued after NCL abandoned the search and returned to the home port.  Six weeks ago, a crew member from the Norwegian Getaway jumped overboard and was eventually rescued the following day by the Carnival Glory north of Cuba. Newspapers reported that the person was rescued approximately 22 hours later, but the time was actually more like 35 hours from the time that the crew member went overboard early in the morning. The Getaway had ended its search (while the U.S. Coast Guard continued its efforts) and returned to Miami after cruise passengers complained bitterly that a late return to port would cause them to miss their return flights home after the cruise.

According to cruise expert Dr. Ross Klein, 319 people have gone overboard since 2000.

Have a thought? Please leave a comment below or join the discussion on our Facebook page.

August 19, 2018 @11:00 A.M. Update: The U.K.’s Daily Mail reports that the British woman was rescued by the Croatian Coast Guard.