Ok, so you saved a few bux taking a non-ship blessed excursion...or you went out on your own...and now, you "lost track of time" (as lame as that sounds)....or the bus broke down, or what ever...now what? which leads to the following "real world" questions?
1. How late is late? 1/2 hour, an hour? Theres a storm brewing, and the Captain wants to leave ASAP. Or he's in a bad mood and just wants to leave?
2. The world is an ugly place...I can attest to first hand knowledge of that. Leaving people (no matter their ages or medical conditions) in some third world port can lead to kidnappings, rapes, murders....and all the bureaucratic mumbo jumbo can't gloss over it...what alternatives does the Captain have? He can do ALOT over the radio methinks, just to insure their safety, even if they ARE massively inconvenienced. And if he can't, or can't be bothered, and something REALLY ugly happens, then what? Some suit thousands of miles away tries to do "damage control"?
3. Who actually decides the policy? The "Beards" as CCL's unofficial/official likes to call them?
It seems the more info comes out about that "incident", the more questions get raised. Let's not forget we're not talking about being the perpretrators of a violent crime...they missed the ship...and the headlines can twist this all they like to get folks to click on it. As I said earlier in that other thread, we have watched and laffed at "pier-runners", because once they're out on the pier, they're going to make the ship regardless of RUNNING or strolling and waving (to a chorus of boos)...I'll bet we've been on ships where somebody got left....and we had no clue..the announcements stop...so you assume they got on board...or did they?