Losing luggage while traveling is a major headache. On cruise ships, you expect a few hiccups—maybe a bag ends up in the wrong cabin or gets sidelined due to a lost tag. But usually, passengers get their stuff back pretty quickly.
However, for Jason and Tammy Marritt from Oklahoma, their lost luggage story went on for weeks. News reports say they didn’t get their bags back until after their Carnival Magic cruise was over. So, the entire voyage was spent buying what they needed and making do with what they had.
And this cruise was a celebration for the couple’s 26th wedding anniversary.
Fortunately, they were able to track their luggage using Apple AirPods, keeping tabs on it for all those weeks, which was probably more of a tease than a reassurance.
I say that because for almost a month the couple kept contacting Carnival Cruise Line to inform them of their luggage status and location.
“We kept showing them, ‘Hey, we’re tracking it. Hey, it’s here.’ You know, ‘Can you go to deck zero?’ No, it’s not going to be there. You know, we’ve searched all the floors, every room’s been checked. There’s nothing,” Merritt stated.
But now there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that the Merritt’s have been reunited with their luggage. The bad news? 39 items are reportedly missing.
“There’s about 39 items missing, and she took the majority of his clothes. She took all of his shoes, belts, and his entire toiletry bag. So electronic toothbrushes, razors, medications, she took it all,” Tammy Merritt said.
Even the key to their Ford Bronco was missing from the bag, in addition to the name tag itself missing from the outside of the bag. This same name tag had the couple’s names, address, and phone number on it.
Here is a recent news video on this story before the couple’s luggage was retrieved:
The really interesting part of the story was revealed when Carnival reportedly told the couple where the bag had been the whole time.
Apparently, the couple was told that their luggage had been in another passenger’s cabin just down the hall during their entire cruise.
“They let her off of that boat without checking any of her belongings. They just let her go,” Merritt said, frustrated that the apparent culprit was not brought to justice.
The couple is in the process of trying to replace the items that were missing from their luggage, and some news outlets have reached out to the cruise line for a response to this while situation.
As for Tammy, she stated that she will be contacting local authorities to seek legal action.
