First and foremost, the media usually seeks to vilify someone in every story. Makes for good reading/ratings.
I can tell you firsthand that the media will take bits of stories and weave them as needed to create something interesting to garner more readership/ratings. Take what you read/hear in the media with a grain of salt. Always. They're going to make any story into something that will get you going because if they don't, especially in this day & age, nobody will pay attention.
As to this story.... I read it that the family was disembarked for possible medical risks to the infant. It's likely Disney chose to change their minimum age limit due to the medical staff's ability to care for infants under the specified age. If a sick child who was grandfathered onboard shows any signs that they might even possibly be ill I can easily see why liability dictates the family be disembarked. It's not pretty but this is the world we live in. Had they stayed onboard and the baby gotten very sick and dehydrated they may not have had the ability to save it. Babies go down so fast. It could happen. Then the world would be screaming foul because the baby didn't make it. Seems like there's no winning.
Another piece of info that points to this family being disembarked for medical reasons is the fact that the doctor informed the family that they needed to pack up & leave the ship. If it had been a policy thing I think it would've come from an officer who represents
DCL.
Like others have stated,
TRAVEL INSURANCE! It's nice that Disney even assisted this family with hotel, transportation, etc. to get them home. It's certainly not their responsibility. If you go on a cruise you have to know and prepare for illness, injury, etc. I personally don't think leaving my family's wellbeing up to what Disney may or may not elect to do for us in the time of illness or emergency as proper planning. My family is my responsibility, nobody else's. This is EXACTLY why I cruise with travel insurance. I think particularly with family members who are more at risk (elderly, youth, known health problems, etc.) it would be even more paramount in the planning process. Correct me if I'm wrong but every time I've played with the booking engine on DCL's website I've had to push the travel insurance off the reservation to see the final tally without it. Is that right? I'm not sure. Either way, the travel insurance is not something easy to miss.
Not judging this family. I'm sorry for their experience. I do think there's a strong likelihood that there's more to the story. We've only heard 1 side retold in the media. We won't hear anything from Disney for privacy reasons.
Moral of the story: Travel Insurance and planning!
