You can’t catch the boat if you can’t catch the bus. Unfortunately, this was the case last Saturday, March 23, as members of the sophomore class dressed in semi-formal attire and waited for the bus to drive them to their Halfway There Cruise that never came.
Each year, sophomores are given the chance to embark on an evening of fun and celebration at the cost of $50 per ticket, which covers dinner and transportation. However, this year the cruise did not happen due to an issue with bus scheduling.
The buses were supposed to take Fairfield students to New York City, where they would take a ride around Manhattan on a cruise ship.
Kuo explained there was a miscommunication in the confirmation of the reservation between the office of conference & event management and FUSA. “Both of them thought that the reservation was made but it was never confirmed by Academy Bus Company,” Kuo said.
Students who waited for the bus in Alumni Hall were upset about the cancellation of plans. Some even began to chant, “Move that bus!”
However, Fred J. Kuo, director of the office of student involvement, tried to keep things from getting out of hand by calming the crowd and sympathizing with students. He informed them about what was going on as he became aware of it.
“Myself and the students had a reservation for the bus on Saturday. It was supposed to arrive at 4:30, so right around 4:30 when the bus didn’t show up was when we got a little concerned,” said Kuo.
He said he then checked with the bus company and they said they did not have any reservation to arrive at Fairfield.
“I’m still in meetings right now to figure out where the error was,” Kuo said. “Was it on our end, meaning [the] institution, or was it on Academy’s end? I’m not sure what the answer is just yet.” He hopes FUSA will put a statement out to the sophomore class in terms of a follow-up with hopes to reschedule.
Currently, the class of 2015 Programmers, Thomas Kenney and Andrea Butler, are looking at the event calendar and working with the cruise company in an attempt to reschedule the event.
Unfortunately, it is predicted that the University will suffer some sort of financial loss.
Kuo revealed on Tuesday the incident will cost the school a total of $2,000. “We lucked out that the cruise company hadn’t prepped most of the food as we notified them when we had the issue,” Kuo said.
It is still uncertain if the cruise company will offset any of these charges.
Although a decision to reschedule will not be made any sooner than after Easter break, Kuo stresses that students save their tickets because they will either be able to redeem them for the rescheduled cruise or refund them, if they cannot attend the rescheduled date. FUSA will also allow students who purchased cruise tickets to redeem them for free tickets to Dogwoods Dance on April 13.
“[FUSA’s] hope is to reschedule, so we’re looking at dates right now and the boat company is looking at their schedule and trying to figure out when we can go back,” he said.
“It stinks. I was looking forward to this night just like the students were,” Kuo said. “Students were disappointed and we were disappointed; unfortunately it was something that was out of our control, but ultimately it falls on FUSA’s shoulders and my office’s shoulders so if people want to be angry they should be angry at us. We understand that and hopefully we can make amends for it.”
Sophomore Matt Rouleau expressed frustration about the scheduling conflict.
“I don’t understand why they made us stand around in the front of Alumni Hall for as long as they did,” said Rouleau.
Sophomore Shardell Hamilton was also less than pleased with how the mix up was handled: “I started hearing that there was a mix up with the buses around 5, why wasn’t anything announced then? Standing in a crowded Alumni Hall entrance for over an hour and a half to finally hear that it was cancelled was disappointing.”
While many students are rightfully upset about this ordeal, many are having positive attitudes, such as Kathryn Denne ‘15.
“Although it was a huge disappointment that the sophomore cruise was cancelled this past weekend, I believe that everything happens for a reason, and if it does get postponed, then it will be warmer out,” said Dennen.
“I still had fun getting ready with my friends and even chatting and taking pictures in Alumni Hall,” said Dennen. “Worse events could have happened. For instance, our ship could have sprung a leak … and we all know how that story ends.”
Unfortunately with issues like this, there are no definite solutions, at least so far. There is no clear explanation of exactly what happened. There are many people whom this affected and there is a mix of emotions, but students and faculty have to find out what happened before coming to a conclusion.
FUSA and other Fairfield offices will elaborate on the events soon and come to a definite conclusion. For now students should just save their tickets and wait for news on what will happen.
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