MOKENA, Ill. — Last month, the Savage family took a cruise to celebrate a birthday. Thursday, Becky, her husband Matt, and their two sons are more than happy to be back home and alive after an excursion off the cruise ship left floating in the ocean, hoping to stay alive.
On Nov. 14, the Savage family and more than 100 people boarded a two-deck Blue Lagoon Island tour boat that inevitably sank before reaching the island in the Bahamas.
According to the Savages, they took the tour boat ride as an excursion on the last day of their trip on a Royal Caribbean cruise line that took them from Jamaica to the Bahamas.
“It started getting choppy, it was already a little choppy,” said Matt Savage. “But then all of a sudden, it felt like it kind of sped up.”
The family said the boat started to sink around 10:30 a.m. and the crew didn’t communicate what was going on, other than for those on board to put their life jackets on.
As this was happening, the Savage’s youngest son got their attention.
“He was like, ‘we’re all going to die,'” said Becky Savage. “There was a moment when Matt and I looked at each other—we didn’t say anything, but we knew we had to stay calm.”
The family said, as the tour boat was sinking, they tried to stay dry as long as possible before having to jump in. Eventually, they were rescued by a small inflatable boat and survived, but they say a 75-year-old Colorado woman named Gayle didn’t make it.
“It was a four generation family,” Becky Savage said. “He had brought the whole family, it was her gift to the family.”