If you watched Cast Away and thought to yourself, “this movie could use a sequel,” then you just missed out on the cruise of your dreams. Multiple people saw a movie about a man stranded alone on a desert island for four years, and thought that it looked like the ideal holiday destination. Enough people were willing to pay for such things that a cruise liner was ready to make it happen. Spoiler alert: it didn’t go as planned.
The ship was the MV Fiji Princess, a 182-foot vessel that was operated by Blue Lagoon Cruises, and the voyage was supposed to be a 7-day “Escape to Paradise” cruise in the Mamanuca Islands near Fiji. On April 4, a severe overnight squall dragged the anchor into a nearby reef, and the ship became grounded. It suffered serious damage to the rear left side, totally wrecked the steering mechanism, experienced engine failure, and ultimately, took on water. Before you start having Titanic flashbacks, there were only 30 passengers, and 31 crew members. All of the passengers and 17 of the crew members were safely evacuated by ferry to the Denarau Island, Viti Levu. No lifeboat drama necessary, no need to prioritize women and children. There were zero injuries, and everyone is physically ok. Emotionally? Well, I’m not a psychologist, so I won’t be speculating on that one, but I know that I’d be freaked the hell out.
Here’s the irony factor of it all: Monuriki Island, the actual filming location of Cast Away (the 2000 movie starring Tom Hanks and Wilson the volleyball that I’m still crying over), was literally stop #1 on the itinerary. Visiting film locations where Tom Hanks portrayed a man who was completely alone for 4 years (aside from Wilson), was a headline advertised excursion. Jokes aside, they intended to end up on the beach, it just wasn’t supposed to be quite like that, and it was supposed to be optional, rather than an immersive escape room-esque experience. Luckily, cruise passengers and crew were evacuated the next morning, rather than 4 years later.
What do you think the passengers got up to while they were enjoying their extended Cast Away cosplay? Did they actually explore the island? Did they find a volleyball to recreate pics with? If you’re an OnlyFans creator, that was a golden opportunity to create content. The lighting. The drama. The narrative arc of the journey. And if you’re a blonde OnlyFans creator, just think about how the sunlight would catch on your tresses against the… well. “Paradise” might be a stretch, but the backdrop had to be pretty! But seriously, when else are you going to have the opportunity to role play mermaids on the scene of an actual (non-fatal) shipwreck?
In all seriousness, even with fiction, humans have a strange habit of turning disasters into a tourism opportunity. Cast Away may have been a work of fiction, but the idea of touring the islands Hanks filmed in specifically for the sake of that story heebies my jeebies. More than one journey to the final resting place of the Titanic has ended in tragedy as well, and to you think that maybe the universe is trying to give us a corrective note? Remember that coral reef the ship ran aground into? The coral in that reef took centuries to form, and it was crushed in moments. The humans involved with this particular disaster may have been fine, but the environmental cost was… not zero. Not anywhere close. The Maritime Safety Authority of Fiji and an Australian salvage specialist are now involved in order to preserve as much of the reef as possible, and to prevent further environmental impacts.
Everyone made it home safe, the reef took a hit, and Wilson is still floating somewhere in the Pacific, bobbing in the waves and saying “I told you so.” Strike the Cast Away cruise off my bucket list, please and thank you.
