His luck went overboard.
A Minnesota man won a free week-long cruise vacation to the Caribbean for him and his girlfriend only to catch the flu onboard and get slapped with an eye-popping $47,000 medical bill.
Mike Cameron and his girlfriend Tamra Masterman won a free Norwegian cruise trip that set sail out of Miami on Jan 5, according to Fox 9.
But what started as a dream trip to the tropical destination quickly went awry when Cameron, of Braham, Minn., came down with the flu.
The ailing passenger sought treatment at the medical center onboard the Norwegian Encore ship and recovered three days later.
As the couple’s tour of the Caribbean came to an end, Cameron was shocked to learn he was stuck with the nearly $50,000 medical bill.
“To turn around the day we are leaving and get handed a $47,000 bill I just didn’t even know what to do,” he told the local news station last week.
Cameron said the bill came as a shock as crew members assured him not to worry as he received treatment.
“Everyone in the medical ward kept saying ‘Don’t worry you have $20,000 coverage, you’ll be just fine’.”
The cruise line maxed out two credit cards Cameron had on file and he still owes $21,000, the station reported.
“You start thinking, ‘Are you going to lose your house, are you going to lose your cars’?” Masterman added.
The couple had purchased travel insurance from the cruise line which covered expenses of up to $20,000 and have health insurance — but Cameron is stuck in a holding pattern with both claiming the other is responsible for the bill.
“The traveler’s insurance doesn’t want to pay it until we run it by our health insurance. The health insurance doesn’t want to pay it because it’s abroad,” Masterman explained.
Stuck in limbo, Cameron isn’t sure how he’ll afford the steep bill.
“I don’t know how I’m ever going to pay them off, I’m going to have to, but, I don’t know how,” he told Fox 9.
The couple said the bill accompanied a letter from Norwegian stating its pricing was “closely comparable to other cruise lines and is what we believe to be fair and reasonable.”
A spokesperson for the cruise line didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.