Cruise Ship Passengers Left Stranded After Car Keys Go Missing
MIAMI(CBS4)---Dozens of cruise ship passengers were stranded in Miami after their car keys were lost after paying valets for three days of parking.
The passengers were greeted by a stunning site at the Premier Parking Ventures parking lot at Northwest 8th Street and 1st Court on Monday. Dozens of keys were strewn around the lot and dozens of people said they were not able to find their keys.
A fired or disgruntled employee may be to blame. We have no idea how many people will be affected. Cars in the lot now wait for an awful lot of drivers who may or may not be able to drive off after their cruise.
Singing, dancing, laughing, and having a good time. This is how Ysabel Cedano wanted to remember her very special birthday weekend aboard Carnival Imagination.
"I said thank you to my daughter. I said thank you this was a wonderful beautiful birthday that I will never forget and when we got here we were so excited to see everybody," said Cedano.
But that excitement washed ashore upon Ysabel and her daughters arrival. When they went to pick up their car at parking lot 58 near northwest 8th street and 1st court they ran into a huge problem
Maritza Morales, Cedano's daughter said, "So pretty much the whole day everyone was looking inside vehicles trying to see if the people had their keys and locksmiths and tow trucks here it was crazy."
Their car keys gone, dozens of other passengers also locked out. Keys found thrown on the floor in clusters, some people had to pay hundreds to get new keys made, others took a taxi until they could figure out what to do next.
"It's exhausting to get off of a cruise have a wonderful weekend and to come back and deal with the headache of an unorganized irresponsible ridiculous company," said passenger Maria Perez.
The lot is operated by a Tampa company called Premiere Parking Ventures. They offer cheap rates- as low as $7.50/night at a secure convenient location. So why the parking problems?
Morales said, ""When we got here we were told that the keys were missing. Somebody walked off and took a whole bunch of keys with them and possibly left them in one of the vehicles."
Nobody really knows and workers couldn't tell us. We tried calling their Tampa offices but our messages weren't returned.
"Very irresponsible they don't know what they're doing I guess because nobody has all the answers for the questions that everybody has," said Cedano.
Miami Police confirms officers came to this location eight times since Friday for a variety of reasons including burglary, hit and run, and customer disputes and with more ships expected to port this is only the beginning.
