(CNN) โ The cruise ship Brilliance of the Seas rescued 11 people adrift in the Gulf of Mexico between Cuba and Mexico on Wednesday, according to VACAYA, an LGBT+ vacation company that chartered the ship.
The Royal Caribbean cruise line ship departed New Orleans on Saturday for a seven-night cruise. On Wednesday, the captain spotted a boat in the distance โthat appeared to be in distress,โ said Randle Roper, the CEO of VACAYA, who was onboard the ship.
โThe captain calls me immediately as the charterer of the ship to let me know that they are going to turn around and investigate, and thatโs exactly what they did,โ Roper recounted later in a recorded interview shared with CNN Travel. โThey sent a pilot boat with Brilliance of the Seas crew members out to the stranded vessel.โ

Roper said the 11 people were refugees, but he didnโt know where they were from.
โI can only imagine the fear that they must have been feeling to be out in the open Gulf with no other vessels around,โ Roper said.
โThey were clearly in distressโ
When the refugees spotted the ship, Roper said that โthey started waving that white flag of distressโ and that passengers on the chartered cruises went to the decks to witness the rescue.
โThey had determined from a distance that there were 10 or more people โฆ on the boat. They could also see that they were clearly in distress,โ Roper said.
โThe refugees on the boat were literally bailing out the water out of the boat, so their boat had clearly become stricken, and they were just adrift sea and taking on water.โ
He said they later learned that they were out there between one and two days.
Among the passengers who saw the rescue unfold was former MTV host Julie Brown, who was performing on the ship. She was recorded on video witnessing and commenting on the rescue, noting that people were ferried three at the time from the failing boat and that the ones remaining were brought life jackets.
โAs they were coming toward the boat, I waved at them and they all waved back to me, so theyโre obviously in good spirits as well,โ Brown said in the video.
โIn great spiritsโ
As for the condition of the rescued people once onboard, โThey were pretty malnourished and exhausted. But weโve got them here on board safe and sound. Theyโre being fed, getting lots and lots of water to rehydrate. โฆ Theyโre in great spirits,โ Roper said.
Regarding the refugeesโ immediate future, Roper said the US Coast Guard was involved in determining next steps. He said that the 11 refugees disembarked in Mexico on Thursday.
CNN Travel reached out to the Coast Guard for comment on Thursday afternoon. Royal Caribbean did not immediately reply to requests for comment on Thursday.
Roper said the VACAYA guests โare stepping in โฆ donating their clothes, providing funds.โ
Roper noted the poignant intersection of his charter group and the people rescued at sea.
โTwo of the most reviled groups out there in America right now are the LGBT+ community and refugees, and the fact that we were the ones that Iโm gonna say lucky enough to help them, it just feels really, really good,โ Roper said.
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