A tourist has slammed a ferry company's crew after her luggage was swept out to sea in a major blunder.

09:26, Wed, Nov 26, 2025 Updated: 09:29, Wed, Nov 26, 2025

A tourist has blamed 'incompetent' crew members onboard a Thai ferry after her luggage was swept out to sea

A tourist has slammed a ferry company's crew as 'incompetent' (Image: TikTok/ Alice Zamparelli)

A tourist's long-awaited trip to Thailand descended into chaos over the weekend after her luggage was swept out to sea after falling off a ferry. Alice Zamparelli, who was sailing from Thailand's Koh Tao island to Koh Samui on Sunday (November 23), has slammed "incompetent" crew members aboard the boat after she saw her own luggage floating in the water.

In footage shared on TikTok, Ms Zamparelli showed how dozens of suitcases and backpacks were in the sea as the ferry navigated through the rough conditions. "Lost all our luggage [because] of incompetent crew members," she wrote in the accompanying caption. It is understood that the luggage on board was not secured on the upper deck, and because of the choppy conditions, they ended up falling overboard.

Sunny beach on AngThong National Park in Koh Samui, Thailand

Ms Zamparelli was travelling from Thailand's Koh Tao island to Koh Samui (Image: Getty)

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According to the Daily Mail, Ms Zamparelli said that she managed to get back 50,000 baht (£1,100), adding: "We were just very persistent. 

"Some people didn't get any compensation and other also missed their flights."

Ms Zamparelli - who had been visiting Thailand from Australia - was unable to recover her luggage.

"The ferry staff were fully convinced that a suitcase could not be worth more than 20,000 baht (around $950 AUD) when in reality all our belongings would definitely have been around the 100,000 baht (around $4,700 AUD) range for each of our suitcases," she told other TikTok users in the comments.

"In Thailand [...] everything is much cheaper than in Western countries like Australia so they almost laughed in our faces when were were explaining the worth of our belongings. 

"Thankful we were able to get 50,000 baht, but it took a lot of convincing and arguing, and they finally had to take us inside and pay us discreetly.

"No one else got paid as much as us unfortunately even though it still wasn’t anywhere near enough. Only reason we got paid that much was because we stayed there until the very end wearing them down," she added. 

The journey to Koh Samui is usually made by ferry, with high-speed options taking approximately two hours, while slower options take around 3.5 hours. The route is often plagued by strong winds and high waves at this time of year due to strong northeastern winds.