A couple was filmed while waving their arms on a Bahamian port as they watched the Norwegian Breakaway sails away with their children on board.

Youtube user Scott Thomas uploaded dramatic footage of the event showing vivid scenes of the parents racing to catch the ship as it set off and the mother got on her knees as the cruise ship’s passengers helplessly looked on. Stunned on board passengers can be heard commenting as they had nothing to do but watch from the departing ship. One of them is heard to say that he would have run to the end and jumped in.

The Norwegian Breakaway was on a seven-night cruise the Bahamas and Bermuda, after departing from New York on April 17 with thousands of tourists, mostly from the US. The cruise ship sailed to Port Canaveral, Florida, Great Stirrup Cay and Nassau in the Bahamas. After Nassau the Norwegian Breakaway had to spend about three days at sea en route to New York.

The parents had left at least two children, a boy aged around 9 and a girl aged around 12, on board the 4,090-passenger Norwegian Breakaway when the ship left the port in Nassau without them on April 21. The father and children were on the ship as it prepared to leave, however, the mother had not returned from a land excursion. The father had left the ship to go to look for his wife.

According to Norwegian Cruise Line, the woman had not returned by the “widely communicated” scheduled time of 5:30 p.m. The ship had broken with protocol and waited an extra half an hour. Officials from the company said that following consultation with the husband, it was decided that he would disembark with their travel documents and wait for his wife while the children would stay with other relatives on the ship. Spokesman for Norwegian Cruise Line Archie Pottinger said that the couple was offered travel and lodging assistance arrangements were made for them to reunite with the ship when it returns back to the Big Apple on April 24.

Watch a video here.