Americans Get $500 Bill on Boat Trip After Making Simple Tourist Mistake

A group of women have shared the expensive mistake they made on a boat trip in France.

In a video shared on TikTok two days ago with over 554,000 views, the travelers (@thevacationtwins) shared how they were forced to foot a bill of more than €500 ($529) for lobster pasta.

Cassidy and Leah Armbruster are identical twins, originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and now live together in Madrid, Spain. On a recent trip in the South of France with friends from college, they were caught out by an unexpected food bill.

"There was a restaurant boat driving around selling food. We actually weren't going to order anything because we brought snacks and then thought we could split a pizza. But it was September 1, and they stopped selling pizza the day before, since the tourist season was coming to an end," Armbruster told Newsweek.

As the twins sat at the front of the boat eating their snacks and enjoying the sun, their friend came from the back and asked them if they wanted pasta.

"We said sure why not, assuming it would be a normal-priced pasta," added Armbruster. "The boat said, 'We will be back in an hour,' and when they came back with the pasta, they insisted we pay for it." The travelers were stunned to find that the pasta cost €500.

Lobsters can be an expensive food for a few reasons. The crustaceans are harvested in the wild from the ocean and not farmed, so limited supply drives up prices. Labor-intensive farming processes involve going out on boats, setting traps, hauling them and sorting through the catch.

Many regions also have strict regulations in place to protect lobster populations and ensure sustainable harvesting. These laws can limit how many lobsters that can be caught, and when and where, all of which can impact the supply and price.

With lobsters typically transported live to maintain their freshness, moving them requires careful handling, which also adds to the cost.

Lobsters are likely to be more expensive at certain points of the year due to seasonal availability.

These factors all count before the shellfish even reaches a restaurant, where markups are added to account for preparation, presentation and service provided.

Statista says that the average cost of American lobster has shot up in recent years, reaching $5 per pound in 2019, according to the last available data.

"The captain was French and argued with the restaurant boat for charging us that much," said Armbruster. "In the end, my friend just fronted the bill to avoid a problem."

In more than 100 comments, people shared their reactions to the lobster-based mistake.

"Omg [Oh my god] 500 [dollars], I would have fainted!" wrote The Traveling Ginger, while Anna Canela replied: "That's crazy i got the same meal on a catamaran in Santorini for 150 euros, y'all were robbed."

In the end, the group chalked it up to experience and said, "you live and you learn," but agreed they would definitely be asking the price before ordering anything in the future.