A group of American tourists got the shock of their lives during their vacation in France. After ordering a plate of food on a boat, they were slapped with an unexpected bill of €500.
Home to the city of love, Paris is every tourist’s delight. From the great food to the numerous attractive locations, it’s easy to see why Leah and Cassidy Armbruster, a pair of American twins, paid a visit.
Leah and Cassidy are originally from Wisconsin but reside together in Madrid, the Spanish capital. Along with a few of their college friends, the sisters decided to take a boat ride in the South of France. It was during this time they had the encounter.
“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 newsmen.
While the twins ate their snacks at the front of the boat, some of their friends came around from the back of the boat asking if they cared for some pasta. “We said sure why not, assuming it would be a normal-priced pasta,” Armbruster continued. But nothing prepared them for the bill they were about to get. They ended up with a bill of €500 or $529.
The twins shared the video of the encounter via their joint TikTok account, @thevacationtwins. The video’s on-screen caption read POV: Your friend orders lobster pasta on a boat & the bill is FIVE HUNDRED EUROS.
The 5-second video, which has attracted over 800,000 views, showed one of their friends arriving with a paper plate of pasta and a lobster tail.
Apparently infuriated by the huge cost of the food, the captain of their boat stepped in to intervene. “The captain was French and argued with the restaurant boat for charging us that much,” Armbruster said. “In the end, my friend just fronted the bill to avoid a problem.”
The twins said the food had some cherry tomatoes. But besides that, nothing was particularly special about it to warrant the huge bill. Or was it the lobster?
Although lobster prices could range from $8.99 to $13.99 per pound in the United States, costs could be higher in other locations for a variety of reasons. These include low population in some areas and conservatory restrictions on how, where, and when they are caught. Bear in mind that lobsters aren’t farmed and so, they have to be caught.
Also, to sustain freshness, lobsters have to be transported live and with great care. Transporting them under these conditions could be pretty expensive.
The Tiktok video attracted several interesting comments such as: “That’s crazy I got the same meal on a catamaran in Santorini for 150 euros, y’all were robbed lol,” and “I don’t mind paying lots of money for good food… but that doesn’t look good… the pasta looks bad and the paper plate seriously?”
What do you think? Would you pay 500 dollars for this plate of lobster pasta?
