Royal Caribbean's Dangerous FlowRider: Is the Cruise Line Drafting a New Liability Waiver?
One of the most dangerous activities you can participate in during a cruise is found only on Royal Caribbean's cruise ships. It's the "FlowRider," a simulated surfing and water-boarding activity where a thin stream of water shoots up a sloped platform to create a wave-like flow of water.
Wipe-outs are expected. But what is not expected are the serious, life-altering injuries and, sometimes, even death.
You can see one such serious accident in the video below, where a young man falls on his neck.
A considerable number of cruise passengers have been seriously injured on the Flowrider, which Royal Caribbean helped design and install on five of its cruise ships: one FlowRider on each of the Freedom class cruise ships (Freedom of the Seas, Independence of the Seas and Liberty of the Seas) and two on each of the Oasis class ships (Allure of he Seas and Oasis of the Seas).
You will read absolutely no warnings about the dangers of the FlowRider on Royal Caribbean's website. Nor will you see any warnings whatsoever posted around the FlowRiders on any of the cruise ships. Even after a passenger was killed when he fell while trying to surf, the cruise line decided not to warn cruise passengers that the activity is, well, deadly.
The cruise line's approach to the problem has been to require all passengers who participate in the activity to sign an electronic liability waiver. The process of scrolling through the electronic keypad in a long line is so quick that it's clear that no one reads the waiver. Moreover, the waiver is legally invalid. Earlier this year, the Eleventh Circuit Court of appeal struck down the Royal Caribbean waiver finding that it violated federal law (46 U.S.C 30509) which prohibits contract provisions that attempt to absolve a shipping company from its own negligence.
At the moment, Royal Caribbean has an illegal waiver, and still no warnings on-line or warnings posted around the FlowRider.
So what is the cruise line thinking?
Some people think that Royal Caribbean may be going back to the drawing board to try and draft a new waiver.
In a recent message thread on the website of the popular on-line cruise community Cruise Critic, there is discussion that the cruise line is working on creating a new and improved liability waiver - apparently for the purpose of trying to navigate around the statutory prohibition found in 46 U.S.C. 30509.
If that's true, the new waiver will be struck down too. It's too bad that the cruise line won't post warning signs on its website or on the seven FlowRiders on its cruise ships. There are lots of people who don't understand just how dangerous this activity is.
If Royal Caribbean is going to be the only cruise line promoting this dangerous activity, it needs to spend less time drafting illegal waivers and more time drafting effective warnings before the next unsuspecting passenger steps on a surf board and breaks his neck.
Jim Walker is a maritime lawyer who has attended seven Congressional hearing on issues of cruise ship crime, passenger disappearances,
While it does seem that it would make sense for them to make the dangers more well known, it's also not their fault that people don't take the time to read the waiver and find out exactly what they're agreeing to and what risks are involved. I don't put my signature on anything without knowing exactly what I'm signing. If people don't know because they couldn't be bothered to read the waiver, they're to blame for their own ignorance.
Thanks for this article. We will be going on our first Royal Caribbean cruise next year on the Allure and were considering this activity as they hype it up to be safe and fun, but I always had my doubts anyway. Now we will definitely reconsider, or at least not try to stand up on it at all!
I was wondering if there have ever been any incidents on the ship's "zip line"? Looks like fun but scary too, wouldn't want to take an unnecessary risk - what do you think?
Won't stop me from using the Flowrider on my next RC cruise. It's one of the more fun activities on the ship. True that they should probably put more effort into letting people know about the hazards, but after my first wipeout I knew full well that, if I hit the back pad at the wrong angle, I could be seriously injured. But there are a lot of things that are dangerous, if you're not careful, or just unlucky.
On the cruise I was on, they were also *really* strict about not letting you do what the guy in the video did. Walking in the stream was a big no-no.
Anyways, it's far from the most dangerous activity I embarked upon on that vacation - climbing Dunn's River Falls, I kept thinking "Not in a million years would this be possible in Canada. Nobody would consider taking on the liability, and no insurance company would go near it."