Yesterday, while the cruise world was following the news of the fire aboard the Carnival Liberty, a cruise passenger went overboard from the Carnival Breeze.

Reportedly, a highly intoxicated passenger (people are saying 30 – 35 years of age) went overboard while the Carnival cruise ship was off the coast of Cuba.

Fortunately, the Carnival crew rescued the man. Passengers took photos and video of the rescue (you can watch a video here from my Facebook page).

The usual response we see when someone ends up in the water like this is to call him "stupid" and wonder how he survived the fall and not get sucked under the ship.  But I always visualize a drunk overboard passenger’s bar tab (i.e., a print-out of onboard purchases).  

The most I have seen on a passenger’s tab is 23 drinks in the course of around 5 hours.  Serve that much booze to anyone and you are guaranteeing that something bad will happen. Unless it can be shown that the passenger smuggled a bottle of booze aboard, a bartender or group of bartenders who over-serve that mush accohol to a passenger should be immediately fired. 

There is a direct correlations between intoxication and violence, sexual assault and reckless conduct. Drunks flying over the rails is a clear indication that Carnival has a drinking problem on its cruise ships.

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Photo Credit: JUAN RAMON RODRIGUEZ SOSA via Wikipedia Creative Commons 3.0