Cruise Law News : Maritime Lawyer & Attorney : James M. Walker : Walker & O'Neill Law Firm : Admiralty Law, Cruise Ship Accidents & Injuries

The New York Times Travel Section published an article today about the topic of cruise ship "mishaps" such as collisions, fires, evacuations, groundings, and sinkings.

The problem is that there is no centralized agency collecting data about such incidents. Plus the cruise line industry is notoriously secretive about events that are inconsistent with the notion that cruising is a safe and enjoyable vacation. 

This means that web sites like this and the site Cruise Junkie operated by Professor Ross Klein have to fill the gap.

You can read the article here: How Normal Are Cruise Mishaps?

The New York Times interviewed me and cruise expert Professor Ross Klein.

The Carnival PR person said the usual propaganda, saying that cruise mishaps "are quite rare” and "Carnival's ships are extremely safe."  Lots of self-serving opinions and adjectives but the usual lack of statistics.

Here's the first comment to the article:

"Ah, for the days of deck chairs, hot bouillon, salt air, gentle strolls around the deck, dressing for dinner, a chance encounter with Dali walking a pair of Ocelots. Now it's down to the sea in floating Malls afloat in sewage. Captain, I think we're sailing backward."

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Last week I ran across an interesting blog article by a thirty-three year old woman who sailed aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise ship out of Tampa with her long time boyfriend. Around 2:00 AM one night, she craved a cigarette and proceeded to an upper deck to smoke and look at the stars. 

She encountered a naked man masturbating. He stalked her. She ran from the deck terrified. She immediately told crew members involved in cleaning a lower deck what happened. She then proceeded to the deck four service desk and made an official report of what happened. 

The article is about the indifferent, casual and almost bemused response of the cruise line to her ordeal. The comments to her frightening personal experience are revealing. Some comments seem to be from crew members accusing her of being hysterical and essentially telling her to "get over it."

Indecent exposure and public masturbation are crimes in virtually all U.S. states. But in most situations state law does not apply to foreign flagged cruise ships in international waters. Do the laws of foreign countries like Liberia and the Bahamas prohibit such conduct? Did the cruise line report the crime to the flag state? I don't know but I doubt it. I'm sure no police detective from Africa or a small Caribbean island appeared to investigate.

The U.S. federal government theoretically has jurisdiction over federal crimes at sea where the victim is an American and a federal law was broken.  But I don't think public masturbation or indecent exposure are federal crimes. Did the cruise line report the incident to the FBI?  Probably not, but even if it did, I am sure that the FBI declined to appear either.

Florida is the only state in the U.S. which has laws extending jurisdiction to local law enforcement to prosecute crimes which occur on cruise ships.  A state police officer or sheriff's detective from Florida could make an arrest once the cruise ship returned to port in Tampa. But this assumes that the cruise line notified the local law enforcement officials and further assumes the cruise line saved the CCTV surveillance images of the naked man and turned the evidence over to the police.

In my experience, the chances of this cruise line taking such steps are between slim and none.

There will be no prosecution of this cruise pervert. The video images of the naked man on deck and the cruise ship guest running down the stairs in terror will never see the light of day. No mug shots depicting the pervert will ever make it onto the internet. No one from the Miami offices of the cruise line will reach out to the victim with an apology, or words of assurance, or an offer of assistance.   

Photo Credit: Daily Mail

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This morning Cruise Law News hit a milestone when the 50,000th person "liked" our Facebook page.  

The motto of this blog is "everything the cruise lines don't want you to know." One of our main goals is to educate the public about dangers and problems on cruise ships that the cruise industry would like to keep secret. So it's exciting to see that many people become a fan of our Facebook page.  

We post most of our blogs on Facebook as well as links to other sites which write about newsworthy (and sometimes not so newsworthy) events in the crazy world of cruising.  Unlike our other social media pages like Twitter which has almost exclusively a U.S. audience, our Facebook Cruise-Law-News page has primarily non-U.S. readers. 

Who are the top readers outside of the U.S.? In order they are from India, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Turkey, Croatia and Serbia, as well as many other countires.

Why the reference to "50,000 fans can't be wrong?" It's a take-off on the famous Elvis Presley album "50,000,000 Elvis fans can't be wrong."  (OK so I'm only 49,950,000 behind Elvis).

Thanks to everyone who like our Facebook page, read our articles, and leave comments! 

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Canada's CBC News reports that although It has not been smooth sailing for the cruise industry, "bargain hunters are taking advantage of deeply discounted prices due to high profile misadventures on the high seas."

The report chronicles the mishaps and disasters everyone is familiar with: the stranding of thousands on the Carnival Triumph "with no air conditioning, little food, and clogged and overflowing toilets;" Carnival flying many thousands passengers back from St. Maarten after the Dream suffered back-up generator problems; and the disaster of the Carnival-owned Costa Concordia, where 32 people died off the coast of Italy.

CBC says that the "industry is pulling out all stops to try to win back wary travelers," and quoted a travel agent saying: 

"You can pick up a 12-to-14-day cruise for next to nothing." 

CBC's Aaron Saltzman takes a look at the cruise industry below: 

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I have written around 1,500 articles about the cruise industry on this blog.

I've covered the issues which are important to me, like the negative environmental impact caused by cruise ships which dump raw sewage into the water and belch toxic high-sulfur smoke into the air. Like the exploitation of vulnerable citizens of India and the Caribbean islands who work over over 360 hours to earn less than $600 a month. Like the fact that cruise lines avoid all U.S. federal taxes, U.S. wage and labor laws, and U.S. safety regulations by incorporating their companies and registering their ships overseas in countries like Panama, Liberia and the Bahamas.       

But do Americans really care about these issues?

An article the other day from the Plain Dealer struck a strange chord with me.  The article was entitled Cruise Industry's Recent Troubles Could Mean Bargains on the Horizon. The newspaper writes that although the cruise industry is floundering again with images of stranded ships with over-flowing toilets (Image above courtesy Adweek), cruise lines will "fight back by throwing money at the image problem, lowering their prices until customers start buying again."

The newspaper's bottom line is that the recent spate of pseudo disasters may be a good thing for consumers - "this may be the time to find a bargain."

Americans love bargains.  They want affordable and fun vacations. That's what Carnival offers.

Americans don't want to think about 400,000,000 people in India living below the poverty line many of whom are easily exploitable on cruise ships. Or the burning of toxic bunker fuel. Or the fouling of the waters in Alaska with a billion gallons of cruise ship waste water. Or the cruise line's non-payment of U.S. taxes.

Americans want to enjoy a cheap vacation on a "fun ship."  The cruise lines provide that.  If fair treatment of Indian crew members, clean air and water, and the payment of taxes by the cruise lines will make cruising more expensive, most cruisers will choose the cheaper cruise.

Today I saw a tweet by the IrixGuy on Twitter. Seems like a nice fellow.  His YouTube video (below) explains why you should continue to cruise on Carnival.  His basic points:

1. Carnival is "great;" 

2. Carnival cruises have the "best prices;" and

3. With all of the "disasters" and negative press, it's a "really good time to get a really good deal."

I suppose that's basically what most cruisers want, right?

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One of the interesting things about social media is that there are numerous services which track "what's tending now." Certain applications can also track words or phrases which are dominating the news.

I like to use TweetDeck as well as Monitter to follow trends involving the cruise industry.

"Carnival cruise" has been trending all week at a frantic pace. And the news is not good.

The cumulative effect of the recent cruise ship fires, power failures and images of passengers on disabled cruise ships complaining about toilets over-flowing has turned Carnival's reputation into a joke.

Carnival's "fun ships" have been ridiculed on Saturday Night Live, David Letterman & Jay Leno, and featured in MAD Magazine (see below). 

Consider some of the comments which are twirling on Twitter right now:

Packing for my Carnival cruise: tent, sleeping bag for deck, iodine pills, generator, Cipro.

We all lose if CBS doesn't film the next Survivor aboard a Carnival Cruise Ship

Maybe we should shut down Abu Ghraib prison and send the terrorists on a Carnival Cruise

I wouldn't go on a Carnival cruise right now even if it were free

One of the secrets to Carnival Cruise’s unsinkable business model: free Coast Guard rescues

They have so many cruise commercials because Carnival is just sinking

Even with the 50% discount from Carnival it will be difficult to go on that cruise line again

Carnival cruise boats are shit LOL dont know why ppl go on them...

Decisions. Decisions. Trying to decide whether to take a Carnival Cruise or just stay at home and shit my pants

My new punishment for my 12 year old daughter: Do your chores or I'll send you on a Carnival Cruise

if its a carnival, there's a 96.13% chance something will go wrong and youll get a free cruise out of it... Have fun!

Last week I posed a question on Twitter whether Carnival was the Wal-Mart of the high seas? Several people said no way - don't insult Wal-Mart, Carnival is more like K-Mart.

What's the funniest comment about Carnival you have heard on Twitter this week? Join the discussion on our Facebook page.

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When the Cruise Shipping Miami's "State of the Industry" presentation started yesterday at 9:30 AM, I wondered whether anyone would mention Costa Concordia.  

Keynote speaker, David Scowsill,World Travel and Tourism Council President, briefly mentioned the Concordia disaster in passing, saying "despite the tragic cruise ship incident last year" cruising is still "safest" form of transportation.

Holland America Line CEO Stein Kruse was the first to say the words "Costa Concordia" over 1 hour into the CEO's presentation which I quickly noted in a tweet at 10:33 AM.  It was one of the few references to reality the entire morning.

All of the CEO's covered the CLIA talking points that cruising was "safe" and the cruise industry is also supposedly "highly regulated."  The hyperbole was extraordinary.

Christine Duffy was the first to say that the Triumph fire was "rare." Carnival's President Gerry Cahill then topped her saying: “Something like this is very rare."

NCL's Kevin Sheehan said that cruising was the "safest, safest, safest" vacation option.   

RCCL President Adam Goldstein said that the cruise industry was "highly regulated" by the IMO "regulatory scheme." He said words to the effect that he was sure "that no one in the room would dispute that."

Carnival's Cahill added that his cruise line intends to conduct safety audit all of its ships. CLIA would also be performing audits as well.

All of these statements sounded great. But there was little of substance discussed. There were all types of precise statistics presented about the number of new ships, the number of passengers and the revenue generated by the cruise lines. But when it comes to statistics regarding fires and other accidents, the cruise executives offered nothing but their personal opinions.

It was interesting what the cruise execs didn't say rather than the talking points they repeated over and over.     

Last year I attended a Congressional hearing where a cruise expert detailed some 79 cruise ship fires between 1990 and the hearing in 2011. I have discussed in this blog that over 10 cruise ship fires occurred since the Splendor. That's 90 fires in 23 years.

That's hardly "rare." The "safest, safest, safest" form of transportation does not catch on fire every 4 months.

Keeping statistics away from the public is how the cruise industry works.  Assuring the public that the unregulated cruise industry is allegedly "heavily regulated" is also how the cruise lines work.

Senator Rockefeller presided over the post Concordia safety hearing last year and told the cruise representatives "You Are A World Unto Yourselves."    There is simply no real oversight by the U.S. over foreign flagged cruise ships.

Carnival's Cahill promised that his cruise line would police itself with its own safety audits. But what he didn't say was whether the audits will ever be released to the public.  

Trust me, they will never see the light of day.

Cahill also said that Carnival "learned its lesson" after the Splendor fire in 2010. But he didn't say what lesson Carnival learned. He also didn't mention that the country of Panama, where Carnival registered the Splendor to avoid income tax, has still not even released a report about the investigation into the fire which occurred over two years ago.  What lesson can be learned if the official report into the fire has still not been released at this late date?

Does anyone really think that the audits by Carnival and CLIA about the Triumph last month will ever be shared with the public when there is no public report about the Splendor which caught on fire 28 months ago?

Until the cruise industry truly falls under the scrutiny of U.S. federal regulators and there is transparency in releasing statistical information and accident investigation reports, all we will hear at the state-of-the-industry presentations are more and more self-serving opinions of an industry which is a world unto itself.       

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It's 11:25 AM Tuesday morning. I'm sitting here in the 4th row at the Miami Beach Convention Center listening to the final moments of the Cruise Shipping Miami (CSM 2013) State-of-the-Industry speeches by the cruise line executives.

Before me the kings of the cruise industry are speaking: Royal Caribbean President Adam Goldstein; NCL CEO Kevin Sheehan; Celebrity Cruises President Michael Bayley; Carnival President Gerry Cahill; HAL CEO Stein Kruse; MSC CEO Pierfrancesco Vago; and Silversea Cruises Chairman Manfredi Lefebvre d’Ovidio. Plus a keynote speech from World Travel and Tourism Council President David Scowsill.      

My first thought as I scanned the panel of cruise executives on the stage in front of me this morning: Do you have to be a white male to speak about the state of the cruise industry at CSM?  

This is essentially the same all men-in-dark-suits line up from prior years. Where are all of the women cruise executives?

Looking around me, I see some plenty of women in the audience. Why are there no women on stage talking about the future of the cruise industry?   Seven suits and ties on stage and not a single cruise line executive in a dress or high heels.

Is the cruise industry the least diversified business in the U.S.?

I work in a law firm where the smartest lawyer is a woman; where the hardest workers are women; and where the decision makers are mostly women. 99% of our crew clients from around the world do not resemble any of the men here lecturing the audience at the auditorium.

Its going to be a weird week here at CSM.  

Photo Credit: CMS 2013 - Jim Walker

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As part of Cruise Shipping Miami (CSM 2013), I have raised 6 problems which I believe the cruise lines need to address.

Problem No. 5: Disappearance of Passengers and Crew Members from Cruise Ships:.

The problem is not just that approximately 200 people have vanished from cruise ships since year 2000, but the attitude of the cruise lines when families try and find out what happened to their loved ones is just plain nasty.

When Seattle businessman Son Michael Pham's parents disappeared during a Carnival cruise, he voiced his frustration that he received greater responsiveness upon losing a piece of luggage.

Insurance company president Ken Carver's daughter disappeared from a Celebrity Cruises ship and the cruise line responded by discarding her personal items without so much as a call to the FBI.  

Today, a reader of this blog sent me a link to an article which discussed how Disney youth counselors on the Disney Wonder lost track of a three year old child whose parents dropped the little boy off in the cruise ship's Oceaneer Club (for children aged 3 to 12).  The cruise line's response was not only incompetent but heartless.  

The youth counselors had no clue where the little boy entrusted to their care was on the ship. They appeared indifferent to the parent's understandable fears. No announcements were made over the course of 45 minutes while the ship sailed along as the parents searched frantically for their child.

This cavalier attitude is business as usual for the floating Magical Kingdom ships. Almost two years ago exactly, a 24 year old youth counselor from the U.K., Rebecca Coriam, disappeared from the Disney Wonder. The ship continued on sailing. The cruise line's attitude and response, in my opinion, seemed motivated to protect its own marketing image and cover-the-truth-up, rather than to find out exactly what happened to young Rebecca.

Today is Rebecca's 26th birthday which her parents and sister are celebrating in sorrow.  Neither Disney nor the country of the Bahamas, where Disney incorporates its cruise ships to avoid U.S. taxes, will cooperate with the Coriam family.  No one will provide the Coriams with a copy of the Bahamas report on the disappearance of their daughter. The callousness demonstrated by Disney and the Bahamas is the product of a foreign flagged scheme which is designed to keep cruise lines like Disney away from real oversight except by Caribbean islands whose loyalties lie exclusively to the cruise industry.  

I touched upon this problem briefly in an opinion piece for CNN entitled "What Cruise Lines Don't Want You to Know."

There are many other examples of a cruise industry which would rather spend it efforts trying to create an image to vacationers that cruising is safe rather taking reasonable steps to make certain cruising is actually safe.

George Smith disappeared in July 2005 during his honeymoon. Going on eight years later, there remain no answers and no arrests, It was only last year that the public learned that Royal Caribbean had possession of a video of a certain passenger on the cruise ship who was taped telling his friends "we gave that guy a paragliding lesson without a parachute."  We represented Mr. Smith's wife and were never told that the video existed; instead, we watched as the cruise line stonewalled our investigation and tried to convince the public that Mr. Smith just got drunk and fell overboard.

Last November, HAL passenger Jason Rappe' disappeared from the Eurodam while cruising with his wife.  We asked the cruise line for information like videotapes, passenger addresses, statements and other basic information.

HAL refused to provide anything to us.

Instead HAL insisted that it was Mr. Rappe's wife who first had to agree to provide all of her missing husband's medical records, life insurance policies, work information and any psychiatric records before they would even think about cooperating.        

No airline would act like this if a passenger or crew member disappeared in flight. But then again the aviation industry is overseen by the strict and serious Federal Aviation Agency (FAA). There is no equivalent to the FAA on the high seas - only ships flying flags of convenience in countries like the Bahamas which care only their relationships with the cruise industry.   

Its too easy to commit a crime on a cruise line and get away with it. Even in cases where there is no foul play, the cruise industry's knee-jerk reaction is to deny and delay and obfuscate rather than treat families respectfully and transparently. Until this attitude changes, cruise lines will always appear that they have something to hide.   

You can read our prior articles about 6 problems the cruise industry needs to fix below:

Problem No. 6: Cruise Pollution of Air & Water

Check in this week as we explore problem number 1 - 4 during CSM.

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Tomorrow we will hear the state of the cruise industry from many of the CEO's of the cruise lines. After a deadly and disastrous year, questions arise whether the cruise industry is heading in the right direction.

In many ways, the cruise industry is going backwards. I targeted what I consider six of the major problems which the industry needs fixing. Today we'll look at:  

Problem # 6 - Pollution of Air & Water: The cruise industry is heading the wrong way on environmental issues.  It just fought a very public battle with the state of Alaska which, in 2006, enacted the most responsible waste water restrictions in the world to address cruise ship pollution.

A typical cruise ship produces 210,000 gallons of sewage, over a million gallons of greywater, 130 gallons of hazardous wastes such as poisonous metals, and 25,000 gallons of oily bilge water in a single week-long cruise. Considering there are 28 cruise ships operating 150 days annually in Alaska, this results in over one billion gallons of sewage and waste water being dumped into Alaska state waters every year.

The Alaskan initiative targeted this nasty problem with sewage, while also prohibiting the discharge of heavy metals like zinc, copper and nickle from cruise ships' plumbing systems. In response, the cruise lines threatened to pull its ships from Alaska and lobbied legislators heavily. The major polluters of Alaskan waters, like Carnival owned Holland America Lines and Princess Cruises, led the charge to repeal the green legislation in order to avoid the expense of installing advanced waste water treatment technologies.

While polluting the waters, the cruise industry is resisting clean air legislation as well. CLIA cruise ships still burn bunker fuel, the dirtiest and most deadly fuel on the planet. and the industry is resisting complying with clean air laws, citing reduced profits.

As the industry's ships get bigger and bigger, there is increased damage to coral reefs and the environment of the fragile ecosystems from the Caribbean to Alaska. To accommodate giants of the seas like the Oasis and the Allure into its new port in Falmouth Jamaica, Royal Caribbean oversaw the dredging of 35 million cubic feet of coral reefs which were crushed and dumped onto old mangroves. The Oasis and Allure can now squeeze into the once quaint fishing village, where they sit and burn high sulfur bunker fuel.

The cruise industry has a historical reputation of abusing the seas, with the major lines like Carnival, Royal Caribbean and NCL all pleading guilty to environmental crimes and lying to the U.S. Coast Guard and federal prosecutors. Although it has promised to protect the waters on which its business depends, the cruise industry has consistently chosen the cheaper and more destructive path on environmental issues. 

The cruise industry needs to clean up its act. It must distance itself from its renegade past of being the conservator from hell.    

Read the other problems facing the cruise industry:

Problem No. 5: Disappearance of Passengers and Crew Members

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Cruise Shipping Miami ("CSM 2013") starts tomorrow morning.  Word on the street is that notwithstanding rough times for the cruise industry over the past year, there will be a record attendance.

Formerly known as "Seatrade," CSM is a huge trade show in the Miami Beach Convention Center with all types of cruise vendors, tourism delegates and port representatives.  

You can appreciate just how dynamic and wealthy the cruise industry is by attending the show.

Here's the official schedule.

I will be there all week.  

Here's my review of the last Cruise Shipping Miami trade show I attended:

Cruise Shipping Miami (SeaTrade) - the Good, Bad and Ugly

Email me at jim@cruiselaw.com if you want to meet. My perspective - "everything the cruise lines don't want you to know" - is a little different than that of most people attending.

i will be blogging and tweeting all week.

See you there.

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I have always wondered how the cruise industry PR people do it.  

They face non-stop bad cruise news. The Splendor fire. The Concordia deaths. The Allegra fire.  The Triumph fire.  Plus another 10 cruise ship fires, 50 norovirus outbreaks and more shipboard rapes than you can count in just 3 years.

Yet, the cruise line public relations employees put their happy faces on and pull out their talking points. Cruise ship fires, crimes, deaths and disappearances are "rare" they say. Cruising is "absolutely" safe they promise. The safety of passenger is the cruise industry's highest priority, they proclaim. 

But fewer and fewer people seem to believe the cruise lines shtick. 

The usually friendly-to-the-cruise-lines reporters at the Miami Herald are even writing some articles that suggest that cruising may be suffering an image problem.

The Herald just published "Americans Think Less of Cruising after Carnival Triumph Fire, Poll Says."  A Harris Poll of 2,230 adults showed that "trust" and "perceived quality" of Carnival and other cruise lines dropped "significantly."

According to the poll, 58 percent of people who have never taken a cruise say they are less likely to try one now than they were a year ago. 

On the same day the poll was released, Forbes announced that Carnival CEO Micky Arison's fortunes increased one billion dollars last year, from $4.7 billion to $5.7 billion.

With all of Carnival's deferred maintenance of its cruise ships, exploitation of its crew members, refusal to reimburse the U.S. federal government for Coast Guard expenses in responding to disabled ships, and avoidance of U.S. corporate taxes by registering itself in Panama, how do the cruise PR representatives spin the news today of cruise tycoon Arison's enormous wealth?

Image Credit:  A Bruising For Cruising  (NetBase)

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Today marks the 4th year Cruise Law has been on Twitter.  Check out our page here. Over 10,000 tweets and over 10,000 followers later, it has been a fun four years.  Tweeting is just micro-blogging in 140 characters and led me to create this blog Cruise Law News.

If you are not on Twitter you should be. It has led me to meet literally thousands of lawyers, travel agents, cruise industry people, journalists, travelers and crew members around the world.  Lots of news about the cruise industry breaks on Twitter before the mainstream media knows what's going on.

Speaking of social media, we have been busy in the world of cruise law news this year. The Carnival Triumph fire and the "ensuing cruise from hell" were the latest cruise fiascos which focused the world on the unregulated foreign-flagged cruise industry.

Our firm and this blog were featured in over fifty television, cable news, & radio shows and internet, magazine and newspaper articles. Take a look here at a listing of some here of the programs and articles.

Cruise Law News (CLN), now over 3 years old, remains a top 10 law blog in terms of popularity. It is currently ranked #9 per the Alexa popularity rankings. The 8 law blogs ahead of us consist of 6 blogs which are commercial sites or are run by law professors. There's only one other law blog operated by a full time lawyer (China Law Blog) ahead of us. So we are the #2 law blog in the U.S. and Canada written by a full time lawyer.

Last month in the 28 days of February, readers visited some 415,960 pages of this blog.  If we keep this pace up, we are approaching 5,000,000 page views a year!   

Our Facebook page is booming, with over 45,000 likes. It is by far the most popular page by a law firm on Facebook.   

Thanks for following us.  If you have a question or want us to cover a particular issue or story, contact me: jim@cruiselaw.com

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My blog Cruise Law News (CLN) is one of the few places where you can read about all of the problems the cruise lines don't want you to know about.  Like sexual assault of women, molestation of children, pollution of the water and air, and cruise line cover-ups of disappearances on the high seas.

CLN has a wide, loyal and growing readership. It's the ninth most popular law blog in the U.S. This month alone, my articles have been quoted on CNN and Fox News and cited in articles or documentaries by ABC's 20/20, the American Bar Association Journal, Associated Press, CNBC, Daily Mail, Miami Herald, Newsday, Reuters, Seattle Times, Sun Sentinel, Canadian television stations and the largest radio networks in Montreal, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Vancouver and Miami.  

After my opinion piece for CNN What Cruise Lines Don't Want You to Know, I received a number of emails and telephone calls congratulating me and thanking me for being a safety advocate and watchdog of the cruise lines.

But I also received the usual hate mail from people who like the cruise industry status quo exactly the way it is. Over the three and one-half years CLN has been on line, I have received more than my fair share of hateful emails and insulting comments left on my voice mail at work.

Winston Churchill said this: "You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

The most abusive comments usually come from people who work for the cruise lines. I'm not talking about crew members, but corporate types ashore in the cruise line corporate headquarters. These people try and stay anonymous. I call them cruise cowards. I keep a folder with the most hateful comments to read one day when I retire.  Some of the hate mail consists of boring one or two line rants. Minor trash talking, very disappointing. I could do much better.

But some are works of art.  

Last week, I received the email below. Quite well written, except for one typo, with lots of juicy adjectives. It was written as a comment to my article Carnival Triumph Passengers Happy to Be Home. 

"And you are surely the happiest of all, uncle Jim. Like a maggot on road kill. You've got this gravy train leaching blood out of successful and responsible businesses under a phony bullshit cover. Behind that smiling cardboard cutout is a weasel scanning for the next meal. You are a helluva good example for kids thinking about a law career, buddy. You'd be a good prototype for a cartoon character that distills into one face the essence of what people hate about people in your profession. Take the low road to sucess (sic), find an easy prey, start sucking and don't let go. That's the Jim Walker way."

The comment was ironic because I already stated that we would not be filing any lawsuits arising out of the Triumph engine room fire, just like we stated that no one should file suit following the Carnival Splendor cruise ship fire in 2010 either.

But the author of this comment obviously has some deep personal animosity that existed long before the latest Carnival cruise ship caught fire. I wondered who and where the person was. So I took a look.

When someone leaves a comment on this blog, I have software that permits me to track the internet provider (IP) address. I can't see who reads the blog, but I can find out information if someone leaves a comment because the comment section tracks the IP addresses of those people who leave comments.

So I tracked the IP address.  It tracked directly to Holland America Line (HAL) in Seattle Washington. I emailed the person back and said thanks. I would post an article that the hate mail was the best I had seen.  The next email I sent resulted in a response coming back that there was no such email. Looks like the HAL cruise coward de-activated the email address and is probably hiding under a desk at HAL's headquarters in Seattle.        

This is how the cruise lines work.  HAL is not the only cruise line to send anonymous hate mail, unknowingly leave a IP address in the process, and then scamper down a hole when confronted. I have caught Carnival and Royal Caribbean doing it as well.

So why the hard feelings from the Carnival-owned-HAL?  

I have only one matter right now with HAL.  I represent the family of a man who disappeared from the Eurodam.  I wrote HAL a standard letter and asked for a copy of the video camera images, a copy of the reports to the FBI, Sheriff's office and flag state, and a list of witnesses with information. This is the very basic information we request in all passenger overboard cases to help families try and find out what happened to their loved ones who disappear at sea. 

But HAL decided to stonewall our request. It provided us with nothing but threats and insults. HAL stated that it would not even consider cooperating unless the widow first agreed to state whether her missing husband had life insurance. HAL demanded that the widow agreed to provide HAL's lawyers with her husband's employment information, all confidential medical records, and any psychological records.  

Cruise lines like HAL are all smiley faces when they sell you a cruise. But if your loved one disappears on the high seas, the cruise lines will stab you in the back to conceal the truth.  And if you hire a lawyer, they may send anonymous hate mail from their corporate headquarters.  

Credits:

Hate Mail Art: protectportelos.org

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The International Cruise Victims (ICV) organization formed in 2006 in response to the problem with crime and unsolved disappearance of passengers and crew members on cruise ships around the world.  ICV CEO Ken Carver's daughter disappeared on a Celebrity cruise ship which the cruise line covered up. ICV President Jamie Barnett's daughter died due to medical negligence. Other members of the ICV consist of women sexually assaulted and families who lost loved ones at sea.

The ICV was desperately needed because there is no federal oversight of the foreign flagged and foreign incorporated cruise industry.  As Senator Rockefeller said to the cruise lines last year "You Are A World Unto Yourselves."      

The ICV membership has increased substantially over the years with members literally around the world.

Recently, Jay Leno mentioned the ICV during his monologue with the audience responding with applause. 

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The U.S. and international media covered the saga of the stricken poop-filled Triumph cruise ship non-stop last week. CNN led the coverage with its "ceaseless, rigorous reporting" on what some newspapers are characterizing as essentially "inconvenienced cruise passengers without working toilets." CNN enjoyed a 74 percent increase from its recent prime time numbers according to the people that follow these type of statistics.

The media loves to interview maritime lawyers in Miami. As of the weekend, I participated in over 45 newspaper, radio, TV and cable news interviews about the Triumph fire.  The media is still covering the PR and legal fallout following the debacle.  There is a debate playing out in newspaper articles and cable news shows whether aggrieved passengers should pursue lawsuits over the incident or, as I feel, they should accept Carnival's meager compensation and move on with their lives.     

But there is little debate about whether there are too many fires and capsizings involving cruise ships these days. 

The cruise industry has done a pretty good PR job with its talking points over the years - "cruising is remarkably safe, the "safety of our passengers is the cruise industry's top priority" and so forth. But after the Costa Concordia deadly disaster just a year ago came a dozen cruise ship fires on cruise lines like Azamara, Costa, Cunard, Princess, and Royal Caribbean. At some point, the cruise casualties reach a critical mass. If the cruise lines' response is always "cruise-accidents-are-rare," at some point the public simply does not believe a word they say.

We are past that point today.  

Last week CNN asked me to write an article about my opinions of the cruise industry. Readers of this blog know I have a lot of opinions about how the cruise lines operate. I had literally a few hours to type the article and CNN posted it on line later that day: "What Cruise Lines Don't Want You to Know."  The article sparked a debate not only about cruise ship safety, but about the cruise industry's non-payment of taxes, avoidance of wage and labor regulations, exploitation of its foreign crew members, and damage to the environment.  Many hundreds of readers left comments (nearly 2,000 to date) and over 12,000 people "liked it" on Facebook.  Clearly the article struck a cord with a lot of people.

Yesterday, the cruise industry's trade association, the "Cruise Line International Association" (CLIA), wrote its response to my article: "A Cruise is a Safe and Healthy Vacation."  Only 115 people have "liked it," and just 10 readers have left a comment.  Here are some of the comments:

"This guy works for Cruise Lines, enough said."

"Why in the world would I believe this cruise line spokesperson?"

"How many wolves do (we) need to guard the hen house again, honey?"

"Someone getting Cruise industry payoffs to write this nonsense."

If I have learned one thing as a trial lawyer for the past 30 years, it's that the American public is smart. Don't ever underestimate a jury's intelligence and common sense.  If I have a problem with my case, I acknowledge it. I make certain that I discuss the weaknesses in the case in my closing argument. But If you talk around troubling issues and try to bamboozle people, you will lose your credibility and lose your case in the process.

The cruise industry has some serious problems, including a lack of federal oversight over the safety of passengers and crew.  But the cruise lines will not acknowledge anything negative about their industry.

By publishing a puff piece like cruising is "safe and healthy" when cruise ships are catching on fire and guests are sloshing around in urine and feces, the cruise industry is doing more harm than good to its already shaky reputation. 

Join the discussion about this article on our Facebook page. 

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A former Royal Caribbean crew member recently posted a short video explaining, in his view, how the cruise line steals a portion of the tips intended for stateroom attendants.  We posted the video in an article Are Crew Members Receiving the Tips You Pay?  

Recently this cruise line announced that it was switching to a new system where it will automatically take money from its guests' accounts purportedly for the purpose of being distributed to crew members as tips.  But many crew members have contacted us or posted comments to our blog stating that this is just another scheme to take money from the crew's pockets.

We posted another article earlier this week addressing the new policy and the issue of tips: Royal Caribbean's New Tipping Policy: A Money Grab to Increase Profits?  

We also have a active discussion of the issue on our Facebook page. 

But Royal Caribbean does not like its crew members revealing what is happening on its cruise ships. We learned that the cruise line threatened the former crew member and objected to the video. Today YouTube took the video down. Take a look below.

This is how foreign incorporated cruise lines (Royal Caribbean is incorporated in Liberia) view the First Amendment guarantees of free speech.

So this cruise line silenced one critic.  But its hard to hide the truth.  If you are a crew member, leave a comment below and tell us about the new tipping policy.             

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It has been a brutal week for the cruise industry. Consider the developments over the last week:

A 24 year old dancer from Massachusetts died aboard the Seven Seas Voyager. Her body was found when the cruise ship docked in Australia.

Two passengers went overboard from MSC cruise ships in the last couple of days.  The body of a 46-year old passenger from the MSC Divina was pulled from the water but a 30 year old man who went overboard from the MSC Fantasia this weekend has not been located.

Five crewmembers are dead and three injured when a cable snapped as a lifeboat was being raised aboard the Thomson Majesty in the Canary Islands.

Yesterday, the Carnival Triumph lost power after an engine room fire disabled the ship.  The cruise ship is now being towed to port in Progreso, Mexico while the guests have no running water or air-conditioning and are having to poop in bags.  

So where are the reassuring words from the cruise industry's leadership? Where's the don't-worry-cruise-fans these are just rare mishaps in the remarkably safe world of cruising?

So far no word from the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA), which now seemingly has every cruise line in the world as a member.  Nothing either from CLIA's CEO Christine Duffy.  Does CLIA and its CEO work on weekends when the lifeboats and passengers are falling and the ships catch fire?

I suppose all of this must be embarrassing to the marketing and public relations people at CLIA. After the Concordia disaster, CLIA announced 10 new safety proposals with great fanfare. One of them had to do with lowering lifeboats with only a few essential crewmembers aboard to avoid unnecessary injuries and deaths. But it seems that this was just a proposal which the cruise lines could ignore.  Why were 8 men sitting like guinea pigs in the lifeboat as it is winched up to the 22 year old ship when the cable snapped?

So how does CLIA handle this mess?  It seems like CLIA is about as responsive to the disastrous week in cruising as Captain Schettino was in responding to his sinking ship. Its hide-under-the-bed PR.

Eventually the executives at Carnival and Royal Caribbean making tens of millions a year will send some talking points over to CLIA.  Then we will hear talk about the remarkable safety record of the cruise industry. Maybe CLIA will announce a Blue Ribbon Lifeboat or Fire Safety Task Force or something equally obtuse but official sounding.

Meanwhile eight families are mourning their dead loved ones and a boatload of families stuck on the disabled Triumph are being towed back to Mexico.   

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With the one year anniversary of the Costa Concordia capsizing this Sunday, there are literally several hundreds new articles on line about the disaster.  

This morning CBS News aired a video (below) and published an article Costa Concordia 1 Year Later: Survivors Attempt to Move On in which several survivors explain how they are dealing with the aftermath of the horrific event.

The cruise line cheerleaders are out in full force with travel writer Jane Archer of the Telegraph newspaper in London answering her own question Is Cruising Safer One Year On? and Carolyn Spencer Brown of the Expedia / TripAdvisor owned Cruise Critic fan site conducting a puff piece interview for CNN International extolling on the virtues of cruising and blaming the series of institutional failures solely on "one rogue captain."  

More critical and honest articles include  I Need a Grave to Cry Over. 

As the focus is now on the island of Giglio, where the Concordia capsized and remains in view as a daily reminder of the deadly disaster, Costa has done the unthinkable by writing a letter to the victims telling them that they should stay away from the island for "logistical reasons." 

Amazingly insensitive, but this has been how Costa and Carnival have operated from day one. 

As one survivor put it: "Costa has had an inhumane and unacceptable attitude from the start."

The cruise lines would prefer not to have several thousands of people standing with the wrecked cruise ship in the background, telling the world how Costa and Carnival have treated them over the last year. 

Photo credit: CNN International

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The Costa Concordia disaster provided a disturbing insight into the unsafe operations of the cruise lines. Before the Concordia capsized, the cruise industry did not even have a requirement that cruise ships conduct a muster drill before the passengers set sail.  There were no restrictions to the bridge. The on board girlfriend of infamous Captain Schettino was reportedly in the bridge after the Concordia hit the rocks. And there was widespread confusion from the senior officers in the bridge all the way down to the crew members at the life boats.  

Can you imagine flying on an American Airlines 757 where the stewardess doesn't bother to instruct passengers on evacuation and emergency procedures before take-off and the captain's girlfriend hangs out in the cockpit?     

The image of panic and the ensuing death of both passengers and crew aboard the Concordia threatened to sink the cruise industry's idyllic image of fun, family vacations on the high seas. In response, the cruise industry - lead by the Cruise Line International Association ("CLIA") - devised a public relations scheme to create the image that an "independent" panel of experts was objectively scrutinizing the situation and arriving at proposals to make cruising safer.

The reality, however, was that the so-called "independent" experts were really paid consultants for the cruise lines and were hired more for public relation reasons than to really analyze the obvious weaknesses in the cruise industry's procedures.   

But with every new safety recommendations proposed throughout 2012, the travel agents and cruise specialists united for a collective "hurrah!" to ensure the public that cruising was safer than ever before. Leading the PR campaign was the popular on line cruise community Cruise Critic, owned by Expedia / TripAdvisor, which like a loyal cheerleader applauded everything the cruise industry announced.

Even more disappointing was the unabashed cheer-leading by USA TODAY's Cruise Log which, although owned and operated by a major newspaper, might as well be a part of the cruise industry's PR committee. Like Cruise Critic, Cruise Log was all-too-quick to publish whatever CLIA wanted reported in the news as the Gospel Cruise Truth.

Lacking in the Cruise Critic / Cruise Log discourse was any critical analysis by experienced and truly objective maritime experts about what the cruise industry was proposing. Neither Cruise Critic nor Cruise Log offered a single criticism, or dissenting view, regarding the post-Concordia safety recommendations. No one mentioned the fact that there was no consequence if any of the recommendations the cruise industry was proposing were ignored by a cruise line.

The recommendations remain just that - recommendations - with no governing body to impose fines or sentences if they are not followed. 

We here at Cruise Law News voiced our reservations throughout the year about some of these proposals, starting with the dubious and laughable "independent" nature of the so-called experts. We pointed out specific shortcomings of the ten point safety recommendations which you can read here, here and here.

With the Costa Concordia one-year anniversary less than a week away, the cruise industry is again gearing up its PR campaign to try and convince the public that it has made great strides in ensuring that a cruise vacation on the high seas is safe and sound. Cruise Log just published a puff piece extolling CLIA's 10 safety recommendations, followed by an almost identical article published today by Cruise Critic which might as well have been written by publicists hired by CLIA and Expedia to encourage the public to cruise.

Ultimately, cheer-leading like this does more harm than good. Media and internet companies like Cruise Log and Cruise Critic are selfishly short-sighted in their unrestrained support and promotion of the cruise industry.  As matters now stand there is no oversight of the foreign-flagged cruise ships and foreign-incorporated cruise companies. The cruising public remains at risk. The public needs fewer cheerleaders and more watchdogs.  

Instead of an independent media watching over the cruise business and a community of independent thinkers with a healthy degree of skepticism, cruising is dominated by spineless journalists and a flock of sheep ready to follow the cruise lines over the next cliff.

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A television station (WBRD) in Louisville Kentucky brings us the story of 29 year-old Lauren Moore, a Bowling Green native, who sailed aboard the ill-fated Costa Concordia with her friends a year ago come January 13th. 

Lauren had only been on-board for a couple hours when disaster struck. She says:

"It's not easy for me to forget. I remember the sounds of the screaming. I remember the feeling of the boat going over on its side."

"People being shoved, people screaming, people fighting each other for a spot to safe their life. My friend and I grabbed hands and we never let go of each other until we were safe on land." 

Lauren says that she remembers the sights and sounds of the horrible events that claimed the lifes of 32 people every day, but she wants to celebrate the fact that she and her friends are alive on the one year anniversary.    

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As 2012 comes to a close, it's time to take a look back at the images of the year in cruising.  

Below are 10 images of 2012 which tell the story of one of the most dangerous and controversial years in the history of cruising. My perspective is not that as a travel agent or vacation planner, but as the publisher of a law blog with the motto "everything the cruise lines don't want you to know." 

No. 10 - The Year of the Cruise Ship Bug:  Cruise lines hate it when anyone calls norovirus the "cruise ship bug." The nasty virus strikes nursing homes, day care facilities and hospitals too, but who wants to defend sick cruise ships by comparing them to facilities filled with ill patients or kids with pooh in their pants? I wrote more stories about norovirus and e-coli causing nausea, vomiting and diarrhea to nice people on the high seas than I care to admit.  We end the year with ABC News airing a segment on the "dangerous virus" sickening hundreds on the Cunard QM 2 and Princess' Emerald Princess cruise ships over Christmas.

Putting hysteria aside, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) documented 16 cases of cruise ship gastrointestinal illness, mostly noro, and that's counting only cruise ships calling on U.S. ports. Princess won the award for the greatest number of sick cruise ships this year, as well as the quickest to blame the passengers for not washing their hands even though the norovirus is primarily a food and water borne pathogen. The thought of being trapped on one of these floating petri dishes with hundreds of puking passengers makes me break out in a cold sweat.

No. 9 - Are Crew Members Fungible Goods?  This year has seen flagrant abuse of hard working crew members who are the backbone of the cruise industry. By registering their companies and cruise ships in countries like Liberia, Bermuda, and the Bahamas, the cruise lines ensure that the cruise employees have virtually no legal rights or bargaining power. Cruise giants Carnival and Royal Caribbean take advantage of the situation. A documentary in the U.K earlier this year exposed Celebrity Cruises overworking and underpaying its waiters. Carnival's P&O Cruises terminated 150 waiters from India who went on a peaceful 2 hour strike in Seattle to protest low wages and the withholding of tips, even though the Captain personally promised that the cruise line would not retaliate against the cruise employees. Carnival and P&O broke their word but not the law because there is no law protecting the crew members if they strike. 150 Indians now find themselves blackballed from the cruise industry.

We were contacted by more ill or injured crew members this year than ever before, most with serious orthopedic and neurological injuries to their necks and backs.  Cruise lines try and keep the sick employees out of the U.S. and try and suppress stories and images of injured crew employees. When the Azamara Quest experienced a disabling engine room fire, the cruise line quickly announced that all of the passengers were okay and heaped praise on the ship's captain. But the cruise line failed to mention that crew members were seriously injured during the fire, including one crew member trapped in an elevator shaft who was overcome by the heat and smoke.  No newspapers in the U.S. mentioned the injuries to the crew members.  Does anyone care about the crew?

No. 8 - Cruise Executives Get Richer, While Crew Members Get Poorer: 2012 was reportedly a difficult financial year for the cruise lines but you would never know it by looking at the huge sums of money which the cruise line CEO's pay themselves. In addition to his regular multi-million-dollar salary, Royal Caribbean CEO Richard Fain collected $11,500,000 by selling a small amount of his RCL stock.  Royal Caribbean meanwhile paid its bar-servers only $50 a month and required them to work for tips carrying a dozen tropical drinks around the pool deck while balancing a bottle of rum on their heads. Carnival CEO Arison paid himself an end-of-the-year bonus of $90,000,000. Both Carnival and Royal Caribbean viewed the tips paid by the passengers for crew members as sources of income for the cruise lines while paying their executives astronomical salaries, bonuses and stock options.

No. 7 - Polluters of the Air & Seas: The cruise lines made a big pitch this year that they are leaders in conserving the marine environment, proclaiming that they vigorously protect the waters upon which they sail. The Cruise Line International Association started the year with a message to the public that the cruise lines were stewards of the environment and embedded a beautiful stock photo showing colorful coral reefs and an abundance of tropical fish. But the following day the quaint coastal town of Nahant, Massachusetts found a local beach fouled by a huge amount of human excrement, toilet paper, rubber gloves, plastic bottles, dental floss, condoms, personal hygiene items and a urinal cake covered in a mass of disgusting brown foam which was believed to have been dumped by a passing NCL cruise ship.

Cruise lines are fighting stricter air emissions laws and are still burning toxic bunker fuel, even on its newest cruise ships.  A passenger sent me a photo of the Saga Sapphire which tried to continue sailing with some seriously smoking engines. The Friends of the Earth environmental group graded both Carnival and Royal Caribbean a "D+" for their disastrous impact on the air and sea.

No. 6 - Cruise Lines Stonewall Families of Missing Passengers & Crew Members:  Mike and Ann Coriam are still waiting for basic information about what happened to their daughter Rebecca who worked as a child care supervisor and disappeared from the Disney Wonder last year.

Investigations into the disappearances of of people from cruise ships at sea often fall to the "flag state" countries like Bermuda and the Bahamas which have little interest in doing anything that might embarrass their cruise line customers which fly their flags.

This year, twenty-three (23) passengers and crew members vanished on the high seas. That's an average of 2 a month. The cases are characterized by the cruise lines' lack of transparency and the flag states' hide-the-ball tactics. The families are hit with a double whammy. First, they suffer the loss of a child or other family member. Then, secondly and unnecessarily, they have to endure the cover-up by the cruise line and flag state. 

No. 5 - Deaths & Injuries on Zip Lines, FlowRiders, Rock Walls, Jet-Skis, & Excursions: As the cruise ships got bigger and bigger this year, the cruise lines added an increasing number of activities both on and off the ships.

We have been contacted by families seriously injured on rock climbing walls, in skating rinks, and on zip lines and simulated surfing attractions. One activity, the FlowRider attraction, is something which we consider the most dangerous activities you can participate in during a cruise.  Off of the cruise ships, deaths have marred cruises due to snorkeling, diving, kayaking, para-sailing, dune bugging, catamaran, and open air bus excursion accidents around the world.  

Cruise passengers have also been targeted for robberies and rapes in cruise line ports of call.  The most potentially violent ports of call? You're pretty safe in Canada and Europe, but Mexico and the Caribbean ports of call are dangerous. Don't expect the cruise lines to warn you. This year we won a major appeal where the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal ruled that Carnival has the legal duty to warn passengers of violence and crimes in ports of call. The case involved the tragic death of a girl who was shot to death in front of her parents in St. Thomas.

No. 4 - The Year of Cruise Ship Child Predators and Child Pornographers: Stories about cruise ship waiters, youth counselors, stateroom attendants and pool cleaners sexually abusing children were a frequent topic on this blog. But male crew members are not the only danger presented to child and young women during cruises.  Male passengers raped and sexually abused other passenger on a regular basis with the most common scenario involving older teenager or young men inviting younger girls back to their cabins with promises of drinking alcohol at a party.  The photo is of the most prolific cruise ship predator we know of - Cunard crew member Paul Trotter. You would think that a luxury cruise line like Cunard would carefully vet their employees. But not so. Trotter was employed as a youth counselor / child activities coordinator who worked aboard most of the Cunard cruise ships, interacting with children during nearly 300 cruises over the course of over 5 years. He was arrested in the U.K. for abusing at least 13 boys of English nationality and of course he abused American kids too.

In addition to sexual abuse of children, a number of passengers and crew members were arrested for having child pornography images and video on their laptop computers and iPhones. The cruise lines try and keep this nasty stuff secret.  But the danger is real.  Parents watch your kids. If something goes wrong during the cruise, don't think that the cruise line will believe your daughter over their crew member.

No. 3 - The Greatest Disappearing Act of the Year - Where's Micky?  Carnival's Micky Arison disappeared when the cruise world was looking for a strong voice and reassurance following the Concordia disaster. He would not answer questions raised by families of the dead about the disaster. He said later that he would make certain that all of the Concordia passengers were taken care of. He didn't honor that promise.

Arison did prove that he is a magician who can disappear in January when leadership was needed and magically re-appear at the end of the year to watch his Miami Heat play basketball and to pay himself a $90,000,000 bonus. The only person he took care of this year was himself.

No. 2 - "Coward of the Seas" a/k/a "Chicken of the Seas:" The country of Italy has an impressive maritime tradition which dates back centuries. But cruise ship captain Francesco Schettino did a good job of single handily ruining his country's reputation on the night of January 13, 2012.

If you were asked to write a script for a cruise ship disaster movie, the Costa Concordia script would be rejected as being too outrageous. A handsome married captain is dining with a blonde cruise ship dancer and leaves his lover and glass of vino to ram the ship into the rocks during a showboating stunt only to delay evacuation and leave the passengers while sneaking off the ship like a rat?  But Schettino is not capable of shame, explaining that he didn't really abandon ship but that he slipped and fell into a lifeboat. He later said that the "hand of God" touched him and he should be considered to be a hero for saving thousands of passengers and crew members from drowning. He also managed to file a lawsuit against Costa for wrongful termination. Stayed tuned. 

No. 1 - Costa Concordia & Cruise Line Lies: January started with a story about a cruise ship called the Costa Concordia, a name no one will forget for a long time. Do you remember where you were when the Concordia hit the rocks? The first image (top photo) I saw of the disaster was sent via Twitter by a blogger in the U.K.   When the first official communications from Costa were that evacuation was proceeding "orderly" and the passengers were "not at risk," but people on Twitter were talking about panicked passengers jumping into the water, I knew then that things were really screwed up. 32 dead people and thousands terrorized. Costa and the cruise industry want the public to believe that the disaster was due solely to one maverick captain run amuck. But the Concordia debacle reveals much about the unregulated nature of a cruise business with little regard for spending money on passenger and crew safety.

It's now almost a year later and the capsized ship remains lying on its side like a giant dead whale - a fitting image of a disastrous year.

2012 was also the year of the big lie - who told the biggest cruise ship whopper? Take your pick: "The Situation Is Under Control, Go Back To Your Cabin" says a Costa supervisor to panicked passenger who assembled on deck with their life vests ready to be evacuated. "I slipped and fell into the lifeboat" by Captain Francesco Schettino. Or "Cruising Is the Safest Form of Transportation" (as well as an endless number of other big fibs) by the shameless Cruise Line International Association (CLIA).

Thanks for Reading Cruise Law News (CLN): We enjoyed a record setting year, ending up by far the most popular maritime law blog in the world. This year over 1,200,000 people visited CLN and they read over 3,500,000 pages of CLN. I'd like to think that people read CLN because it lives up to the motto "everything the cruise lines don't want you to know."

Happy New Year.  We hope we have less bad news to blog about in 2013.  If you are vacationing on the high seas next year, have a safe and enjoyable cruise.

Please leave a comment below or leave a comment on out Facebook page.

Photo Credit:

Richard Fain - Wall Street Journal Smart Money / by Jeffrey Salter / Redux

Mike & Ann Coriam / Disney Wonder - LA Times

Costa Concordia (bottom) - Reuters

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As we close out another exciting year here in Miami, I'd like to extend a Merry Christmas and Season's Greetings from the lawyers at Cruise Law. 

It's that time of the year to be thankful for your family and friends as we celebrate the Holidays. 

Many, many thanks to my friends, clients and extended family.

Merry Christmas! And don't forget, Its a Wonderful Life.

Photo by Jim Walker

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Today the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper published an article about our trip this week to Jamaica entitled "Know Your Rights!" The article is below:

"CRUISE-SHIP workers are being urged to empower themselves by obtaining knowledge about their rights to benefits from their employers.

Several cruise-ship workers turned up on Wednesday at the Hibiscus Lodge in Ocho Rios to speak to lawyers from Walker & O'Neill Maritime Lawyers based in Miami, Florida. The lawyers - James Walker, Lisa O'Neill and Jonathan Aronson - were in the island to meet persons who might have been injured or fallen ill while at work on a cruise ship and who need guidance or representation.

While several persons were happy to have met the team of lawyers, there were those who left disappointed as the three-year period allowed for compensation had elapsed.

"Most of the crew members who work for the Miami-based cruise lines like Carnival, Royal Caribbean and others, to be honest with you, they don't know their legal rights because the cruise lines do not inform them of their legal rights," asserted lawyer James M. Walker.

"They don't understand, for example, that they have only three years to contact a lawyer to assert a claim to seek medical treatment, or benefits or compensation for their injuries."

One woman who worked on a cruise ship and got injured seven years ago was told of the three-year limit. She left disappointed. So too did two men who last worked for a cruise line six years ago.

Walker said these persons should have been informed of their rights.

"They should know that when they leave the company. When they leave the company on sick leave, they should be told you have only three years and if you don't assert your rights within that period of time you lose them forever. So we're here for educational purposes," Walker said.

Seeking Redress

Over a dozen persons were steered in the direction that they need to go to seek redress after being injured. While they shied away from speaking with The Gleaner for the most part, one man who turned up walking with the aid of a crutch, while refusing to give his name, told the newspaper: "I'm pleased with the service so far."

He left with instructions to return with additional documents he had left at home.

But the critical issue, Walker said, was for workers to know their rights. For example, Jamaican crew members on cruise ships are entitled to get medical treatment in the United States.

Cruise workers who need information may visit www.cruiselawnews.com, a site that offers news on rights of crew members. Walker is urging persons to visit the site and educate themselves."

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Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's interview with disgraced Captain Schettino airs tonight in a program entitled the "Captain's Tale" produced by the CBC's Fifth Estate.

The Costa captain states that he doesn't understand why the disaster is being treated like a crime. He blames others for striking the rocks, explains that he delayed the evacuation of the cruise ship because he did not want to cause "mass hysteria," and denies that he abandoned ship.

Portions of the interview are below.  The full interview on CBC will be shown tonight.

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Some of the critics of Cruise Law News say that I unnecessarily include sensationalist information in my blog. My response is that it's hard to report on developments in the world of cruising and not sound sensational when cruise ships are on fire, sinking and being chased by pirates.

But today, I read a few articles about a cruise which are about as sensationalist as you can get. A Fox news station in New Orleans published an article this morning entitled "FBI: Confessed Serial Killer Boarded Cruise Ship in New Orleans." It is now trending on Twitter. The article is about serial killer Israel Keyes who abducted, robbed, raped, and strangled a young woman to death in Alaska. It turns out that he was involved in a number of similar crimes across the country. He was finally arrested and placed in a jail in Anchorage where he recently committed suicide.

For reasons not clear to me, the FBI just disclosed a number of rather horrific facts involving the diabolical crime (as mentioned above) including the fact that he dismembered the young woman's body before disposing of it. Included in the gratuitous information released by the FBI was the odd fact that following the crime serial killer Keyes went on a two week cruise out of New Orleans.

So what is the connection between these grisly circumstances and cruising?  Absolutely none. But the dubious connection to cruising was not just made by the Fox News people.  It seems that many of the media outlets covering the story are making exploitative references to the fact that the sociopath ended his crime spree with a cruise.  ABC News proclaimed "Serial Killer's Methodical Plan to Rape and Strangle Teen, Then Go on a Cruise" and included a video of the story which you can watch below.

The video has no reference to the fact that the killer subsequently sailed out of New Orleans on a cruise ship. The headline's reference to a cruise was just a hook to pull you into reading the articles and watching the video.

I suppose that the only point to be learned is that when you cruise, you never know who you're cruising with.  A few thousand people did in fact sail out of New Orleans with a serial killer with fresh blood on his hands. If you cruise will a serial killer be aboard?  Seems unlikely to me. But not so far fetched to prevent me from wondering whether the FBI checked with the unidentified cruise line to determine if there were any unexplained deaths or disappearances during the cruise. 

December 6, 2012 Update: we have been contacted by passengers who sailed out of New Orleans who want to know which cruise ship Israel cruised on. We don't know. It is our understanding that he left Alaska on February 2, 2012 for a cruise from New Orleans. The cruise ships leaving New Orleans around this time were the Voyager Of The Seas (February 4th) and the Carnival Conquest & Norwegian Spirit (both leaving on February 5th). Anyone who which ship he was on?

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A few minutes ago, Cruise Law News hit a milestone with the 25,000th person "liking" our page on facebook.

For the longest time, our involvement with social media involved mostly this blog and our feed on Twitter, CruiseLaw.  

What I have observed this year is that our Twitter feed (with over 10,000 followers) is largely followed by cruise passengers, travel agents and cruise line employees. Most of the people on Twitter who follow us reside in the U.S. In contrast, our facebook page is mostly "liked" by many thousands of crew members from around the world. We have made friends with lots of crew members from India, Romania, Croatia, Serbia and Jamaica on facebook.   

The other thing that I have noticed is that crew members and other friends from outside the U.S. are far more likely to interact with us on facebook.  They leave comments on facebook. The people who read our articles and interact with us on facebook far outreach the number of people who socialize with us on twitter or contact us after subscribing to this blog.

For example, after a number of crew members went overboard from Royal Caribbean cruise ships a few months ago, I posted a couple of comments asking whether Royal Caribbean was working its crew members too hard.  One of the posts was read by over 350,000 people on facebook.  Another posting about the working conditions on Celebrity cruise ships was read by over 100,000 people. We also had many hundreds of comments to these articles, mostly by crew members who have first hand knowledge of what "ship life" is really like.

Crew members are the backbone of our law practice.  Yes we have assisted many hundreds of cruise passengers over the years. But the majority of our clients are crew members (like the crew member above from Trinidad).

Whether they are crew members or not, the biggest supporters of this blog reside outside of the U.S.  The last four people to "like" our page were "Raja" from India, "Natalija" from Croatia, "Novi" from Bosnia & Herzegovina, with "J.J." from South Africa being the 25,000th person to like our page. I have learned that the international community has a different perspective about things than Americans do. People outside the U.S. are far more sympathetic to the hard times many crew members face.  Most Americans, on the other hand, just want a nice cruise vacation. Long hours and low pay are not their concerns.   

Crew members often leave us messages on facebook, asking us for help or informal advice about their rights on cruise ships. Often crew members from places like India, Indonesia or the Caribbean islands have no one to turn to for information while working long contracts on the high seas far away from home. Problems with supervisors, long hours, bad medical care, prejudice & sexual harassment put crew members in a stressful situation. We are pleased to respond without any obligation. We hope that we can help you.

Our blog is read over a million times each year. Thanks for helping us spread the word on facebook. If you have information about working conditions on cruise ships and things that need fixing in the cruise industry, send us tips. We promise to maintain your confidentiality.  

If you are a cruise ship employee, thanks for "liking" us on facebook and reading this blog. If it is helpful to you, recommend us to a friend. Share our articles with your past or present crew member friends. Help us get the word out about "everything the cruise lines don't want you to know."  

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According to AVVO which ranks the popularity of law blogs, Cruise Law News (CLN) is currently the 9th most popular law blog in the U.S.  You can read the list (updated daily) here.  The list does not pretend to be a compilation of the "best" blogs.  It is based primarily on the number of readers and the number of pages read for each blog, if I understand correctly how AVVO works.

Of the eight blogs ahead of CLN, four of the blogs are written by law professors (Legal Insurrection, Althouse, Law Professors Blog Network, and the Volokh Conspiracy).  Three other blogs are commercial (accepting advertising) types (Lawyernomics, Above the Law, and Lawyerist). There is only one blog ahead of us which is written by a lawyer who actually practices law full time, China Blog, which is authored by Seattle attorney Dan Harris.  

That makes our blog the most widely read blog about our practice areas - cruise law and maritime personal injury law - in the U.S. Around 300,000 pages of CLN are read a month. We expect at the end of this year there to be well over 3,000,000 pages of CLN read just this year alone. 

Our Cruise Law News facebook page is the most popular facebook page for a lawyer and our Twitter feed is also popular. 

Being a widely read blog is admittedly a goal of CLN. The purpose of our blog is to educate the public about "everything cruise lines don't want you to know." There are a lot of problems, like sexual assault of women, molestation of children, and abuse of crew members, that cruise lines try and keep secret. 

Thanks for reading our blog, and thanks for sending us tips about things that happen on cruise ships which the Carnivals and Royal Caribbeans prefer the public not to know.

If you want to track the popularity of websites and blogs, download the Alexa toolbar.  Its simple and takes less than 30 seconds.

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I'm not always right.

Despite the ego that I have grown to compete in the dog-eat-dog world of cruise line litigation against Fortune 200 cruise corporations in Miami Florida, every day I realize that I, too, make errors of perception, of judgment, and of acknowledgment.

Last year, I wrote an article about what I thought were the "top 12 best cruise blogs."  Boy did I make a major mistake.  I omitted one of the best cruise line blogs around. 

Martin Cox's "Maritime Matters" is brilliant.

It has the perfect balance of current cruise news coupled with fascinating historical chronicles of the cruise industry.

What peaked my interest into publisher Mr. Cox's extraordinary website were the recent and utterly fascinating stories of co-editor Peter Knego's Journey to Giglio and his trip to explore the first and only atomic cruise ship the N/S SAVANNAH. The photography, information and perspective are rather amazing.

Take a minute, leave my blog of admittedly depressing stories of crimes against cruise passengers and mistreatment of crew members and other bad cruise line news. Travel through Maritime Matters' entertaining world of cruise lines, past and future.

Cruise Law News' grade of Maritime Matters?  A+

Photo credit: Peter Knego

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Early this Monday morning I reported on an outbreak of meningitis aboard the MSC Orchestra cruise ship.  Four MSC crew members were hospitalized yesterday in Livorno, Italy once the cruise ship reached this Italian port. Newspapers in Italy, France, Germany and Spain mentioned the disease outbreak.

But no one in the U.S. mentioned the story.

Meningitis is a serious and often deadly disease.  Meningitis developing on a cruise ship filled with several thousand passengers and crew members is a big event, particularly considering that one or more of the crew members worked in the ship's galley and could infect the unsuspecting passengers though saliva from their mouths and/or throats, or coughing and spewing infected mucous on food or into beverages. 

I tweeted my article this morning "Crew Members Aboard MSC Orchestra Stricken With Meningitis."  The cruise community on Twitter operating under the #cruise hash tag is relatively small, with cruise agents, and cruise lines and the cruise trade groups all incessantly and incestuously re-twitting everyone else's tweets about the joys of cruising.  But aside from one travel agent who re-tweeted my article about the MSC meningitis cases this morning, none of the major bloggers or cruise publications tweeted or blogged a word about the disease.

The big boys in the world of cruising, like USA TODAY's CruiseLog and the Expedia-owned Cruise Critic, didn't mention a thing. Nor did the Miami Herald or the many travel agent publications or any of the regular cruise and travel bloggers. Instead, we had USA TODAY CruiseLog's last blog about "Princess' Next Ship to Have a Water and Light Show" and CruiseCritic writing about "Work Starts on Biggest P&O Cruise Ship."

Finally late tonight we have CNN reporting the story, commenting that more than 2,800 doses of antibiotics (Ciprofloxacin and Rifampicin) were issued for passengers. CNN repeated the Italian Health Ministry's comments that "the strand was found in the crew that worked in the kitchen and that, therefore, they should not have had continuous and close contact with passengers."  CNN also brought forth the ominous information from the Ministry in Italy that passengers who have disembarked in the past week from the prior cruise should take similar antibiotics.   

This morning I mentioned that the press in Italy reported that some 400 children were aboard the Orchestra and were told to take the antibiotics out of concern of possible exposure to the diseased crew members.  Certainly this is not the type of a cruise story involving at least one or more infected galley workers that only a little blog like mine and a few random twitters should cover and the major U.S. media should ignore until CNN reports on it 12 hours later.

Are the travel publications and major cruise bloggers afraid to offend their friends in the cruise industry?  Are they just trained monkeys who see, hear and speak no evil?    

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A couple of my friends on Twitter asked me about a maritime law blog in Miami which tweets under the Twitter handle @cruiseshiplaw. They were confused whether it was my blog, because it looked strikingly just like mine and had a similar name.

I clicked on the blog and, yes, it looks pretty much just like mine. A big white cruise ship in the upper right corner and the same blue theme.

Its a blog by my main competitor for cruise line clients. Very good lawyers no doubt.  But why rip off my design?  

I have an approach in life and in my blog to give credit where credit is due. So when I write about maritime lawyers in Miami winning cases against the cruise lines I credit them by name.

But this blog not only copied my design but actually writes about our cases.  Look to the right and you can see the article "Carnival Cruise Lines May Be Liable For Child's Death." That's a precedent setting case against Carnival where we recently prevailed in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeal, which we wrote about earlier this month.

Ah another law firm sponging, mooching, free-loading and otherwise riding on our coattails.

No worries.

I suppose imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. 

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Cruise List broke a story today about a power outage which occurred on Holland America Line's  Statendam cruise ship last Thursday. 

The Cruise List blog explains that last Thursday evening his proprietary application which searches for cruise information on Twitter picked up a tweet about a “fuel pump explosion” that caused a “two hour Power Outage on the Statendam.”  He re-tweeted it but later deleted it when he received a direct message from the person originally tweeting the information, begging him to delete it for reasons not explained (he sounds a lot nicer than me).

Cruise List then left a post on Cruise Critic asking if anyone knew about an incident on the Statendam. Yes, several passengers responded - the cruise ship indeed "lost all power and were serving cheese sandwiches in the main dining room."

This incident seems to have passed without much consequence other than the inconvenience of cheese sandwiches. But the Statendam is almost two decades old - it is one of the older ships in the modern cruise line industry.

As the last couple of years have demonstrated, power failures on cruise ship are a very serious matter. Engine room fires and explosions which disable cruise ships, for a few hours or to the point that the ship is disabled at sea, are hardly rare. Consider these incidents in the last three years:

• The Sun Princess lost power earlier this month;
• The Costa Allegra lost all power off the coast of southern Africa earlier this year and had to be towed back to a port;
• The M/V Plancius adventure cruise ship lost power and was stranded in the South Atlantic;
• The Azamara Quest lost most of its power this year following an engine room fire near Bornea;
• The Cunard QM2 suffered what is described as a catastrophic explosion and lost power on the high seas;
• The MSC Opera lost power in the Baltic Sea, with passengers describing the ordeal as "shocking, scary, with dark hallways and backed up toilets," according to the BBC.
• The Norwegian Dawn lost power in the Caribbean; and
• The most famous recent power failure occurred aboard the Carnival Splendor. The U.S.S. Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier had to send helicopters to drop relief food to the cruise ship and a fleet of tug boats had to push and pull the Splendor to San Diego for extensive repairs.  

The cruise industry tries to keep explosions and power outages quiet, to avoid images like the Carnival Splendor cruise ship (right) stranded at sea or videos like this.  

The Statendam captain's blog mentions nothing about the power outage. I'm sure that that's not a reflection of him as much as a corporate policy prohibiting any mention of something like this.

It's important for the cruise community to keep an eye out for potential safety issues that the cruise lines would prefer you not know.

Hats off to Cruise List, which states that it "was created as a place where you could go to see what was going on aboard ships without a sales pitch." 

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This morning two news articles caught my eye.  The first one from an Australian newspaper - "Cruising Boom: 20 Million Take to the Sea" - and the second one from one of my favorite newspapers, the LA Times - "Cruise Industry Rebounding from Ship Accident, Woes in Europe."

These headlines seem incongruous given the fact that the Costa Concordia remains capsized on its side as a continuing reminder of the deadly cruise disaster (image today).    

The Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) does a very good job promoting statistics showing the growth of the cruise industry via press releases. Today we are learning that some 20,000,000 people took a cruise last year - a record year for cruising.  According to the Sydney Morning Herald:

"A record 20 million people took a cruise last year, an increase of almost 2 million, according to the latest industry figures. While North America (11.5 million) and Europe (6.2 million) are the main markets, the Australian cruising market grew by 30 per cent, to more than 500,000 passengers." 

That's good news for the cruise industry and travel agents who make a living selling cruises. But last year, of course, was pre Costa Concordia disaster.  What are the prospects for the cruise industry post Costa Concordia?

According to the LA Times, the future of the $37 billion industry looks bright.

A survey of 300 travel agents in North America in July found that 64% expected bookings in 2012 to surpass last year's numbers.  And plenty of new cruise ships are coming on line with 19 ships being added or slated to come on line in 2012 and 2013 (a rather surprising number to me - is this right?) 

The newspaper interviewed Stewart Chiron, owner of CruiseGuy.com, who I bump heads with regularly on Twitter, saying "the impact of the Concordia on North America was almost nonexistent."  That is a hard concept to wrap my head around - 32 dead including Americans with no effect on U.S. cruise sales? In my view, if this is true it reflects that Carnival (which has over 100 cruise ships) and the cruise industry can weather almost any storm provided that they remain immune from paying U.S. corporate taxes. 

The newspaper concludes that cruise reservations are rising, and the drop in European bookings are offset by strong U.S. cruise ticket sales. The bottom line according to Times? The Costa Concordia disaster had only a short-term effect.

It seems to me that the LA Times article may be a tad optimistic, but who am I to rain on the cruise industry's good news? I was disappointed to see that the Times interviewed mostly just a cruise CEO, a travel agent and a cruise specialist without including an in depth analysis of the cruise lines' financial status.      

It's kind of like writing an article about the prospects of a professional football team and then interviewing only the team's owner, players and cheerleaders.   

Photo credit: Giglio News

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One of the things about being a maritime lawyer in Miami is that when a cruise ship catches on fire or sinks, the networks will come calling for you to appear on TV.  

The cruise lines usually run and hide until the drama is over.  But the Miami based maritime lawyers will appear on all of the major networks as well as CNN, MSNBC and FOX News.

I have been on TV more times than that I can count - Larry King a couple of times, Fox News' Sean Hannity, CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper & Erin Burnett, MSNBC, CNN Money, Court TV, ABC's 20 / 20, Nancy Grace, Dateline, Greta Van Sustern, Joe Scarborough, 48 Hours, and so forth and so on. There are a couple of other maritime lawyers in Miami who also appear regularly when things go wrong on cruise ships.

I suppose it's great publicity.  There you are on national television.  Wow, you must be smart or famous or important or something.  It looks very official.  There you are with the cable news logo behind you with your face on one side of a split screen with a big time television interviewer on the other side.

But the truth is a little different.  Unless you are actually on the production set across from the interviewer (like Larry King Live, which was great fun), you are usually being interviewed at a remote location where you are stuffed into a little closet of a room with a microphone under your tie and an audio piece in your ear with a big camera pointing at you and a tiny TV monitor in front of you. 

Perched on a little uncomfortable seat staring at a 13 inch monitor trying to think of something intelligent to say to several million viewers is not always easy.  

It can be disorienting the first time you do a remote interview. There is an audio delay of several seconds between when you or the interviewer talk and when the voices are heard on television. So you run the risk of confusing yourself if you watch the monitor. There you are talking away but the monitor shows you just sitting there.  You have to understand that what you are watching is a couple of seconds behind real time.

I have to admit that I love it.  It comes naturally to me.  There is no shortage of cruise news and I have no shortage of opinions. 

But the production is all smoke and mirrors. 

So when you see me next time on TV, don't be impressed. Remember that I am sitting on a stool somewhere in a tiny room alone trying to hear the question through a crappy little plastic earpiece while looking at a tiny little TV screen.     

Check out our media page here.

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To watch the Port of Miami webcam, click here.

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CruiseMates recently ran an article by its editor Paul Motter entitled "Most Ridiculous Cruise Ship Lawsuits." One of the lawsuits was filed by a 50 year old lady passenger aboard a P&O cruise ship who attended a talent show dressed in a leopard skin dress who sang a Tina Turner song River Deep Mountain High.

One of the P&O judges, entertainer Rory Healey, allegedly told her he could see her underwear through her dress, commented on her breasts and suggested she could "cougar" him any time.

Her husband said that Mr. Healey then touched the screen showing her image, fondling and kissing the screen image of her breasts. Read more here.

CruiseMates editor Motter mocked the woman and labeled her lawsuit as "ridiculous." 

One CruiseMates reader commented: "Wonder what Jim Walker would say about this?" Mr. Motter responded: "Something tells me Jim Walker has already commented on it - probably in the woman's favor."

Well, I haven't commented on this sorry state of affairs yet, but here are my thoughts:  

This happened on a P&O cruise ship. When it comes to sexual harassment and crimes against women, P&O Cruises has a nasty history.

When I started this blog several years ago, one of the first articles I wrote was about a P&O cruise passenger, Dianne Brimble.  A gang of eight slipped her a date rape drug. Ms. Brimble ended up raped and dead, naked on the floor of a cabin occupied by the men who joked afterwards that she had the breath of a dog and they thought about throwing her overboard.  

P&O responded to the horrific incident in a manner that i would describe as somewhere between callous and outrageous. Eventually P&O promised to mend its way and clean up its over-the-top fraternity party attitude where women and booze are just part of the cruise fun.

But did it really clean up its act?

P&O quickly pimped out their female passengers, with a sexist "Seamen Wanted" promotional postcard, depicting a deck full of women wearing bikinis, accompanied by a tag line "More girls, more sun, more fun. There's nothing else a guy needs to know."

No wonder that P&O Cruises experienced sexual assaults in the years following this disastrous ad campaign.

So when I read about Mr. Motter giggling about women's underwear and the foolish P&O crew member's not-so-funny comments about "cougar" women, I can't help to think what a sad state of affairs remains on the P&O cruise ships for this nonsense to be going on. A P&O crew member groping and kissing an image of a cruise passenger's breasts?

Mr. Healey needs to be sacked ASAP.  He needs to be made an example of sexism run wild.   

And that goes for CruiseMates' editor, Mr.Motter.  He needs to be canned too.   

Dianne Brimble's family deserves nothing less. 

Update: 

After posting this article, I received a number of emails blasting me for wriiting about this cruise employee.  It seems there is a facebook page called "Save Rory" trying to keep him employed.  I could not find the facebook page but ran across this photo of Rory on facebook.

Seems like he posted a photo of himself, a cardboard cut-out of Jennister Anniston in the urinals. Funny? I don't think so, but let's see what P&O thinks.  The cruise line defense lawyers may want to instruct Rory to take his facebook page down during the pendency of the lawsuit . . .      

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Cruise Law News has been on line since September 2009.  We have several thousand people who subscribed via e-mail, RSS or Google Reader.  A little over !0,000 people have followed us on Twitter over the last three years. Most of the subscribers and Twitter followers are from the U.S. with many travel agents, cruise planners, and regular cruisers reading the blog. 

But our readership has changed dramatically over the last several months. In June, I started posting information regularly on Cruise Law News' facebook page. I've added lots of stories and photos which are not in my blog.

Since June, over 13,000 people have liked us on facebook. The majority of the new readers are from Europe, South America and India. From Europe, we have seen an unprecedented number of people from Romania, Serbia and Croatia liking us. Many are crew members or former crew members.   We receive more comments to our face book page than on my blog.

If you haven't done so, consider going to our facebook page and clicking the like button.  Leave us a comment and give us your thoughts about our page.

Thanks for reading . . . 

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I received a nice compliment this week when a top travel blogger, Chris Owen, picked Cruise Law News as one of "Three Unique Cruise Websites Worth A Look."

Chris is a popular travel expert who writes for Gadling and his own blog Chris Cruises - Inside Cruise Vacatioms." 

Chris writes:

"There are a lot of web sites around with cruise information. The king daddy of all is probably Cruise Critic, with tens of thousands of members, ship reviews that even offers the ability to price cruises from a variety of sources, a great first step before contacting a travel agent for serious planning. USA Today brings the power of a major international publication to cruise information with Gene Sloan at the helm covering breaking news alike a blanket. But some smaller, lesser-known sites are making a big impact with unique content worth a look, if not a bookmark, free subscription and daily visit."

Chris' first pick is Phil Reimer’s Ports and Bows. Mr. Reimer is the cruise expert for newspapers in Canada.  I have to check him out.

Number 2 is Doug Parker’s Cruise Radio.  Doug hosts a fast paced and popular weekly Internet cruise radio broadcast with co-host Matt Basford.  These guys have invited me on their show a couple of times when they want to tell their lawyer jokes.

I'm last of the three, but beggars can't be choosers.  Here's Chris' write up of my blog:

"Jim Walker’s Cruise Law News adds a sobering tone to what can be an industry that sometimes gets a bit wrapped up in itself, asking and answering tough questions about current maritime matters. First on the doorstep of cruise lines when things go wrong, Walker also does not hesitate to jump into the conversation when passengers have unreasonable demands."

Thanks for the mention Chris!  This is the first time in many years anyone has said that I'm sober . . . 

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The Costa Concordia in January disaster set off a seemingly endless avalanche of stories on cable news this year about ship fires, sinkings and other cruise disasters, as well as a steady stream of articles and videos about sexual assaults during cruises, drunken brawling passengers, and the disappearance of women at sea.

I'm just one of probably 100 maritime attorneys in the United States who handle cases against cruise lines. But just this year alone I have appeared on ABC's 20/20, Dateline, PBS, Canada's CTV and CNN, as well being quoted in newspapers and magazines like the Wall Street Journal, Slate, The Daily, London's Financial Times, Newsweek Magazine, Newsweek's The Daily Beast blog, Fund Web, Reuters, Consumer Affairs, Australia's Herald Sun, Houston Chronicle, Seattle Times, Sun Sentinel, Chicago Tribune, Tampa Bay Business Journal, Business Insider, and Greenwich Magazine.

Even Perez Hilton quoted one of our stories about a cruise crime for goodness sakes. 

The cruise lines' PR have been working overtime to respond to hundreds of stories from the U.S. and international media about cruise ship mishaps and dangers.

The cruise industry's trade organization (CLIA) has been pumping out press release after press release, touting that cruise crime is "rare" and trying to explain that the Concordia debacle was an isolated incident caused by one bad-apple captain.

But stories about ship fires, engine failures and children being sexually assaulted on cruises keep coming and coming.

A lot of pressure has fallen on CLIA to salvage the cruise industry's reputation. That's a daunting task.

There's the pesky image of the Concordia lying on its side in Italian waters as a daily reminder that 32 people are dead and yet the cruise line did not even have a procedure in place to require life boat drills before sailing. Plus the cruise industry has the visual disadvantage of having to compete with the dramatic images on television of the panicked passengers trying to save their own lives, as well as teenage rape victims explaining the horror of being raped during a vacation cruise.

Slick corporate gobbledygook after-the-fact PR statements about the "safety of our guests is the cruise lines' highest priority" are not going to cut it.           

The victims' stories are too compelling. Belated PR statements from an industry with a major credibility problem won't work.

The cruise industry has picked the CEO of CLIA, Christine Duffy, to combat the bad press.  CLIA just launched a new blog and opened a twitter account for Ms. Duffy to fight the bad news. 

One of MS. Duffy's first blogs was "Sailing with Respect" where CLIA touted itself as a steward of the marine environment. It included a beautiful stock photo of colorful tropical fish and pristine water. But today a story broke about what is believed to be cruise ship garbage and feces drifting ashore on a quaint beach in Massachusetts. Local officials believe a HAL cruise ship emptied its bilges after sailing from Boston last month. The story was covered in the local press, a television station in Boston and USA Today's travel section.

Faced with these images, its hard for anyone to believe the cruise industry statement that it is "extremely committed to protecting the waters and surrounding environments where we operate to preserve their natural beauty, minimize impact on native species and protect the waters upon which we sail."  Happy talk won't persuade the public faced with plastic bottles, used hygiene products and condoms washing ashore covered in a gooey brown mass of human excrement.

Also breaking today was a story from a local station in Houston about a woman from Texas raped during a cruise out of Galveston.  CLIA responded with its usual PR statement that crime is "rare," which seems cold and callous juxtaposed against a video of a woman sobbing that no one helped her after she was raped on the last night of the cruise. 

I don't see how Ms. Duffy can keep up with the continuous bad news.

An image comes to mind of an "I Love Lucy" episode of Lucy working at a chocolate factory.  Pieces of chocolate come out of the kitchen on a conveyor belt. It's Lucy's (and Ethel's) job to tie the chocolate up in an attractive wrapping (not unlike Ms. Duffy's job to wrap the bad news with a pretty bow). 

But the conveyor belt picks up speed. Soon Lucy is overwhelmed. She tires to eat or hide the chocolate but makes a mess of herself and the chocolate in the process. Finally, she exclaims "I think we are fighting a losing game." 

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Today the cruise Industry trade organization, Cruise Line International Association ("CLIA"), sent out a press release announcing that its CEO, Christine Duffy, now has a Twitter account: @CLIACEO 

I could not help but think, oh boy is this going to be fun.  

Ms. Duffy began her tenure at the helm of CLIA in January of last year.  She started her employment with a bang when she answered some friendly questions from a travel magazine about lobbying Congress for the cruise lines. Somehow she managed to criticize the U.S. automobile industry while trying to promote the cruise lines.  Listen to this whopper:  

Part of the message we delivered in D.C. is that the travel industry employs more people than the auto industry, and we didn’t get a bailout. We employ a lot more people than anybody recognized, and our impact is in all 50 states. We’re not going to offshore our jobs . . .

The fact of the matter is that all of the CLIA cruise lines are foreign corporations. Unlike Ford or Chevrolet which are U.S. corporations and employ U.S. employees, the CLIA cruise lines are 100% foreign corporations. Carnival was incorporated in Panama. Royal Caribbean was incorporated in Liberia (yes, Africa). And all of these cruise lines fly the flags of foreign countries like Panama, Liberia, Bermuda and the Bahamas.

By registering their companies and cruise ships overseas to avoid U.S. labor, wage and safety laws, the foreign cruise lines also avoid U.S. income taxes. The $35,000,000,000 (billion) cruise industry pays virtually no U.S. Federal income taxes. If the cruise lines were required to pay U.S. taxes, they would pay over $10,000,000,000 a year. The cruise industry receives a $10 billion bailout each year, year after year.

But that's not all. All of the cruise ships are manufactured and constructed in foreign shipyards, in Italy, Norway or France. And 99.9% of the officers and crew members (except some U.S. dancers, singers and an occasional assistant cruise director) are from "overseas." No U.S. workers are going to work 360 hours a month for around $545 like the incredibly hard working utility cleaners from India, Central America and the Caribbean islands.

The cruise industry is the most outsourced, non-U.S. industry in America. The industry is built on the business model of tax-paying U.S. citizens paying their hard earned wages to the foreign corporation cruise lines who pay no taxes to the U.S. 

This year, at a hearing in the U.S. Senate about cruise safety issues following the Costa Concordia disaster, Senator Rockefeller questioned Ms. Duffy's honesty when she testified about the cruise industry's failure to pay U.S. taxes.

A happy faced former travel agent, Ms. Duffy knows the importance of staying upbeat while selling cruise tickets. But the question remains whether she has the gravitas to actually discuss important issues regarding the safety of the cruising public.

Will Ms. Duffy use Twitter as just a PR platform to repeat the CLIA talking points laid out by the cruise line public relations experts and cruise lobbyists ( "cruising is safe . . . the security of our guests is CLIA's number one priority") or will she will actually engage the public and answer some tough questions about crime on cruise ships, sexual abuse of minors, and working conditions of the predominately non-U.S. crew members.

What will Ms. Duffy do when she receives a tweet from a mother whose daughter was served alcohol and taken to a crew member's cabin, or a father whose daughter disappeared overboard from a cruise ship, or a widow whose husband experienced a heart attack and was then dumped on a Caribbean island?    

My prediction?  Ms. Duffy will tweet happy gobbledygook carefully vetted by CLIA's PR consultants. She will chit chat with travel agents. But she will ignore the cries of those families who suffered death or injury.  She will avoid all spontaneous and genuine discussions of real issues. She will religiously avoid making direct comments about cruise ship fires, sinkings, deaths, disappearances, crimes and norovirus outbreaks.

And when the next disaster strikes the cruise industry, Ms. Duffy's Twitter account will go silent.    

Interested in other articles about CLIA?  Consider reading:

@CruiseFacts - Cruise Line Pravda

Six Lies The Cruise Lines Will Tell You After The Costa Concordia Crash

Did Cruise Line International President Christine Duffy Lie to Congress?

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Last week I mentioned a compensation claim filed in the U.K. at London's High Court following the death of a doctor, Michael Bedford, age 70, who lost his life while cruising as a passenger aboard the MV Athena. Dr. Bedford fell down a flight of stairs on the cruise ship as it sailed to North America during a storm. He later died due to his injuries.   

The gist of the claim is that the cruise ship was negligent in not heeding weather warnings or providing safety warnings to the doctor and other passengers. Sixteen passengers are also suing for injuries claimed in the rough weather.

There was not a lot of information on BBC News which mentioned the death.  So I can't comment on the specifics of the storm and the details of the ensuing death and multiple injuries.  But there are some generalizations which I have learned over the years handling injury and death cases due to rough weather.

First, most injuries are entirely preventable. If the navigational officers utilize their available systems and convey meaningful and timely warnings to the passengers and crew, all passengers and crew should be ordered to stay in their cabins until the high winds and rough waves pass.  All activities on the cruise ship - like dinners, shows, casinos - should be shut down and there should be no one walking around the ship.  

The situation is particularly serious when elderly quests are involved.  Some cruise lines have standardized procedures requiring crew members to be positioned near stairwells and elevators to make certain that the passengers get safely back to their cabins when a storm strikes. 

Maritime law requires cruise ships to exercise the highest degree of care to its guests when rough weather strikes.

Dr. Bedford's wife stated that "Michael was a disciplinarian and would have stayed in his cabin if he was told to do so by the ship's Captain."

No one should forget the two deaths and serious injuries to 14 passengers on the Louis Majesty cruise ship during rough weather in the Mediterranean where passenger were permitted to freely walk around the cruise ship. No one would have died if the officers warned the passengers and instructed them to return to their cabins.

A similar incident occurred two years ago where a passenger died and multiple passengers were injured during rough weather which struck the Royal Caribbean Brilliance of the Seas as it was heading to port in Egypt.  The cruise line denied all liability but thereafter paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlements and the Royal Caribbean captain was relieved of his command.    

So it was disturbing today to see the flippant and disrespectful comments to the account of the deadly storm tossed cruise ship in the popular USA TODAY cruise log by Gene Sloan.  Here are the reader comments:

Steve Clouther - Please, give me a break  . . The cruise line should sue them for attempting to tarnish their reputation.

Mona Graham - . . .  this is ridiculous.

Martin Lynn Vogel - Lawyers are vultures.

Chip Gay -· The judge better throw it out or you will see lawsuit rain. I got hurt on a passenger train, because of the thunderstorm. I was on a bus and we did some hydroplaining (sic) and it made me poop my pants .  .  . 

Hanno Phoenicia - Please put these passengers and their lawyers on a leaky boat and throw them overboard.

Corcho Ekim - Drown the crybabies.

Even the moderator of the cruise blog, Gene Sloan, got into the fun with a comment on Twitter: Says one @CruiseLog reader of lawsuit over stormy weather on cruise across Atlantic: "What a bunch of nonsense!"

Of course, there is nothing nonsensical where someone dies on a cruise ship, particularly an elderly passenger trying to navigate a flight of stairs during rough weather, apparently without assistance.

The disturbing thing about the Cruise Log comments is that there was no debate, no difference of opinion, no intelligent discourse, no understanding of the laws which govern the situation, and no interest in being informed. Only contempt for the dead and injured, seemingly egged on by its moderator.

Photo Credit:  Athena Cruise Ship - thisisplymouth.co.uk

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This year has been a public relations mess for the cruise industry.

2012 started off with the January Costa Concordia disaster, followed by a series of articles and TV specials about cruise ship engine failures, fires, sexual assaults and controversy over the cruise industry's manipulation of the new cruise safety law.

Just the other week the cruise industry's best friend, the Miami Herald, published a critical article stating that "the cruise industry is treading water, faced with depressed fares in key markets, continuing negative headlines and would-be cruisers still spooked by the deadly disaster." 

But yesterday the cruise industry tried to turn the bad press around. The Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) released a press release stating that it polled 300 of its 16,000 CLIA travel agents and over one-half of them claim to be "doing better than last year."

But let's take a look at the actual poll.  The percentage who claim to be doing better is only 51.9% which, if accurate, means that 48.1 are doing no better or even worse than last year.

Of course, the CLIA poll is not scientific, or quantifiable, or verified by a third party.  Even if it were, there would still be a margin of error, something like like 4-5%.  So the notion that over half of travel agents are really enjoying increased bookings is a rather dubious proposition at best.

But that did not stop Reuters from writing a promo piece for CLIA "US Cruise Industry Sees Increased Bookings for 2012." Reuters ran with the conclusions on the CLIA PR release that ticket sales were up and then quoted the CLIA CEO Christine Duffy characterizing the Costa Concordia disaster as "a very isolated event and not indicative of how the broader cruise industry operates."

Other travel publications then quickly fell in line and reported that cruise ticket sales were up. 

Breaking Travel News reported "Cruise Lines International Association Finds Optimism in Industry;" Travelers Today published "Cruise Bookings on the Rise in 2012 Despite Costa Concordia Incident;" Travel Agent's Report stated "Agents' Cruise Sales Are Outpacing 2011;" and the Sun Sentinel reported "Cruise Agents Optimistic About Sales, Survey Says."

Its a fascinating process to watch a cruise industry, battered by bad press, create its own happy news and then feed it to the press as a newsworthy event.

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Today, Newsweek magazine and its online edition - The Daily Beast - weighs in on the 6 month anniversary of the Costa Concordia disaster with a far reaching article looking at all aspects of today's cruise industry.

Cheap cruise fares? Certainly.  But at what cost? Long working hours, low pay, and exploitative working conditions. An injured india crew members says to Newsweek: “They never feel that we are humans . . . They believe we are machines.” But Costa counters: employees are a “precious resource whose rights must be safeguarded as an ethical and moral imperative.” 

Newsweek takes a look at a number of other cruise health and safety issues, like norovirus and sick crew members pressed into working while ill and who lie to passengers to keep the machine running.

I'm quoted a couple of times about the cruise industry's new safety policies (what a joke).

The article's title is not subtle: "The Hidden Horrors of Cruising," written by Eve Conant and Barbie Latza Nadeau.

Your travel friendly publications won't be re-printing the article anytime soon.

If you can't wait until the magazine arrives at your newsstand, you can read it online at the Daily Beast. 

"The industry hopes you won’t worry about such disasters next time you’re lured by an Internet ad for a $299 cruise."

Photo credit: Max Rossi / Reuters-Landov

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Friday the 13th was the 6 month anniversary of the January the 13th Costa Concordia disaster.

This weekend, I read through several dozen articles which looked back over the last 6 months since the Costa cruise ship killed 32 people and terrorized thousands.  I watched the recent specials on NBC and CNN about dangers inherent in cruising, including rapes as well as ship fires and sinkings.

I am struck by just how badly all of the articles and videos portray the cruise industry.

The Miami Herald recently published an article Cruise Industry Still in Troubled Waters Six Months After Costa Concordia, written by tourism reporter Hannah B. Sampson, who I have criticized for writing puff pieces supporting the cruise lines. Ms. Sampson seems to have had a moment of insight.  She writes " . . . the cruise industry is treading water, faced with depressed fares in key markets, continuing negative headlines and would-be cruisers still spooked by the deadly disaster." 

The article continues: " . . . lawsuits related to the Jan. 13 catastrophe are piling up. The captain blamed for the accident — still being investigated but no longer on house arrest — is making new headlines in television interviews. And the larger question of safety on cruise ships is earning greater scrutiny as longtime critics gain a wider audience."

This time, the Miami Herald has the story exactly right. Things are indeed tough when the Miami Herald - a huge supporter of the cruise lines - delivers a message that the cruise industry is struggling.

The Miami Herald interviewed the usual cruise lines fans and industry representatives. Carolyn Spencer Brown, the editor of the popular online cruise community Cruise Critic, and an unabashed cruise supporter, is quoted saying “It was horrific, the ship’s still in the water, we’re still hearing about it.”  She predicted that  " . . . we won’t see the new normal until we get past the year’s anniversary."  I agree, assuming the doomed ship is not still lying on its side in the little port of Giglio next year.

Salvage operations are finally starting in an effort to float the dead cruise ship out of sight to a scrap yard where it will be disemboweled, cut up and eventually melted.  The salvage operations seem to be painfully slow to me, although I suppose it is a massive undertaking with a ship that big.

Will the salvage be done by January 13th of next year?  It will be a PR disaster if not. The cruise industry doesn't want the ship to still be there when the families of the dead return for another vigil.  I would not doubt it if the salvage contract contains incentives to complete the job before January 13, 2013.      

There is another operation underway - to try and salvage the cruise industry's reputation.  This is a far more difficult task.      

The Concordia disaster brought the world's attention not only on the outrageous conduct of the captain but on the manner in which the cruise industry treats its customers after disaster strikes. Part of the discussion today involves the onerous terms of the passenger tickets which the cruise lines draft to protect themselves against all legal claims.  It is shameful for a cruise industry, which collects over $35,000,000,000 a year and pays no taxes, to offer 11,000 Euros on a take-it-or-leave-it basis to traumatized passengers.

There is also the pesky business of cruise ship crimes (particularly rape) and accusations that the industry covers crime up. The debate whether cruising is a perfect place to commit a crime has resurfaced and reached a much broader audience.   

The cruise line's trade organization, Cruise Line International Association (CLIA), doesn't have much to say to compete with the images of the panic and terror aboard the Concordia or the spectacle of a rape victim explaining how a family vacation turned into a nightmare.  CLIA's talking points are old.  This is an industry that promises cruising is safe, but works overtime to conceal crimes from the public.

The public must feel uneasy when CLIA's favorite PR statement “the number one priority of the cruise industry is the safety of its passengers” is juxtaposed against a 15 year old girl on CNN's Anderson Cooper's program discussing how a crew member raped her.

CLIA was under siege at a Senate hearing into the Concordia last March when Senator Rockefeller characterized CLIA President Christine Duffy as dishonest and the cruise industry being more interesting in avoiding U.S. taxes than the passenger's safety.

Add to this the recent revelation that the FBI and the cruise lines scuttled the Cruise Vessel Security & Safety Act in a concerted effort to prevent the U.S. public from learning about the hundreds of crimes which occur each year on CLIA cruise ships.    

CLIA tries to portray the cruise industry as proactive and interested in regulating itself.  But many think this is more publicity than substance. Consider how little the cruise lines have done since January to actually improve cruise ship safety. 

The Herald article outlines only a handful of steps the cruise lines have discussed in an effort to convince the public to spend their vacation dollars cruising:

(1) more life vests on the ships; (2) no unnecessary people in the bridge; (3) pre-approved ship routes shared with all members of bridge; (4) twelve uniform emergency instructions; and (5) evacuation drills before a ship leaves port.

But these are such basic procedures that it is shocking to think that they were not in place 100 years ago, after the Titanic sank. 

It's like having an aviation industry where there are no mandatory safety instructions before take-off, girlfriends of the captain are permitted to enter the cockpit during an emergency landing, and the captain is the first one off the plane and down the emergency slide.

Even uber cruise fan Carolyn Spencer Brown admits: "Many of those changes should have already been in place before the incident."

My prediction is that the salvage efforts will have the Concordia out of sight before the one year anniversary of the disaster.  

But the cruise line's reputation?  If the cruise industry doesn't develop transparency, its battered reputation will sink further below the waves. 

Photos credits:

Top - AP / Pier Paola Cito

Bottom Sky News

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The big news coming our of Italy as we approach the 6 month anniversary of the Costa Concordia disaster is an interview the infamous Francesco Schettino gave to an Italian television channel.

Now that an Italian court has released Captain Schettino from house release and lifted the gag order imposed on him in January, we have the first extensive interview of the disgraced captain since he ran the luxury cruise ship into the rocks and killed 32 passengers and crew members.

The interview was conducted by Italy's Canale 5, which is owned by controversial former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

From what I have read and listened to, it doesn't seem like Schettino has learned much during his sentence of house arrest and 6 months of silence and self-reflection.  Yes, he eventually got around to an apology but it was mixed in with denials, excuses, a bruised ego, and a nervous eye twitch. The low points:

He said he was a "victim" claiming he was not in charge at the time of the wreck;

He claims he was distracted by a telephone call;

He claims that the rock the cruise ship hit was not charted; 

He says it was just an accident and not a crime; 

He does not regret delaying the deployment of the life boats; and 

His dinner companion blond hostess Domnica Cemortan was just a friend and did not enter the bridge.

Several news sources report that Schettino received 50,000 Euros (over $60,000) for the interview although the Italian news station denied paying him anything.

The U.K.'s Mail Online reports that after the interview aired, the news station's website was "bombarded with angry comments towards Schettino."  

One read: "I was on the ship that night with two children and they didn't let me onto a lifeboat. Schettino and most of the crew deserve nothing."  Another read: "Schettino you are a coward. A captain never abandons ship. Shame on you,"

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Yesterday I blogged about a near collision which allegedly occurred between Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas and a small Italian fishing boat, the Angela II, which is based in Civitavecchia.   

You can read my article: Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas Nearly Runs Over Italian Fishing Boat. The article was based on an account from the highly credible cruise blog Noticias de Cruceros.  You can also read about the incident here from an Italian newspaper.

This morning, someone posted a comment to my article, claiming that the near collision story was a lie, and suggesting that the Italian authorities made it up.  The person who posted the comment claims that he was on the cruise ship and says that the fishing boat had no fishing equipment and that it was the Liberty of the Seas which altered course and passed the boat by some 250 meters.  

Now, I was not on the cruise so I don't know what happened. There are two sides to every story and I'd like to know what really happened.

We have the fishing boat's version of events. There is no official corporate statement by Royal Caribbean at this point.  And I can find no comments from the passengers on the cruise ship.  Just this one comment to my blog:    

"It's such a lie, what they wrote there,I been on this ship and watch what happened.This fishing boat was with out any fishing equipment and just suddenly start to run towards the ship from close distance.The ship is the one who alter course to avoid collision,where fishing boat just stopped dead in front of them and distance when we pass fishing boat was over 250 mtrs.

However,it's was a nice try from Italian authorities to blame the ship,but not their own fishing boat,for creating such a dangerous situation for the ship."

The person leaving the comment left only a first name and a bogus email address: John10@gmail.com.

After a little research, I determined that the comment  was posted by someone at Royal Caribbean's headquarters in Miami.  How do I know that?  I'm not saying.  But I am 100% certain that it was sent from the Royal Caribbean offices near the port of Miami.

Cruise Law News (CLN) is a very popular blog. Lots of people love to cruise but subscribe to this blog to get "the other side of the story."  Many major cruise lines here in Miami understand that. They will respond to our inquiries about issues we write about here and send us press statements. If we have our facts wrong, the cruise lines will call or send us an email.  I will immediately post their statements to set the record  straight, even if the statements are pure PR drivel.  

But Royal Caribbean is different. It is the least transparent cruise line in the business. It refuses to respond to requests for information.  Instead of issuing a corporate statement under its letterhead, it will be sneaky and try and slide in a comment pretending to be a passenger, and an eye witness at that! What kind of reputable PR department acts like this? 

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People ask me why I practice "cruise law." My answer?  It's the most exciting type of law practice possible, like being in a movie - except it's the real world with real people.

Consider the news in the world of cruising this year. 

A showboating and debonair Italian captain runs a $500 million luxury cruise liner into the rocks.  He puts his blond girlfriend into one of the first lifeboats to safety. His officers announce on the PA system that "the situation is under control. Go back to your cabins." He abandons ship, claiming that his slipped and fell into a life boat. Passengers as young as 5 and as old as 70 then drown.

If this were a movie, no one would believe such an outrageous script.        

Click on the TV and chances are you'll see Images of cruise ships adrift on the high seas. These are not rusting freighters from third world nations.  They are the cruise lines' best, biggest, safest and most technologically advanced cruise ships carrying the most precious cargo in the world - your families.

This year alone we've seen cruise line abandonment of mariners in distress, abuse of crew members, capsizing, collisions, conspiracy, cover-ups, crimes, disappearances, engine failures, fires, groundings, and union busting involving Azamara, Carnival, Costa, MSC, Norwegian, P & O Cruises, Princess Cruises, Royal Caribbean, Saga Cruises and many other cruise lines.

When a passenger or crew member is injured or a victim of crime on the high seas, the cruise lines are their worst enemy.  The deceit and double-dealing by the cruise lines are right out of a bad movie script.

I have written over a thousand articles about bad behavior of cruise ship over the last couple of years.

There will be no end of the stories in the future. 

Our firm is on the edge of the drama, always ready to help a cruise passenger in distress or a crew member needing medical care.  In an industry which cares most about it's own image and reputation rather than your family's health and safety, we are always eager to help the underdog.  In the process, we will expose "everything the cruise lines don't want you to know."    

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Every once in a while a story comes along which blows the lid off of the status quo.

Such a story broke yesterday when Salon Magazine published a blockbuster article "Erasing Cruise Ship Crime." Written by Matthew Harwood, the Salon article tackles the ugly spectacle of our nation's FBI sabotaging the efforts of a grass roots cruise victims organization.  

The story goes like this. The International Cruise Victims Organization (ICV) labored for the past six years to enact a cruise safety law to require the cruise lines to report the many cruise ship crimes which occur each year.  All of the cruise victims' stories are compelling - a son or daughter who vanished at sea under mysterious circumstances, a child lost due to gross medical negligence by shipboard doctors, a woman raped at sea - all real tragedies that happened to real people. 

The cruise lines fought tooth and nail against the passage of the ICV supported law, but dropped its opposition at the last minute.  Why?  The fix was in. The FBI altered the language in the cruise crime bill at the last minute. Instead of reporting all crimes (averaging over 400 a year), the cruise ship crimes which are now disclosed on the FBI database average barely one tenth of that figure. As a final indignity, the cruise lines and some travel agents point to the bogus database as proof that cruising is absolutely safe.  

The Salon article points out the fact that cruise lines hire FBI officials to maintain the status quo. The result is that the FBI and its fraternity alumni brothers on the cruise ships all scratch each other's backs. No one will give their friend a hard time.  No need for anyone to be embarrassed. The cruise lines even invite the FBI to private wine and dinner parties, but exclude the victim's group.

The truth here is ugly. It involves behind-the-scenes shenanigans by large offshore corporations and a large federal agency.  The secret deals stifle democracy. The editing of Congressional bills by a self-dealing FBI perpetuates a system which rewards the indifference of federal law enforcement officials who are suppose to respond to victim's horror stories on the high seas but, in truth, are deep in the cruise lines' pockets.  It condones and encourages cruise lines to cover up ship crimes whenever and wherever they can, while the FBI looks the other way.

The Salon story hit a nerve. 

The conservative South Florida Business Journal asked whether the Salon article was the "smoking gun" which revealed a cozy relationship between the FBI and the Miami-based cruise lines, particularly Royal Caribbean which hired many FBI agents as well as senior FBI officials.  Is it a coincidence that the cruise lines' friends at the FBI were the ones who watered the cruise crime bill down?

Many other reporters and bloggers picked up the story and added a sense of outrage to the FBI cover up.        

Jezebel wrote "FBI Works With Cruise Lines to Bury Reports of Rapes at Sea," and added a photo of a huge Royal Caribbean cruise ship (photo top).

Inquisitir published "FBI Involved In Cruise Line Sexual Assault Crime Coverups."

Newser added "FBI Muzzles Cruise Line Rape Cases - Salon Says Bureau Too Cozy with Cruise Line Industry."

Leisure Guy said "Concealing Crime: How the FBI Improves Its Crime Fighting Statistics."

Raw Story reported "Loophole Lets Cruise Ship Rapes Go Unreported."

Grey haired old-school PR experts will tell the cruise lines and FBI not to worry about the bad press because the bloggers are not writing for the major newspapers.  But with the explosion of social media today, no one cares what the AP or Reuters are saying.  Now it's the Huffington Post types who are spreading the word and influencing public opinion.  

Other stories will follow.  You will see major newspapers and networks come with the next round of stories exposing the FBI cruise crime cover up.

The cruise lines and their trade organization, Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) will eventually respond with their own spin.  CLIA will open the prepared, canned statements: "Crime is rare. Our number 1 priority is the safety of our guests. We reports all allegations of crime to the appropriate law enforcement." But the tide has turned.  The public knows these types of official statements are gobbledygook.  

Truth be told, the FBI, which is suppose to watch over the foreign cruise line corporations and protect the public, has acted like a secret lobbyist for the cruise lines.

Should you trust the cruise lines and a corrupt FBI organization with the most precious cargo carried on cruise ships - your family?

Photo credits from the original media sources, top to bottom:

Jezebel, Inquisitir, Salon.

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Last night I attended a pre-game party for the Miami Heat - Oklahoma City Thunder basketball game at a friend's house. One of the families was excitedly talking about leaving on Wednesday for a cruise to Italy.  Other families began comparing cruise stories to Italy.  I don't talk "cruise law" during social events.  I just listened.  

There were no discussions about cruise ship fires, groundings or disappearances at the party.  No jokes about "watch out for the rocks." No mention of the Costa Concordia crash.  It was as if the capsizing of the Concordia never happened.

This morning the sun arose over the little Port of Giglio.  There slept the Concordia, peacefully resting on her side. The terrifying screams of panicked Costa passengers have been replaced by the gentle lapping of the Mediterranean waters against Concordia's hull.  

Image credit: Giglio News webcam

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After publishing Cruise Law News for the past two and one-half years, I decided to create a second blog: "Maritime Lawyer."   It will cover maritime issues and events which don't involve cruise ships.  I registered MaritimeLawyer.com long, long ago and will be using that domain for the new blog.

My friends at LexBlog are going to create and host the new blog. The LexBlog people created this blog. It has been far more successful and influential than I ever dreamed possible.  Per Alexa, Cruise Law News (CLN) is ranked number 12 in the U.S. / Canada in terms of popularity of law blogs. There is only one other law blog published by a practicing lawyer (another LexBlog client, China Law Blog) ahead of CLN in terms of popularity (for what that's worth).

This year alone, CLN has been cited by a diverse group of media organizations, from tabloid bloggers like Perez Hilton to serious journalists like the reporters at the Wall Street Journal, PBS and Newsweek.  CLN has led me to appearing on CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Erin Burnett, ABC's 20/20, NOVA, BBC Radio and Australia's Dateline in just the last three months.  Our articles range from serious investigations into news the cruise line don't want you to know, to mundane legal issues about cruise law, to the bizarre, odd & weird things that happen on cruise ships.

My new blog will take a look into the larger world of maritime law of which cruise law is a small part.  If the story involves a cruise ship, you will find it on CLN.  But if a tugboat, tanker, trawler, bulk carrier, sailboat, yacht or fishing boat is involved, Maritime Lawyer will cover the story. 

I will be also posting my maritime articles on a new Maritime Lawyer facebook page.  This will be the first article posted on that new page.  I have 6 "likes" so far on the facebook page; pretty pitiful. Drop by, "like" us, and post a comment.

Let us know what type of maritime stories you want us to cover . . . .

Thanks!    

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The big cruise news this weekend is the delivery of a new cruise ship for Costa Cruises which will sail from Venice tomorrow.

The Costa Fascinosa, which will carry 3,800 total passengers, is touted as Costa's new flagship and the largest Italian-flagged cruise ship today. 

Costa invited some 1,800 travel agents to sail on the inaugural cruise, as part of its 'Champions of the Sea" program. 

Costa's CEO Pier Luigi Foschi said the cruise line has "bounced back" from the troubles the company faced following the Costa Concordia disaster in January. He said "booking volumes are back to the same levels recorded this time last year."

That seems hard to believe.  Two months ago there were serious questions being raised whether Costa was a "ruined brand" and whether the cruise line was heading into bankruptcy.  After all, today the Concordia is still lying on its side off the coast of Giglio with two dead passengers unaccounted for. But now everything is just fine and dandy?

CEO Foschi says so:  "Our share of the market in the main countries where we operate has not been affected.  We were, are, and remain number one in Europe."

"We're Number 1!"  Am I back in Cameron Indoor Stadium cheering on my Duke Blue Devils?  Is this a high school pep rally? 

I suppose one thing to consider is that according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, two months ago Costa's parent company Carnival posted $851 million recovered funds from its insurance policies which included $515 million in insurance proceeds coverage for the destroyed Concordia.  Most people probably don't realize that large corporations like Carnival can make an insurance claim and collect their $850 million in losses from large underwriters in the U.K. or Europe in a multi-million dollar disaster far faster than a homeowner can collect insurance proceeds from Allstate or State Farm in a minor fender bender.

To the extent that there were any nagging questions regarding safety following the crash of the Concordia, Costa took advantage of the Fascinosa's debut to announce "new" safety protocols and systems. Costa mentioned real time tracking of cruise ship routes (old school technology), bridge access limited to officers involved in navigation (what I call the "no bimbos in the bridge" policy) and muster drills before the ship sails.  Hardly innovative stuff, but its the thought that counts, right?

Let's hope that the Fascinosa has more luck than her sister ship Concordia.

 May God bless the Fascinosa and all who sail in her . . . 

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One of the interesting things about having a website or blog is that it is easy to see how many people are clicking on your site and reading your stuff.

Google Analytics is an easy (and free) program that lets me see how many people visit Cruise Law News, how long they stay and how many pages they look at.  It interesting to see where the readers are based and what page they look at.  

The analytics program has been around for years. 

For the first four months of this year, 392,335 unique visitors have made 470,053 visits and looked at 1,385,586 pages.  The Costa Concordia disaster brought in a number of new readers. 

All types of statistics are available.  One of the more interesting statistics is how many people are reading Cruise Law News blog on a regular basis as opposed to randomly appearing from search engine results and quickly leaving.

22,904 people have read the blog 9 or more times in the last four months.  So I have a small town of people who are reading it over 2 times a month.  

The most interesting statistic is that 2,296 people have each read Cruise Law News over 200 times since the beginning of the year.  That's more than once a day for the past four month. Many leave comments or call or email me with tips for stories. 

I'd like to think that Cruise Law News is providing information and a perspective that you can't anywhere else.  Maybe, maybe not.  Our motto is "everything the cruise lines don't want you to know . . . " 

If you are a daily reader, take a moment and leave a comment about what you like (and dislike) about the blog. Are there topics about the cruise industry which I am overlooking?  Are there regular readers who would like to write a guest blog? 

Be sure to subscribe by entering your email address in the box at the left, or sign up for our RSS feed. Like our facebook page too.

Thanks for reading! 

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Norwegian Cruise Lines has pulled off a major marketing coup with several of its cruise ships being featured in a new reality show called "Love for Sail."  

Think of the new show being a mix of "The Bachelor / Bachelorette" meets "The Love Boat."  Men and women will set sail on a NCL ship looking for love.  TV Cruise Director Julie McCoy from the Love Boat has been replaced by two cruise directors "Bocko" and Carmen who will act as matchmakers for the beautiful people during the cruises.

Fox News describes the activities as including activities on and off of the cruise ships:  

"The passengers go on dates, parties and shore excursions, stopping in ports of call that include Ocho Rios, Jamaica and Nassau, Bahamas.  The series will be shot on the Norwegian Epic, Norwegian Pearl and Norwegian Star with scenes filmed in the Mandara Spa, the Bliss Ultra Lounge and La Cucina Italian restaurant . . . "

The show premieres on the Lifetime channel and will debut tomorrow night (April 10th) at 10:00 PM EST. 

With as much bad news coming out of the cruise industry this year, "Love for Sail" has the potential to bring a sense of romance and escapism back to the cruise industry - unless one of the NCL cruise ships catches on fire, collides or sinks during one of the shows .  .  .    

Photo credit: Lifetime / NCL

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I am out of town with my family on Spring Break for a couple of days.  This morning I was on my computer reading the Twitter feed for Cruise Shipping Miami 2012.

As all of you know, the Cruise Shipping Miami event (previously known a SeaTrade) is the annual event sponsored by the cruise industry where the cruise line vendors, excursion companies, port agencies, and foreign tourism boards fill the Miami Beach Convention Center advertising their services.

It sounds like a rather surreal environment this year.

The Mexican tourism people are telling everyone how extremely safe Mexico is.  Let's not talk about the 22 Carnival cruise passengers robbed at gunpoint last month.

Cruise Line International President Christine Duffy - two weeks after her disastrous performance before the U.S. Senate where she was chastised for a lack of candor - started off her moderation of the cruise line president's discussions with the usual talking points about the cruise industry's incredibly safety record.   

Carnival executive Howard Frank said cruise ships are safe and his Costa crewmembers were the "true heroes" in the Costa Concordia disaster.   A Celebrity Cruise president and a NCL captain raved about the safety of cruise ships and so on and so forth.

If you ran a computer analysis of the words spoken by the cruise line leaders at the convention, "safe," "incredibly safe" or "remarkably safe" would be at the top of the list. 

But the first two months of this year have been as disastrous a period of time for cruising as I have ever seen.  Not just the Concordia capsizing and the Allegra ship fire.  There have been nine gastrointestinal sickness outbreaks in 2012, a new record.  Plus a steady stream of child molestation cases, crewmembers and older passengers raping teenage girls, deaths and overboard crew and passengers, including another highly suspicious disappearance of yet another woman during a recent cruise.

Cruise experts like Professor Ross Klein, who maintains the most comprehensive list of cruise ship overboards, norovirus cases and cruise mishaps - are not invited, and are not welcome, at the cruise convention.

We will read newspaper accounts from the cruise friendly press and travel agent publications reciting the safety "facts" touted by the cruise industry as the Gospel Truth.

This is the cruise industry's happy fest.  Critics, complainers or independent thinkers stay away.

Cruising is safe, remarkably safe, the cruise executives say.  Repeat after us - cruising is safe.  It really is.  Trust us.

Now can I sell you a discounted cruise to Mexico?

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Let me place my biases front and center.

I am no fan of the Miami Herald.  it's beholden to the cruise industry which pays it for cruise advertising ads.  The Herald's "business" editor, Jane Wooldridge, is the former travel editor for the newspaper. Although she graduated with me from Duke in 1980, she is at the opposite of the spectrum.  She unabashedly praises the cruise lines whether they are right or wrong.  

I have written some unflattering articles about both the Miami Herald and Ms. Wooldridge which you can read here, here and here.

Unlike the L.A. Times, the New York Times, or other newspapers with some sense of investigative journalism and professional integrity, the Miami Herald is a journalistic mistress to the Miami-based cruise lines.

So it was no surprise to me that when Carnival CEO Micky Arison decided to give his first interview after the Costa Concordia disaster, he picked his friends at the Miami Herald.  They were happy to offer up some softball questions for Mr. Arison for him to pitch the cruise industry's talking points.

Arison and the Carnival president Howard Frank touted the wonderful safety record of its subsidiary Costa, saying such unchallenged drivel as: "we as a company do everything we can to encourage the highest safety standards."

Arison whined: “No matter what I would’ve done, I think I would’ve been criticized.” 

He touted Carnival as offering a "great vacation value, a great product, a safe product at a fantastic price.”

The assessment by Arison's next in command Howard Frank was more of the same, referring to Costa as a "great company and a great brand, with a terrific management team and with a great future."

Today, the cheer-leading by the Miami Herald continues in its article "Getting the Cruise Industry Back on Course."

The Herald touched on the recent troubles afflicting the Costa brand with the capsizing of the Costa Concordia and the fire aboard the Costa Allegra, as well as cruise over-boards and norovirus cases. However, it was careful to call upon cruise line executives and cruise lines fans to place the cruise into a positive light.

The article calls upon the usual cruise line shills like Carolyn Spencer Brown, who recently wrote an article for Conde' Nast Traveler.  She falsely represented that no one died on the latest Carnival cruise ships which caught on fire - read my open letter to Ms. Spencer-Brown for the truth - and she blamed the parents of a 16 year old girl who was the fancy of a NCL pedophile child porno collector assistant cruise director in a stairwell of the cruise ship.

The Herald was careful not to include any survivors of the Concordia disaster, representatives of victim organizations or neutral experts to comment on the nasty state of affairs of the cruise industry.

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I read an interesting article today about the high prices that some attorneys are paying to advertise on Google.  The paid ads, sometimes called "sponsored listings," appear at the top or the top right side of the Google search engine search results.

There are two types of search results on Google: (1) "organic" listings which rank sites based on the value of their content and popularity of the site, and (2) paid listings which list results based on how much the lawyers pay for certain words or phrases.

The article, "Lawyers Outspend Obama On The Web," discusses a study conducted by the Institute for Legal Reform for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  The study found that some lawyers are spending as much as $79 for a single "click-through" ad word.  When the sponsored ad is "clicked-on," the lawyer is charged the amount bid on for the word or phrase.   

Some 25 lawyers across the country are spending over $100,000 for Google click-through ads.  The report states that one law firm in Houston is paying $16,600,000 for Google ads.

The report also identifies one of our main competitors in Miami as most closely associated with the phrase "cruise ship assault" both via paid ads and search engine optimization.  Some other Miami attorneys are paying to advertise phrases on Google like "cruise rape," "cruise sexual assault" and so forth.

There is nothing wrong with Google ads, although we do not pay for any advertisements like this or any advertisements at all for that matter.   Our blog is strictly "organic" in nature, meaning that it is ranked solely on the relevancy and current status of the content, the number of sites which link to it and so forth.  Based on the Alexa/AVVO ranking system, Cruise Law News is a top ten most popular law blog in the U.S.  In the first two months this year, Cruise Law News had 289,530 visits and the visitors read 862,721 pages.

My only criticism about the concept of Google ads is that there are law firms which I have never heard of who probably have handled only a few cruise line cases at best.  Nonetheless, they are advertising themselves on Google as "cruise lawyers."  I call these lawyers "Google lawyers."  

I saw this happening after the Costa Concordia cruise ship crash.  All types of lawyers across the U.S. began billing themselves as "cruise ship accident lawyers" on paid Google ads.  An internet marketing company has an interesting article about what it calls ambulance chasing marketing. 

If you want to see where a law firm's website or blog is ranked based on objective criteria, download the Alexa toolbar here.  It's easy to install and will take less than 30 seconds.

If you are looking for a lawyer to handle a cruise ship case, don't be fooled by the top listings on the click-through Google ads.  Many of these lawyers are not even licensed to practice in Florida where most cases have to be filed. Be certain to inquire into how many cases they have actually handled and the success of those cases.  Be sure to ask to speak to former clients for their opinion on how their cruise line cases turned out.   

Image: Avalanche Internet Marketing

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Carolyn:

I read your recent article in the Conde' Nast Traveler entitled "Ironically, the Costa Allegra Fire Gives Me More Confidence in the Cruise Line." 

You write: "Carnival Cruise Lines and Princess Cruises had major fire outbreaks and not a life was lost."

Perhaps you forgot about my clients' husband and father, Mr. Richard Liffridge. Mr. Liffridge was sailing with his wife Vicki Liffridge when the fire broke out on the Princess cruise ship, the Star Princess.  The fire erupted on a balcony and burned through one hundred cabins.  As explained in the LA Times article "Cruise Industry's Dark Waters:"  

Victoria Liffridge recalled that she and her husband crawled along a passageway filled with thick, black smoke as flames shot above their heads.  It was "like being in an oven," she said.  The couple became separated.  'The last words I heard him say were, "Vicky, don't let me die, she said.  Victoria Liffridge crawled to safety, only to be told later that her husband had not survived. When she identified his body it was covered in soot from head to toe.

Mr. Liffridge left behind his wife, four children and many grandchildren.

After the fire, Princess Cruises lied to the public, saying that Mr. Liffridge died of a "cardiac arrest," as if his death and the fire were unrelated. This contrasted with his autopsy report that concluded he died in the soot-filled hallway as a direct result of the fire due to inhaling incombustible toxic particles.

Mr. Liffridge's daughter, Lynnette Hudson, was invited to Congress to testify about the ordeal and the shabby way that Princess Cruises treated her family after the fire.  

Carolyn, I realize that the cruise industry has launched an aggressive media campaign to try and salvage its tarnished image with a series of false "talking points" after the Costa Concordia capsizing and the Costa Allegra fire. I am well aware that the cruise lines are asking their travel agents and friends in the media to publish positive articles about the joys of cruising.  But lying to the public just perpetuates the cruise lines' reputation for dishonesty.

Educate yourself.  Take a moment and read the MAIB report on the fire that killed Mr. Liffridge.  Read our tribute to Mr. Liffridge and take a moment and look at some of the photographs of Mr. Liffridge and his family. Read our article: "Ten Years of Cruise Ship Fires: Has the Cruise Industry Learned Anything?"

Remember, the motto of the Conde' Nast Traveler magazine is "truth in travel."  

Tell your readers the truth.  

Jim Walker

March 6, 2012 Update:  Although neither Ms. Spencer-Brown nor Conde Nast bothered to respond to us, today Conde Nast corrected the false article with the following statement: 

"*Correction: In the original publication of this article, we stated that no lives were lost in the ship fires mentioned.  That was incorrect.  One death was caused by the Star Princess fire, and per Princess Cruises, the cause of the death was smoke inhalation."

Today, Ms. Spensor-Brown was back to shilling for the cruise lines after a story was published about a NCL cruise line assistant cruise director who was arrested for child pornography and sexually abusing a 16 year old girl.  She decided to blame the parents:

"Carolyn Spencer Brown, from Cruise Critic, says typically cruises are very safe. "There's a lot of checks and balances along the way to keep people as safe as possible . . .  You're still responsible for your child."

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Shortly after the Costa Concordia capsized, the cruise lines' PR committee assembled to try and figure out a strategy to minimize the disaster's effect on the cruise industry. 

A decision was made for the cruise lines to issue a series of "talking points" to the media. The Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) and the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) distributed "cruise safety talking points" to travel agents, travel magazines and the media.  CLIA embedded the talking points into "updates" on the Concordia crash on its website. CLIA's president Christine Duffy released "open letters" which travel publications and blogs often published in their entirely, without questioning the accuracy of the information.   

Travel agents began pitching the talking points to the public in articles like this one from Travel Market Report entitled "What to Say to Clients Post-Concordia."  You can read "6 Talking Points" and other tips from travel agents on how to overcome reluctant clients' fears and talk them into buying a cruise. 

Here are some of the cruise industry's talking points: 

1.  "100 Million Passengers Sailed in Last Five Years and Only 16 Died"

This talking point is part of the "cruising is incredibly safe" message.  It's false and misleading.  It's based data from a private consulting firm for the cruise lines which excludes crew deaths and excludes cruises which don't call on U.S. ports.  This excludes the deaths in the last cruise sinking (the Sea Diamond).   Click on the cases under our section "Maritime Death" and "Disappearances" categories to the left.  You will see that there have been many more than 16 people who die during cruises each year.   

The information is further limited to "maritime casualties," like two ships colliding into one another.  But if you take into consideration the passengers and crew who died because of bad cruise ship medical care, murder, lifeboat accidents, deaths during excursions, deaths on Flow Riders and rock climbing walls, drownings, drug overdoses, drunken assaults, being dropped overboard during medical evacuations, and suspicious disappearances - there are far more than 16 deaths during cruises each year for each of the last five years.  

The cruise industry wants you to think that the Concordia is just a freak accident.  But read about prior similar accidents here and the problems with cruise ship fires here.  The Concordia is just the latest in a long list of catastrophes. 

Cruising is not just a means of transportation. Cruise ships are floating amusement parks and entertainment venues. Compared to Disney World (which attracts more tourists than all cruise ships combined) or any international hotel or resort chain, there is no place where you are more likely to die than on a cruise ship.     

2.  "Cruising Is Safe for the Family & Kids"

This whopper of a lie makes my skin crawl. Last week, the bloated body of Dayana Arlotti (photo left), a five year old little girl from Italy, was finally pulled from the wreckage of the Concordia.  

It's a sick joke for a travel agent to hawk cruises by telling parents "hey, I bring my children cruising - it's perfectly safe!"  Don't tell that to Susy Albertini, Dayana's mother (photo below right).

Read though my blog and learn of other dead children caused by cruise line negligence over the last few years. Read about cruise tragedies involving kids, and the extraordinary efforts the cruise lines take to avoid accountability, like this story.  And this doesn't include the kids who are sexually abused during cruises, including being molested by cruise line youth counselors.         

3.  "No Cruise Ship Has Sunk Since the Titanic" 

Some travel agents have taken the "cruising is safe" talking points so far that they are claiming that no cruise ship has sunk in 100 years.  

The Travel Market Report quotes travel agent Nancy Yoffe of Cruise Planners, in Spartanburg, South Carolina explaining how she sells cruise tickets in the post-Concordia world: “ . . I would say the last time a ship like this went down was 1912.”

These travel agents may be good salesmen but they are bad historians.  

The truth is that many cruise ships have sunk with loss of life.  The last sinking was the Sea Diamond,which nailed a charted reef, and sank just four years ago.

Then there is the infamous sinking of the Oceanos cruise ship (photo left), where the captain abandoned ship leaving women, children and elderly passengers to die (they miraculously survived). The sinking of the Oceanos is featured on my list of top 5 cruise ship disasters - watch the video here.

Other spectacular sinkings of cruise ships include the loss of the Sun Vista which burned and sank.

No one can forget the sinking of the Andrea Doria, which ironically enough was home ported in Genoa, Italy where Costa is based. It sank in the Atlantic after a collision with another cruise ship. The fire and sinking of the Yarmouth Castle resulted in nearly one hundred dead passengers and crew.  Add to this list, the sinking of the SeaBreeze I, the Majestic Explorer, the Al-Salaam Boccaccio, Achille Laura, Explorer, M/V Saurav, Queen Of The North, Senopati Nusantara, M/V Bulgaria, Estonia, and the Mikhail Lermontov (which sank in 100 feet of water off the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island after hitting a reef).

If a travel agent sells a cruise by misrepresenting that no cruise ship sank for the 100 year period between the Titanic and the Concordia, they should be sued for fraud.

4.  "The Cruise Industry is Heavily Regulated"

The basic business model of the cruise industry was perfected by Carnival's founder Ted Arison in the 1960's - incorporate the business in Panama and register the cruise ships there too in order to avoid all U.S. taxes and safety and labor laws, and then sell cruises to tax-paying U.S. citizens.  

There is no way that an U.S. incorporated business which pays income tax and complies with U.S. minimal wage and overtime laws can possibly compete with an offshore business like Carnival which collects nearly $15 billion a year, pays no taxes, and exploits workers from India and the Caribbean islands who earn as little as $550 working 360 hours a month.  

Ted Arison's son, current Carnival CEO Micky Arison, is carrying on this tradition of avoiding all U.S. regulation and oversight.  He and other executives understand perfectly well that the success of their cruise lines depends on avoiding U.S. oversight at every turn.  No wonder Micky is the richest person in Florida with a net worth of many billions.  

Flag states like Bermuda, Bahamas and Panama will never meddle into the cruise lines' business. Yes, there is the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and its "regulations."  But truth be told, the IMO is a weak and toothless U.N. entity.  It's "regulations" are mere suggestions.  If a cruise line ignores a IMO rule, there is no consequence. That's why you have have reputable journalists like reporters at Reuters who are characterizing the Concordia crash as a symptom of the cruise industry's "lax regulation and supervision," as explained in the recent article "How the Cruise Industry Sails Under the Radar." 

5.  "Cruising Will Now Be Safer Now Than Ever"

There is a warm, fuzzy and entirely naive sentiment expressed by travel agents that once a disaster happens, the cruise industry will quickly learn from its mistakes and make changes to improve safety.   The problem is that's not true with an industry which keeps things secret and does not invite regulatory scrutiny.

For example, two Costa cruise ships were involved in separate collisions in the years before the Concordia crash. The Costa Classica ran into a freighter and slashed a deep gash through the side of the ship. The Costa Europa slammed into a dock and killed several crewmembers. The flag state, Italy, investigated the incident but refused to turn the report over to the International Maritime Organization.  In the article "Costa Cruise Egypt Accident Report is Strictly Confidential," BBC News points out that the IMO cannot begin to assess the accident and consider potential improvements to safety without seeing the report.     

After the Concordia deaths, Carnival stated that it would be conducting a full blown audit of Costa to make certain that its operations were being conducted safely and responsibly.  Whether this is happening who knows. This was a PR move, to head off public demands that the cruise line should be investigated by the government.

There is no statement by Carnival that the results of the alleged audit will be released to the public or that it will permit its operations to be investigated by professional and independent maritime experts. That will never happen. If there is an audit, Carnival will keep the results secret. This is the wild west environment of the cruise industry, not the aviation industry which is squarely under the thumb of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).    

6.  "Excessive Drinking, Violence & Crime Are Rare"

Shortly after the Concordia disaster, ABC News aired a 20/20 cruise special.  I was in the special explaining how the Concordia drama unfolded.  You can watch the first segment of the program here. 

The second part of the program showed the problem of excessive drinking and violence.  You can see that segment here. I learned a new phrase watching the show - "cruise drunk."  It has been clear to me for years that there is way too much booze and way too few security personnel on cruise ships.  When I expressed these opinions on the 20/20 show, I received hate e-mails for a week after the program aired.

The ASTA and travel agents took it upon themselves to include talking points in response to the 20/20 program, believe it or not.  The talking points included assurances that passengers don't get out of line or drink excessively.

Two weeks later 16 drunken cruise passengers were kicked off P & O's Pacific Dawn cruise ship for out of control violence. 

Be Honest, Tell the Public the Truth 

The cruise industry's reputation has been tarnished with a lack of transparency over the years.

A post-disaster PR campaign of talking points should start and finish with "be honest" - which is absent from the CLIA talking points.  Instead, CLIA suggests that travel agents should require clients to sign a "waiver" releasing the travel agent from all liabilities, including misrepresentations of the cruises. Why would an agent need such a waiver if they were simply telling the truth? 

There is a certain irony about all of these false talking points.  Many life threatening situations which the Concordia passengers faced after the cruise ship struck the rocks can be attributed to false information provided by the vessel's officers and crew.  

Remember, as water poured through the 160 foot gash in the Costa Concordia's hull, the officers were dishonest with the guests.  As the cruise ship sank, they lied to the passengers - "everything is okay; the ship had just experienced an electrical failure."  Later, the Costa crew falsely assured passengers - "the situation is under control, go back to your cabins." And no one can forget the lie told by Captain Schettino after he abandoned women and children to die on his ship that he had somehow "fallen into a lifeboat."   

CLIA's talking points, like the lies told by the Costa captain and his officers, perpetuate the cruise industry's reputation as lacking honesty and transparency.       

There are travel agents who don't rely on someone else's talking points.  New Jersey travel agent and my friend David Stern has his own warnings and safety videos on his web site.  

If you are a travel agent reading this, don't get caught up in CLIA's cult of personality.  Be yourself.  Learn about the history of cruise ship fires, collisions, groundings, sinkings and crimes. And then tell your clients the truth.

Photo credits: 

Dayana Arlotti:  lego.it

Susy Albertini: Telegraph

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Seatrade Insider has an interesting article today entitled "Costa Battles Media Onslaught, Concordia Scams."

The article raises the issue whether there is a future for the Costa Crociere brand following the Concordia disaster.   The article quotes Costa CEO Pier Luigi Foschi admitting that Costa's sales across the fleet are 35% below the same period last year.

But even if sales pick up, what long term damage did the Concordia crash cause Costa?  The Seatrade article explains that Foschi told an Italian newspaper that "we have been annihilated in the media. Our brand has been massacred . . . "   He went on to complain of the " . . . enormous attack of the mass media, for the most part unfair and unverified."  (emphasis added) 

I have never hear of such frank and dire talk by a cruise CEO. 

A couple of newspapers here in the US asked me for my opinion on how the Costa Concordia spectacle will affect the parent company, Carnival Corporation, and the cruise industry in general.  I stated that the Concordia is only one of over 100 cruise ships in the Carnival fleet.  Carnival is the proverbial 800 pound gorilla.  And its so diversified with multiple brands line Costa, Cunard, Princess, Holland America Lines and so on that even the loss of a $500 million luxury cruise ship (representing a little over 1% of its fleet) will be nothing but a blip on the screen of Carnival's financial bottom line.

As far as the cruise industry, the thought of the Concordia heading into the rocks while Captain Schettino dined with his girlfriend and then abandoned ship is going to be a headache for the industry for a long time.

And what about Costa?

Will Costa be forever stigmatized by this disaster?

Costa has a strong brand identity.  Its logo is beautiful, with the distinctive blue "C" emblazoned on a yellow smokestack.

But will the public ever forget the Costa Concordia's smokestack at a 45 degree angle, sticking out of the water off the coast of Giglio, with 15 dead passengers trapped inside the ship?   

Do you have an opinion of whether Costa will weather the storm and continue as one of the premier European cruise brands?  Please leave a comment below.

Don't forget to read some of our other articles on the Costa Concordia disaster:

Costa Concordia: "Cruising Italian Style - Unique Routes - Lifetime Memories"  

Cruise Crisis Management FAIL - How Carnival is Ruining its Reputation Following the Costa Concordia Disaster

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Swamped from a tide of bad publicity following the Costa Concordia disaster, the cruise industry today announced a change to its safety drill policy.  The new policy?  Hold your breath:

All cruise lines will begin to provide a safety briefing to the passengers before the vessel sets sail. 

That's it?  Why wasn't this the law a hundred years ago, after the Titanic sank?

This should convince even the most hard core cruise fan that there is something seriously amiss in the world of cruising when almost a month after the Concordia disaster, the cruise lines have finally proposed such a basic safety policy.

This should also reveal how lax the policies are under the International Maritime Organization ("IMO").  The IMO rules (suggestions I say) suggest that cruise ships can wait up to 24 hours after passengers embark to hold a safety briefing.  It's difficult to justify such an unsafe policy which undoubtedly caused or contributed to deaths of some of the Concordia passengers.  But what can you expect from an United Nations organization?  

The cruise industry has announced this simple common-sense policy with great fanfare.  USA Today's pro-cruise blog CruiseBlog quotes a cruise agent praising the new policy which was revealed in a joint statement by the Cruise Lines International Association, the European Cruise Council and the UK"s  Passenger Shipping Association. 

Notwithstanding the new cruise line voluntary policy, the IMO "rules" still permit waiting until 24 hours to have a muster drill.  And if the cruise lines don't follow their own voluntary agreement?  There is no consequence. 

Just what the public needs, a trust-us promise from an unregulated cruise industry which should not be trusted.  

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Just when you thought this National-Enquirer-like story of the cowardly Costa cruise ship captain could not get any weirder, the Italian magazine Chi published a photograph of Captain Schettino and former cruise dancer/hostess Domnica Cemortan.  It seems like the love birds were eating oysters and crab legs at a restaurant about a month before married  Capitano Amore wrecked his cruise ship and killed over 30 passengers and crew while again dining with young Ms. Cemortan during the ill fated cruise.

The spectacle of this foolish captain cavorting with his mistress must burn a hole in the hearts of the families of the dead and missing.   

Story credit: DailyMail

Photo credit: Chi Magazine

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The Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster fueled not only significant coverage by international newspapers and cable news programs, but also spawned an unprecedented look at the cruise industry by part-time bloggers and recreational twitter & facebook users.  

I use a Twitter application called "TweetDeck" (photo below left) where I follow certain terms like "Costa Concordia" and hashtags like #Costa to stay ahead of this latest cruise disaster story.  The number of posts about the Costa crash has been phenomenal since the Friday the 13th of January disaster.  There remains a steady stream of links - particularly from Italy which remains fascinated by the drama created by Captain Schettino and his spectacular destruction of the $500 million Costa cruise ship. 

The coverage of the Costa incident has spilled over into larger issues.

Professional journalists and small-time bloggers have now taken a closer, and harsher, look at the cruise industry as a whole.

Recent cruise events have given the media a lot to consider.  For an industry who likes to claim that disasters, deaths, crimes and sickness on cruise ships are "rare," a mind-boggling number of mishaps and bad press have placed cruise lines in an unfavorable light just this year alone.

Just take a moment and look at our archive of stories from last month here.  

Multiple rapes, molestation of children, suicides, over-boards, deaths, medical malpractice, a grounding of an Italian cruise ship (not the Concordia), NBC and ABC 20/20 cruise exposes which infuriated cruise fans and travel agents, tons of bad press from the New York Times to this modest blog, plus five norovirus outbreaks in the first five weeks of the year, and you have an never ending public relations disaster for the cruise line folks.

The readership of Cruise Law News has exploded in the last month. Our motto is everything the cruise lines don't want you to know.  So we know that when bad things happen on cruise ships and the industry tries to cover-everything-up, we see the most first time readers stumbling across our blog trying to find some basic facts and real insight.

The Google Analytics people tell us that over 175,000 people read over 515,000 pages of our little blog in the last 30 days.   

That's a lot more people visiting us than fans of any cruise president's blog or the cruise industry's blog by a long shot.  

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A long time reader of Cruise Law News just contacted me.  He suggested that I take a look at the promotional language in the website of the cruise industry's trade group, the Cruise line International Association ('CLIA") regarding Costa Cruises.  

So I took a look at CLIA website on Costa Cruises.  it refers to “Cruising Italian Style:"

”Cruising Italian Style” with Costa is much more than a voyage to a new and exciting destination – it’s an experience that creates lifetime memories . . . " 

CLIA mentioned "5 Key Selling Points" for travel agents to keep in mind in selling Costa tickets.  The first 4 points listed are "Cruising Italian Style, Europe’s #1 cruise line, Italian-inspired ships & ambiance, and True European experience."

It was selling point # 5 that knocked my socks off: "Cruise Innovator: unique routes . . ." 

Oh boy.  I can't make this stuff up. 

I suppose that the hardest job in the world is to try and handle the PR work for a cruise line right now.   "Unique routes?"  "Cruising Italian Style?"  I hear the jokes already.  Yes, that's when the Captain dines with a blonde bimbo former crewmember as the ship sails by a quaint Italian village at 16 knots within spitting distance of the rocks.  Don't worry, enjoy your antipasti and vino, the home office in Genoa has approved the route. 

Another reader of my blog, who also wishes to remain anonymous, sent me a current banner ad (below) for another cruise line.  it seems that Silversea wants to compete with Costa for the most "unique cruise route."  

Let's hope that this advertisement is the result of some skilled photo-shop work rather than a reckless stunt by another foolish cruise line. 

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As rescue and recovery attempts continue to try and locate the bodies of passengers missing from the Costa Concordia disaster, law firms in the United States are moving forward to file class action lawsuits against Costa Cruises and its parent company, Carnival Corporation, in Miami, Florida.

One of the firms advertising for such cases and taking a high profile position is the New York firm of Proner & Proner.  On its page "Costa Concordia Passengers: We Are Here for You," the Proner firm states that it intends to seek "at least $160,000 on behalf of each of the passengers aboard the ship at the time of the wreck. Those who were injured, as well as those with wrongful death claims, may be able to collect multiple times that amount." 

In a telephone interview with a local reporter in Miami, the Proner firm said it intends to represent passengers of "all nations" from "Peru to Shanghai."  It will be seeking to recover "millions" on behalf of the dead or missing passengers.  During the interview, the New York lawyer said a lawyer was flying to Miami to file the class action lawsuit and would include Carnival as a defendant.

Whoa Nellie!  Lets slow down and collect our thoughts for a second. 

Cases against cruise lines are governed by a specialized area of maritime law which is different than land based law.

The courts have applied maritime law to uphold certain contractual limitations set forth in the passenger ticket issued by the cruise lines.  These terms and conditions of the cruise passenger ticket are quite draconian in nature.  Take a minute and read one of our articles about this issue: Top 10 Shocking Clauses In Your Cruise Contract.

One of the most important contractual terms includes what is called a "forum selection clause."  This clause specifies where the lawsuit must be filed.  The cruise lines identify a location that it convenient for them and inconvenient for the passenger.  The location is usually where the cruise line is located, which gives the cruise line a home court advantage so to speak.  It is inconvenient, time consuming, and expensive for passengers injured during a cruise to travel to the location chosen by the cruise line to file suit.

The cruise lines have been successful in enforcing these type of clauses.  In the case of Shute v. Carnival, the United States Supreme Court required a passenger who lived in Oregon, and injured during a cruise from California to Mexico, to file suit here in Miami.  No the passenger terms and conditions are not fair, but they are routinely enforced.  

For the Concordia disaster, the Costa passenger ticket contains a clause specifying Genoa, Italy as the location for the lawsuit.  Most tickests issued by cruise lines based in Miami like Carnival and Royal Caribbean select Miami as the place where the lawsuit must be filed.  But Costa's ticket is different.  For Costa cruises which call on an U.S. port, the lawsuit has to be filed in Broward County in South Florida.  If the cruise itinerary does not include a U.S. port, the lawsuit must be filed in Italy.

Last year, we wrote about a similar situation.  In Seung v. Regent Seven Seas Cruises, a passenger was injured while cruising on the Paul Gauguin cruise ship, operated by Regent Seven Seas Cruises, in the Pacific Ocean.  After Ms. Seung filed suit in South Florida where the cruise line is based, the defense lawyers moved to dismiss the case arguing that the forum selection claim required the lawsuit to be brought in France.  The federal court here dismissed her case.  The 11th Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed the dismissal and held that the passenger, from California, had to travel to Paris to pursue her remedies.  Our article is entitled Cruise Forum Selection Clauses: Do You Speak French?

As soon as lawsuits are filed against Costa in this jurisdiction, the cruise line will move to dismiss the cases and will cite the Shute and Seung cases discussed above. 

The cruise line defense lawyers will argue that the lawsuits cannot be filed here.  The Costa company is incorporated in Italy and based in Genoa.  The cruise ship is flagged in Italy.  The disaster occurred in Italian waters.  The Italian Coast Guard responded.  The Italian authorities are investigating the cause of the crash and the casualties. The criminal proceedings are taking place in Italy.  The lawyers for the passengers will be hard pressed to explain why the cases should not be filed in Italy. 

The Costa cruise ticket has another curious twist.  It specifies that Italian law should apply.  For death cases, Italian law may actually provide for a more equitable remedy that the U.S. General Maritime Law and statutory law - particularly where the deceased passengers are retired. 

In the U.S., wrongful deaths on the "high seas" (non U.S, territorial waters, including territorial waters of other countries) are governed by a federal statute called the Death On The High Seas Act ("DOHSA").  There is no recovery under DOSHA for pre-death pain and suffering or emotional losses of the surviving family members such as grief and bereavement.  The only recovery is for financial losses such as lost wages of the decedent.   If the decedents are retired or children, then there are no recoverable damages except for burial and funeral expenses assuming the bodies are located. 

So if the wrongful death cases are filed in the U.S., and the court applies U.S. law, there may be no recovery in certain death cases.  Yet if the cases were filed in Italy, there could be recovery under Italian law.  A passenger could conceivably file suit in a more convenient forum in the U.S. yet receive no recovery; whereas if the passenger filed suit in a less convenient location in Italy there may be greater recovery in some cases.

Then there is the matter of Carnival.  Yes it is the parent company of Costa.  And yes, as the Proner lawyers mention to the news reporter, it collects over 14 and 1/2 billion dollars a year.  But  that does not automatically give anyone a basis to sue it in Miami every time one of its subsidiary company's cruise ships around the world suffer a casualty.  

There are often severe consequences of filing suit in the wrong location or against the wrong party, including the assessment of costs and in some circumstances attorney fees. 

We hope that the lawyers who are working faster than the recovery teams in Italy to file suit here in Miami know what they are doing and are not navigating their clients into dangerous legal waters. 

• Comments (1)

Yesterday one of my clients, who I will call Jane Doe, contacted me after receiving an unsolicited email from the President of Royal Caribbean Cruises, Adam Goldstein.

The e-mail addressed her by her first name.  It seemed to be personalized to her.  It recognized her as a past customer and contained statements like:

"At Royal Caribbean International, the safety and security of our guests and crew is our highest priority. It is fundamental to our operations. Our maritime safety record over our 42-year history illustrates our commitment to the safety of the millions of guests and crew that sail on our ships."  

President Goldstein's email outraged Jane Doe.   You see, she had just returned home with her young daughter who had been raped on President Goldstein's cruise ship, the Allure of the Seas.  

Goldstein's unsolicited email to a rape victim's mom had nothing to do with the humiliating shipboard rape suffered by Jane Doe's daughter, one of many rapes of children on the Royal Caribbean fleet over the years.  Instead, it was part of this cruise line's media campaign to try and distance itself from the negative fall out following the deadly Costa Concordia disaster.

Royal Caribbean is the only cruise line making such public statements following the Concordia crash.  You can watch Royal Caribbean's slick video touting the safety of cruising here.  President Goldstein's blog is here.  "Safety is in our DNA."  "Cruising is the safest form of transportation."  "The safety and security of our guests is our highest priority."  Royal Caribbean covered all of the cruise industry's talking points in its video, the president's blog and its e-mail blast below.    

Of course, in truth, Goldstein's email was not a personalized message to Jane Doe.  He does not know her from the man in the moon, even though her daughter was raped on the cruise line's showpiece megaship and the biggest cruise ship in the world. 

Royal Caribbean spammed Goldstein's email to every single family who had sailed with them.  This was an intentional and reckless stunt, considering that hundreds of women and children have reportedly been sexually assaulted during Royal Caribbean cruises over the years.  Certainly, the cruise line knew that its former customers who are victims of crime, and whose names remain in its customer database, would feel salt being poured into their wounds upon reading Goldstein's email in their personal email accounts.      

Insensitive & thoughtless, if not outrageous?   Definitely.  But Goldstein is not thinking of his customer's feelings.  He is motivated by his cruise line's bottom line.  He wants to reassure his customers that it is safe to return to cruising, whether that is true or not. 

This is hardly the first time this has happened.

In 2006, one of my clients, Laurie Dishman (photo right), was brutally raped by a part time Royal Caribbean security guard with a prior record of sexually harassing passengers.   She retained us to represent her.  I sent a handful of letters to President Goldstein, asking for our client's medical records, her statement, and the name and address of the Royal Caribbean employee who raped Laurie.  We received nothing in response.  Goldstein ignored us.

The only things Laurie initially received from Royal Caribbean were unsolicited emails inviting Laurie to return for another "cruise of a lifetime" on a Royal Caribbean ship.  The emails continued for over a year.  Each email popping into her computer's email in-box took Laurie back to the scene of the crime and reactivated a sense of panic and stress.  It was only after a half dozen letters of protest from us, and a Congressional investigation into the crime initiated by Laurie's Congresswoman in 2007, that the cruise line scrubbed her from its marketing database.

We pleaded for Royal Caribbean to implement a system to remove a passenger's information from the company's marketing database whenever a passenger was raped, killed or lost a loved one overboard during a cruise.  Believe me, cruise vacationers don't want promotional brochures in their mail boxes after a family member has been raped or lost at sea.    

It looks like Royal Caribbean ignored that request too. 

President Goldstein's blog talks in grandiose terms about the Costa Concordia crash being a "defining moment" for the cruise industry.  He promises a renewed commitment to passenger safety.  Let's hope that's true. 

But when a cruise line president sends an e-mail blast to the mother of a child raped during a cruise, you wonder whether cruise line executives like Goldstein really get it.   

Photo credits:

Adam Goldstein - Royal Caribbean Flickr page

Laurie Dishman - Sacramento Bee

ROYAL CARIBBEAN EMAILS ADAM GOLDSTEIN'S LETTER TO MILLIONS OF CRUISE CUSTOMERS:

Dear XXX, 

All of us at Royal Caribbean International continue to extend our heartfelt sympathies to those affected by Carnival Corporation's recent tragic incident on the Costa Concordia. As a Crown & Anchor Society member and loyal Royal Caribbean guest, we know you may have some questions as the situation continues to unfold.

At Royal Caribbean International, the safety and security of our guests and crew is our highest priority. It is fundamental to our operations. Our maritime safety record over our 42-year history illustrates our commitment to the safety of the millions of guests and crew that sail on our ships. The measures we take in the interest of safety are many, often exceeding the regulatory requirements – these are all part of our ongoing commitment to innovation and continuous improvement in every aspect of our business.

To address some of your questions and concerns, here is a video that will provide an overview of safety onboard our ships; the training of our crew, officers and captains; and the many regulations that govern our practices. Click here to watch.

As a past cruiser, we know your friends and family may be asking about your own time at sea. We hope that you'll share this video along with your personal Royal Caribbean experiences with them, and reinforce that cruising continues to maintain the best safety record of any industry in travel.

Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to welcoming you aboard again soon on one of our ships sailing to 270 destinations worldwide.

Sincerely,

Adam Goldstein
President and CEO
Royal Caribbean International

• Comments (6)

The following is from LexBlog TV which hosts our firm's blog Cruise Law News:

By far and away, the most encapsulating part of the news surrounding the Costa Concord shipwreck in Italy has to be the remarkable and unbelievable imagery. But while the images of the ship lying on its side, half above the water, are difficult to comprehend, things get even more unbelievable as you find out more and more about exactly how this type of thing could happen.

To explain what we know about how this happened—starting with Captain Francesco Schettino’s bizarre actions—and the culpability he and the cruse line may face, we bring in Jim Walker of Walker & O’Neil and the excellent Cruise Law News.

• Comments

It was only a matter of time before the public would realize that the crash of the Costa Concordia involved far more than just the actions of a reckless cruise ship captain.  Costa's quick smack down of Captain Schettino (photo left) was not an impulsive outburst by the Costa CEO Pier Luigi Foschi.  It was undoubtedly a decision carefully thought out with the involvement of the Carnival decision makers in Miami.  

If Schettino had to be lynched by public outrage to save the cruise corporations, so be it.

However, It seems that the much talked about "fly-by" of Giglio may not, after all, have been showboating of an unpredictable captain but initiated and approved by the cruise line itself back in Genoa.  And if Costa knew about and ratified the dangerous maneuvers which took over 4,000 lives perilously close to the rocks, then what does this say about the safe operations of the entire Carnival fleet with its fleet of over 100 ships carrying hundreds of thousands of passengers every day?

The spotlight has now moved from Captain Schettino to Costa in Genoa and now to Carnival Corporation here in Miami.  But where is Carnival's CEO Micky Arison?

Arison is trying to remain anonymous.  But that's hard to do.  After all, he is the smiling face of the Carnival "fun ship" fleet.  He is the big name owner of a high profile NBA basketball team of superstars, seen at court side rubbing elbows with celebrities at the Miami Heat games.  But he obviously does not want to be identified with this mess.  Arison does not want his mugshot to be posted alongside the likes of bad guy Schettino or rat fink Costa CEO Foschi (photo right). 

Two days ago I wrote that Arison and other Carnival cruise executives are ruining their reputations by not flying to Italy and speaking to the surviving passengers  and crewmembers     

Now the international press is calling Arison out.

Cruise writer John Honeywell of the U.K.'s Mirror wrote a strongly worded article today demanding answers from Arison:  Concordia: Arison Must Act Now.

The London Independent followed suit by the article Concordia's Invisible US Owner Branded "A Disgrace."

Independent quoted Italy's La Repubblica newspaper asking: "Who is this mysterious boss and how has he managed to remain like a ghost since the tragedy?" 

Business Insider was to the point with Carnival Is Failing Spectacularly In The Handling Of Its Costa Concordia Crisis.

Where is Micky Arison?" asks The Wall Street Journal in an article Carnival CEO Lies Low After Wreck.

The Miami Herald, which will usually shy away from any critical issues which may embarrass the cruise lines which advertise with the newspaper, published the article Carnival Cruise Lines Faces a Hostile PR Tide. 

The Herald quoted two PR experts saying:

“Micky Arison should come out, and take ownership, and get in front of the story.

"I would have had him go to the scene.  Micky is a likable guy and pretty well known.  This is one of those cases where I think the presence of the CEO would have been helpful.”

These PR experts are right.  Arison is well liked by cruise fans and travel agents.  He is loved by the local NBA fans, particularly after he brought Shaq to Miami from LA and won the NBA basketball championship. 

When the Heat won the NBA, Arison was photographed everywhere and with everyone, holding his prized trophy.  He even took his trophy on a world wide tour, including taking it on Costa cruise ships.  A photo (right) of Arison and Foschi, in happier days, show them with the NBA trophy aboard the Costa Allegra cruise ship.

But now with around 30 dead or missing from the Concordia wreck, Arison is nowhere to be seen.  Arison has never stepped up to the plate to address unpleasant issues, like sexual assaults on his fleet of cruise ships, Carnival's avoidance of taxes, or exploitation of foreign crewmembers.  

I don't see Arison appearing anytime soon before a microphone to discuss the deaths of his cruise guests either. 

Photo credits:

Captain Schettino:  Karl Ritter

Costa CEO Foschi:  Tano Pecoraro / AP

Carnival Ceo Arison:  Reuters

Arison & Foshi with trophy:  NBA.com 

• Comments (2)

When I first learned of the unfolding Costa Concordia cruise disaster ten days ago, I remember reading a statement attributed to the cruise line stating that the evacuation was proceeding "orderly" and the passengers were "not at risk."  

Initially there were no reports of deaths or injuries, but I knew that something was terribly wrong.  Elderly passengers are always at risk while transferring from a cruise ship to a lifeboat, even to a tender to shore on a perfectly calm day.  How possibly could there be no risk to passengers during during an emergency evacuation at night under these dire circumstances?

We now know that this was just one of many lies to be told by Costa and its captain.

What other statements will long be remembered from the Costa disaster?

"I slipped and fell into the lifeboat" by Captain Fransesco Schettino.

This is perhaps the biggest whopper I have ever heard in my life.   It takes great acting skills to deliver such a ridiculous explanation for abandoning a ship you just sank.  Being a liar does not erase being a coward.   If Schettino really slipped and fell, I offered on Twitter to represent him in a lawsuit against Costa (a bad joke on Twitter I suppose in a time of great sorrow).  But If I were his lawyer, I would file for a trademark on the "slipped-and-fell-onto-the-life-boat" phrase for its sheer comedic genius.               

What other cruise lies will long be remembered?

"The Situation Is Under Control, Go Back To Your Cabin" says a Costa supervisor to panicked passenger who assembled on deck with their life vests ready to be evacuated.  How many of the passengers were deceived by this false information?  The most compliant personalities were probably the first to follow these instructions, whereas the cynics didn't.  Did the deferential passengers die in the bowels of the ship? 

In an every-man-for-himself situation do the gentle souls die first?

Photo credit:  Reuters

Caption credit:  Costa Cruise Line 

• Comments (1)

A cruise line's reputation in a time of crisis is often formed not by the circumstances which caused the crisis but by the company's attitude, appearance, and action afterwords.

I call this the "three A's" of cruise line crisis management: attitude, appearance & action. 

When disaster strikes and passengers are injured or killed during a vacation cruise, the U.S. public has a remarkable capacity to forgive the individuals and companies involved.  Part of this tendency to forgive, rather than judge, is tied to the Judeo-Christian heritage of our country - where we sacrifice resentment and seek redemption in the process.

In practical terms, Americans understand that accidents are inevitable.  "Sh*t happens," the saying goes.  Bad things happen to good people.  An individual or company should be forgiven if they demonstrate a humble and respectful attitude; they appear on the scene to take stock of the problems they caused; and they take prompt action to help others injured by their conduct.        

So how have the principal actors in this drama performed so far?

Captain Francesco Schettino failed  miserably.  His attitude has been defiant.  His appearance?  None.  He abandoned ship in dereliction of the traditional maritime duty to stay with the vessel dating back to the Medieval Sea codes.  He fled the scene of a crime.  His actions?  Self preservation. Disregarding orders by the Italian Coast Guard to return to the cruise ship and assist in the evacuation.  Lying.  I slipped-and-fell-into-a-life-boat defies reason and belief. 

Costa's chief executive, Pier Luigi Foschi, and parent company Carnival's CEO, Micky Arison, are close behind the disgraced captain in trying to ruin their reputations.

Arison admittedly expressed his condolences from the comfort of his 200 foot luxury yacht in the Miami area.  But carefully crafted corporate PR statements go only so far.  He failed to appear at the scene.  How hard is it to hop in a Gulfstream jet and fly to Rome and then head over to the island of Giglio? 

In Miami, we hear snickering that as the Costa Concordia sits on its side with dead passengers still trapped inside, some of the the Carnival executives have been seen gallivanting around town at black-tie gala parties and even Miami Heat professional basketball games.  (CEO Arison owns the Miami Heat.)  But it was only this weekend, one week after the crisis started, that Arison sent senior executive Howard Frank to Italy.  Even then, Howard appears to be in Genoa where Costa's headquarters are located.  He apparently has no intention of making an appearance at the scene of death and destruction.

Although the physical presence of corporate executives at the scene of a mass disaster may be largely symbolic, such visual images are important to demonstrate the corporation's attitude of concern and compassion.

President George Bush was perceived as demonstrating the right attitude when he appeared at the remains of the Twin Towers following 9/11.  He was photographed (left) standing on a pile of smoking rubble, with his arm around a fire chief, encouraging other fire fighters through a bullhorn.   But when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and images of panicked residents waving to helicopters on the roof of flooded house were broadcast on the cable news stations, the president was no where to be seen.  Photographs of President Bush (below right), later published of him looking from a window on Airforce One 35,000 feet over the disaster below, made him appear aloof and disconnected and did his reputation more harm than good.     

Carnival has managed prior cruise disasters effectively in the past.  When an engine room fire disabled the Splendor cruise ship in 2010, Carnival sent a team of executives from Miami to San Diego where they conducted a highly publicized press conference at the port.  Carnival offered reimbursement of all cruise fares, waived all onboard purchases and promised a free cruise in the future.

Carnival followed the "three A's" of crisis management perfectly.  Its attitude was humble.  It appeared on the scene.  And it took immediate action to solve the problem.

I was so impressed that I wrote an article praising Carnival and providing my opinion why it should not be sued for the accident. 

But Carnival does not seem to know how to act following the Concordia disaster. 

We hear Carnival's CEO Arison finally saying the rights things. Five days after the crisis unfolded later, he finally tweeted "I gave my personal assurance that we will take care of each & every one of our guests, crew and their families"  He included a link to a press release issued by Carnival promising to take care of everyone.  But this weekend, there are news reports that the cruise survivors were stunned and insulted when Costa CEO Foschi offered a 30% discount on future cruises as part of proposed compensation to stave off lawsuits. 

A 30% discount?  Talk about pouring salt into the wound.  The cruise industry collects over $35,000,000,000 (billion) a year mostly from tax paying Americans yet it pays no U.S. federal taxes because it registers it vessels overseas and incorporated itself in Panama to avoid U.S. tax, wage and labor laws, and health and safety laws.  Arison himself is the richest person in Florida with a net worth of over $4,000,000,000.  

Carnival will not hesitate to make a claim against its underwriters for payment of $500,000,000 for its wrecked cruise ship as well as seeking hundreds of millions of dollars for the lost revenue caused by not being able to collect money from passengers sailing on the cruise ship in the future.  It is now rightfully facing public ridicule by offering a discount worth a few hundred dollars to avoid litigation.  I hate to think what the families of the dead loved ones think about taking a discounted Costa cruise in the future.

Carnival and CEO Arison have a mixed reputation in Miami over the years.  Lots of travel agents love Arison.  But Arison has faced more than his fair share of critics for Carnival's avoidance of taxes, exploitation of foreign crewmembers and indifference to the problem of women and children being sexually assaulted on Carnival's cruise ships.  Consider these articles: "Is Mickey A Greedy Corporate Pig?" or "The Deep Blue Greed - The Arison Clan Built Carnival into a Money Machine by Cleverly Avoiding Tax Laws" or Carnival? Try Criminal.   

Carnival has enormous financial resources and insurance proceeds to respond to the disaster and compensate the families who are suffering because of its reckless captain.  It can take care of the mess and salvage its reputation.  But does it have the corporate ethics to do so?  We know that CEO Arison loves the limelight when his businesses are successful. But if Arison and Carnival's executives don't care enough to appear in Giglio to speak with the survivors directly and assess the situation personally, they risk earning reputations no better than that of their arrogant and cowardly Captain Schettino. 

Photo credits:

Top:  News Pictures / Rex Features

Bottom:  ESPN

• Comments (3)

Late last Friday, I received a tweet from one of my 9,000 friends on Twitter informing me that a cruise ship had run aground off the coast of Italy.  Not much was known about what happened.  No one in the media was initially reporting on the incident. 

I stayed up all Friday night and Saturday morning watching the increasingly frantic twitter feed about the emerging circumstances surrounding the grounding of the Costa Concordia cruise ship.  Twitter friends like London cruise blogger John Honeywell a/k/a @CaptGreybeard began tweeting the first photographs of the beached cruise ship.  Other friends on twitter like Mikey's Cruise Blog tweeted non-stop as the story unfolded.  

Completely missing from the discussion on social media sites like twitter and facebook were Carnival (the owner of Costa) or its CEO Mickey Arison ( @MickyArison ) or the cruise industry's trade organization, the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) which has a twitter name @CruiseFacts.

CLIA did not make a single tweet, statement or press release all weekend. 

The few bits and pieces of information which trickled from from Costa falsely suggested that the stricken cruise ship was being orderly evacuated and that the passengers were "not at risk."

In the first blog I wrote that night, I suspected that the cruise line's comments were "probably the usual misleading and false cruise propaganda."  As it turned out, while Costa was assuring the public that everything was fine, panicked passengers were jumping overboard or struggling to survive as water filled their cabins.    

The motto of the $35,000,000,000 a year cruise industry is CLIA's "one industry, one voice."  But CLIA apparently does not work on the weekends.  When disaster struck the Concordia and over 4,000 passengers and crew feared for their lives, CLIA remained silent.

Meanwhile, the void  was filled with insightful analysis and photographs from the international media, particularly from the U.K., as well as iReporter accounts from the scene of the disaster.

The first tweet from the Carnival CEO Arison, who has amassed a personal fortune of over $4,000,000,000 (billion) from cruise fares, came long after the disaster, expressing his condolences, but quickly followed by a tweet (since deleted) supporting his pro basketball team of NBA superstars.         

The void created by the absence of information from CLIA and Carnival and its subsidiary line Costa was quickly filled by non-stop interviews of surviving passengers who described the chaos and deadly confusion as they tried to escape the sinking vessel, which we now understand was caused by the reckless conduct of the cowardly cruise ship captain (above right) who abandoned ship when things got tough.  

The media quickly called on maritime lawyers here in South Florida to provide insight into the disaster.  Our firm received inquires from major television and radio networks like ABC, 20/20, NBC, CNN, Erin Burnett, Anderson Cooper, CNBC, the Canadian Television Network and BBC Radio, as well as national and international newspapers and magazines like Newsweek, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and U.K.'s Telegraph.  I spent the better part of this week speaking with several dozen journalists and shuttling between TV production studios in Miami and Fort Lauderdale for interviews.

The cruise industry did not have much to say.  No one appeared on TV on behalf of the cruise lines. CLIA finally updated its facebook page to assure the public that cruise disasters like this were "extremely rare."  But journalists are turned off by such false and self-serving garbage, and turn to information like that contained on my article Costa Concordia Calamity Just the Latest Disaster for Cruise Industry which discussed prior deaths and injuries on Costa cruise ships in the last two years and a rash of deadly cruise disasters which CNN featured this week.

CLIA also teamed up with a local cruise line defense lawyer here in Miami to write a press release with claims like "the cruise industry is a heavily regulated industry and safety is our highest priority" and "all cruise ships are designed and operated in compliance with the strict requirements of the International Maritime Organization."

I have learned that the media hates corporate PR statements like this.  It's called "gobbledygook" (definition below).  

Most journalists understand that cruise lines are largely unregulated.  To the extent that there is any regulation it is mostly self regulation by an industry whose business model is to incorporate in places like Panama and Liberia and flag their vessels in places like the Bahamas and Bermuda to avoid all U.S. income taxes, labor laws and safety laws.  The so-called "strict requirements" of the IMO are, at best, mere recommendations which the cruise lines can choose to ignore with impunity, like the decision Costa made not to bother to conduct a lifeboat drill before sailing on this disastrous cruise.    

As this week comes to an end, the misleading cruise line press releases simply added to the lack of credibility and silliness of an industry which is known for its lack of transparency.  As the Costa Concordia disaster became a nightly staple for the cable news stations this week, CLIA and the cruise line supporters were no where to be found.  They seem to be hiding under the covers.

Perhaps CLIA's new motto should be "one industry, no voice."         

Here are examples of some of the articles we participated in this week:  

CNBC:  Travel: Do you need medical evacuation insurance?

Canadian Television:  Crime, fires compromise cruise ship safety: experts

International Herald Tribune / New York Times: Disaster Cripples Cruiser, Not Cruising

Washington Post:  Costa Concordia sinking leaves other cruise ship passengers alarmed — and out of luck

Cleveland Plain Dealer:  Cruise ship accident prompts questions about industry safety

Examiner:  Passengers blame Carnival Corporation for Costa Concordia wreck

*The word "gobbledygook" comes from Maury Maverick, a Texan lawyer who served as a Democratic Congressman and the mayor of San Antonio. He used the word in the New York Times Magazine in 1944 referring to a turkey, “always gobbledy gobbling and strutting with ludicrous pomposity.” 

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Yesterday award winning cruise radio host Doug Parker (photo left) broadcast an earlier interview with me about tips about staying safe during a cruise.  The text of his blog is below.  Don't forget to listen to the interview at the bottom link:  

"It’s not something you like to think about but just like on land, crime too happens on cruise ships, too.  This week’s news has been about the George Smith case, a man who disappeared on his honeymoon cruise back in July 2005, aboard Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas.  A follow-up “Overboard” will be on NBC’s Dateline this Friday night.

A lot of people let their guard down while cruising and think it’s safe to get crazy drunk or let their kids have full rein of the cruise ship because it’s a “safe-haven,” but that’s not always the case.  I mean you can drink all-you-want and not have to drive anywhere, right?

Maritime attorney Jim Walker of Cruise Law News sat down with us and gave us ”Six Tips for Staying Safe at Sea.”  This interview aired in January 2011 on Cruise Radio but we think this is a good time to reinforce what could be consequences of letting your guard down.

You will want to forward this article to any frequent cruisers in your life."

Listen to this short but informative interview here.

• Comments

Today is January 1st.  The first day of 2012!  This year over 14,000,000 people will sail on cruise ships.  Cruising continues to be one of the fasting growing travel industries, with a wide variety of cruise ships and destinations.  It is not a perfect industry and I consider myself one of its harshest critics.  But If you are considering taking a cruise this year, be safe and have a good time.  There are lots of good sources of information online.  I picked my favorite 12 blogs for 2012, from number 12 to number 1 (twitter name follows website/blog):   

12.  Mikey's Cruise Blog  by @mikeycruiseblog. This is a blog which I started following this year.  The founder is Mikey Faust who, although just 15 years old, is the head blogger of this increasingly popular blog.  Mikey's Cruise Blog contains interesting articles written by Mikey and two other bloggers.  He just awarded the 2011 "Cruisey Awards" for best cruise line, best cruise director, best new ship, and so forth.  Somehow I won best cruise blog.  That automatically makes his cruise blog a top dozen blog in my book.  Keep an eye on Mikey's Cruise Blog this year.      

11.  CruiseMates - the "Complete Online Guide Cruise Guide and Community."  An online cruise community and message board somewhat like Cruise Critic (see below) but on a smaller scale.  I have bumped heads over the years with its chief author, Paul Motter, regarding the issue of cruise ship crimes and unexplained disappearances of cruise passengers.  But CruiseMates nonetheless contains tons of information and has knowledgeable and pleasant bloggers.  If you want cruise friendly editorials, this is the one channel for you.  It needs to become active on Twitter to become a top 10 player in the cruise world of social media. 

10.  The Ocean Escape, by @CruiseMan3000.  This high energy cruise blog is authored by Shon "Cruise Man 3000" Ford, who is an unabashed cruise fan and NCL fan in particular.  His blog contains a "cruisetacular" (trademark pending) collection of Shon's personal cruising experiences, cruise ship reviews, and cruise line ratings.  Feeling blue?  Read Shon's exuberant & joyful articles.  If his blog were a church, I would join just for the fellowship.

9.  (Tie) Cruise Line Fans by @CruiseLineFans, a friendly cruise community with cruise reviews and a cruise forum / message board, and Cruise-Addicts by @CruiseAddicts, another popular cruise community.  Its website has a good cruise news section, a forum, cruise tracking application and gallery.  I don't know the principals behind either site but enjoy the interesting articles.   

8.  Cruise Maven by @CruiseMaven.  This is another cruise blog that I just started reading this year.  Authored by Sherry Laskin, a  freelance travel writer, blogger and photographer, Cruise Maven's blog is bright and airy and contains well written articles and sharp photos.  She occasionally blogs on her first hand observations about potentially embarrassments to the cruise lines, such as when a cruise ship recently flunked a CDC inspection.  A real pro, Sherry's articles have appeared in many travel industry publications such as Travel Trade, Travel Weekly, Travel and Leisure News, and Senior Scene Magazine, as well as online media such as Travel Market Report, and CruiseReviews.com.   

7.  Chris Cruises by @OrlandoChris.  Chris Owen is the editor of his blog which has a reputation for straight forward and insightful information about cruising.  I like Chris' blog because it strikes the right balance between cheerleading for the cruise industry and frank discussions about parts of the cruise industry which need improving.  For example, he has written articles about the need for parents to supervise kids on cruises which are right on the mark.  Chris is from Orlando and writes for Examiner and Gadling in addition to his website, LifeIsCruising.   

6.  Cruise Critic by @CruiseCritic.  This cruise community is a real juggernaut.  It has by far the most members and the most hard core cruise fans.  Its members will often report on an outbreak of a virus or an overboard passenger - often before the cruise ends and before the mainstream media publishes anything.  On the down-side, its community seems like the least diversified place on the planet.  Its message boards often turn vicious with flame wars, and a dissenting opinion is often ridiculed.  Threads critical of the cruise lines are sometimes pulled.  The usual comment from a CruiseCritic fan left on my blog is something like "feed the lawyers to the sharks!" or something equally enlightened.  Cruise Critic has not overcome the stigma of  being exposed for being a paid cruise line cheerleader and shilling for Royal Caribbean on its reviews and message boards.  Whenever the cruise industry needs some good news, Cruise Critic will interview a couple of PR people at CLIA and deliver a puff piece for their cruise line friends.

5.  Captain Greybeard by @CaptGreyBeard.  Perhaps its the British accent or the fact that my parents lived in London, but John Honeywell is one of my favorite cruise bloggers.  He writes for the U.K.'s Mirror about cruises.  Insightful.  Witty.  Good stuff.  He is also the only person I know who can type while holding a martini.   

4.  Cruise Radio by @CruiseRadio.  Doug Parker and his sidekick Matt Baisford are the geniuses behind this ridiculously popular blog and radio show which contains a continuous stream of interviews with travel agents, cruise executives, crew employees and tourism representatives.  Doug is the founder and friendly face of Cruise Radio.  He exploded onto the scene in 2009 and has risen to the top of the world of cruise social media.  He seems to be the one person in the world of cruising who is perpetually on a cruise ship having a good time.  Why do I think he has a beer koozie in one hand and a microphone in the other when he conducts his witty interviews?  A great, fun show with some good info to boot.   

3.  Cruise Junkie by Professor Ross Klein (no twitter).  While the U.S. media refused to take a critical look at the shortcomings of the North American cruise lines over the past five years, Canadian sociology professor Ross Klein has been a diligent watchdog of the cruise industry.  He has testified before the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives about the problem of crime and sexual assaults on cruise ships.  In an industry known for secrecy where what happens at a sea stays at sea, Professor Klein is the only credible independent source accurately tracking issues such as cruise overboards and noro-virus outbreaks.      

2.  Expert Cruiser by @ExpertCruiser.  Anita Dunham-Potter is a rare find - a travel enthusiast who is as principled as she is intelligent.  She is experienced about the cruise industry and her articles reflect that.  She recently  joined the USA Today cruise team along with Gene Sloan.  It really not fair to the other cruise bloggers.  Its like teaming up Dwayne Wade and LeBron James.   

1.  CruiseLog by CruiseLog.  Gene Sloan is the perfect host for the perfect blog about cruising.  The blog is light on editorial opinion and encourages discussion and debate on all sides of the issue.  The marketing people at USA Today were ahead of the curve when they launched their "capture the national conversation" mission many years ago, and it worked particularly well with its travel section around cruises with Gene Sloan as the host.  You can read about the success of the CruiseLog community in the best selling book  "The Hyper-Social Organization."  Gene will pen a short article about some newsworthy cruise topic.  He has nothing to sell and no ax to grind.  The USA Today readers will leave their comments pro and con, including some really thoughtful ideas.  A lively debate mostly by intelligent travelers.  A far cry from the lynch mob mentality at Cruise Critic.   

OK.  That's the top 12 (actually 13) to watch for 2012.  I feel guilty leaving out @Cruise Buzz, @Cruise Guy and @StarshineCruise so be sure to click on these friends and follow them on twitter.

Did I leave your favorite out?  Leave a comment below . . .

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This weekend I clicked on Royal Caribbean's website to read the cruise line president's "Why Not?" blog which is on the cruise line website called the "Nation of Why Not." 

Believe it or not, I like reading what cruise line CEO's write about.   It's interesting to me to see the disconnect between the usually mundane things the cruise executives promote compared to missing passengers, shipboard crimes and norovirus outbreaks which the executives don't want you to know about.

You may recall that back in 2008 Royal Caribbean abandoned its high energy and highly successful Get Out There! marketing campaign, which featured videos of passengers hiking on a glacier, dog sledding and kayaking, while a upbeat tune with a heavy base blared out the refrain of Iggy Pop's Lust for Life!  Quite frankly, I would sometimes find myself humming that damn song after a Royal Caribbean ad would come on the TV.

For reasons not clear to me, Royal Caribbean discarded the brilliant Get Out There! theme.  Instead of the dynamic images of active cruise vacationers, Royal Caribbean introduced a new marketing campaign called the "Nation of Why Not."

I thought that the cruise line had lost its mind.  It replaced the high octane energy of its Get Out There! campaign with odd images of the whimsical and lackadaisical Nation of Why Not.   Was the cruise line trying to compete with Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Neuman's What Me Worry motto?  Why walk away from the positive energy of Get Out There! and replace it with the ambivalent if not negative karma of a marketing slogan with the word NOT in it?

I clicked on the Nation of Why Not link on the bottom right corner of the Royal Caribbean home page to read the president's Why Not? blog.  But instead of entering the Why Not nation, I was directed instead to a page named "Answer It Royally."

Where did the Nation of Why Not go?  The cruise president's Why Not? blog also disappeared, replaced with a blog called Sea Views.

What's going on?  Did the cruise line abandon its marketing concept?  Did Royal Caribbean tell the citizens of Why Not that their nation no longer existed?

So I looked around on the internet.  But I couldn't find anything.  The cruise president's last article on the new Sea Views blog was about how important it is to blog as a CEO and, ironically enough, the need to maintain brand loyalty.  It was strange to read someone talking about the concept of brand loyalty instead of actually practicing it. 

How about an explanation regarding whether the Why Not? mantra is being replaced with "Answer it Royally?"  And what does "Answer it Royally" mean anyway? 

The only information I could find about what appears to be a new marketing theme is that Royal Caribbean trademarked the phrase "The Sea is Calling.  Answer it Royally."  OK, now I get it.  Cute, I suppose.  

Royal Caribbean just filed its application for the new service mark on September 13th.  Perhaps there will be some type of announcement from the marketing and web agency people in the future about all of this?

Loyal-to-Royal cruise fans, did I miss something in the last couple of months?  Do you know what happened to the Nation of Why Not?  What do you think about the Answer it Royally theme?

I say bring back the Get Out There! videos and turn Iggy Pop's Lust for Life on full blast.

December 12, 2011 Update:  A reader brought to my attention that Royal Caribbean's new ad  debuted in October in Spanish ("El Mar Te Llama").  You can watch it here.  

Another reader pointed out that if you type in "the sea is calling" dot com, you go to a Royal Caribbean's facebook page which has the new video.

Cruisemates published an article today discussing the cruise line's new national ad campaign which you can read here.   Royal Caribbean invited some members of the media to a conference call this morning and introduced the new ad. 

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Every time you turn on the TV it seems like young people are being sprayed in the face with pepper for exercising their freedom to speak out about corruption and injustice.  Juxtaposed against these disturbing videos and photographs are images of smiling rich Republican Presidential wannabes approving of the pepper-spraying of our country's youth.         

Today we watched the spectacle of Republican Presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, initially ignoring the spectacle of maced protesters and talking about the economy, proclaiming that if elected he will reduce the federal deficit by firing janitors in public schools and, in their place, pay the school children to clean the school classrooma and bathrooms.  Is this guy for real?

This comes from a scoundrel who divorced his first wife while she lay dying of cancer in a hospital bed and, just recently, enjoyed a decadent cruise with his third wife aboard the luxury cruise ship Seaborn Odyssey.  Vacationing with Seabourn is not like an El Cheapo $599-week-cruise on Carnival's "fun ships."   It is about as elitist as it gets in the world of cruising.  You can pay $20,000 to a foreign flagged cruise line which pays no U.S. income tax and receive a nice suite with cabin attendants from India, who are paid a salary of $50 a month (plus tips), to wait on you like you are the Greek God Neptune. 

Speaking of Greek Gods, Newt rationalized his cruise earlier this summer through the Mediterranean by telling his supporters that the cruise was an "educational opportunity to learn about the Greek debt crisis."  Dear Lord, what crap.  The only problem, I suppose, is that his own campaign staffers were so disgusted with his antics that they quit in protest when he disappeared with his latest Mrs. Gingrich on the high seas for a couple of weeks.

But Newt is not to be troubled by the issue of abandonment, proof being that he abandoned his dedicated staffers just as easily as running out on his first dying wife only to return to the U.S. from his vacation and pick up a new group of Republic staffers to continue his I-know-I'm-going-to-lose-but-its-good-for-my-ego campaign.        

While students are pepper sprayed for protesting against corporate greed, greedy Newt has lots of money to burn.  It was recently revealed that he collected somewhere around $1,600,000 in consultation fees from Freddie Mac, the now defunct mortgage scam, while his think tank consulting/lobbying firm sucked some $37,000,000 from health care corporations scamming the public.

I suppose the final straw came for me today, which led me to throwing my remote control at the TV, when Newt supported the pepper-spraying of the "Occupy Portland" protesters, while gratuitously telling the protesters that they needed to "take a bath and get a job" - all to the amusement of a cheering FOX NEWS audience. 

I suppose Newt is talking about 20-year-old Elizabeth Nichols, a young woman from Arkansas, who joined the protest movement in Portland in response to her parent's plight.  As explained in the Atlantic Wire, Elizabeth's mom is housebound with multiple sclerosis.  She joined the Occupy Wall Street movement because of her parents' dire situation.  Her mother explained: "I have no medical care. I'm not eligible. My husband's disabled . . . We live on one disability check. No, we don't live. We exist."

If you have not seen the photo yet (credit Randy L. Rasmussen, photo above right), it is young Elizabeth who the cops blast in the mouth with a stream of pepper spray while she protested in Portland.  The authorities then knocked her to the ground and hauled her off to jail for expressing her thoughts about the Gingrich-like corruption the public has endured in the banking and insurance industries of late.

Pepper spray is the new weapon of authority.  Unlike the bullets at Kent State 40 years ago, pepper spray is an approved, recommended and widely used weapon.  Campuses, cities, and corporations - which do not like to be on the receiving end of public criticism by protesters who won't go away - just need to draw a canister and spray with legal impunity. 

On the University of California at Davis campus, riot policemen pepper-sprayed an entirely peaceful group of protesters (photo left) and then returned for a second dose, close up and personal, into the students faces as they sat peacefully and silently on the ground.

There is a certain insanity in the air. 

When master charlatans like Newt Gingrich can propose firing school custodians, flout child labor laws and chuckle when the police spray peaceful young Americans exercising their freedom of speech not unlike how a pesticide crew sprays a yard to get rid of chinch bugs - something is terribly wrong.   

The U.S. is a free country we tell our children.  But when our kids leave home and our theoretical teachings are tested in the real world, they will learn that their individuals freedoms, if they choose to exercise them, will be challenged by thugs and elitist megalomaniacs who are just as eager to maintain the status quo as the worst despots from Iran to China.    

As Aaron Neville sings on the Neville Brother's Sons & Daughters album "It's freedom of speech as long as you don't say too much."  

Today if you express an unpopular point of view in public and rail against renegade corporations, insurance companies and banks, expect a good dosing of pepper spray.  And while the riot police advance on your children on campuses next year, rest assured that President Gingrich will be vacationing with his most recent wife on a luxury cruise in the Mediterranean.

Don't miss this classic video on the Colbert Report on cruise passenger Gingrich:

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An unusual debate continues over the use of Charleston, South Carolina as a cruise port and the scale of the cruise industry's presence in this quaint old southern town.  There is a lot to argue about - air emissions, waste discharge, traffic, noise and passenger congestion as well as the visual pollution of this beautiful city.  

The debate is unusual insofar as few places, other than Alaska and California, have taken steps to hold cruise lines accountable to public health and community standards. 

Cruise lines such as Carnival Corporation have a deplorable history of air emissions and waste discharge.  They are used to having their way with third world countries and U.S. ports, only to suddenly leave town when they can think they can get a better deal elsewhere.

Consider Carnival's abandonment of places like Antigua, Mobile and, just last week, Bermuda.   

The Coastal Conservation League, the Preservation Society of Charleston and Charleston's Historic Ansonborough Neighborhood are wise to try and hold Carnival accountable to local laws and regulations.

The Charleston City Paper reports that the debate over cruise ship regulations in Charleston has now led to a "billboard kerfuffle." 

The newspaper explains that in September, a citizens' group called Charleston Communities for Cruise Control put up a billboard (top) on I-26 that reads "SAVE CHARLESTON: SUPPORT CRUISE CONTROL."  The billboard depicts the smoke funnels of a Carnival cruise ship looming over the skyline.

On Monday, an anti-regulation business group calling itself CruiseOnInCharleston.org erected its own billboard (bottom) with the message "CRUISE ON IN ... WELCOME and THANK YOU." 

Its exciting to actually see this debate continuing about a cruise industry which usually bullies its way without discussion into one-sided business deals which contain no guarantees for the host ports.  The billboard battle reflects that Charleston, unlike 95% of cruise ports, is a community with citizens of intelligence and integrity who are not about to roll over and let the cruise industry turn their community into a place like Key West or Nassau.

One day Carnival will pull out of Charleston with no notice when it finds that it can make more money sailing from another port which has no concern for issues like pollution and congestion. Carnival will then leave Charleston's businesses with nothing more than their welcome billboards.    

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This month marks the two year anniversary of the first publication of Cruise Law News ("CLN").

My first blog was back on September 7, 2009.  Since then I have written around 700 blogs about all types of disturbing and weird things that happen on cruise ships.

As I predicted two years ago, cruise lines and travel agents cringe daily at the articles.  But hopefully, you have learned about issues that the cruise industry PR machine and the happy-go-lucky cruise fanatics don’t want you to know.  And hopefully you are safer in the process. 

In the past two years, the public has read over 1,300,000 pages of CLN.  My little blog is currently ranked as the 13th most popular law blog per the AVVO / Alexa ranking system, for what that's worth.  1,630 people have taken the time to leave a comment, some negative and some pro. 

I hope that you have enjoyed reading the blog as much as I have enjoyed writing it.  Here are some of my favorite articles over the last two years:

Most read article: Passenger Busted for Selling Drugs on Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas  The public can't resist a story about a drug dealer busted on a gay cruise aboard the world's largest cruise ship, National Inquirer anyone?

Most popular article: The Splendor Cruise Ship Fire - Three Reasons Why You Will Lose If You Sue Carnival  The blog was picked up by the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, the ABA Journal, South Business Law Journal, Gadling, Slate, the U.K.'s Guardian and others.  Everyone loves it when a personal injury lawyer tells the public not to sue following a cruise disaster . . .    

Most ironic articles:  Former Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship Captain Dies of Legionnaire's Disease After Sailing on Liberty of the Seas and Cruise Passengers Attacked & Robbed in Antigua While Cruise and Tourism Officials Meet

Best article with the word "sex" in the title: Marketing "Sex at Sea" on Cruise Ships (includes my favorite photo of a cruise line executive, in bed with booze surrounded by women with the Royal Caribbean logo across their bikini tops??)

Most comments to an article:  Crew Member Overboard from Royal Caribbean's Explorer of the Seas 

Second most comments to an article:  Another Overboard From A Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship? - Oasis of the Seas  

Most positive reaction to an article:  Royal Caribbean "Returns" to its Trademarked, Private Fantasy Island of Labadee® - While Haiti Suffers

Most negative reaction to an article:  Royal Caribbean "Returns" to its Trademarked, Private Fantasy Island of Labadee® - While Haiti Suffers

Happiest article:  Three Happy Cruise Stories - Salvation, Generosity & Rebirth

Most inspiring article:  The Compelling Story of Jamie Barnett - Living Through the Loss

Saddest article:  More Caribbean Crime - Carnival Passenger Killed In St. Thomas

Most disturbing article: Neither Dead Nor Alive - The Faliva Family Remains In Limbo

Most bitter article: What Does BP, Al Qaeda and a Cruise Line Have In Common?  Unfortunately you have to lose a loved one before you can figure the answer out.

Scariest articles:  Passenger Indicted for Sexual Abuse of 13 Year Old Girl on Disney Wonder Cruise Ship, Carnival Cruise Ship Bartender Arrested On Charges Of Raping 14 Year Old Passenger and Most Wanted Rape Suspect Arrested On Carnival Cruise Ship - Worked As Manager Of Onboard Hair Salon

Best social media articles: The Cruise Industry's Reputation - A Sinking Image and Travel Writers and the Ethics of Reporting Cruise News

Best series of articles:  Top 10 Reasons Not To Cruise  

Best article the cruise lines don't want you to read:  "Cruise Ship Sickness" - Is Norovirus In The Food and Water? 

Most terrifying cruise video (over 326,000 views and counting!): The Clelia II Skirts Disaster Again in Antarctica

Best sports article:  Oysters, Dixie Beer & My New Orleans Saints

Best personal article:  Switching Sides And Finding Your Soul

Best article not read by the cruise industry: Ten Years of Cruise Ship Fires - Has the Cruise Industry Learned Anything? 

Thanks to my readers, friends, supporters, detractors and enemies for making Cruise Law News a success.

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter and my Cruise Law News facebook page. 

Bottom photo credit: Clelia II   Fiona Stewart/Garett McIntosh (via jonbowermaster.com)

This morning I was trying to find articles with real time and genuine insight into the ferry disaster off Tanzania.  

An old vessel called the Spice Islander grossly overloaded with over 1,000 passengers sank.  There have been around two hundred people pulled from the water dead and some 600 rescued.

I kept finding one detached articles after another from the mainstream press, many erroneously publishing a photograph of a ferry from the Philippines.  Finally I stumbled across an article "Tragedy Unfolds as Passenger Ferry Capsizes off Zanzibar" which was published by Storyful which aggregates content from Twitter.

The Twitter hashtag following the disaster is #Zanzibarboataccident as well as #Zanzibar

I then began to follow @Tanganyikan who has been tweeting updates and uploading compelling photographs of children rescued from the water as well as tense families waiting for word on whether their loved ones are dead or alive.

I also ran across a tweet from @GregHuntoon "Thanks to those who've been trying to deliver the signal over the mass media's noise"  He referred to @mpoppel @Arabinizer @Rasahi as well as @Tanganyikan. 

@Rasahi uploaded an accurate photo of Spice Islander which looks like an old rust bucket.

Twitter has indeed delivered information and photographs over the mass media noise.  Images of children thought to be lost at sea yet held high above jubilant rescuers, some wearing wet suits. 

You won't find these type of stories and images of joy and sorrow in Reuters or the AP.

Survivor List

Zanzibar Outreach Program

Photo credit: @Tanganyikan

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The big news this week in cruise ship social media 2.0 is that no one other than Carnival's CEO Micky Arison just joined Twitter.  You can check out his tweets at @MickyArison.   He has received a warm welcome mostly by cruise fanatics and Miami Heat fans. 

It will be interesting to see if CEO Arison sticks around and really engages on Twitter. He has 4,800 followers.  So far he has followed pretty much just his cruise lines, basketball players and celebrities on Twitter. 

Speaking of CEOs and pro basketball, Mr. Arison's nemesis Dallas Maverick's Mark Cuban has over 637,000 followers on his Twitter account @mcuban, whose in-your-face avatar shows him holding the NBA trophy, smoking a cigar.    Don't let him trash talk you Micky!

When the week started, I could not help but think it only a matter of time that a dissatisfied Carnival customer began a campaign of tweeting Mr. Arison about an unpleasant cruise.  I wondered how this would turn out and whether Arison would ignore the passenger.

Sure enough a very unhappy disabled passenger by the Twitter name @MyLadyGuinevere began tweeting about a horrific cruise experience.  She suffered an asthma attack caused by a smoke filled stateroom.  Carnival's shipboard employees mocked her for using a wheelchair.  She suffered from food poisoning.  Carnival then inadvertently double charged for everything, and  ignored her when she complained.  She inundated the Carnival CEO with a dozen tweets like: 

"@MickyArison - Your cruise line made me ill, mocked me for my disability, doublecharged me and wiped out my bank account . . ."  

You can read about the debacle in an article in the Consumerist entitled Carnival Cruise Becomes Vacation Nightmare.

After a day of tweets, it looks like the Carnival guest now has high praises for Carnival and Mr. Arison.  Her last tweets suggest that everything has been worked out: " A very, very nice person by the name of Alicia contacted us. We now understand things better . . . and feel like we were listened to. Thank you. We really appreciated it."  @MyLadyGuinevere deleted all of her complaints on Twitter and promised to update her story on the Consumerist article.

Did CEO Arison come to the guest's rescue?  Or was this a case where the Carnival customer support team realized that their CEO's debut on Twitter was being spoiled and they gave the guest some extra attention?  Not sure.  But the bottom line is that the dispute is resolved and eveyone seems happy.

Will Mr. Arison stick around on Twitter?  I hope so, for no other reason than I'd like to see him update his Twitter avatar at the end of the NBA playoffs with a photo of him holding the NBA trophy and smoking a cigar on one of his cruise ships.     

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Shon "Cruise Man 3000" Ford, recently interviewed Jim Walker, whom he refers to as The ‘Cruisetacular’ Legal Eagle, regarding his Cruise Law business. Cruise Man 3000 is not afraid to provide insight to both the good and bad of the cruise industry. Shon has a great blogspot where he posts about his travels on the high seas. He’s traveled aboard 23 different vessels composed of 5 different cruise lines.

Cruise Man 3000 is unique because he has the confidence to expose the negative side of the cruise industry in addition to his cruise industry enthusiast attitude. Cruise Man 3000 gives his honest perspective, something we appreciate here at Cruise Law.

Check out Cruise Man 3000's interview with Jim Walker here. Keep up the great work Cruise Man 3000. Safe travels!

Photo Credit: The Ocean Escape

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Today I had the pleasure of visiting the headquarters of LexBlog in Seattle Washington.  As many of you know, LexBlog is the company which provides the technical support for this blog.  LexBlog designed the layout of Cruise Law News so if you like the design and functionality of this blog, thank LexBlog.  

LexBlog does much more than just design and manage law blogs.  It is the leading network for law firms, big and small, in the world of social media.

I met the CEO of LexBlog Kevin O'Keefe last year when he was in Miami speaking at a meeting.   My family is starting our family vacation in Seattle so I decided to reciprocate and drop by to say hello and meet his team.  

LexBlog is located in a cool old building in a hip part of Seattle.  I met lots of people in the design and technical groups.  They have nice open work spaces and there was a lot of energy in their office.

The photo below shows Kevin and his son Colin O'Keefe.  If you get the impression that these are nice, energetic and talented people (in addition to being Green Bay fans), you're right.

When lawyers ask me about my blog, I brag about the people at LexBlog.  They have an outstanding group of creative design people and great technical support.  And they are building the top network of connected and influential law firms today,

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I have avoided watching anything to do with the sad case of Caylee Anthony over the past two years. 

The image of the big brown eyed pretty little child, missing but then found skeletonized in a swampy dump, juxtaposed against the photos of her smiling mother dirty dancing at clubs have been broadcast, it seems, like 25 million times on cable news over the last couple of years.  No thanks.  I don't need to hear Nancy Grace whip her talking heads into a frenzy about Casey Anthony's guilt and ridicule the whacked out dysfunctional Anthony family on Nancy's cable-news-gossip-drama-show when I walk into the house after a long day at work.

Fifteen and one-half years ago - on October 3, 1995 - I remember the spectacle following the acquittal of O.J. Simpson, when mostly the African-American community exploded in joy following O.J.'s acquittal, while the mostly white audience shook their collective heads in disbelief.    In a trial which lasted for months, the jury returned a not guilty verdict in less than just 4 hours of deliberation.  

200 years of slavery, the Civil War, poll taxes and Jim Crow laws, the Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education decisions, Reverend Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement, sprinkled with white on black police brutality ends in a queer result which had little to do with the facts of Nicole Simpson's murder.     

Where were you when O.J. was acquitted?  Everyone can remember.  I was taking a deposition in West Palm Beach.  I don't remember the name of the case, or the other lawyer or even the name of the person I was deposing.  But I remember watching the TV as everyone in the court reporter's office moaned and groaned as O.J. smiled and walked free from the courthouse.

So here we are some fifteen plus years later.  Casey Anthony - not guilty - of premeditated murder, child abuse or aggravated child abuse.  Everyone will remember where they were when the verdict was announced. 

I was in the Dallas / Fort Worth airport, waiting for a flight back to Miami.  I took a photo of the CNN broadcast on my blackberry. 

In the past fifteen years, I have handled hundreds of cases, and seen cases turn out far differently than I thought they would.  Anyone who tries cases for a living knows that anything can and will happen in a trial. 

Unlike the O.J. verdict, this was no shocker.  Whereas I avoided all of the cable news shows, I was intrigued watching the closing arguments last Sunday.  The state attorneys did a competent job, but defense attorney Jose Baez smoked the prosecution in his closing.  "Reasonable doubt lives in this courtroom," he bellowed.  Maybe not on the cable news shows, but he was not trying the case to Nancy Grace or her cast of executioners.

After watching Baez for 2 hours on Sunday afternoon, I turned off the TV.  If I learned anything in the last fifteen years, I knew there was no way a jury would convict Casey Anthony for murdering her daughter based on this evidence.  

Yes, there are tens of millions of Americans in shock, crying about the injustice.  But what is clear is that Jose Baez, like Johnny Cochran, love em or hate em, did his job.  

Many will bemoan that there is no justice for Caylee, as there was no justice for Nicole, as there is no justice for thousands of other murder victims and their families whose stories are not broadcast nightly on the cable news.  

Fifteen years from now, I will remember where I was when the Casey Anthony verdict was read.  Will you?     

July 6, 2011 Update: This article was picked as one of the "Best in Law Blogs: The LexBlog Network: July 6, 2011."

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A drama is unfolding in the Miami-Dade County courthouse in a lawsuit filed on behalf of a seriously injured passenger against Royal Caribbean Cruises.

Royal Caribbean filed a motion for sanctions against a well known lawyer here in Miami who issued a press release in which he talked about the lawsuit.  

The case at issue involves allegations that Royal Caribbean and its medical staff failed to timely and properly respond to a medical emergency involving a young woman, Preetha Amaran, who collapsed while exercising on a treadmill on the Royal Caribbean Enchantment of the Seas cruise ship.  Ms. Amaran is represented by Miami lawyer Phil Gerson, who alleges that Ms. Amaran, who aspired to be a doctor herself, suffered permanent brain damage due to the negligence of the cruise line and Steiner Transocean Limited which operated the spa on the ship. 

Ms. Amaran is now left severely incapacitated and unable to work or speak more than a few phrases.  She needs round-the-clock supervision according to the press release and the allegations in the court records. 

Royal Caribbean did not like the fact that Mr. Gerson issued a press release, which you can read here.  It filed a motion for injunctive relief seeking to obtain a gag order against Mr. Gerson to prevent him from exercising his First Amendment right of freedom of speech.  The cruise line also sought to punish Mr. Gerson and his disabled client, by seeking to dismiss the lawsuit and prevent a jury from listening to the facts of the case.    

The case is one of the most ferociously fought cases I have ever seen.  It has been pending since 2004 and has gone to the appellate courts already.  In 2010, the appellate court ruled that Royal Caribbean hindered the injured passenger's search for the whereabouts of the ship’s doctor by providing an address in care of an employment agency in South Africa.  In truth, the doctor had a residence in Florida, owned real property in Tampa, Florida, owned motor vehicles registered in Florida, and was actually working on the cruise line's own ships.      

I reviewed Royal Caribbean's motion at the courthouse.  It's light on the law to say the least.  It fails to cite the most relevant cases addressing the issue whether attorneys somehow lose their freedom of speech to talk to the press about pending cases.  

The leading cases in Florida are Rodriguez v. Feinstein, 734 So.2d 1162  (Fla. 3d DCA 1999) and  Dupont de Nemours and Co. v. Aquamar, S.A., 33 So.3d 839 (Fla. 4th DCA 2010).  These cases state that a "gag order" can be entered only where statements by counsel pose a "substantial or imminent threat to a fair trial."   The mere presence of pretrial publicity, "even pervasive, adverse publicity," does not by itself indicate that an upcoming trial will be unfair.

The United States Supreme Court has held that a prior restraint against free speech is subject to “strict constitutional scrutiny” and carries “a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity.” Nebraska Press v. Stuart, 427 U. S. 539, 558 (1976); Carroll v. Princess Anne, 393 U.S. 175, 181 (1968); Austin v. Keefe, 402 U. S. 415, 419 (1971).  As stated by Judge Learned Hand in United States v. Dennis, 183 F.2d 201, 212 (2nd. Cir. 1950) in considering whether to impose a prior restraint a court must determine if, “the gravity of the ‘evil,’ discounted by its improbability, justifies such invasion of free speech as is necessary to avoid the danger.”

It is difficult to imagine how the press release in June is going to prejudice the trial of this case which is not scheduled until November.

Last year, Royal Caribbean filed a similar motion against me after I wrote about this cruise line's tendency to "lose" CCTV tapes of accidents and  crimes on its fleet of cruise ships.  You can read my article here.  Royal Caribbean retaliated and filed a motion to sanction me and prevent me from blogging about it.  It didn't bother to cite any leading cases addressing the difficulty of obtaining gag orders against attorneys.   Needless to say, I didn't stop blogging and I filed a motion for sanctions against the cruise line.  At the end of the day, Royal Caribbean backed down and withdrew its motion.  

Attorneys like Mr. Gerson have an ethical obligation to advance their clients cases.  Principled advocates have a moral obligation to bring awareness to injustices in an effort to improve safety of cruise passengers.

Several years ago, I met Mr. Gerson in Washington D.C.  The President of the International Cruise Victims organization (ICV) asked him to help the organization discuss safety improvements with the Cruise Line International Association and Royal Caribbean Cruises.  I participated in the meeting along with several members of the ICV at the offices of the National Center for Victims of Crime.  Mr. Gerson took a leadership role in the meeting and effectively advocated proposals to make cruising safer for the public.  I was impressed.

Press releases, web sites, and blogs are an effective way to educate the public about dangers on cruise ships.  This is what socially conscious advocates for people do.  Defense lawyers for corporations defend corporations and try and maintain the status quo.  Plaintiff attorneys for people advance the rights of the disabled and try to disrupt the status quo in order to protect future victims.    

Cruise lines like Royal Caribbean can't stand close scrutiny.  Cruise lines like this will do anything to muzzle critics.          

In Ms. Amaran's case, Royal Caribbean is asking the Court for an evidentiary hearing, where the judge would have to sift through all of the evidence and make a ruling whether the comments in Mr. Gerson's press release are accurate, as Mr. Gerson contends, or are false as the cruise line contends.

Determining factual disputes is not the province of judges.  It is the job of the jury at trial.  A trial, it seems, that this cruise line is trying to avoid at all costs.

June 30, 2011:  Yesterday, the Court (Judge Jerald Bagley) did not grant the motion for injunctive relief or the motion for sanctions, but retained jurisdiction to consider additional evidence.  I should point out that Royal Caribbean's co-defendant, Steiner, also filed similar motions to gag the plaintiff's counsel, which were not granted.

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Yesterday, the Bermuda Gazette reported on the sentencing of an American tourist who was arrested for possessing pot on a cruise ship which ported in Bermuda.

The Gazette identified the passenger as 43-year-old Edward John Molinari, from New York.  The newspaper reported that after the cruise ship arrived in Bermuda, customs officers and police searched Molinari’s cabin with a drug sniffing dog and "found seven homemade cigarettes in the room’s safe, plus a partially-smoked eighth, containing cannabis of an estimated street value of $178."

The other major newspaper in Bermuda, the Bermuda Sun, also reported on the petty drug offense and mentioned that Mr. Molinari was married with three children.  The Sun included a photograph of Mr. Molinari taken by a photographer camped outside of the courthouse.    

Neither the Gazette nor the Sun mentioned the name of the cruise line, and the Gazette did not mention the name of the cruise ship either.  Why not?  Was it because Mr. Molinari informed the Bermuda judge that that cannabis had been in use “all over the boat?” 

I have been critical of the press in Bermuda in general, and the Royal Gazette in particular, for not mentioning the names of cruise lines when the stories include embarrassing facts like drugs and crimes on the cruise ships.

For example, the Bermuda Gazette recently covered a trial in Bermuda involving allegations that a crew member raped another cruise line employee.   We covered the incident and of course mentioned the names of the cruise line and cruise ship.  We tried to place the incident into context by mentioning this cruise line's history of similar alleged crimes on its fleet of cruise ships.

The Gazette, however, choose not to mention the name of the cruise line (Princess Cruises) or the name of the cruise ship (Caribbean Princess).  Was this because Princess Cruises incorporated itself in Bermuda and registered its cruise ship there in order to enjoy that country's lax safety regulations and minimal taxes?  Is the Bermuda press extending the same courtesy of "looking the other way" routinely extended by the Bermuda vessel registry and incorporation officials?  The Gazette claims that it decided not to mention the cruise line or cruise ship in order to protect the identity of the alleged rape victim and defendant.  That seems like quite a stretch.  But assuming that to be true, why did the Gazette decide not to mention the name of the cruise line or cruise ship which allegedly had drug use "all over the boat?"

When you search the Bermuda Gazette's archives, you will find that while it is quick to identify U.S. passengers caught with small amounts of pot on cruise ships, it will not publish anything potentially embarrassing about the cruise lines.     

The island is very strict when it comes to prosecuting U.S. passengers.  Bermuda will bust U.S. passengers for minor drug possession on cruise ships porting in Bermuda even if its clear that the pot is for the passenger's personal use and the pot never leaves the cruise ship.  And the newspapers in Bermuda love reporting about such minor offenses. 

But Bermuda does a deplorable job investigating violent crimes or mysterious disappearances which may implicate cruise ships which fly the flag of Bermuda.  You will see no real journalism by the Bermuda newspapers into the issues of cruise ship crime, pollution, exploitation of crew members and tax avoidance.  Take a moment and read about Bermuda's indifference to crimes on Bermuda flagged cruise ships.

For example when Italian crew member Angelo Faliva disappeared from the Bermuda flagged Princess cruise ship the Coral Princess, Bermuda eventually conducted a dilatory and unmotivated "investigation" which quickly ended without any answers and no criticism of the cruise line.  The Royal Gazette and other newspapers in Bermuda completely ignored the Faliva family's plight.

The Angelo Faliva disappearance demonstrates the fundamental corruptness of incorporating cruise lines in remote islands and flying flags of convenience of countries with a non-existent regulatory scheme and a press which acts like a cruise line PR department.  Disappearances often go un-reported, un-investigated, and un-prosecuted because of the indifference of the flag countries and the desire of the image-obsessed cruise lines to sweep the problem under the rug.

Independent newspapers with integrity keep large corporations like the cruise lines honest. 

But newspapers like the Bermuda Gazette are a different story.  If you are a passenger caught with some reefer in a safe in your cabin on a cruise ship docked in Bermuda, be prepared to have your name and photograph appear on the front page of the Bermuda newspapers.  But if you are a cruise line with a history of pollution and shipboard crimes, don't worry - the newspapers in Bermuda will be certain never to mention you.  

Photo credits:

Top:  Edward Molinari leaving courthouse, photo by Kageaki Smith via Bermuda Sun

Bottom:  Angelo Faliva, courtesy of the Faliva family

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It's official.  Cruise Law is the top vote receiver in the Shorty Awards contest in crowd-sourced field of law for 2011. 

For those of you who follow this blog or interact with me on Twitter, you know that I am a lawyer who believes in the power of communicating via the social media of blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

Last year I tied for first place in the law category.  I then did the chivalrous thing of voting for my opponent, a lawyer in England, to break the tie.  Yes I believe in Karma.  What goes around comes  around.  This year I won in a landslide. 

So what is the significance of the Shorty Awards in law?  The Shorty Awards people say that the award recognizes the "best people and organizations on Twitter and social media."  

Our blog is just 18 months old but has been a top 10 most popular blog for going on a year now.

If you are looking for an insight into what is happening in the off-shore, multi-national, tax avoiding, and non-sustainable cruise industry - you will find it here first.  

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Today a newspaper in the U.K., the Chester Chronicle, contains an interesting article "Family Demand Answers as Investigation into Chester Disney Cruise Ship Worker Continues."   Although the article is a bit of a rehash of events since last week about the disappearance of youth counselor Rebecca Coriam from Disney Cruise Line's Wonder cruise ship, the newspaper reports that: 

" ... cousin Kerry Gaffney has been using the social networking website Twitter in a desperate bid for information on Rebecca’s whereabouts.  Her post read: 'My cousin, Rebecca Coriam, is missing and Disney is not as helpful as it makes out.  Please help put the pressure on them.'  Another post said the family are getting conflicting reports about what was seen and what went on."

Kerry Gaffney's witter name is @kerrymg and the tweet asked those on Twitter to "RT" (re-tweet) her message.

Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are useful tools to obtain information from the public about mysteries on the high seas.  Cruise lines maintain exclusive control of the scene of disappearances, and access to witnesses and evidence on cruise ships.  When the Disney Wonder returned to port in Los Angeles last Sunday, over 1,700 passengers scattered across the U.S., Canada and other countries without being interviewed by anyone.  This is fine with the cruise lines, who want this public spectacle to end sooner than later irrespective of whether the family finds answers to this latest mystery.

So how can you appeal to potential witnesses scattered around the country?  One way is Twitter.

Disney's Twitter page for its cruise line is @DisneyCruise.  It has 26,000 followers.  

Twitter, Facebook, websites and blogs can help level the playing field with cruise lines and their we-just-want-the-media-to-go-away attitude.   If you are reading this and have a Twitter page, send a message:

"What is @DisneyCruise doing to find information for the Coriam family about the #cruise disappearance of their daughter on the Wonder?" 

Ask your followers to re-tweet your question.

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Cruise Law News was featured today in Attorney at Law Magazine in an article by legal marketing expert Paula Black. 

In her article "The Right Results," Paula writes:

"Jim Walker of Miami firm Walker & O'Neill P.A. runs the popular Cruise Law News, a blog focused solely on "breaking news and legal commentary regarding cruise ship passengers and crew members around the world."  A niche practice?  Yes.  A smart blog?  Also yes.  As a result of being one of the only attorneys blogging about the topic - and the only one providing actual daily commentary - he has seen his visibility skyrocket.  Jim has been featured over one hundred times on television, cable news and radio shows, as well as in documentaries, newspapers and magazine articles."  

In the short time our law blog has been on line, we climbed to the number 10 most popular law blog in the U.S.! 

Paula is a real pro when it comes to assisting law firms in developing business.  Check out her highly regarded blog: "In Black and White."

Thanks Paula!

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Cruise Law News (CLN)'s readership exploded last month.  In February, our followers read 100,000 pages of CLN which remains the 10th most popular law blog in the U.S.  Here is what people are recently saying about Jim Walker and CLN:

"Top Maritime Lawyer" - ABA Journal.

"Top Cruise Lawyer" - USA Today.

"Prominent Private Practice Maritime Attorney" - Fox News.

"Cruise Law Expert" - Slate Magazine.

"Prominent Cruise Plaintiff Attorney" - Law.com (America Law Media).

Perpetual Pain-In-The-Cruise-Lines-Neck Jim Walker - Gadling

Cruise Law News - "A Hard-Hitting Blog" - Miami's Daily Business Review. 

Last month saw the revival of the "Worst Cruise Line in the World" award, won again by Royal Caribbean due to an epidemic of crew deaths and the prevalence of drugs on RCCL cruise ships,   This month you will be reading a lot more about crimes associated with the Royal Caribbean cruise brand, here on the most popular maritime law website in the world.  

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One of the interesting things about having a blog is that there are programs which indicate how many viewers you have, how many pages they look at, and the countries where they are from.

For the first two weeks of this month alone, Cruise Law News (CLN) has been viewed over 62,000 times.  We have been the tenth most popular law blog for several months now. 

The number one referrer of visitors to CLN is Google (US), with other referrers via the Google search engines from the United Kingdom, Canada, Poland, Puerto Rico, Australia, India, Germany, Norway, Mexico and Brazil.

The number two referrer to CLN is Facebook, which surprises me.  Rather than just being a place to socialize on line, we are finding that Facebook is increasingly becoming a place where news is disseminated and issues are discussed.   

We created a Facebook page for CLN recently to help get the news out about things that happen on cruise ships. You can read about some of the high profile cases involving the cruise industry.  You can see our photographs of some of our clients and cases here.  We have a rather modest group of followers at this early date (around 200) which includes cruise passengers and crew members.  It is slowly growing.  With the new Facebook format, our followers can post their own links to articles as well as post photographs and upload videos.

We hope that you click the "like" button and follow CLN on Facebook.  Please consider taking a moment and post a comment to one of our blog articles, or post your own interesting link to a cruise-related story. 

Thanks for your interest!

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Year 2011 began with a bang at Cruise Law News ("CLN").

CLN was the first publication in the U.S. to cover some of the most newsworthy stories about the cruise industry this year. 

We started the year by pointing out that the new president (Christine Duffy) of the the cruise industry's trade organization, the Cruise Line International Association ("CLIA"), has carried on CLIA's Pinocchio-like tradition of tall tales by telling her first lie.  And it was only the third day of the new year!    

Royal Caribbean's reputation of having the most passengers overboards and the least transparent PR department is alive and well n 2011.  Two weeks ago, we reported that  a 21 year old passenger fell from Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas as it approached Belize.  The local press in Belize speculated wildly (seemingly to RCCL's approval)  that the passenger may have committed suicide (the cruise lines' favorite excuse).  The U.S. newspapers (especially the worthless Miami Herald) ignored the story.  

CLN was the the first U.S. publication to explain what really happened.  In our artice - "Another Passenger Overboard From A Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship" - many passengers including the missing young man's family posted comments about the circumstances surrounding the tragedy.  We caught someone criticizing the family on our blog's comment section using a computer connection which we traced back to the Royal Caribbean headquarters.  Sick!

Talking about sick cruise lines, we covered the first case of "cruise ship sickness" (CLIA hates that expression) which occurred on Royal Caribbean's Radiance of the Seas.  Sixty-five passengers left comments about the experience.  Yuck.  The cruise line went to its PR playbook, diverted attention away from its own food and water, and blamed the passengers, as usual, for not washing their hands.   

The month so far has seen CLN report on a crew member child porno addict (allegedly mind you) who worked as an audio visual manager and provided onboard guest-entertainment services on the Constellation cruise ship operated by Royal Caribbean's sister line Celebrity Cruises.  

This month CLN covered the bizarre cruise story of a child predator / defrocked catholic priest who was accused of molesting 33 little girls.  Yet, a local cruise company (Voyages of Discovery) was more than pleased to let him buy a cruise ticket.   We also blogged about yet another drug smuggling ring on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, this time the Explorer of the Seas.    

Our readership is exploding.   

Yesterday, we had well over 5,000 people read our blog.  Weekends are usually slower than weekdays, so 5,000 readers a day is a lot of people clicking on CLN.  So far this month, over 70,000 pages of CLN have been read.  We are on track for over a million people reading CLN a year.  We had more readers in one day yesterday than in our first month when the blog started in September 2009! 

CLN remains the number 10 top law blog in the world based on the Alexa / AVVO popularity rankings, and a top 25 influencer in the world of social media involving the cruise industry.

Last week, CLN was featured on Cruise Radio, the most popular cruise related radio show in the world, about how to stay safe on cruise ships.  As the host mentioned, we "gave some brutal but honest facts.  It's a great reminder" about cruise ship safety. Take a listen here.

CLN is also in first place in the Shorty Awards in law.  It's admittedly a faux award, but its purpose is to recognize the "best people and organizations on Twitter and social media."  

The state of the union for Cruise Law News - is strong!  We are having a lot of fun too!

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Cruise Radio is the most popular cruise related radio show in the world. 

Yesterday we were one of the guests on the radio show and discussed tips on how to stay safe on cruise ships.  

I discuss some tips to keep in mind if you cruise.  About keeping your kids safe.  About child predators on cruises.  About cruise crime.  About the consequences of too much alcohol on cruises.  About violence during Caribbean excursions.  Some disturbing info, no doubt. 

As the host mentioned, Walker "gave some brutal but honest facts. It's a great reminder" about cruise ship safety.

Take a listen here.   

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Two years ago, Cruise Law met Twitter.  This was a major step for our little firm wading out into the new world of social media.   Twitter is singularly the biggest step we have taken in developing new relationships in the area of our expertise by "meeting" cruise fans, cruise specialists, cruise travel agents, cruise experts, and cruise critics.    

A year and one-half ago, Cruise Law met Lexblog.  This was a big, big  step.  Rarely do I make the right choice right off of the bat in making a new relationship.  Of all the companies which support law blogs for law firms, big and small, I made absolutely the right choice.  Lexblog is the best.  Lexblog introduced us us to blogging and the art of establishing a powerful on line presence.  Due to Lexblog, we are now a top 10 law blog and a major influencer in the cruise and  law worlds of social media.

Last week, Lexblog's CEO Kevin O'Keefe tweeted something about "Quora" being the new best thing in social media. I had never heard of "Quora" before last week.  Another silly made-up-word, like who cares?  But O'Keefe knows what he is talking about and knows what lies ahead. 

So I checked it out.  I followed a few categories (including cruises), and answered a single question - "How do cruise ships handle crimes on board?"  I felt an instant connection to the question and I was attracted to Quora's friendly format.  In ten minutes I finished the answer.  Over the course of the day, twenty people "voted up" the answer.  Soon thereafter I had forty people following me, suggesting new cruise questions to answer. 

I like Quora.  I am going to spend some time here educating the public about my passion, the safety and well being of passengers and cruise employees on cruise ships. 

I hope that Twitter and Lexblog aren't too jealous . . .   

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It's that time of the year where the Shorty Awards honor the "best people and organizations on Twitter and social media."  Throughout the month of January, people can nominate Tweeters in official categories and "crowd-sourced categories."  

I am seeking votes for the #law category.  For those of you who follow this blog or interact with me on Twitter, you know that I am a lawyer who believes in the power of communicating via the social media of blogs, Facebook and Twitter.  

Last year I tied for first place in #law and then did the chivalrous thing and voted for my opponent, a lawyer in England, to break the tie.

To vote for me this year, click on this link and you will see a proposed tweet that says: "I nominate @CruiseLaw for a Shorty Award in #law because . . ."  You have to give a reason after "because . . ."  It can be a serious reason (if you have one) or a silly one (like because he asked me).  But you have to give a reason or the vote will not count.

You can also vote simply by going to Twitter and tweeting "I nominate @CruiseLaw for a Shorty Award in #law because . . ."  (and then give a reason).

Thanks!

   Nominate James (Jim) Walker for in #law in the Shorty Awards

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Yesterday, Travel Pulse published an "interview" of Christine Duffy, the incoming president of the Cruise Line International Association ("CLIA").  CLIA is the cruise industry's trade organization responsible for promoting the cruise lines' interests and lobbying Congress. 

We have written a few articles about CLIA and their Pravda-like view of the facts regarding the cruise industry.  We were hoping the new leadership at CLIA would be a change from the past. 

The "interview" was the usual PR piece, consisting of prearranged soft ball questions.  But I fell out of my chair upon reading her comments about what she told Congressional leaders during a lobbying trip to Washington D.C.:   

Part of the message we delivered in D.C. is that the travel industry employs more people than the auto industry, and we didn’t get a bailout. We employ a lot more people than anybody recognized, and our impact is in all 50 states. We’re not going to offshore our jobs . . .

Wow!  What a whopper!

The fact of the matter is that all of the CLIA cruise lines are foreign corporations.  Unlike Ford or Chevrolet which are U.S. corporations and employ U.S. employees, the CLIA cruise lines are 100% foreign corporations.  Carnival was incorporated in Panama.  Royal Caribbean was incorporated in Liberia (yes, Africa).   And all of these cruise lines fly the flags of foreign countries like Panama, Liberia, Bermuda and the Bahamas.  By registering their companies and cruise ships overseas to avoid U.S. labor, wage and safety laws, the foreign cruise lines also avoid U.S. income taxes.  The $35,000,000,000 (billion) cruise industry pays no U.S. Federal income taxes.

If the cruise lines were required to pay U.S. taxes, they would pay over $10,000,000,000 a year.  The cruise industry receives a $10 billion bailout each year, year after year.  

But that's not all.  All of the cruise ships are manufactured and constructed in foreign shipyards, in Italy, Norway or France.  And 99.9% of the officers and crew members (except some of the U.S. dancers and singers) are from "overseas."  No U.S. workers are going to work 360 hours a month for around $545 like the incredibly hard working utility cleaners from India, Central America and the Caribbean islands.

The cruise industry is the most outsourced, non-U.S. industry in America.  The industry is built on the business model of tax-paying U.S. citizens paying their hard earned wages to the foreign corporation cruise lines who pay no taxes to the U.S. and exploit their foreign employeesby paying slave wages to the lower tier crew members.

"We’re not going to offshore our jobs" Ms. Duffy?  Please, it's too early in 2011 to tell lies.       

Photo credit:  Travel Industry Today   

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Take a look at the "blawg 100" stream on Twitter and you see a hilarious spectacle.  Lawyers desperately begging for votes to win one of the best "blawg" (law blog) categories hawked by the ABA Journal's Blawg 100 contest.

The ABA Journal has quite a scam going.  The Journal is operated by one of the most obsolete and irrelevant legal groups around today, the  American Bar Association.  The game goes like this: self-appointed ABA Journal "judges," who are mostly former reporters or editors for rinky-dink newspapers and who have never represented a real life client in a courtroom, pick their 100 favorite "blawgs."  

But that's just the beginning.  The ABA Journal divides the top 100 "blawgs" into 12 arbitrary categories.  There is a category for law professor blogs (what else are professors suppose to do but write?), one for labor law, one for "criminal justice" (what's that?), and even one "for fun." (Do we really need a category of lawyer jokes?)   

Each category consists of anywhere from 5 to 12 law blogs, designed to compete against and simultaneously congratulate one another.  Some obviously qualified blogs - like Overlawyered - are left out, to create controversy.  The ABA Journal encourages the chosen bloggers to write something witty to promote the ABA Journal's contest.  The bloggers and their shills solicit votes via a number of cute blog posts or solicitous tweets promoting themselves and the ABA Journal in the process.  Kinda like trained seals, these lawyers are all-too-happy to balance a ball on their noses for the trainer.  

Now here's the catch.  To vote for one of the hand picked ABA Journal "blawgs," you must first register with the ABA journal.  This requires the 100 wannabee winners to encourage their friends, family, staff and strangers to register with the ABA Journal which requires the submission of an email address. The ABA Journal also encourages the bloggers to use ABA badges and ABA press releases written by the ABA, promoting the ABA of course. 

The ABA should have focused on law blogs which have championed the rights of victims, immigrants, or minorities, or the best new blogs written by law students or non-profits, or the most influential law blogs that have effectuated social changes.   But instead we have a list which includes some bloggers with questionable relevance and little influence, compiled into silly categories by a group of disconnected editors with no real life experiences of practicing law.  The ABA list is entirely subjective and has little reflection of influence or popularity.  Some of the blogs selected by the ABA can't garner more than 20 votes from their own readers.

This is not the first time the ABA Journal's "blawg" contest has been criticized.  In the past, it has been labeled as too elitist, too big-city, too big-firm, or too hostile to personal injury lawyers (like me). 

But most of the criticism is from lawyers who were pissed that they were not selected - like New York personal injury lawyer Eric Turkewitz who complained bitterly several years ago that the ABA Journal ignored personal injury lawyers.  But when the ABA listed his blog (and a good one at that), New York Personal Injury Blog, as one of the top 100, Turkewitz's rage was soothed over by the coveted ABA badge.  This year he expressed that he was "flattered" by being selected - as if he won the Mother Teresa Humanitarian Award or the Nobel Peace Prize, for Christ's sake. 

Now, this may all sound like sour grapes because my blog, a top ten most popular blog, and the most influential maritime personal injury law blog in the U.S. (no, I am not modest), didn't get the nod.  (The "tort" blogs selected by the ABA Journal rank in popularity from 300,000 to over 4,000,000 blogs behind me).  Perhaps like Turkewitz I don't like to be ignored, but unlike my New York colleague I am not making a fuss hoping to be picked in next year's ABA contest.  Groucho Marx would never join a club which would have him as a member, and I don't want the ABA's ugly badges or ponderous press releases.  

But don't get me wrong.  Some of the law blogs picked by the ABA are outstanding, popular and influential.  Bill Marler's blog about e-coli and contaminated food is the best personal injury / product liability blog out there.  Probably the best law blog, period.  And Dan Harris' China Law Blog is clearly superior as well.  But these excellent lawyers and connected bloggers don't need a silly ABA Blawg 100 badge.  They are already well respected by their legal peers and highly influential in the public arena in their areas of the law. 

After a month of promotion, the ABA Journal voting finally ends today.  Check out the ABA "Blawg 100" frenzy again on Twitter.  Be sure to give the ABA your email address so you can receive solicitations to join the ABA and subscribe to the ABA Journal. 

And don't forget to vote for your favorite trained seal.  

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As year 2010 comes to a close, it's time to look back at some of the highlights of Cruise Law News (CLN).  

CLN reached the top 10 most popular law blogs, placing us above such heavyweight blogs as the China Law Blog, Simple Justice, Jonathan Turley and Overlawyered.     

CLN also became a "top cruise vacation influencer," which consists of cruise lines, travel agents, and cruise fans who dominate social media affecting the cruise industry.  I'm sure having a maritime personal injury lawyer in the top 10 drives the cruise industry bonkers.

Here are some of my favorite blog posts for the past year: 

Most popular article: The Splendor Cruise Ship Fire - Three Reasons Why You Will Lose If You Sue Carnival  The blog was picked up by the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, the ABA Journal, South Business Law Journal, Gadling, Slate, the U.K.'s Guardian and others.  Everyone loves it when a personal injury lawyer tells the public not to sue following a cruise disaster . . .    

Most ironic articles:  Former Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship Captain Dies of Legionnaire's Disease After Sailing on Liberty of the Seas and Cruise Passengers Attacked & Robbed in Antigua While Cruise and Tourism Officials Meet

Best article with the word "sex" in the title: Marketing "Sex at Sea" on Cruise Ships (includes my favorite photo of a cruise line executive, in bed with booze surrounded by women with the Royal Caribbean logo across their bikini tops??)

Most comments to an article:  Crew Member Overboard from Royal Caribbean's Explorer of the Seas 

Second most comments to an article:  Another Overboard From A Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship? - Oasis of the Seas  

Most positive reaction to an article:  Royal Caribbean "Returns" to its Trademarked, Private Fantasy Island of Labadee® - While Haiti Suffers

Most negative reaction to an article:  Royal Caribbean "Returns" to its Trademarked, Private Fantasy Island of Labadee® - While Haiti Suffers

Happiest article:  Three Happy Cruise Stories - Salvation, Generosity & Rebirth

Most inspiring article:  The Compelling Story of Jamie Barnett - Living Through the Loss

Saddest article:  More Caribbean Crime - Carnival Passenger Killed In St. Thomas

Most disturbing article: Neither Dead Nor Alive - The Faliva Family Remains In Limbo

Most bitter article: What Does BP, Al Qaeda and a Cruise Line Have In Common?  Unfortunately you have to lose a loved one before you can figure the answer out.

Scariest articles:  Passenger Indicted for Sexual Abuse of 13 Year Old Girl on Disney Wonder Cruise Ship, Carnival Cruise Ship Bartender Arrested On Charges Of Raping 14 Year Old Passenger and Most Wanted Rape Suspect Arrested On Carnival Cruise Ship - Worked As Manager Of Onboard Hair Salon

Best social media articles: The Cruise Industry's Reputation - A Sinking Image and Travel Writers and the Ethics of Reporting Cruise News

Best series of articles:  Top 10 Reasons Not To Cruise  

Best article the cruise lines don't want you to read:  "Cruise Ship Sickness" - Is Norovirus In The Food and Water? 

Most terrifying cruise video (over 296,000 views and counting!): The Clelia II Skirts Disaster Again in Antarctica

Best sports article:  Oysters, Dixie Beer & My New Orleans Saints

Best personal article:  Switching Sides And Finding Your Soul

Best article not read by the cruise industry: Ten Years of Cruise Ship Fires - Has the Cruise Industry Learned Anything? 

Thanks to our readers for a great 2010!   Do you have an idea for blog articles for 2011?  Leave us a comment below. 

Bottom photo credit: Clelia II   Fiona Stewart/Garett McIntosh (via jonbowermaster.com)

• Comments

Cruise Law News was featured in an article yesterday about the Carnival Splendor fire and the new Coast Guard marine bulletins criticizing the cruise line's fire suppression system which malfunctioned.  The article is by Joel Siegfried in the National Examiner entitled "Coast Guard Blasts Carnival Splendor for Fire Negligence."   The Examiner is one of the newer and very popular internet newspapers, with a readership of around 1,000,000.

The Examiner also has an interesting photo slideshow showing the defective fire suppression system on the Carnival cruise ship.  Here is the article unedited:

Two just released reports by the United States Coast Guard are highly critical of the Carnival Splendor concerning a fire at sea which disabled the vessel on November 8, 2010.  Upon learning of this report, many of the passengers who were aboard the Carnival Splendor "Cruise to Nowhere" were incensed about the ship's inability to properly manage an automated emergency fire suppression system, which was reported on a KGTV interview segment on Friday, December 24, 2010.

To gain insights into this incident, we contacted Miami Florida based maritime attorney James Walker, who also writes the Cruise Law News Blog.  Mr. Walker previously advised passengers not to sue Carnival Cruise Lines over this latest incident, even though the Company has a long history of shipboard fires, cited in his comprehensive article "Ten Years of Cruise Ship Fires - Has the Cruise Industry Learned Anything?"

For Carnival Cruise Line alone, these have included a fire on the Carnival Ecstasy, shortly after leaving leaving Miami on July 20, 1998, that was extinguished by fire boats, causing damages exceeding $17 million; the Carnival Tropicale in September 1999, which left the ship adrift in the Gulf of Mexico with 1,700 passengers and crew members for almost two days after the fire disabled the engines; and the June 18, 1995 fire aboard the Carnival Celebration which forced 1,700 passengers to evacuate.   

We asked Mr. Walker to give us his views on the Carnival Splendor fire. He graciously responded with the following remarks on Christmas Day.

"In the 1999 fire on Carnival's Tropicale there where problems where the crew members didn't speak English well enough to provide safety instructions. So here we are over 10 years later with another breakdown in communication with the fire instruction manual on the Splendor written in broken English.  Italian officers and Filipino crew scratching their heads trying to decipher an instruction book written in broken English as the cruise ship burns.  What a frightening spectacle.  No one realized the instruction manual didn't match the fire suppression system for two and one-half years?  This certainly gives the public an insight into the consequences of flagging cruise ships in Panama.  The marine safety bulletins reflects Carnival's negligence."

The U.S. Coast Guard has been investigating the fire which disabled the 113,300 gross register tons (GRT) Italian built  Concordia-class cruise ship Carnival Splendor, and have released two marine safety alerts dated December 21, 2010, ominously titled "Wrong Directions: A Recipe for Failure" and "Simple Failures Render CO2 System Inoperative", about an unnamed vessel, but clearly about the Carnival Splendor.  The Coast Guard has confirmed that fact to industry publication Professional Mariner.

According to the reports, the two alerts each "address critical concerns uncovered during an ongoing marine casualty investigation and should be of vital interest to Ship Builders, Classification Societies, Owner / Operators and others involved with vessel operations."

Their findings are unequivocal and damning of the Carnival Splendor, drawing conclusions that the fire itself could have easily been controlled and extinguished, if not for numerous flaws in the training, maintenance, and operation of the Splendor's emergency automated fire control system.

Everything possible that could have gone wrong, did in fact go terribly wrong, starting with the ship's Fire Instruction Manual (FIM) which had incorrect, outdated, or erroneous instructions, illustrations and diagrams, similar to giving the owner of a Mercedes-Benz a maintenance manual for a BMW, after it had been translated from German into English by someone fluent in Japanese. 

But that was just for starters.  Valves that released carbon dioxide (CO2) gas, which is commonly used on engine and electrical fires, did not open, and completely failed to release the gas, which would have deprived the fire of oxygen. In addition, pipes leaks, some elements of the distribution system were designed in such a way as to retain water at low points that were unable to be drained, and caused corrosion. Seals and pipe joints also had flaws.

The ship's Master, Captain Claudio Cupisti, made the decision to release CO2 from the fixed fire fighting system on Monday, November 8 at about 6:00 p.m. PST.  It failed to operate as designed. Subsequently, crewmembers were unable to activate it manually, and CO2 was never directed into the machinery space.

There were also serious questions raised about the testing and maintenance of the Splendor's CO2 emergency fire extinguishing system, and the training of crew in its use.

Eventually, crew members manually extinguished the fire, but not before it had caused extensive electrical damage, which rendered the vessel dead in the water 55 miles off Punta San Jacinto on the northern Baja California coast, and 110 miles southwest of San Diego, requiring it to be towed back into port.  The U.S. Navy had to airlift 70,000 pounds critical food and water, including cans of Spam, to it by Sikorsky MH-60 Seahawk helicopters and Gruman C-2A Greyhound logistics aircraft from the San Diego based aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76).

All 3,299 passengers and 1,167 crew members ended their three day voyage to nowhere in San Diego on Thursday, November 11, when the massive 1,000 foot long ship was expertly guided into the B Street Embaradero Cruise Ship Terminal by six tug boats at 8:30 a.m. local time.

Before the Coast Guard pointed out these failures, we had contacted Carnival Cruise Line on November 18, 2010 with a list of nine specific questions relating to the ship's mechanical and electrical redundancy, asking why the fire was able to do such destructive damage. These questions were ignored by Ms. Aly Bello, a spokesperson for Carnival Cruise Lines.

A follow up request specifically asked for a conference call interview with a senior executive or naval engineer from Carnival Cruise Lines, or a written reply by such an expert authority to those questions.  Once again, that request was ignored. Instead, we were provided with press releases about cancellations in sailing schedules and the financial impact on the company.  We again contacted the Company, and pointed out that in parallel instances in the aviation industry, we were able to talk with company officials, even during times of stress and turmoil for that carrier.  Once more, our requests for additional information and interviews were ignored.

Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect a cruise ship company, which is literally under fire, to be willing to discuss their own culpability, especially in light of the fact that the cruise industry has been reluctant in the past to discuss safety practices, or issues of Norovirus shipboard disease outbreaks, and as attorney Walker confirmed, has a long history of mishandling fires at sea.

Even in this instance, the U.S. Coast Guard seems to be walking on egg shells, by keeping the vessel's name, which is clearly shown in one of the photographs contained in their report, invisible in the report itself.

Finally, Carnival Cruise Lines declined offers by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to investigate this incident, and instead turned the matter over to the Panama Maritime Authority, the country in which the vessel is registered.  The U.S. Coast Guard requested to join the investigation, and Panama consented.  The NTSB provided two experts to assist the Coast Guard, following its request for technical assistance.  Information on the progress of the investigation will eventually be released by the Panama Maritime Authority.

Any air carrier in the United States which operated in a similar manner would have questions raised about its lack of transparency, and loss of public confidence in that company's crisis management abilities.

Photo credits:

Top photo:  Carnival Splendor towed back to port in San Diego (AP via National Examiner)

2nd photo:  Broken CO2 valve  (Coast Guard via National Examiner)

3rd photo:  Wrong fire instruction manual (Coast Guard via National Examiner)

Bottom photo:  Leaking CO2 piping / hose connections (Coast Guard via National Examiner)

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There have been a number of articles about Royal Caribbean initial efforts to down-play the effects of the storm which rocked the Brilliance of the Seas off of the coast of Egypt last week.  The cruise lines corporate office here in Miami are electronically linked to the cruise ships and  instantly receive electronic images and video transmitted from the ships to the corporate offices at the port in Miami.

There undoubtedly are incredible closed circuit television (CCTV) video from the vessel's surveillance and security cameras showing the interior of the Brilliance as it violently rocked from side to side.  But the company keeps CCTV tapes like this secret to avoid embarrassing images being shown around the world.  

Just last September the internet was a buzz today with the release of CCTV films of the interior of the P&O Cruises' Pacific Sun, which ran into a bout of heavy weather in June 2008.

P&O also understated the effects of the storm on the cruise ship and passengers, and it was successful keeping the CCTV under wraps for over two years.

But the video (below) finally made its way out of P&O's control this fall.  When the truth came out, the public went nuts and the video went viral!  The CCTV shows complete bedlam.  A number of passenger were injured. You can clearly see one young lady smash her face into a column at the 47 second mark in the first video of the lounge area.  A second video (not shown) is of a lower deck showing a forklift narrowly miss running over a crew member.

Cruise lines are experts keeping video like this secret.  The risk management departments of cruise lines keep these types of video away from the public's eyes. This permits the cruise lines to contest the passengers' accounts of injuries and lets the defense lawyers claim that the passengers are exaggerating.

Would you have believed what occurred in the video if you did not see it?

What honest soul at the cruise line will leak similar CCTV videos of the Brilliance during the storm to the public?  

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I have been critical of Royal Caribbean's PR skills over the years, thinking that this particular cruise line's credibility is at the bottom  of the cruise industry.  So when RCCL announced after the terrifying storm which rocked the the Brilliance of the Seas and injured its passengers that the cruise ship "had full power and was operating as normal" and that no passengers were "seriously injured," I thought here we go again - another misleading PR statement.

RCCL has pulled this stunt time and time again, quickly issuing misleading statements in the hope that the media will quote its carefully crafted misinformation and then the story will quickly blow over.

This strategy didn't work with the Brilliance storm story.  The storm was too big.  And the damage to the ship's interior and to the passengers' psyche were too extensive. 

Multiple media sources revealed that the ship was clearly not operating "as normal."  The ship was a complete mess.  Televisions were ripped from their mountings lying broken on the floor, glass shattered everywhere, furniture tumbled and passengers were thrown like rag dolls throughout the ship which looked like a bomb had exploded inside. 

Royal Caribbean couldn't sweep this one under the rug. The national networks - ABC, CBS, and NBC - featured dramatic photographs and video taken by passengers aboard the cruise ship.  Dianne Sawyer's news show earlier this week revealed the terror aboard the Brilliance as it was rocked and rolled off of the coast of Egypt in the middle of the night.  ABC ran a story that the passengers were "in revolt."  AOL News and USA Today ran stories that over 100 passengers appeared in the ship infirmary for injuries. 

Royal Caribbean's everything-is-okay PR statement was overwhelmed by the power of YouTube where passengers on the cruise ship post videos and photos of the spectacle for the world to see.  The discrepancy of what these photos (below) showed versus what the cruise line said magnified this cruise line's lack of transparency.

Royal Caribbean finally acknowledged that the incident was indeed "serious" and some passengers were seriously injured (broken bones).   Royal Caribbean also agreed to reimburse the entire cruise fare for all passengers and provided an onboard credit. 

Captain Hollywood To The Rescue

The cruise line then called on its Vice President of Marine Operations, William Wright, to appear before the media and answer questions about  what happened. 

Captain Wright flew from Miami to Valletta Malta and was ready when reporters began to interview the Master of the Brilliance, Captain Erik Tengelsen, who has a reputation for being honest and forthright.  Captain Tengelsen was at the helm when he was trying to outrun the storm into the crowded port of Alexandria.  He knew there was a storm on his tail, but when he slowed down at the port in Egypt, the stabilizers lost their effectiveness.  The cruise ship was a sitting duck. 

When Captain Tengelsen told the reporter that the incident was "horrific" and that he knew that a storm had forecast to blow to 45 knots and then gusted to 50 to 60 knots, Captain Wright saw danger brewing.  He quickly interjected that "Mother Nature is fickle" and the weather must have been a surprise. (see video below)  Clearly, Captain Wright had been sent to baby sit the ship and make certain no damaging PR statements with legal implications were made by the vessel's officers.  He shut Captain Tengelsen up and took over the show.       

Royal Caribbean also produced a short YouTube video back in its Miami corporate office. Wearing a friendly open collar and sweater with palm tress swaying behind him, Captain Wright provides a reassuring and calming cadence to bring the public's focus away from the horrific storm off of Egypt.  No real information as usual, but a nice relaxing video to calm everyone down. 

Many in the media loved it.  A very popular cruise blog in the U.K, picked up on the feel-good vibe and Royal Caribbean pulled off a PR comeback with "Full Refund for Brilliance Passengers."

A Seasoned Media Pro 

This is not the first time that Captain Wright has been used as a PR ploy for the cruise line.  He was the media star for Royal Caribbean following the last high profile incident involving the Brilliance of the Seas.

Our firm was first introduced to Captain Wright when he was pushed to the front of a PR war our firm was engaged in following the death of George Smith during his honeymoon cruise on this very cruise ship, the Brilliance of the Seas, in July 2005.  We represented Mr. Smith's widow.  The cruise line wanted the public to think that her husband's disappearance was just an accident, whereas many thought that Mr. Smith met with foul play.  Royal Caribbean handled the circumstances after George Smith's death badly.  It paraded a number of employees from its corporate communications, human relations and security departments in front of the cameras to carry the Royal Caribbean "its-just-an-accident" message - only to see them flounder before the cameras.

Finally, Royal Caribbean settled upon Captain Wright to appear regularly on the cable news shows.  I nicknamed him "Captain Hollywood" given his tall stature, good looks, deep voice, and dramatization of the cruise line's talking points.  He was was a natural before the media.  Captain Wright appeared regularly on Greta van Sustern's show on Fox "On The Record."   The cruise line also picked him to fly to Washington D.C. to conduct media interviews during the Congressional hearings for the past five years into the investigation into cruise safety and security issues.

Getting cruise executives and media friendly cruise faces in YouTube videos is something I have advocated in the past if the $35,000,000,000 cruise industry wants to compete in the word of media relations.   

But cruise lines like Royal Caribbean are still a long way behind the curve in matters of social media.  For example, around 15,000 people looked at "Captain Hollywood's" video - compared to around 290,000 people who viewed a video on our Cruise Law's YouTube page of a cruise ship facing rough weather in Antarctica.   

Royal Caribbean still has problems handling its PR matters.  Its first inclination is not to tell the truth.  It tends to minimize the seriousness of serious life threatening incidents when honesty would serve it best.  It finally has a blog by its President Adam Goldstein, and it finally is using YouTube, although both its blog and YouTube pages lag far, far behind the popularity enjoyed by this blog and our YouTube page.  The cruise line still does not integrate Facebook, Flickr or, my favorite, Twitter, into its social media.

Instead, its media strategy is to simply issue the same old tepid "everything-is-just-fine" PR statements.  When that doesn't work, it sends Captain Hollywood to the scene to reassure the faithfuls that everything is okay. 

When the next disaster strikes a Royal Caribbean ship, look for Captain Hollywood to fly in from Miami and announce on YouTube that the cruise ship is safe and sound.    
        

Credits:

Photos of damage to Brilliance of the Seas - MailOnLine

Video - Times of Malta

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For the past six months, I have been tracking the popularity of my blog Cruise Law News (CLN) on Avvo / Alexa Top Legal Blogs.  When I first started looking at the rankings, CLN was the 55th most popular law blog. Today, CLN cracked Avvo's list of the top ten (10) most popular law blogs. 

I started blogging in mid-September last year after joining the LexBlog family.  LexBlog's CEO and blog guru Kevin O'Keefe counseled me not to be narcissist and get caught up in popularity contests like this. 

Instead, O'Keefe told me that the mark of an effective blog is not rankings, but the influence the blog has on key players in your area of the law - like the media, top bloggers, and strategic decision makers. 

In the last ten days, CLN has been cited in the national and international media, both old school media and hip bloggers, like the LA Times, the U.K's Mirror, Wall Street Journal Blog, National Public Radio (NPR), USA Today, Gadling, FOX Business, Slate Magazine, the Courier Post, South Florida Business Journal, and the ABA Journal.  

O'Keefe was right of course about the importance of being a connected influencer, but I can't help being narcissist enough to enjoy being on someone's top 10 list.

If you like this, read about Cruise Law News and LexBlog: CruiseLaw Meets LexBlog

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The fun thing about writing your own blog, or running your own law firm, or having your own donut shop for that matter, is that it provides you with an opportunity to be competitive with other blogs, law firms and donut shops.  

One of my goals this year was for Cruise Law News (CLN) to become a top 25 blog on the popularity chart of Avvo"s Top Legal Blogs (which is based on the Alexa tracking system).  I am ahead of schedule. Today, CLN was the 14th most popular law blog - just barely nosing out Dan Harris' China Law Blog, which is undoubtedly one of the best legal blogs around.    

There are now just four blogs ahead of CLN for a place in the top ten law blogs.  So I will make another prediction.  CLN will be the 10th most popular law blog by the end of this year.  

There are simply far too many crazy things that happen on a regular basis in the world of cruising not to write about. 

CLN addresses cruise stories that the mainstream newspapers are afraid to touch.

So sign up to read CLN via email or RSS feed to stay on top of breaking news stories about the cruise industry.  On December 31st of this year, expect to receive an update celebrating CLN becoming the 10th most popular law blog around .  .  .   

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I am fascinated regarding what travel writers and cruise experts write about these days.

Gene Sloan's blog on USA Today called CruiseLog features a debate on which Royal Caribbean cruise ship is bigger, the new Allure of the Seas or the Oasis of the Seas.  I suppose comparing the gargantuan Excess of the Seas with the monstrous Indulgence of the Seas (with over 12,000 passengers and around 500,000 tons between the two of them) is a fair enough topic.  It is perfectly emblematic of the cruise industry's grotesque view of environmental consciousness and sustainability.   

And a cruise blog in a U.K. newspaper, Captain Greybeard, by John Honeywell, focuses admiringly on the CEO of Royal Caribbean, Richard Fain, pocketing $6,000,000 after selling a small portion of his large cruise stock portfolio. 

Neither of these popular travel blogs contain any insight into these stories.  For example, CEO Fain profited millions of dollars by slashing employees from the company's payroll and terminating medical benefits for hundreds of injured and ill crew members.

Unfortunately, pandering to the cruise lines is a full time job for some travel writers and cruise bloggers. They do not want to offend their friends at the cruise lines who invite them on cruises for free.  Well, it is not really free, if you consider the is a quid pro quo - free cruises for free publicity.  

This is a subject I have touched upon before: 

Travel Writers and the Ethics of Reporting Cruise News

Cruise Crime and the Indifference of Travel Writers

There are plenty of interesting issues affecting cruise passengers that these type of writers avoid at all costs.  For example, on Monday I wrote about a British passenger who became stuck in a Mexican hospital with a $125,000 bill after suffering a heart attack during a cruise on a Princess cruise ship.  Cruise lines like Princess have contractual arrangements with the local port agents and hospitals to take care of their crew members when they are ill.  If one of the Princess crew members had a heart attack, the cruise line would pay only a fraction of what the British passenger is facing.  Cruise lines and port hospitals look at sick passengers as profit centers. 

You will not see cruise writers cover a story like this or anything controversial.  They will write happy stories about big cruise ships and millionaire cruise executives.  But they will look the other way when a sick cruise passenger is saddled in debt and stuck in a Mexican hospital.  

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This week I have been visiting my parents in El Dorado, Arkansas.  It is always great to get back to my roots in my home town in Southern Arkansas - which has about the nicest and friendliest people in the country.

Yesterday I ran out to a local thrift store to look at vintage books and records (I found a 1958 Elvis Presley LP - G.I. Blues - for 75 cents!)  When I was looking through a rack of $2 shirts, I ran across a shirt that made me stop in my tracks: "Cruise Critic Member - www.cruisecritic.com"   There it was, emblazened on a nice blue shirt, hanging on the rack in a store in my land-locked southern town in Arkansas.

Yes, someone in my hometown in El Dorado was not only a member of Cruise Critic, but had thought enough of the on-line cruise community to own a shirt bearing the Cruise Critic name. 

I could not resist and took a photo of the shirt (photo left) with my Blackberry. 

Cruise Critic is the most popular cruise community in the world.  There are some 50,000 reviews of cruises and tens of thousands of community members who rate cruises, comment on which cruises are the best and the worst, and often are the first to report on cruise ship collisions and fires, passenger over boards and shipboard crimes.

In the short one year period my Cruise Law News (CLN) blog has been on-line, I have received more visitors from Cruise Critic members than any other site in the internet.

The Cruise Critic site has an enormous potential to effectuate positive change for cruise passengers and crew members.  The fact that there are good people in my little home town in Arkansas who are Cruise Critic members bears that out.  

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The New York Times has an interesting article today about WikiLeaks' founder, Julian Assange, entitled "WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Trailed by Notoriety."  Salon also has a counter-point in "The Nixonian Henchmen of Today: at the NYT."  Assange just released almost 400,000 secret documents on the Iraqi war.  At a press conference in London yesterday, he said that the release of U.S. Army field reports “constituted the most comprehensive and detailed account of any war ever to have entered the public record.”

Three months ago, WikiLeaks posted around 90,000 classified Pentagon documents regarding the Afghan conflict on its website.

I have been fascinated by Wikileaks' never ending release of "secret" documents and "classified" images over the course of the last year.  I first heard of Wikileaks when it released graphic footage last year of U.S. Apache helicopters tracking and gunning down nineteen people in the streets of Baghdad in 2007. 

The video (below) shows the gunship operators acting like over-stimilated, out-of-control teenagers playing a computer war game.  When they jumped to the conclusion that a Reuters photographer carrying a camera tripod was somehow a bad guy carrying a AK-47, the helicopter gunners opended fire, seemingly gleefully, maiming the photographer who crawled across the dirt road trying to escape.  When a medical van arrived to help, with two children inside, the Apache helicopter again blasted away until no one was left standing.

The video reveals not only the incredibly brutal violence involved in the Iragi war, but the cowboy mentality attitude of the U.S. soldiers.  The gunners killed innocent civilians and two equally innocent journalists - who they called "pricks" and "assholes." 

When the video was released, the Pentagon harshly criticized WikiLeaks.  The U.S. Government claimed that the video was taken out of context and was harmful to the U.S. war effort.  But the video jeopardized no one.  It revealed the truth of what was actually happening in the street of Baghdad.  The disturbing images contrasted sharply with the usual type of PR videos released by the Pentagon showing precision laser bombs nicely hiting a target with no "collateral damage."  

I am a fan of transparency.  The truth is often quite ugly.  I am inherently untrusting of what governments and large corporations (especially cruise lines) tell the public.  Every moment of our lifes we are being fed pretty images of what others want us to believe.  The war is going as planned, they tell us.  But the truth becomes inescapable when faced with videographic proof of Apache helicopters slaughtering journalists.  And the recent document dump reveals that our U.S. Government grossly understated civilian deaths.  The documents released by WikiLeaks reveal that over 66,000 civilians died in "collateral" damage which often resembled murder. 

WikiLeaks plays a vital role in a world where governments keep secrets like this from the people.

But transparency forced by whistleblower organizations like WikiLeaks comes at a cost in the military context.  Contained in the almost one half million documents released by WikiLeaks may be the identities of Iraqis and Afghans who worked under-cover for the U.S., Great Britain and Germany.  If their names were not redacted, their lives are now in peril.  

Will WikiLeaks release video showing the deaths of other innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan killed because WikiLeaks revealed their identities in the interest of transparency?          

Video Credit:    WikiLeaks (via collaterlamurder.com via YouTube sunshinepress)

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Today I created a Facebook page for Cruise Law News.    

Instead of posting links on my personal page on Facebook, I will be posting links to this blog and other cruise and maritime articles on the Facebook page for Cruise Law News.  Now, anyone who is a member of Facebook can leave comments, links to cruise articles and blogs, and also post photos too.

We are looking forward to reading your comments on our Facebook page.

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Earlier this year, I first learned of Avvo's "Top Legal Blogs" while reading a solo blogger lamenting that his law blog fell out of Avvo's top 10 law blog list.  I was intrigued by the rankings and began to read the top blogs to try and figure out why they were so popular.

Some of the blogs were really interesting and I began to follow them on a regular basis. Some were dreadfully boring, or at least I thought so.  All of the blogs had been publishing for many years.  

Unlike the individual lawyers Avvo ratings, the Avvo top legal blog list is based on the Alexa ranking system which some have criticized.  It is nonetheless a good indicator of a blog or web site's traffic rankings.

The Alexa system lists a website or blog in two ways: (1) its ranking in the world, and (2) its ranking in the United States. 

Cruise Law News (CLN) is ranked (at the moment) as the top 36th law blog in the world, and a top 10 law blog in the U.S.  It also happens to be the number one blog in personal injury law (just nudging ahead of the well known New York Personal Injury Law Blog).  

Alexa tells us which blogs have a lot of  "traffic," but is it a valid system for ranking law blogs?  I'd like to think so, given CLN's high ranking and its fast climb to the top rankings for a new law blog.  But others say that being popular does not equate to being influential or useful. 

What are the best indicators of success and recognition other than Alexa?   What list is considered to be the most credible and/or coveted list of top law blogs? 

If you have a thought about this, please leave a comment below . . .

Logo credit:   Avvo

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The internet has been a buzz today with the release of closed circuit television video (CCTV) of the interior of the P&O Cruises' Pacific Sun, which ran into a bout of heavy weather in June 2008.  

A number of  passenger were injured.  You can clearly see one young lady smash her face into a column at the 47 second mark in the first video of the lounge area.

The second video is of a lower deck showing a forklift narrowly miss running over a crew member.

Cruise lines are experts keeping video like this secret.  The security and risk management departments of cruise line keep these types of video away from the public's eyes. This permits the cruise lines to contest the passengers' accounts of injuries and lets the defense lawyers claim that the passengers are exaggerating. 

Would you have believed this if you did not see it?

What honest soul at the cruise line leaked these tapes?      

The marine accident report for this incident can be viewed here.  A travel website summarized the pertinent findings of the report as follows:

• The Pacific Sun was on a tight schedule and this placed the captain in a "difficult situation" to return to Auckland to ensure the following cruise left on time.
• By not heaving-to earlier, the report said, he "inadvertently placed" the ship in the worst sea conditions, 322km northeast of North Cape;
• The crew were essentially flying blind, unable to see or monitor abnormal swells of up to 7m in darkness;
• The ship's stablisers were inoperative - one was worn out and the other was rendered useless in the slow speeds that the ship was reduced to;
• Two of the four muster stations - areas where passengers are meant to congregate in an emergency - were also rendered useless because of the damage and mess caused by unsecured furnishings; and 
• The accident damaged the ship's main satellite system, reducing officers' abilities to communicate with shore.

Many passengers were concerned to see crew wearing lifejackets, while they were not.

Passengers' injuries ranged in severity from broken bones, to cuts and bruises, with seven seriously hurt and three were greeted by ambulances when the ship berthed in Auckland two days later.

One passenger had part of a finger amputated. The report said other passengers suffered anxiety attacks.

The cruise line offered the passengers a small discount off on a future cruise.

For another incredible video, watch what a cruise ship looks like in a cyclone: Cruise Ship Social Media: Everyone Loves A Disaster Movie

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In the last eleven months since I launched Cruise Law News (CLN), I have written what I thought were thoughtful and carefully researched articles about the cruise industry.  But most of my most favorite blogs about the most important issues facing cruise passengers received little feedback and only a few hundred readers.

I have found that my most popular blogs involved cruise ship disasters. 

That's right. Terror.  Fear.  Panic.

When I was a kid the box office hits included movies like the Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno.  Thirty years later, my kids were raised on Titanic and Cloverfield.       

So it should be no surprise that one of my most popular blogs over the last year involved an incident where Carnival's Ecstasy cruise ship made a violent turn in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico which emptied the swimming pool on the Lido deck, injured 60 passengers, and terrorized the remaining 2,000 passengers who feared that the cruise ship was about to tilt over and they were going to die. 

Carnival claimed that the cruise ship made an evasive maneuver to avoid a loose buoy.  But the passengers tell a different story.  Take a moment and read the comments to Did Carnival's Ecstasy Cruise Ship Almost Hit A Sand Bar?

In addition to my blog, I have a YouTube page called, obviously enough, "Cruise Law," where I post cruise videos.  The most popular video is "Wave Hits Louis Majesty Cruise Ship."  A huge wave smashes into the cruise ship's bay windows, killing passengers and flooding the ship.  Over 86,000 people have viewed the video since March. 

Yes, the video is terrifying.   

Exactly what most Americans raised-on-disaster-movies are looking for.  Today, we are living in a iReport society where CNN, MSNBC and FOX News regularly broadcast iPhone videos of fires, floods, and bedlam. 

One of the most popular cruise videos on YouTube shows a cruise ship being tossed around in a storm.  It looks like the cruise ship is about to tip over at any moment.  The video has over 2,500,000 views.  Take a look below and you can see why it is so popular. 

There will be many stories in the future where cruise ships catch on fire, sink or are hijacked by terrorists.   The cruise lines will frantically try and suppress the images and assure the public that everything is OK.  But YouTube will be there to reveal the truth.  And everyone will be watching the disaster.

Video credit: CrystalBeast123

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This has been another exciting week in the strange world of the cruise industry.  I thought that I would spend this Friday recapping some of the interesting cruise stories this week.   

Cruise Shills?

The week started with the travel site Tnooz picking up our article Cruise Crime and the Indifference of Travel Writers and asking Are Travel Writers Shills For The Cruise Lines? 

A number of prominent travel writers, including Pauline Frommer of the Frommer Travel fame, left comments.  Ms. Frommer was right on point in discussing the provisions of the new cruise safety law, which will be signed by President Obama next week.  And she was gracious in thanking the International Cruise Victims for pushing the new cruise law forward over intense opposition by the cruise industry and its shill organization, the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA).  Other travel writers joined the debate, including a few cruise travel writers who could not help taking a cheap shot against our blog.

Royal Caribbean Norovirus

Readers of Cruise Law News continue to comment that Royal Caribbean is struggling with norovirus aboard its cruise ships.  There are 50 comments to our article Norovirus On Royal Caribbean's Jewel Of The Seas?  The last comment today reports that the Celebrity Constellation continues to have norovirus on board, following the usual ill-fated last minute "additional sanitizing."

Stay tuned.  You will continue to hear stories of sick passengers - followed by "enhanced cleaning" - and then more sick passengers.  When will this cruise line release the test results of the potable water on its ships?  Tired of this cruise line always blaming passengers for not washing their hands?  Consider reading Cruise Ship Norovirus - Something in the Water?   

Murder on NCL's Jade? 

Several sources are reporting that a passenger was murdered aboard Norwegian Cruise Line's Jade cruise ship earlier this week.

Canadian sociologist and cruise crime expert Dr. Ross Klein and the ever gossipy Cruise Critic community published passenger accounts that a passenger murdered his wife on the Jade.   

Did it happen?  I don't know.  I hope not.  But NCL will never say.

This is one of the classic problems with the cruise lines.  They are terrified of bad press so they sweep the bad news under the rug.  But when the truth comes out, they look like they are hiding the ball.  The new cruise law will address this issue.  Cruise lines will be required to report crimes at sea and also provide a link on their web sites to the crime data. 

When the new cruise law takes effect, the public can cut through the gossip and finally take an an accurate account of cruise ship crime.   

Were you aboard the NCL Jade?  Do you have information to share about the alleged murder? 

Were you aboard the Royal Caribbean Jewel of the Seas or the Celebrity Constellation?  How is the cruise line handling the latest bouts of norovirus? 

If you have some information to wish to share, please leave a comment below.

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This was a historic week in the world of cruising.  

Congress passed the Cruise Vessel and Safety Act, which will help make cruising safer for U.S. families.  Cruise lines will be required to install peepholes in cabin doors, maintain anti-retroviral medications and rape kits for victims, improve crime evidence handling procedures and - for the first time in the history of the cruise industry - report crimes to the U.S. Coast Guard and the FBI.  

Congress also passed the "SPILL Act" (H.R. 5503) which removes the limitation of liability  for shipping companies, and amends the Death On The High Seas Act (DOHSA) to permit families to recover compensation when they lose a loved one on the high seas - whether it is on a drilling rig or a cruise ship.  In so doing, Congress finally repealed an archaic and wicked law that has inflicted additional pain on cruise victims for the past ninety years.  

These pieces of legislation are the results of the dedication and hard work of families of U.S. citizens killed in international waters, including members of the International Cruise Victims (ICV).  The ICV is a grass roots, non-profit organization comprised entirely of volunteers who have been a victim of a crime on a cruise ship or lost a loved one during a cruise.

These two new laws are truly historic. But you would never know it by reading the hundreds of cruise websites and travel-writer blogs.    

There are literally thousands of travel agents and travel writers who I follow daily on Twitter.  But not one blogger mentioned either one of these new bills.

The problem is that many of the travel writers and most of the cruise bloggers are shills for the cruise industry.  They sell cruises or advertise cruise banners on their web sites.  Many cruise lines invite them on all-expense-paid cruises in exchange for favorable cruise reviews.

The exception is Arthur Frommer, of the famous Frommer's Travel Guides, and his daughter Pauline Frommer who covers travel stories in her blog "Daily Briefings."  Ms. Frommer covered the cruise safety law in an article entitled In the Wee Hours This Morning, Cruising Just Got a Heckuva Lot Safer.  Mr. Frommer re-printed his daughter's article, and added a few personal comments, in A Cruise Line Safety Act Has Quietly Passed the House of Representatives.      

The Frommers explain the key provisions of the new law and recognize the remarkable efforts of the ICV over the past five years. 

Mr. Frommer acknowledges that "even the travel trade press has failed to take more than the barest notice of proposed legislation in Congress that would require the cruise lines to tighten up safety . . . "

The new maritime laws were passed only after years of resistance and millions of dollars of lobbying by the cruise industry's trade organization - the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) - which is comprised of 16,000 travel agents.  CLIA has a cozy relationship with many travel writers who choose not to offend the CLIA cruise lines by writing anything negative about the foreign flagged cruise industry.  We have touched upon this subject in Travel Writers and the Ethics of Reporting Cruise News.

CLIA unsuccessfully worked behind the scenes lobbying against the SPILL Act in an effort to deny the widows and children of the oil workers killed in the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster from receiving compensation - a disgusting spectacle we reported on in Cruise Industry Joins Forces With BP to Deny Death Compensation to Grieving Families

So it should come as no surprise that most travel writers and the CLIA cruise bloggers chose not to touch these stories.

But it is refreshing to see travel writers with integrity and ethics like Mr. Frommer and Ms. Frommer write about the cruise safety law which will protect the cruising public.   

July 7, 200 Update:

TNOOZ (Talking Trave Tech) has an interesting blog about my blog: "Are Travel Writers Shills For The Cruise Lines?"  A number of travel writers are commenting.

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Last week was another rough week for Royal Caribbean. 

First there were repeated outbreaks of the nasty norovirus aboard the Jewel of the Seas which sickened hundreds of unsuspecting passengers. Then there was the embarrassment of a Royal Caribbean employee with a criminal record stealing private information from Royal Caribbean computers regarding Royal Caribbean customers so her career-criminal-of-a-husband could break into their homes while they were on Royal Caribbean cruises.  And finally there was a sexual pervert molesting a 6 year old child in the kid's H20 WaterZone aboard Royal Caribbean's Independence of the Seas.    

For those in the know in Miami, Royal Caribbean is consider to the black sheep of the cruise industry.   Ask insiders at Carnival, NCL and the smaller cruise lines like Oceania, Regent Seven Seas, and Silversea Cruises for a quote?  They will whisper under their breath - only at Royal Caribbean could this happen.   

These stories caught Royal Caribbean flat footed.  Its PR people (which the cruise line calls the "corporate communications" department) were late to the stories and ended up issuing the usual corporate sounding PR statements which made them sound guilty as hell:

In response to the norovirus outbreaks, the Royal Caribbean PR people issued this statement: "At Royal Caribbean International, we have high health standards for all our guests and crew . . ."

This statement came after its own employee burglarized the homes of local Florida citizens who were cruising on Royal Caribbean ships: "Royal Caribbean does not tolerate any form of criminal activity in its workforce or operations . . . " 

And finally this one after the sexual abuse of a child in the children's water zone on its cruise ship: "Royal Caribbean maintains a zero tolerance policy regarding any criminal activity onboard our ships . . ." 

Gobbledygook!

Royal Caribbean's PR statements about norovirus and crime are corporate double-talk.

For example, the cruise line's "zero tolerance" program began as a public relations stunt ten years ago after it hired outside consultants to study its high rate of sexual assaults.  After the experts told Royal Caribbean that it had a problem because of the frequent sexual crimes on its cruise ships, the cruise line ended its study, rejected the experts' recommendations, and adopted a marketing strategy where it claimed that it had "zero tolerance" for crimes.  This was the same year it pled guilty to multiple felonies for making false statements to the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Attorney's Office about environmental crimes.   

Since then Royal Caribbean's CEO, Richards Fain, tells the company stockholders each year that crime on Royal Caribbean ships is "rare" when the cruise line's own experts concluded long ago that crimes against passengers is "routine."  

As far as the "high health standards" go, take a minute and read the 46 comments by sick passengers who just got off Royal Caribbean's norovirus contamnated cruise ship.  

Out of this gobbledygook comes a clear message: you can't trust what Royal Caribbean says.

*The word "gobbledygook" comes from Maury Maverick, a Texan lawyer who served as a Democratic Congressman and the mayor of San Antonio.  He used the word in the New York Times Magazine in 1944 referring to a turkey, “always gobbledy gobbling and strutting with ludicrous pomposity.”

Photo Credit:      The Consumerist    Don't miss reading "Royal Caribbean Caught Infiltrating Review Sites With Viral Marketing Team."

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Last November, Princess Cruises invited a number of cruise fans and travel writers on an all expenses paid cruise where they were encouraged to tweet wonderful things about cruising with Princess.  The group used the hashtag "#FollowMeAtSea."  

When a large billion dollar corporation provides "reporters" with a free cruise, and plies them with champagne and free i-pods, free publicity is the result. You know how it works - here's-a-free-cruise-so-write-something-nice-about-us.  Predictably, the pampered Twitter passengers gushed praise on their generous cruise hosts.  The typical comment on Twitter was something like "WOW! this is great!"    

But something interesting happened last year.  A number of people on Twitter, undoubtedly irritated by the mindless cheer-leading of the Twitter cruisers, began to ask fundamental questions about the sustainability of cruising.  After all, cruise ships burn the nastiest fuel in the world - bunker fuel.  And we are at a time when the endless spewing of millions of gallons of cruse oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil well demonstrates that reliance on fossil fuels is a doomed business model - not to mention the disastrous effects on our air, water, and marine life.

A heated debate soon erupted on Twitter.  The environmentalists asked pointed questions that the travel writers were completely unprepared to address and the cruise line was afraid to answer.  I commented on Princess Cruises' failed social media experiment in a blog Princess' Cult of a Cruise - #FollowMeAtSea Folly.

I asked questions on Twitter which I felt were important, like what excuse does Princess Cruises have for the worst environmental record for dumping illegal levels of copper, ammonia, zinc and fecal coliform bacteria into Alaska's pristine waters?  There were some nasty responses from the cruisers, who obviously wanted to party and not concern themselves with such thoughts. Finally, one of the travel writers promised to "grill" the environmental officer on the subject of Princess' history of dumping pollutants into Alaskan waters. 

But by the end of the cruise, most of the #FollowMeAtSeas groupies had given up any pretense that there was any legitimate "reporting" on anything having to so with the environment, or other important issues like crime on cruises.  The "reporter" who promised to grill the environmental officer about pollution never followed up on her promise.  Instead, she was later photographed with the Captain, including sitting on his lap while other "reporters" took turns posing for photos while wearing the officers' hats.  Oh well, so much for the rigorous cross-examination.    

So here we are at #FollowMeAtSeas - Part 2.  Princess has offered another free booze and cruise experience to entice another group of travel agents and cruise fans on the Coral Princess cruise ship sailing an Alaskan itinerary.  Free chocolates.  Free massages.  Free fruit baskets and champagne.  You know the drill - go tweet something nice about us.

Most of these cruisers I follow on Twitter, like @OrlandoChris and @CruiseBuzz, have mastered the art of social media and have great blogs and a big Twitter presence.  All of the members of this latest Twitter Press Group seem like great people, entertaining and fun to be around I am sure.

So I have been occasionally following the FollowMeatSea hashtag to see how the cruise is going. 

Most of the tweets from the group are what I expect.  Just this evening, there as an "AMAZING" tweet from @earthxplorer.  A "Wow" from @Travelogged.  Another "Wow" from @OrlandoChris, who touted the cruise line's C.R.U.I.S.E. program - "Courtesy, Respect, Unfailing In Service Excellence."  And finally @BethBlair gave the cruise line a "A+" and tweeted that all of the Princess employees were "friendly, helpful and professional."

There is no controversy on Twitter this year.  The environmentalists have their hands full with the oil spill in the Gulf and are directing their energy to tweets about BP and the mounting ecological disaster.  No one cares about another silly Twitter cruise.  

But there were three tweets from the Princess Twitter group this evening that put a chill down my back.  The first was a tweet by @OrlandoChris - "Looking forward to Sabatini's experience tonight . . .  The second tweet was by @theplanetd "14 courses and an elastic waistband a match made in heaven here at Sabatini's."  And the third by @CruiseBuzz referring to a blog about Princess Cruises' "Ultimate Ship Tour."  The article contained a photo of the Master of the Coral Princess, who I immediately recognized  - the infamous Captain Manfuso. 

You see, last November, a young, handsome and well liked Italian chef aboard the Coral Princess disappeared.  His name is Angelo Faliva.  He worked in Sabatini's.  He was last seen speaking with some passengers in the restaurant.  There was talk that he had a disagreement with a Filipino crew member in the galley.  There were also rumors that he saw something that he should not have - like drug dealing.  Was there a fight?  Was he thrown overboard?  Or did someone place him in the ship's incinerator as some crew members suspect?

Princess Cruises is not saying.  Even though there are many hundreds of closed circuit television cameras all over the cruise ship, the cruise line claims that they have absolutely no information about Mr. Faliva.  According to Princess, he just disappeared into thin air.

Mr. Faliva's family is devastated. According to news sources in Italy, Princess Cruises has treated the Faliva family rotten.  Mr. Faliva's younger sister, Chiara, traveled to the U.S. and tried to speak to Captain Manfuso who she characterized as cold and rude.  He would not explain anything to her.  

The Faliva family remains in the dark.  Take a moment and read a few of the many articles below which we published about the cruise line's refusal to cooperate with the Faliva family.

So here we have the newest group of "Twitter reporters" who are happy to be wined and dined at Sabatini's and tweet endless compliments about Princess.  But someone should sober up and ask a few meaningful questions. How can a crew members cook for guests in Sabatini's and then vanish without a trace?  What "courtesy" or "respect" was extended to the Faliva family?  If you lose a loved one from a Princess cruise, will Princess remain "friendly, helpful and professional?"

Princess' PR spokespeople Karen Candy and Julie Benson know the case well.  Try questioning them about it and see their response.

Will anyone ask Captain Manfuso what really happened to Mr. Faliva?  Will anyone print a copy of his photograph above and ask Mr. Faliva's fellow employees in Sabatini's what they know about his disappearance?

Or will we hear more comments like "WOW" the veal cutlet at Sabatini's last night was "AMAZING!" 

I'm not holding my breath.  I know this cruise will end with no real reporting about anything of importance to anyone.  

And I can't wait to see who gets tipsy on champagne and sits on Captain Manfuso's lap at the end of the cruise and poses for a photo wearing his hat . . .     

For information about crew member Angelo Failva missing from the Princess Coral Princess cruise ship, please consider reading:

Crew Member Missing from Princess Cruises' Coral Princess Cruise Ship  

Family of Missing Crew Member Seeks Answers - Princess Cruises Claims "We Are Puzzled"

2009 Ends With Family of Missing Princess Cruises Crew Member Continuing to Seek Answers

Top Cruise Story of 2009 - Sister of Missing Princess Crew Member Angelo Faliva Speaks Out: "Vogliamo la Verità!" - "We Want the Truth!"

The Case of Missing Crew Member Angelo Faliva - Is Princess Cruises Engaged In A Cover Up?

Update: Missing Princess Crew Member Angelo Faliva - What Say You, Master Mariano Manfuso?

Angelo Faliva Case: Were You on the Coral Princess on November 25, 2009?

Neither Dead Nor Alive - The Faliva Family Remains In Limbo

International Cruise Victims - the Story of Angelo Faliva

Update on Missing Crewmember Angelo Faliva - a Story of "Pain & Incompetency"

Italian TV Show "Chi l'ha Visto?" Features Princess Crew Member Angelo Faliva

What Happened to Princess Crew Member Angelo Faliva? The Faliva Family Seeks Answers

Credits:

Twitter cruise photo             galavanting.tv/

Captain Manfuso photo    @CruiseBuzz's  Ultimate Ship Tour

Angelo Faliva photos            Faliva family

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In 2003, Mrs. Dianne Brimble (photo below) was smiling and waiving when she boarded P & O's Pacific Sun cruise ship with her daughter for a vacation of a lifetime.  Less than 24 hours later, she lay dead on the cabin floor of fellow passenger Mark Wilhelm who had given her the drug GHB.  When he was finished with her and Mrs. Brimble lay unconscious, Wilhelm walked naked into another cabin of women - wearing only a life vest.  As Mrs. Brimble lay dying, he did nothing to summons medical help - instead he tried to convince other women to take the drug.

The criminal inquest into Mrs. Brimble's death revealed a cruise ship out of control, filled with lots of drunken passengers and date rape drugs and little law & order.  Watch the video entitled "Ship of Shame" which we posted in a prior article about the P & O cruise ship.  The press covered the testimony of Wilhelm and his seven traveling companions, some of whom characterized Mrs. Brimble in sub-human terms, as an ugly dog with bad breath.  One of Wilhelm's cruise buddies even entertained the thought of throwing Mrs. Brimble's dead body overboard.      

But the seven year legal saga following Mrs. Brimble's death ended last week as all cruise crime cases do - with the accused defendant serving no jail time. 

The prosecution dropped the manslaughter charges against Wilhelm and, in exchange for the deal, he pleaded guilty to the criminal offense of giving Mrs. Brimble the drug GHB which led to her death.

When the judge presiding over the case, Justice Howie, dismissed the manslaughter charges against Wilhelm he did not direct any comments to Wilhelm.  Instead, he chastised the media, accusing the press of adding to a circus like environment filled with what the judge called "prejudice" and "hysteria.''  The judge went even further - saying that "little regard had been paid to defendant Wilhelm's rights by the publication of a series of photographs depicting his 'unsavory' behavior on the night Ms Brimble died," as reported by Australia's Sun Herald.  He criticized the media for subjecting the defendant to "rumors, misinformation, supposition and conjecture." 

And so it should come as no surprise that at the sentencing hearing last week, Justice Howie decided to let Wilhelm walk free - even though he possessed an illegal drug and supplied it to Mrs. Brimble and she died because of the illegal drug.  No jail time.  No probation.  Not even a stern lecture.  Instead, the judge expressed sympathy and concern for Wilhelm, given what the judge described as "years of public humiliation."  The judge again depicted Wilhelm as the victim, who somehow had been punished enough by the media's depiction of him.  

"Justice" Howie gave Wilhelm a "get out off jail free" card.  And Wilhelm walked free from the courthouse. 

And in so doing, the "Justice" system failed another victim of a crime on a cruise ship.

Results like this leave everyone questioning the legal system, particularly when criminal trials are presided over by judges with misplaced sympathies for the defendant's hurt feelings and little regard for the dead or the suffering of their families.  

In an article in Australia's Punch entitled "The Evil Men Do And The Courts That Ignore It," David Penberty discussed "the plodding nature of justice and the persnickety application of the law – all these things may conspire to ensure that no-one faces any genuine punishment over that fact that a woman was left for dead in a drugged stupor on the cold linoleum floor of a cheap cruise ship."

We have discussed the lack of justice on cruise ships in prior articles.  Criminals on cruise ships walk free and the victims are treated like criminals.  Consider reading Cruise Ships Are A Perfect Place to Commit A Crime, And Get Away With It! and If You Are A Victim On A Cruise Ship, The Cruise Line Will Treat You Like A Criminal.

Mrs. Brimble's case presents a particularly bitter pill to swallow given "Justice" Howie's decision not only to let Wilhelm walk free but to lecture the media for its coverage of the inquest and criminal trials.     

The injustice of the Brimble's case and Justice Howie's misguided attack on the media pose the question - what is the role of the media in covering cruise crime cases? 

Should the lesson of the Dianne Brimble case be that the press was somehow culpable for portraying defendant Wilhelm in an inaccurate light?  Should news reporters refrain from publishing embarrassing information or photographs which may cause "humiliation" to a criminal defendant?   

Or is the lesson to be learned that the criminal justice system is no "justice" system at all when crimes are committed on cruise ships?  And that it is only the media and probing reporters that bring the true facts to light?

Mr. Wilhelm should be humiliated by his conduct.  He is at least alive.  He took his life vest off, put some clothes on, and went home.  He has the rest of his life to enjoy.  But Mrs. Brimble is dead and buried.  Her family has nothing but their grief, for the rest of their lives. 

It is the obligation of the press in free societies to publish the facts of a crime and all of the attendant circumstances no matter how "embarrassing."  Especially when criminals on cruise ships are never convicted and the only true facts will be investigated and revealed by the media.      

Credits:

Dianne Brimble         thepunch.com.au

Wilhelm in life vest           Sydney Morning Herald

Wilhelm walking free            AAP - Tracey Nearmy via 9 News

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This week I attended "Cruise Shipping Miami" - formerly known as "SeaTrade" - at the cavernous Miami Beach Convention Center.  An intern at the firm, Caitlin Burke, also made her first appearance at the convention. Caitlin wrote a senior thesis at the University of Florida entitled  "Qualitative Study of Victimization and Legal Issues Relevant to Cruise Ships."  Caitlin is also a social media expert having written several blogs which were recognized as the "best in blogs" by the 3,000 member LexBlog network.

As you can see in my Flickr photographs, we made ourselves right at home and had a great time.

The first thing that strikes a first time visitor to the cruise convention is the size and energy of the event.  You can get an idea of how much money is involved in the $35,000,000,000 (billion) cruise industry.  The convention hosts hundreds of port and shipping agencies, tourist boards, shipbuilders, and vendors from places that you didn't realize even existed much less had a connection to cruising.  

With one exception, the vendor booths were friendly and very interactive.  Here's the good, bad, and ugly:

SeaTrade - the Good ...

The tourist board and port booths were outstanding.  The "Cruise Irish," Port of New Orleans Commission, and Slovenia Cruise booths were very friendly and the staff professional and informative.  The "Cruise Irish" delegates had a distinct advantage given the fact that its was St. Patty's Day and they were dispensing free Guinness!  The New Orleans Port contingency was doing a good job.  They handed out Pat O'Brien Hurricane punch and Mardi Gras beads as their band played "Hey Pockey Way" by the Neville Brothers.

I couldn't resist forcing Caitlin to stand for a photograph (photo above left) with the musicians at the Slovenia Cruise booth!

The tourist boards were without exception friendly.  They board members went out of their way to be conversational.  They handed out souvenir trinkets as they promoted the cruise services and tourist opportunities in their home countries. 

The technical / service vendors had an interesting array of products. Given the nature of our law practice, I was particularly interested in the safety and security products.  We stopped by and looked at the "Thermo Cruise Baby" by the Norwegian group Regatta ("Safe at Sea") as well as an impressive number of life saving preservers and and life boats sold by Viking, including another child's life vest (photo right).           

One of the more interesting booths was the "Castle Shipboard Security Program" which is run by Captain Jeffrey Kuhlman who has first hand experience being boarded by pirates.  He trains mariners to protect themselves and their vessel "from the ravages of piracy and terror."  His partner and spouse, Glenna Kuhlman (photo below, left), attended the booth and was very interesting as she explained their security program.  

The issue of piracy and whether the cruise industry has taken adequate steps to protect cruise passengers is something I have addressed in prior articles:   

Are Cruise Lines Taking Adequate Steps to Protect Passengers from Pirate Attacks?

Cruise Line Liability for Injuries to Passengers and Crew Members Caused by Pirate Attacks

We really appreciated Ms. Kuhlman's friendly description of her company, and we hope that the cruise industry gets on board with the training program.

SeaTrade - the Bad ...

The Cruise Shipping "Social Media Suite" was the pits.  The Cruise Shipping Miami trade group advertised its "social media" lounge, which had four sets of tables and chairs, a sitting area with a couch and lounge chairs, and a couple of computers.  A sign invited the attendees to "get connected" and "stay connected" on FaceBook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

The weird thing was absolutely no was was there.  Only three employees sitting at a table.  I stopped briefly by one of the computers when I first entered the convention, and updated my status on my twitter page @CruiseLaw.

A few hours later, we returned to the "suite" and sat down at one of the empty tables adjacent to a number of cafes.  We thought we would have a quick lunch (a hotdog and fruit drink) and rest our feet before returning to see the remainder of the show.  But one of the Cruise Shipping Miami employees told us to leave because they "were tired of cleaning up after people who used their tables."  So we obliged.  As we began to take our 1/2 eaten hotdogs with us, we watched another employee chastise other attendees who had walked into the lounge with a soft drink. 

When we left, the lounge was completely empty.  Except for the three "Cruise Shipping Miami" employees talking to each other at one of the tables, drinking soda.

We have written about how some of the cruise lines, like P & O Cruises, have outstanding social media programs while others in the cruise industry are clueless. Take a moment and read  Cruise Lines and Social Media - P & O Cruises Hits A Home Run  to see how the cruise industry is handling social media. 

Cruise Shipping Miami's Twitter page @CruiseShipping has a pitiful 137 followers and on only 2 lists.  In the world of "social media," it's clueless.  It's staff?  Boorish.  Walk by and take a look yourself today, but don't make the mistake of sitting down with a hotdog.               

SeaTrade - ... and the Ugly  

The buzz at the cruise convention has been the cruise line executives mocking Alaska's strict  environmental regulations. The CEO's of Holland American Lines and Celebrity threatened Governor Parnell, who was in attendance, that they will pull cruise ships from Alaska if the state did not ease up on the taxes and pollution regulations. The Alaska Dispatch and Travel Agent Central have excellent articles on this issue.

Unlike the powerless Caribbean countries who are desperate for U.S. tourist dollars, Alaska has a strong economy.  Its citizens voted long ago to impose a $50 head tax to protect its pristine waters.  Alaska has the only "ocean ranger" program in the nation where a state environmental official boards the cruise ship and monitors cruise ship discharges while the vessels are in Alaskan waters.

Alaska is smart to protect its natural resources.  The cruise industry has a deplorable environmental record and Carnival and Royal Caribbean have pleaded guilty to multiple felonies for wastewater violations and lying to U.S. Coast Guard.

The image of the CEO of HAL (which has recent wastewater violations on the books) lecturing a Governor of a progressive state like Alaska is rather repugnant (photo above, courtesy of Travel Agent Central).  The cruise industry already has an image of being arrogant and certainly the least diverse group of professionals around. The image of six white, male, suited, Miami executives chastising Alaska should be a sign that Alaska is doing something right.  It should continue to resist the bullying and protect its waters from exploitation by the cruise industry. 

One of the strange things about this years convention is that there were no U.S. agencies in attendance.  Where was the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)?  Where was the Federal Drug Administration (FDA)?  The cruise industry is facing a crisis with norovirus and there is no focus on this issue at the convention?  Last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) was in attendance and assigned agents to respond to questions about crimes on cruise ships returning to ports in South Florida.  Where was the FBI this year?

Another strange thing was that the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA)'s booth was way in the back of the convention center.  It was poorly staffed and attended.  

The most prominent feature at the CLIA booth was a giant dispenser of Purell hand sanitizer, which by the way doesn't kill norovirus.           

Credits:

Cruise line executives       Travel Agent Central

All other photos                   Jim Walker's Flickr photographs

• Comments

Last week I met Kevin O'Keefe.  Kevin is the genius behind LexBlog which designs and creates law blogs and supports legal bloggers like myself.  If you like the design and functionality of this blog, thank Kevin.  His team designed it.  

Kevin's company also runs LexMonitor, the best round-up of legal blogs around, as well as LexTweet which tracks lawyers who use Twitter.  Kevin also has an award winning blog "Real Lawyers Have Blogs" which is something every ahead-of-the-curve-lawyer should read.

Kevin was in Miami speaking at a convention and announced an-after-hours "beer for bloggers" get together at Tobacco Road via his blog and Twitter page.  For those of you not familiar with Miami, Tobacco Road is the oldest bar in Miami, with liquor license no. 001, and a relaxing place to hang out.

It was a nice time. Some of the lawyers drove for a couple of hours to Miami to make it. 

Legal marketing expert Paula Black, virtual law firm DirectLaw entrepreneur Richard Granat, international business lawyer Santiago Cuerto, estate planning lawyer David Shulman, business lawyer and Gulf War hero Juan Antúnez, and criminal defense lawyer and super-blogger Brian Tannenbaum all showed up. 

Kevin is an inspiring story. He was a real life lawyer and trial attorney in rural Wisconsin and then created Prairie Law (which he sold to Lexis).  He hit his stride by moving to Seattle to create his LexBlog success.  His company supports something like 3,000 law firms, from blogging law students to solo lawyers to the Am Law 200 big law firms.  LexBlog is an impressive network and helps small law firms like mine be the proverbial big fish in the small pond.  

I remember last year when I was searching for a company to host my blog.  I emailed and then spoke to the people at LexBlog.  I thought that I was interviewing them to see if they were going to meet my blog requirements.  Half-way through the 30 minute conversation, I realized that they were interviewing me to see if I met their criteria. 

There are a lot of top notch blogs and lawyers on the LexBlog platform - like Bill Marler's Blog which has expanded to include the NoroBlog and the Food Poison Journal which have touched upon cruise ship norovirus outbreaks. 

My first blog on Lexblog was on September 10th last year. Things started slowly.  Maybe only 20 or 30 people a day stumbled on to my blog, probably by accident.  But I'm now 171 days and 173 blogs down the road (who's counting?)  Last week alone, over 14,000 different people viewed over 25,000 pages on this little blog.  Not bad.  

More importantly, the blog has been cited in national law journals, local newspapers in Florida, and news sources in Europe and the Caribbean.  

Thanks LexBlog.   And next time I'll buy the beer at Tobacco Road.    

To see what other lawyers are saying about Kevin and LexBlog, consider reading "God Bless Mrs. O'Keefe" (pretty funny) by a South Carolina trial lawyer, David Swanner.

Credits:

Tobacco Road   Kevin O'Keefe

• Comments

An article this morning caught my eye: "Newest and Biggest Cruise Ship: Oasis of the Seas." The article contains the usual "wow-look-how-big-it-is!" style of writing which is most typically associated with travel agents.  You know, those travel agents doubling as authors whose interest in describing this monster-of-cruise-ship is hopelessly intertwined with obtaining commissions by selling cruises. 

Then I realized that the article (appearing in a Dallas newspaper) was written by Jane Wooldridge who is the business editor of the Miami Herald.

I have written about the Miami Herald and Ms. Wooldridge in several prior articles: Miami Herald: Asleep at the Wheel Regarding the Cruise Industry and Miami Herald - See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil.

There have been an incredible number of newsworthy developments involving cruise lines over the past five years - missing passengers, high profile sexual assaults, endless pollution fines, fires, sinkings, and five Congressional hearings involving Miami based cruise lines. But the Miami Herald wouldn't touch these stories.  It did not even report on the passage of the first cruise crime bill in the 40 history of the cruise industry. 

The Miami Herald's writers never publish anything negative or controversial which might embarrass their cruise line friends.  Credible newspapers with real journalists are left to cover these legitimate stories - like the Los Angeles Times, the San Fransisco Chronicle, or the New York Times.

The Miami Herald sold out to the Miami-based  cruise industry long ago.  This latest article is just the same old cruise cheerleading that the Herald is known for.  Consider the gushing adjectives chosen in the description of the mega ship:  "wow ... amazing . . . revolutionary."  Can you imagine a business editor anywhere writing such drivel? The article contained quotes only from other cruise enthusiasts, travel agents and the cruise line's CEO, Richard Fain. 

The spectacle of the Oasis of the Seas raises disturbing questions which I have mentioned in numerous articles. But you will find no hint of controversy in articles by Miami Herald employees who consistently write travel pieces designed to sell tickets for their cruise line advertisers.  

Is it just coincidence that the article uses the word "Wow" (caps in original), when the corporate mantra at  Royal Caribbean is "Deliver the Wow?"   

And the latest controversy of this Cloverfield-like-beast-of-cruise-ship sailing past the ruins of Haiti to the cruise line's "private destination" of Labadee seems to many like corporate malfeasance on steroids.  But the Herald will look the other way.

See no evil.  Hear no evil.  Speak no evil.  The tradition of the Miami Herald continues.

Credits:

Newspaper vending machine        Daquella Manera Flickr Photostream 

Oasis of the Seas                       Kenneth Karsten via shipspotting.com

• Comments (1)

The official site of the Shorty Awards states that it honors "the best people and organizations on Twitter.  These unique awards are for the Twitter community, by the Twitter community."

140 characters of advice for a new user?

OK.  Thanks for reading.  Vote for me and I will appoint you to my cabinet, or maybe to be the Ambassador to the cruise ship League of Nations, or I'll send you a special gift, or  . . . 

Hey, I remember my friends . . .   

• Comments

Today, LexMonitor published an interview of me by Lisa Kennelly.  For those of you-not-in-the-know, LexMonitor is run by super-law-blog-expert Kevin O'Keefe of LexBlog which offers the best services in the universe for frustrated lawyers who feel the need to blog after working a-100-hour-week. The interviewer, Lisa Kennelly - a Harvard graduate! - asked me some questions about my new blog. 

if I come back in another life, it will be a Harvard Graduate living in Seattle, a kick-ass city by any definition. 

P.S. LexBlog is the best. 

Here is the article unedited:   

Jim Walker has always been ahead of the curve.

The Miami cruise law attorney has had a web presence since 1996, when he created his very first web site. A former defense attorney, he switched sides in 1999 and became an advocate for cruise ship passengers, years before the majority of Miami lawyers started marketing themselves as "cruise line lawyers."

And his blog, Cruise Law News? It only came into being after he had been hooked on Twitter - @CruiseLaw for several months and realized he needed a forum to write in more than 140 characters.

Each component of his online presence serves a different but equally valuable purpose.

"Most of my competitors are where I was ten years ago," Jim says, "creating ego sites that say they are fantastic without providing any useful information to the consumer and without even attempting to establish a dialog with the public. The Internet now requires an interactive exchange. So I am trying to use my blog to provide the most current and relevant information in my specialized field of law."

We caught up with Jim for this LexBlog Q&A to learn more about his online persona and how he uses his blog to beat the mainstream media to breaking news. 

Lisa Kennelly: Why did you decide to start a blog?

Jim Walker: I became a blogger after becoming addicted to Twitter earlier this year.

In February, I watched President Obama’s State of the Union speech. The gallery was filled with people twittering away on their Blackberries and iPhones, sending out their own spin on the President’s speech. CNN covered the story and added their own perspective via Twitter. A few days later I registered @CruiseLaw. In March, I started “tweeting.”

I became hooked. A dozen times a day, I tweeted my perspective about crimes on cruise ships, bad shipboard medical care, mysterious disappearances of passengers, and even attacks against cruise ships by pirates! Stuff so unbelievable that I couldn’t make it up. To my surprise, a large number of people in the cruise industry began following me – mostly cruise line manager types, travel agents, and PR people who disagree with anything negative I mentioned about cruising. In the process, a dialogue developed with people on the other-side-of-the-fence so to speak. I enjoyed it.

I also found a lot of kindred spirits who share my concerns about the negative environmental impact of cruising – things like cruise ship wastewater discharges, and air emissions of cruise ships which burn bunker fuels. The carbon footprint of the cruise industry is incredible. A lot of “green travelers” like to read my tweets and I like to follow them too.

As you know, “tweeting” is just micro-blogging. My addiction grew beyond the 140 character limit of Twitter. I ran across Kevin’s blog and began following Kevin as well as LexBlog and LexMonitor on Twitter. And this led me to blogging. The LexBlog format fit my plans perfectly.

I wrote a blog post about the experience - Cruise Law Meets Twitter. 

Lisa Kennelly: What has been most rewarding about blogging?

Jim Walker: I blog about breaking “cruise news.” I was the only one in the U.S. who reported on the armed robbery of 11 cruise passengers in the Bahamas in October. I explained the legal liability of cruise lines who sell shore excursions but don’t warn their guests about high crime rate in ports of call. Last month, an additional 18 cruise passengers were robbed at gunpoint in the Bahamas after the cruise lines failed to warn the passengers about the first attack. I found a YouTube video of one of the passengers who had just been robbed, and posted the video and photographs on my blog. I broke two stories before any newspaper knew what happened! Soon “Cruise Law News” was being cited in major newspapers as the source of news.

Experiences like this are exciting and rewarding. We warn the public of dangers that the cruise lines like to keep secret. I embed my perspective into the news I write about. I am not a journalist. I am an advocate. And I enjoy reporting on news events with my own unique perspective.

Lisa Kennelly: What has been most challenging?

Jim Walker: There is not enough time to blog, practice law and have a real life. I have a full trial practice with 100 injured clients at any time. I have a family, two growing boys and a spouse (who is also my law partner) plus four dogs. I started my blog a little over three months ago and I have written 100 articles. My articles are too long, too. I can’t help it – I come from a family of story tellers. I feel sometimes like I am making a closing argument and I can’t stop myself. I struggle getting to the point.

Lisa Kennelly: What has the response been to your blog from clients, other attorneys, or anyone else?

Jim Walker: It has been fantastic so far. My blog has 10 times the traffic of my website, CruiseLaw.com, which I started over ten years ago. My biggest disappointment is that few people post comments. I like people to voice their own views, particularly if they disagree with me.

Lisa Kennelly: You and your firm have had a web presence at CruiseLaw.com for an impressive 10 years now. How has the way you use the Internet changed since then.

Jim Walker: I actually created my first web site, called Walker-Law.com, in 1996. I was a defense lawyer. My site was very egocentric. I used my own name in the domain and advertised that I was great at defending cruise lines. But I found that passengers across the U.S. began e-mailing me asking me to sue one of the cruise lines here in Miami because they had been injured or raped. They found my site through the old search engines and didn’t care who I was or even that I defended cruise lines! In 1999, I switched sides and created CruiseLaw.com myself using a Windows FrontPage program. It is amateurish but effective. 100% of the cases we handle are against cruise lines and six of our clients have testified before Congress on cruise safety issues. I have not updated the CruiseLaw site for ten years (but have a much-needed new design coming out the first of next year).

Now every lawyer in Miami calls themselves a cruise line lawyer. Attorneys I have never heard of are are paying for click-throughs on Google. Most of my competitors are where I was ten years ago. Creating ego sites that say they are fantastic without providing any useful information to the consumer and without even attempting to establish a dialogue with the public. The Internet now requires an interactive exchange. So I am trying to use my blog to provide the most current and relevant information in my specialized field of law.

Lisa Kennelly: How do you use your website, your blog, and your Twitter account, both together or individually, to market yourself and your firm?

Jim Walker: My website is like an online resume. Not much real information is on it. Just a description of who we are and what we do. The real marketing now comes from my blog. I still mini-blog on Twitter. I link to the other people who are shaping the daily debate on cruise issues. When I finish my blog, I post a link on Twitter. There are usually a hundred people who will quickly read it to see what I am rambling about. I take a lot of photos of our clients and cruise ships that I sue and post them on my Flickr page.

Whenever another cruise passenger goes overboard, people know where to find me.

• Comments (1)

Over the last four years, there have been an incredible number of high profile stories regarding the cruise industry: the "missing honeymooner" case of George Smith IV on Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas, the cover-up of Merrian Carver's disappearance from Celebrity Cruises' Mercury cruise ship, and the case of Laurie Dishman who, after she was sexually assaulted, was handed a trash bag by the cruise ship's officers and instructed to go and collect evidence from the crime scene herself.   

These terrible tales rocked the Miami-based cruise industry.  Connecting these tragedies have been five Congressional hearings - four hearings before the House of Representatives and one hearing before the U.S. Senate - leading to the introduction of the Cruise Vessel Safety and Security act of 2009.  For the  first time in the history of the 40 year old cruise industry, cruise lines will be forced to report shipboard crimes to the U.S. Coast Guard and the FBI.

And throughout this incredibly historic period of time for cruise victims, the Miami Herald has refused to report anything of significance.

Miami is rightfully called the "Cruise Ship Capital of the World."  Home of Carnival Corporation and Royal Caribbean Cruises which together own and operate 75% of the cruise lines in the world, Miami should be the hot bed of a never ending cycle of cruise-related news stories.  These events deserve the best and brightest of journalists and the highest standards of ethical reporting.

Instead, we have the Miami Herald.

The Herald is a provincial newspaper, with a travel fanatic as the business editor.  The paper is entirely beholden to the local cruise lines which pay the Herald for advertising and invite the Herald "reporters" to free cruises and parties where they hob nob with the executives and promoters.  In return, there is a quid pro quo where the Miami Herald looks the other way when stories break which could embarass its cruise lines friends. 

These stories have to be covered by legitimate newspapers like the New York Times, L.A. Times, and San Francisco Chronicle and many other smaller yet reputable newspapers which have filled the void created by the Herald's abandonment of its journalistic obligations.

I have touched upon the Herald's sell-out in prior blogs:     

Miami Herald: Asleep at the Wheel Regarding the Cruise Industry and Oasis of the Seas - A Vision of All Consuming Hell.

For the last week there have been multiple stories about the cruise-crime crisis in the Bahamas. Carnival and Royal Caribbean passengers departing from Miami have been robbed by shotgun in broad daylight in Nassau on tours sponsored by the Miami-based cruise lines.  The crime problem in Nassau poses a particularly troubling problem for Royal Caribbean's excutives in Miami who have to use Nassau because it is one of the few ports which can accomodate its mega-ship Oasis of the Seas.

And today, a story broke about a Princess Cruises' crew member "disappearing" under suspicious circumstances off of a cruise ship from South Florida which scream out for for the FBI to board the ship and try and determine what happened.  Although Miami-based Carnival Corporation owns the cruise line, this is the type of story which the Miami Herald writers won't touch out of risk of embarrassing their sugar daddies who, in essence, pay their salaries and keep them employed.

So who covered the stories?  ABC News, the Associated Press, AOL Travel, the Bahama Journal, Cruise Critic, FoxNews, the Freeport Journal, the Nassau Guardian, the Sun-Sentinel, the Telegraph, the Tribune, and USA Today.  But the Miami Herald?  Of course not - this is a compromised rag which  

Sees No Cruise Evil

Hears No Cruise Evil 

and

Speaks No Cruise Evil . . . 

Credits:

Censorship       Eric Drooker www.drooker.com

Herald Vending Machine      Daquella Manera Flickr Photostream  

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil    Tom Otterness (via MeijerGardens Flickr Photostream)  

• Comments

Those of you who have followed my blog over the last three months know that I have been hard on Royal Caribbean.  I think that this cruise line treats its injured crew members terribly, and it has handled the problem with sexual assaults on its cruise ships even worse.  I also think the Oasis of the Seas is a boondoggle.

So there are my biases.

But I have been rather intrigued by how Royal Caribbean's CEO, Richard Fain, doesn't seem to let much bother him.  Year after year he keep coming up with the never ending succession of bigger cruise ships which are announced to the world with great fanfare. 

Whenever there is a reporter or news camera surrounding a Royal Caribbean event, there Mr. Fain  is - showing President Clinton around Royal Caribbean's private "island" in Labadee, Haiti, or riding the flow-rider on the Independence of the Seas in Southampton, or waiving to reporters while spinning around and around on the carousel on the Oasis of the Seas. 

It is hard to imagine his competitor - Mickey Arison at Carnival - even trying to get aboard a boogie board. That would be ugly.  But "Fearless Fain" seems to be a former athlete and a natural at things like this.  He obviously is skilled at PR and marketing his Royal Caribbean brand with a hands-on approach. 

Now, I will quickly admit that the phrase "Fearless Fain" is not my idea.  Rather it was the title of an article written by John Honeywell a/k/a "Captain Greybeard" who writes an opinion piece for the Mirror in the U.K.  The flow-rider photo above is from Captain Greybeard's photo-stream on Flickr of the Independence of the Seas ("Who's the Daddy?")

Speaking of the flow-rider, there has already been one death after a passenger fell and struck his head.  But Royal Caribbean requires all passengers to sign waivers of liability before they step onto the boogie board and try to break their necks. And speaking of waivers, Mr. Fain announced on his "Chairman's Blog" that the new Oasis of the Seas will be able to expedite passengers riding the zipline over Central Park.  He suggested having them just swipe their sign and sail cards which will acknowledge their waiver of their rights if the line breaks.  No need for long lines, or a lot of paperwork. Very innovative.    

There is an interesting photograph of Mr. Fain signing papers when the cruise line officially took possession of the Oasis of the Seas.  Right in the center of the photograph is an American flag.  Now, this strikes me as funny.  Mr. Fain registered his company in Liberia.  All of his cruise ships fly flags of convenience in countries like Liberia and the Bahamas in order to avoid paying any U.S. income tax and avoid U.S. laws and regulations.

Was this happenstance?  Hardly.  I remember a couple of years ago when a Court in Miami ordered Mr. Fain to appear for a video deposition in downtown Miami in a case when parents alleged that their little girl had been molested by a youth counselor on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship.  Mr. Fain instructed the law firm defending the case to make certain that an American flag was positioned behind him as he sat in front of the videographer.  They didn't have a flag so they had to go and rent one for the afternoon. 

As Royal Caribbean tries to fill up the Oasis of the Seas and the Allure of the Seas comes into the fleet next year, it will be interesting to see if Mr. Fain can continue to skillfully market his Liberian corporation to us tax-paying U.S. citizens.            

Credits:

Richard Fain (photo 1)  John Honeywell a/k/a Captain Greybeard

Richard Fain (photos 2, 4)   Reuters via Daylife.com     

Richard Fain (photo 3) UpTake Travel Industry

• Comments

At this moment, the Oasis of the Seas is sailing with newspaper reporters, travel writers, cruise bloggers, and other cruise enthusiasts.  They are tweeting their observations on Twitter under the hashtag #oasis.

One of the tweters is @johnnyjet who has a nice travel portal called JohnnyJet.com.  He posted a photograph of the Royal Caribbean executives (below) answering questions on the cruise ship.  He also asked the Twitter Kingdom for some "good" questions to ask the Royal Caribbean "execs." 

Here are my seven questions. They pertain to issues I am interested in - the environmental effects of a cruise ship this large, and the safety and security of its passengers and crew members:

1.  Does the Oasis of the Seas discharge wastewater/sewage (whether treated or outside 3 miles of shore or not) during the cruises? 

2.  If not, where does the cruise ship offload its sewage and waste?  In the U.S.?  Or in a foreign port?  And specifically which foreign port?  Nassau? St. Thomas? Falmouth? or Cozumel? 

3.  What happens to the waste and chemicals once offloaded from the ship?

4.  The LA Times reported that for a period of 32 months, there were over 250 incidents of sexual assault, battery, and sexual harassment against guests and crew members on Royal Caribbean cruise ships.  In light of these problems, how many security guards are employed on the Oasis of the Seas?

5.  How many security guards are assigned to the seven "neighborhoods" on the cruise ship?  Are there security "sub-stations" in each of the neighborhoods?

6.  How many security guards patrol the neighborhoods from 10:00 p.m. to 4 a.m., a time period we have found when female passengers are at a higher risk of being assaulted?

7.  Saturday Night Live joked about the Oasis of the Seas being being bounty for pirates. Whereas the thought of a pirate attack in the Caribbean may be silly, a large cruise ship like this could be a target of a   terrorist group.  Does the ship have a sufficient number of security personnel to not only protect the passengers from shipboard crime, but deter and fight off a terrorist attack?

Thank you for answers to these questions!         

Credits    

Top Photo      @johnnyjet  

Bottom Photo     Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., a Liberian Corporation (via CruiseCritic)

• Comments (1)

When I was in high school in the early 1970's, my prep school provided students with an opportunity to read the English version of the Russia newspaper Pravda.  The thought was that we should be reading every perspective to develop a complete understanding of international issues.

Officially referred to as the "Organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU)," Pravda was the Soviet's propaganda machine disguised as a newspaper.  As the only source of information for the Soviet people, Pravda was a carefully crafted state owned one-side-of-the-story propaganda mill during the Cold War.  

Only those "facts" approved by the Soviet leaders were permitted to be included for mandatory reading by the Soviet masses.

I was fascinated by the absurdity of Pravda's stories.  Along with National Lampoon, Pravda became one of my favorite reads, for no other reason than it made me instantly disbelieve what was written and wonder what the true facts really were.  But unlike National Lampoon, Pravda was oh so serious - which just made it even more ludicrous.

In mid-September of this year, the  Cruise Line International Association ("CLIA") launched a web site called "CruiseIndustryFacts.com."  It is full of "facts" carefully selected by CLIA for your reading. 

CLIA also has a twitter page @CruiseFacts which occasionally tweets "facts" like "cruise line industry generated $40 billion to the U.S. economy in 2008!" 

Every time I click on CLIA's "fact" pages I feel that I am reading a copy of Pravda:  "We assign the same priorities to keeping guests and crew healthy, safe and secure, and to protect the environment as we do to our other critical business matters . . ."   

Pravda.  I love it.    

Photo credit:   vyoos.com     "From Russia With Crud"  

• Comments

Cruise lines which are in touch with their market understand the need to be versed with all aspects of Social Media 2.0.  Twitter, FaceBook, Flickr, and YouTube all present an inexpensive and highly effective way to get a company's message out to the public.  This is particularly important in times of crisis management, such when a fire breaks out or a bout of swine flu is running its course on a cruise ship.

Most cruise lines remain clueless.  Royal Caribbean, for example, has a Twitter page @royalcaribbean, but it has not been updated since June 19th.  The only tweet says: "Look for updates here soon!" - that was over three months ago. It resembles an abandoned store front.  

Other cruise lines which are using Twitter or FaceBook are not maximizing the potential offered by social media applications.  Companies like NCL  @NCLFreestyle have pleasant enough websites and utilize Twitter but are mostly just trying to push ticket sales.  Recent tweets by NCL: "hottest new cruise," cruises for "$249," etc.  You get the idea.

The problem with these tweets is that they flaunt the etiquette which has developed on Twitter.  Effective "twitterers" understand that hard sale tactics don't work.  In fact, they turn potential customers off.  But interacting with the public, and providing accurate and relevant information via a conversation, works.  You could imagine how ineffective and counter productive it would be if I took NCL's approach on Twitter - "hottest new lawyer," lawsuits for "$249," etc.  A bad idea.

Princess Cruises - What's Social Media?

When things go wrong at sea, the public deserves to receive accurate information, fast. And Twitter is the best way to do just that. 

When the Princess cruise ship "Royal Princess" caught fire on June 18th, the cruise line didn't release any information to the public.  But a passenger, a Pastor from South Carolina,  @gregsurratt tweeted about the fire from his iphone on the cruise ship.  He indicated that the fire was bigger than expected, that the cruise ship was dark, and that a tug had to tow the ship back to port in Egypt.  Frantic families in the U.S. had to rely on Pastor Surratt for information about their loved ones. He even tweeted photos of the fire, the passengers sprawling out on the deck in the dark, and the tug via "Twitpic" - an application which permits photos to be uploaded onto Twitter. 

When the cruise line finally awoke and posted its typical less-than-forthcoming corporate press statement, no one was paying attention to Princess Cruises.  Everyone was listening to Pastor Surratt tweeting away on the cruise ship in the Mediterranean.  Most troubling was that the press releases finally issued from Princess Cruises' corporate offices in Santa Clarita down-played the incident and provided incomplete and misleading information. 

Princess Cruises not only lost an opportunity to interact with the public via Twitter, but it lost credibility in the process.    

Twitter and YouTube - Effective PR Tools - P & O Cruises Gets An "A" 

Princess Cruises' sister brand P & O Cruises knows what it is doing in the world of social media.  P & O Cruises has had more than its fair share of bad things happen on its cruise ships.  It is best known for the tragic death of Dianne Brimble, who died due to a toxic mix of alcohol and a date rape drug several years ago.  The brand was known for heavy drinking, out of control parties and general debauchery.

But in the last two years, the cruise line has turned its image around.  The PR people at this cruise line rebulit P & O's reputation.  Social media played a big part.

For example, last May when the Pacific Dawn was sailing with passengers and crew infected with H1N1 swine flu, the news media in Australia went nuts. Front page news articles labeled the cruise ship the "swine ship."   

P & O went on the offensive. CEO Ann Sherry began giving short statements on the cruise line's blog.  The cruise line's website contains links to its Twitter and FaceBook pages as well as to "ship blogs" including the Pacific Dawn.  The cruise line knew how to upload videos of cruise activities to its ship blogs as part of its general marketing. It now had the experience to use this media to deal with this crisis. 

Ms. Sherry appeared on the scene, wearing a very smart red dress, and looked directly into the camera. She provided information about sick passengers and what the company was doing to address the issue. The cruise line used its Twitter page @POCruises to provide additional updates and links to the video.  It even uploaded a photo via "Twitpic" of Ms. Sherry, standing in the rain surrounded by reporters, while the beleaguered cruise ship with its sick passengers arrived at port. 

When the flu passed its course, the next ship blog, entitled "Clean Ship," showed photos of the Captain and crew having fun in the disco, smiling and laughing.  The message to the public was quite effective - everything is fine, come on aboard.

In the past several months, P & O Cruises continues to use social media effectively.  Ms, Sherry still appears regularly on YouTube videos, talking about the presence of surveillance cameras on the cruise ships, responsible drinking programs, and "customer care" teams.

it is nice to see a cruise line connecting with the public in this manner.     

Photo credits  

Photo no. 1 of Ann Sherry - Zimbio - "P & O Cruises Holds Swine Flu Conference" (Photo by Graham Denholm/Getty Images AsiaPac)

Other photographs and video - P & O Cruises

• Comments (3)

I first became intrigued with Twitter when I watched President Obama’s State of the Union speech in February of this year. The galley was filled with people twittering away on their Blackberries and iphones, sending out their own spin on the President’s speech. CNN covered the story and added their own perspective via @CNN.

A few days later I registered @CruiseLaw. I was hooked. In March, I started a Twitter forage that continues today.

Now a little over six months later, I can’t imagine not interacting with the people who follow me on Twitter. I have connected with more people on Twitter in the last 6 months than I have in real life in last 30 years. 6,700 followers. OK, I admit it. I don’t know them all. 

But the experience has led to newspaper and radio interviews, business referrals across the U.S., a modest group of fans and an even larger group of enemies who follow my tweets religiously for no other reason than to instantly and vigorously disagree with me. I like the agitators and detractors best.  It has been fun.

Lawyers USA Weekly recently ran an interesting article by Sylvia Hsieh which featured four lawyers who successfully turned their tweets into clients. Unfortunately, the article is no longer available on line without a subscription. But Bruce Carlton (@brucecarton) of Legal Blog Watch did a good job summarizing my small part in the article as follows:

"James Walker (@CruiseLaw) an attorney in South Miami, Fla., whose practice is devoted solely to suing cruise lines on behalf of injured passengers. Walker tweets about the three things he knows best: cruise ship law, cruise ship law and cruise ship law."

Its pretty funny to be pigeon-holed so accurately by a reporter in a 15 minute telephone interview.

Cruise Ship Law.  Exactly.  Welcome to my place in the Twitter Kingdom.

Don't be a stranger.  Follow me @CruiseLaw

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