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

A newspaper in the U.K. reports that dozens of passengers were struck down by a "vomiting bug" on board a cruise ship which docked in Southampton yesterday.

The Celebrity Eclipse returned from a two week Mediterranean cruise which departed on May 11th. 

77 passengers and five crew members - 1.8 per cent of those on board the ship - were "laid low" by an illness thought to be the winter vomiting bug norovirus.

A spokesman for Celebrity Cruises said it would undergo an “extensive and thorough” clean now that the vessel had returned to Southampton.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia / Jonathan Schilling 

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Disney Cruise Line's decision to sail its Disney Dream out of the jurisdiction to Nassau, Bahamas has caused concern and outrage not only with the local police department in Brevard County but has also caught the attention of the new Attorney General for Brevard County, Phil Archer.

After watching the video tape obtained by WKMG Channel 6 in Orlando and learning that Disney had assisted the assailant crew member in leaving the jurisdiction and avoiding prosecution, Attorney General Archer said he was "sickened."  He vowed to prosecute crimes on cruise ships which are all too often not timely reported to the local law enforcement or are ignored by the FBI.

According to WKMG, which again aired an informative report on this disturbing case, Archer said that "at least two crimes" may have occurred on the Disney Dream while in Brevard County's waters: "false imprisonment, as the suspect cornered the child in the elevator, which he prevented from moving by blocking the door as he appeared to molest her; and lewd or lascivious molestation on a child under 12, a felony that could have produced a life sentence."

Archer characterized the Disney molestation case as "serious" and promised vigorous prosecutions of crimes like this in order to protect other families who may cruise in the future.  The local police chief also promised a more active role in investigating allegations of cruise ship crimes and completing reports.

When asked to respond to Disney's excuse that the child's grandmother allegedly said she did not want to pursue a criminal prosecution in the Bahamas, Attorney General Archer said: "the decision to prosecute that serious a crime in Florida rests with a prosecutor, not a grandmother."

Watch the video below:

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In a case likely to have long term ramifications for the image of Disney Cruise Line (Magical Cruise Company), the story of Disney-flying-a-child-molester-back-to-India which was broken by a local news station in Orlando last night has already reached a national and international audience.  

The case is essentially no different that an airline learning that one of its flight attendants, age 33, molested an eleven year old child on an airplane and then flying the crime scene, the assailant, and the victim to a foreign country where it knows that criminal prosecution is impossible. Then, to top it off, paying for the crew member to fly home to the other side of the world rather than returning him to the U.S. for prosecution.

Disney's outrageous conduct is not lost on reporters from around the world. 

Daily Bhaskar (India) reports Caught on camera: Disney Cruise Line employee molests 11-year-old in ship elevator.

The U.K.'s Daily Mail published The Shocking Moment Disney Cruise Line Dining Room Server, 33, Molested Girl, 11, in Ship Elevator.

The International Business Times reported: Did Disney Cruise Line Let A Child Molester Go Free?

News Beat (Greece) reports Ship worker sexually harassed 11 year old girl

The New York Daily News published Disney Cruise Line Failed to Promptly Notify Police that Crew Member Molested an 11-Year-Old Girl.

The highly respected travel writer Peter Greenberg wrote: Cruise Scandal: Did Disney Cover up Employee Sexual Misconduct?

The Stir (a popular blog catering to moms) got it right in the article Disney Cruise Employee Caught on Camera Molesting 11-Year-Old But Goes Free Anyway

There are other news articles on line from China, Romania, Turkey, and Germany about the case.

Expect others in the news media to cover the disturbing story of how the family-friendly Disney Cruise Line responds to crimes against kids on its cruise ships.  

Read our other articles on the case:

Images of a Disney Nightmare: Are Your Kids Safe Sailing With Disney?

Did Disney Cruise Lines Cover Up Sexual Molestation of 11 Year Old Girl on Disney Dream? 

Image credit to WKMG Channel 6 in Orlando.

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Last night a local news station in Orlando Florida aired a blockbuster investigation into a crime aboard a Disney cruise ship (the Disney Dream) at Port Canaveral where a Disney waiter stalked an eleven year old girl and molested her in an elevator.

Yes, crimes occur everywhere. But the disturbing thing thing about this story is that Disney clearly knew what happened and who did it, but it took steps that resulted in its crew member avoiding prosecution. Instead of reporting the crime promptly to local law enforcement in Port Canaveral which has jurisdiction over crimes in the port, Disney left the port without reporting the crime to U.S. authorities. Disney reported the crime to the police at the next port in Nassau, Bahamas. But Disney flies the flag of the Bahamas and has a cozy relationship with that island.  

A prosecution of a Disney employee in Nassau? Never going to happen. Sure enough, Disney quickly flew the child molester back to his home country in India rather than return him to the U.S. for prosecution.   

We covered the story which you can read here: Did Disney Cruise Lines Cover Up Sexual Molestation of 11 Year Old Girl on Disney Dream?    

We created a Facebook photo album of images from the program aired by WKMG Channel 6 in Orlando, which you can see here.  A couple of images from WKMG Channel 6 Orlando are below:

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Over the weekend, the U.S. Coast Guard rescued a cruise passenger who suffered a heart attack from a cruise ship 150 miles off the coast of North Carolina.

The rescue involved a MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter and an HC-130 Hercules aircraft to assist.

The video below shows the crew aboard the Jayhawk helicopter hover over cruise ship Carnival Splendor in the Atlantic Ocean, 150 miles east of Cape Lookout, North Carolina, Saturday, May 18, 2013. The crew medevaced a heart attack patient and a nurse from the ship and took them to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia. 

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And time for weird cruise news.

A local news station in Miami reports that smoke was seen coming from the Carnival Cruise Lines headquarters today, prompting worries of a fire inside.

Smoke could be seen coming from the top of the Carnival headquarters.

Carnival denied there was a fire, and released a statement stating that an elevator transformer on the roof overheated and generated smoke.

This story reminds me of an incident a year ago when a small fire broke out on the Carnival Breeze but was quickly extinguished. When the story of the fire made the news, Carnival denied that a fire occurred and said instead that "a fan belt inside an AC unit in a crew area overheated and started generating smoke."

It seems that with Carnival where there's smoke, there's no fire.

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Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) reports that a cruise ship ran aground yesterday near Sainte-Pétronille, at the south end of Île d'Orléans on the St. Lawrence River.

57 passengers were on board. There are no reports of injury. A tugboat transported everyone back to shore. 

The ship is a small cruise ship named the Louis-Jolliet which left a port in Quebec City and was on its way to tour Montmorency Falls when it ran aground just before 3 p.m.

A spokeswoman for the Canadian Coast Guard said late Thursday that Croisières AML, the cruise ship's owner, would either have the boat towed to safety or await high tide at 11:45 p.m. for the boat to free itself.

The cruise ship suffered what is being described as minor damage to its hull.

Photo Credit: CBC / Gilles Lachance

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In a disturbing case we have covered over the years, U.S. lawyer, Lonnie Loren Kocontes, entered a plea today of not guilty in the strangulation death of his ex-wife, Micki Kaneski, during a cruise off of the Italian coast seven years ago.

This case seems to stand in stark contrast to the cruise industry's claim that murders don't occur on cruise ships.

Kocontes met Kanesaki in the 1990s at a Los Angeles law firm where he worked as an attorney and she worked as an administrative assistant. They later married in 1995. 

Kocontes was fired from his job after he was arrested in 2000 for charges of sexual contact with a minor that were later dismissed. In 2001, they divorced to protect their assets from civil litigation. They continued to live together, but their relationship deteriorated.

In May 2006, the couple vacationed in Italy and sailed aboard the Island Escape cruise ship. On May 26, 2006, the cruise ship was sailing between Sicily and Naples, when Kanesaki went overboard. Her body washed ashore the next day in Calabria in southwest Italy. An autopsy was performed. An Italian medical doctor concluded that she had been strangled before she went overboard.

Kocontes claims that Kanesaki left the cabin around 1 a.m. to get a cup of tea. Kocontes reported her missing after he woke up and claims he couldn’t find her. Italian police boarded the ship, seized records and videotapes and took statements from the crew.

Prosecutors say that Kocontes strangled Kaneski to death on board the ship and then threw her overboard.

Kocontes later began transferring more than $1 million from Kaneski’s bank accounts into joint accounts he held with his new wife. That prompted the FBI to begin seizure efforts which were dismissed by a federal judge in California.

The Orange County Register covered the story back in 2006, and quoted Kanesaki’s mother saying that her daughter was in good spirits before the cruise. ‘‘I can’t imagine what happened to her. There’s no reason to believe it was a suicide.’’

A newspaper in Italy published an article "The Perfect Murder."

The case reminds me of the murder of Karen Roston by her husband Mark Roston aboard Admiral Cruises' Sundancer some 20 years.

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The last several articles on this blog have involved gastrointestinal (G.I.) virus outbreaks on cruise ships.

The cruise ships involved are Holland American Lines’ Volendam and Veendam, (HAL ships, historically, are the most likely to be contaminated with norovirus), the Discovery cruise ship which was held up in Liverpool for what the cruise lines describe as “enhanced cleaning,” and most recently the Celebrity Millennium which arrived in Alaska with a bunch of sick passengers who went ashore and coughed all over the city of Seward.

These ships join the list of other sick cruise ships this year. There are seven official reports of G.I. cases so far this year documented by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But the list is incomplete. The CDC requires cruise lines to report outbreaks only when a certain percentage (more than 3%) of the passengers become ill. If the cruise ship does not call upon a U.S. port, then the CDC has no jurisdiction and there is no obligation to report any G.I. cases to the U.S. federal government.

Most countries around the world don't require reporting of cruise G.I. cases. So when you read the CDC database of G.I. outbreaks on cruise ships, remember that this is only those cruises which dock at a U.S. port and where at least 3% of the passenger report to the infirmary.

My partners at my law firm ask me why I blog about G.I. cases because our firm rarely handles such cases. Why don’t we handle G.I. cases? For a couple of reasons:

It is usually impossible to prove where the virus originated. The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concluded long ago that most norovirus outbreaks are due to contaminated food and water. No, not due to the dirty hands of the cruise passengers as the cruise lines want you to believe, but noro-laden food or contaminated water.

But general propositions are no help in a particular case. The CDC makes no real effort to pinpoint the epicenter of the outbreak on the cruise ship.

The CDC usually can figure out the causative agent (i.e., noro, e-coli, etc.) but that’s where the federal agency’s inquiry ends. The CDC has but a few hours to board the cruise ship and conduct its investigation once the ship returns to a U.S port. It does not have the time or the resources to perform a full blown epidemiology assessment during the limited time the ship is in port.

Was the water well used to irrigate the potatoes or lettuce which were loaded onto the cruise ship contaminated by noro-infected swine feces that leeched into the well supplies? You will never know because no one is doing any investigation to find out.

The cruise lines don’t want such sophisticated analysis either, because the most likely cause of norovirus outbreaks is not bad passenger hygiene but contaminated food and water. It’s bad for cruise business for an official U.S. agency to point the finger at contaminated water or infected food, or to conclude that food handlers worked while infected with noro and, in turn, contaminated 150 plates of salad consumed by the passengers.

Illnesses due to e-coli or norovirus are nasty. You’re afraid that you are going to die and then you’re afraid that you’re not going to die, the joke goes. But it’s no joke. Sick passengers do die, particularly elderly passengers with suppressed immune system and especially those who are ignored by the ship doctors or those who receive bad care while on the cruise ship.

The rights of ill or dying passenger infected with norovirus on cruise ships are limited. The Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA) prohibits the recovery of damages for elderly retirees. Their deaths are financially meaningless if they become sick during a cruise and then later die either on or off of the cruise ship. Cruise lines love DOHSA. Also, sick passengers who receive bad medical care by the ship doctors usually have no recourse against the cruise lines because the ship doctors are legally considered to be “independent contractors” for whom the cruise lines have no responsibility. And neither the cruise lines nor the CDC or FDA are trying to find out where the norovirus came from in the first place.

Cruise lines are cutting back on the testing of water, placing increasing demands on its crew members who often work while sick, hiding dirty galley equipment from CDC inspectors, and pushing their ships and staff past reasonable limits leaving little time and resources to maintain a clean and hygienic environment. 

It’s easier for the cruise lines to blame the passengers for poor hygiene and then stand behind the CDC’s and FDA’s indifference and archaic laws like DOHSA which have insulated the cruise industry from the consequences of their negligence and recklessness for decades.

In a nutshell, we don’t handle G.I. virus cases because the deck is stacked against the cruise passenger. Cruise passengers typically don’t know when they board a noro-infected ship that they have few rights and that the cruise line will blame them if they get sick. We blog about the problem because it is an insight into the way which the cruise industry operates its business and treats its customers.

The cruise lines say that the “health and safety of cruise passengers are its highest priorities.” That’s not true. We prefer that the cruise passengers understand that before they walk up the gangway into a noro-contaminated ship.

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports the Celebrity Millennium cruise ship sailed to Seward, Alaska last Friday, May 10th, with an elevated number of passengers and crew with a gastrointestinal illness.  164 of its 1,963 passengers and 30 of its 935 crew members experienced the gastro-illness.

The CDC states that the "causative agent" (type of pathogen) is "unknown," although at least one newspaper, the Seward City News, states that the sickness outbreak is believed to be caused by norovirus.

Comments to the newspaper complained about cruise passengers coughing and hacking in public and the locals having to be on higher alert to wash their hands when cruise ships come into port.  

Photo Credit: Wikimedia / Captain-Tucker

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Last month we wrote an article about the crime epidemic in Nassau, Bahamas.

A newspaper in the Bahamas published an article "Cruise Ships Warn on Crime," explaining that cruise executives from Miami met with Bahamian officials about the increasing crime levels in Nassau which are no longer safe for passengers. We have written several articles about the crime problem in Nassau, including the rape of young women who go into the bars near the port, petty theft, snatch and grab robberies, and violent crime.

Passengers are being warned to stay on the cruise ships when the ship calls on Nassau. Crew members have known this for years.

Newspapers today are reporting that a U.S. citizen was shot and killed when he tried to stop the robbery of another U.S. tourist visiting Nassau. The U.K. Daily Mail reports that American Kyle Bruner was murdered in the Bahamas over the weekend while attempting to help a tourist who was being mugged.

The U.S. Department of State characterizes the crime level on New Providence Island, where Nassau is located, as "critical." Snatch-and-grab’ crimes are common occurrences in Nassau. The U.S. State Department says it has received reports of assaults, including sexual assaults, in casinos, outside hotels, and on cruise ships.

I have represented many women sexually assaulted in Nassau and on cruise ships in that port and many passengers robbed at gunpoint.  

In addition to our clients, we have learned of a wide variety of crimes against cruise passengers, including rapes against young women ashore, theft, and violent robberies. We have written several articles about the crime problem in Nassau, including sexual attacks against young women who go into the bars near the port: 

U.S. State Department: Crime In Nassau, Bahamas Is Critical

Cruise Passenger Beaten and Raped in Nassau - Are Royal Caribbean and Senor Frog's to Blame?

Eleven Cruise Passengers Robbed in Nassau

18 Passengers From Royal Caribbean & Disney Cruise Ships Robbed By Shotgun in the Bahamas
Bahamas Cruise Crime Nightmare Continues

Nassau Welcomes Oasis of the Seas as Bahamas' Murder Count Reaches Record-Breaking Level 

I have never written an article telling cruise passengers to avoid a port of call. I usually report on what I know and then leave it up to the passengers to decide what to so. But Nassau is flat out dangerous.  In my opinion, if you knew what the cruise lines know, you'd be crazy to take your family there. 

Photo Credit:  Caribbean 360 

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Saturday night, CBS's "'48 Hours" will air what is being described as "important new evidence" in the mysterious disappearance of George Smith during his honeymoon cruise. The episode is called "48 Hours: Murder at Sea?"

You may recall that George Smith from the Greenwich Connecticut area was enjoying his honeymoon with his newly-wed bride Jennifer Hagel when he disappeared from the Royal Caribbean Brilliance of the Seas in the early morning hours of July 5, 2005, leaving a blood-stained awning behind him. 

The cruise line quickly concluded that Mr. Smith was intoxicated and must have been sitting on a balcony railing and fell overboard, and it reported this self-serving opinion as its official report to the flag state. Royal Caribbean ignored the fact that four young men were last seen in the Smith's cabin and that there were sounds of an argument and loud noises consistent with a struggle, followed by a resounding "thud" on the awning below.  

We represented George's wife, Jennifer, who instructed us to retain noted forensic scientist Henry Lee in the face of the cruise line's lack of cooperation.

Last year, CBS reported that the FBI had possession of a videotape taken by the four men where they talk callously of George's death. The video captures one of the men saying "we gave that guy a paragliding lesson without a parachute." Cruise passenger Greg Rosenberg reportedly flashes gang signs and says "Told ya I was gangsta." 

We have written prior articles about Gregory Rozenberg such as "Disappearance of George Smith Update: Do You Have Information About Gregory Rozenberg?"   Rozenberg's mugshots are readily available online, including the one to the right taken last fall.

Royal Caribbean concealed this tape from us throughout our representation of Jennifer Hagel. The tape's existence was revealed by the FBI last year to the lawyer for the Smith family. 

Its disgraceful that the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice have not proceeded with a criminal case. Its been going on eight years since George's disappearance. A prosecution is long overdue.

Read our other articles about the case:

Disappearance of George Smith - Trouble as the Cruise Ship Sails to Kusadasi

A Frantic Call Back to Connecticut

Media Frenzy Follows Case of "Missing Honeymooner"

Dr. Henry Lee Boards the Brilliance of the Seas

Royal Caribbean Blocks Dr. Henry Lee's Dummy Experiment

The International Cruise Victims Organization Is Born!

Royal Caribbean Captain Says Its Just an Accident Involving a Bloody Nose

Larry King Live & the "Missing Groom Mystery" 

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Newspapers in Australia are reporting that two passengers disappeared from a Carnival cruise ship. A 26-year-old woman and a 30-year-old man were unaccounted for when the cruise ship docked in Sydney Harbor today. 

The couple were last seen on deck last night, but failed to disembark when the Carnival Spirit cruise ship docked in Australia.

A Carnival spokesman said that crew members had become concerned only at 9:15 AM after it was discovered during disembarkation process that the passengers were missing.

Cruise ships are required by law to have technologies in place to detect when passengers go overboard. CCTV and motion detection technologies exist today but the majority of cruise lines refuse to implement the systems.

Cruise expert Professor Ross Klein has listed almost 200 people who have gone overboard from cruise ships since 2000.

Do you have information about what happened?  Please leave a message below.  

May 9 2013 Update:  New sources in Australia report that Kristen Schroder, 27, and Paul Rossington, 30, were last seen on the Carnival Spirit on Wednesday as it was sailing off the coast of Australia. CCTV appears to show them going overboard around 8:50 pm, according to a statement from the local New South Wales Police Force.

Read article from Australia: Cruise Industry Urged to Report Missing People Earlier

Here's the PR statement which Carnival issued today:

"We have naturally been concerned since we became aware that two passengers were missing from Carnival Spirit and our thoughts are clearly with their families at this difficult time. We are working closely with New South Wales Police and assisting them in their inquiries.

At approximately 9:15am today Australia time during the debarkation process for Carnival Spirit at the conclusion of a 10-night cruise in Sydney, it became apparent that two guests, a 26-year-old woman and a 30-year-old man, were unaccounted for. The guests in question were travelling with family and friends and initial reports indicate that the couple was last seen onboard the vessel last night. As part of our standard protocol, a full ship search was conducted as well as examination of closed circuit video. There is indication from the shipboard video of what transpired. There is no evidence of foul play. However, out of respect for the families, we are not going to publicly disclose the details of what occurred at this time."

May 10 2013 Update: How Love Turned Tragic on the High Seas

May 11, 2013 Update: "The footage shows Ms Schroder climbing over the railing and standing on the other side of it as she faced towards the sea. Police did not reveal how long she was standing there and were unable to determine if she intended to jump or simply fell." Read article here.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia / Jean-Philippe Boulet

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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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The Daily Post in the U.K. reports that a gastrointestinal virus outbreak has delayed the departure of a cruise ship from Liverpool.

The cruise ship involved is the MV Discovery which was scheduled to depart on a Norwegian cruise last night at 6:30 PM but was delayed until 10:30 PM while a "deep clean" was performed. 

I have always been skeptical about how a cruise ship can be disinfected in just 4 hours. 

One passenger, who described being treated like a leper, said: "I was on a ship which had norovirus and in the end it took four days to clean it, so I cannot see how four hours will help."

But a representative of the operating company said that 3 hours was "exactly the amount of time needed."  It's hard to fathom how anyone can say that with a straight face, particularly considering that the type of virus is unknown, the source of the virus is unknown, and the precise location of the virus is always a mystery.  

As usual, the cruise company also blamed the passengers: 

Paul Foster, speaking on behalf of Cruise and Maritime Voyages, said: "It’s one of those things that are brought on board by passengers. I always say a ship cannot get a sore throat."

But that simply not true. There are such things as "sick ships."  Cruise ships and their food and water supplies can become contaminated with a wide variety of viral and bacterial diseases such as Legionnaires Disease, norovirus, e-coli, and unspecified gastrointestinal viruses. In fact, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ({FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) state that the most likely source of a norovirus outbreak is contaminated food or water. Yes, a virus can be spread by bad hygiene of either passengers or crew, but usually the source of the outbreaks starts with something like noro-laden food or water.

The Discovery was launched in 1972 and is a 40 year old ship. It was formerly the Island Venture, Island Princess, Hyundai Pungak and Platinum

The cause of any particular outbreak is the business of expert epidemiologists - not cruise CEO's or Cruise Directors who are quick to point the finger at the passengers.  

Photo Credit: Wikipedia / yeldark

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A Canadian news source, CBC News, reports that cruise passengers on a 31-day Holland America Line (HAL) cruise returning to Vancouver suffered from the ill effects of a norovirus outbreak. 

The outbreak involved HAL's Volendam.  The cruise line, which has experienced more gastrointestinal outbreaks than any other cruise line in the last decade, drained its pools and hot tubs and emptied its libraries to try and contain the spread of the norovirus outbreak.

HAL reported 28 guests and one crew member (2.37 % of the total 1,222 people on board) were sick over the course of the cruise. At three percent, Health Canada could launch a full investigation but will not because the reported cases did not reach this percentage.

One passenger told CBC that the problem appeared worse to those onboard than just the reported cases: "It had to be quite high, because it seemed like you would never sit at a table at dinner without someone having had it." 

After a few hours of cleaning, the cruise ship sailed on a week-long cruise to Alaska at 5 p.m. on the same day it returned to Vancouver

Yesterday we reported on another HAL disease outbreak on the Veendam. 

The last time we reported on the Volendam, the article involved a crew member fatality when a cable to a lifeboat snapped.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia / Barek

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that sixty (60) of the 1237 passengers (4.85%) aboard the HAL Veendam cruise ship exhibited symptoms such as diarrhea, nausea and vomiting during the last cruise.

Ten (10) of the 574 crew members (1.74%) also reported ill with gastrointestinal illness.

You can read the report here. 

The ship sailed from April 13 to May 4, 2013.

The Veendam has experienced problems with cleanliness and Illnesses over the years.

Last year, this HAL cruise ship flunked a health inspection.  That's hard to do.  Read our article: Gross! Holland America Line's Veendam Flunks Health Inspection.

The Veendam also sickened 80 and killed one passenger during a gastrointestinal outbreak in November of 2011.

Over the last decade HAL's cruise ships have experienced the most gastrointestinal illnesses and the Veendam has the third most outbreaks of the hundreds of cruise ships operating out of the U.S.  The only other cruise ships with a worse records are the Ryndam and the Amsterdam, both HAL ships. Read about the problem here.    

Photo Credit:  Wikipedia / Djheini

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The Cruise Critic message boards contain a discussion that there was a fire aboard Princess Cruises' Coral Princess cruise ship last night.

The comments indicate that there was a great deal of smoke but the fire was extinguished without injury to passengers or crew. There is conflicting information regarding exactly where the fire occurred. There is a mention of the fire being on deck 9, although the heading to the comments refers to what is described as an "engine room fire."

Princess Cruises and the Coral Princess are owned by cruise giant Carnival PLC. 

Please leave a comment if you have information about the fire.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

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Today the Washingtonian reported on a gigantic law firm, DLA Piper. chartering a gigantic cruise ship for a partner retreat. The 4,200-lawyer international firm selected Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas.

The Washingtonian calls the Piper firm a "legal behemoth" which has over 100 worldwide offices. It seems like only the partners are invited but that's enough to require a cruise behemoth like the Liberty of the Seas.  The cruise will begin in Barcelona and the ship will then sail up the coast to Nice. Sounds nice.   

The charter costs over $3,000,000 plus the costs of booze, excursions, and of course flying the partners around the world to Spain. I don't see these fat cats flying economy.

How can a law firm afford such an extravaganza? Don't worry. The firm represents mostly gigantic corporations as clients and has money to burn. The Wall Street Journal just reported that DLA Piper collected over $2,400,000,000 last year.  Yes that's right, $2.4 billion.

I'll keep my personal opinions about this to myself for a change, but let me just say that there is a reason I chose to work at my own small firm and not at a gigantic law firm with so much money that it can go on a boondoggle like this.  

I asked readers of my Facebook page to come up with one word which describes the cruise.  The response are pretty funny.  Read the comments here and give us your thoughts.   

Photo Credit: Wikipedia / Hassocks5489

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Last week we reported on an article in the BBC about a former Royal Caribbean captain who died after contracting Legionnaire's disease. BBC's story was entitled Ex-Royal Caribbean Captain Died of Legionella. His widow is now proceeding with an inquest back in the UK.    

This is a disturbing story which we looked into last year: Royal Caribbean Delivers Cruel Blow to Widow of Beloved Captain Tore Myhra.

Royal Caribbean initially declined comment to the BBC saying that it does not comment about pending legal cases, but it looks like the cruise line has changed its mind. Royal Caribbean just sent the BBC a statement saying for the first time that "Royal Caribbean is certain that Mr. Myhra did not contract Legionella while sailing on board Liberty of the Seas."  The cruise line further states that Captain Myhra reported to the ship's doctor only with "flu-like symptoms."

It is interesting to contrast Royal Caribbean's denials today with what the cruise line stated when Captain Myhra fell ill on the cruise ship. Back in December 2009, Royal Caribbean did not deny that the cruise ship had the deadly bacteria. It stated only that ". . . we do not know the source of the guest's legionellosis . . " The cruise line further explained that in response to the legionella-related death it sanitized key areas onboard the ship, including whirlpools and the H2O Zone.  

As we reported in 2009 in our article Former Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship Captain Dies of Legionnaire's Disease After Sailing on Liberty of the Seas, the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner concluded that Captain Myhra became sick on the cruise ship and suffered "nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, respiratory difficulty and dry cough.'' His symptoms worsened and he died of "Legionella pneumophila pneumonia" the day after he departed the cruise ship, on November 1, 2009.

The Miami Herald covered the story and interviewed the Centers for Disease Control: The Herald said that the CDC investigated "five or six cases of Legionnaires' disease aboard cruise ships going in and out of South Florida in the past three months" around the time of Captain Myhra's death.

The South Florida Business Journal reported that during the next cruise, a family on the Liberty of the Seas found the H20 water area and hot tubs were closed six out of seven days of the cruise. A passenger reportedly said "This cruise started off horrible as we were told there had been two cases of Legionnaire's disease on the 11/1 sailing and that Customs was also checking the entire ship . . . " Another passenger mentioned receiving a letter in the stateroom, indicating a passenger on the previous cruise had been diagnosed with Legionnaire's, so the H20 Zone and hot tubs were closed. 

Why is Royal Caribbean now so "certain" that its former captain did not contract the disease on its cruise ship and he had just "flu-like" symptoms?  

It seems like this cruise cruise line will say anything to avoid bad press, even if it means pouring salt into the wounds of Captain Myhra's grieving wife and daughter.  

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A newspaper in Palm Beach is reporting that a cruise ship passenger was arrested at the Port of Palm Beach after Customs and Border officials found cocaine in her luggage.

The news paper identified Mechelle Tondeleah Clarke as the passenger who sailed on the Bahamas Celebration cruise ship from the Bahamas to the port located in Riviera Beach. After arriving April 20th, Ms. Clarke handed over her suitcase to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for inspection.The officials found a package of cocaine inside a  “secret compartment” in the luggage. The package of cocaine weighed approximately 2.25 kilograms.

Clarke allegedly told authorities that she was given the package by someone in the Bahamas in exchange for between $2,000 and $3,000 for transporting the package to an address in West Palm Beach.

Smuggling cocaine on cruise ships is not uncommon.  To read other stories like this, click on "Drugs" under the "Topics" section to the lower left.

Photo Credit: thebahamasweekly.com

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A newspaper in Egypt is reporting that a Nile river cruise ship burst into flames near the Upper Egyptian city of Aswan today. None of the 84 passengers or 79 crew member were reportedly injured. 

The river cruise ship is the MS Nile Festival, which reportedly is operated by a UK based company. It A short-circuit in the ship's kitchen reportedly sparked the fire.

The tourists were visiting the temple of the ancient Egyptian site of Edfu when the fire occurred.

We have reported on other fires and catastrophes on river cruise ships in Egypt. 

In January of this year, a cruise ship carrying 112 Egyptian passengers sank in the Nile River after striking large rocks. The incident took place near the Egyptian cities of Kom Ombo and Aswan. The sinking vessel was called the King of the Nile.

Last November, a similar fire occurred aboard an Egyptian cruise ship between Luxor and Esna in Upper Egypt, forcing the evacuation of 77 tourists. This fire was also caused by a short circuit.

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The Broward County Sheriffs Office has posted a mug shot of a 27 year old Celebrity Cruises crew member arrested over the weekend on two counts of charges of grand theft (over $300 and less than $5,000).

According to the Sun Sentinel newspaper, HuanHuan Shen was arrested when the Celebrity Eclipse cruise ship returned to Port Everglades on Saturday. He is accused of stealing cash from two crew members who he shared a cabin with on the cruise ship.

The newspaper states that Shen opened safes in his cabin and took $4,600 belonging to cabin mate Yang Zhang and $3,300 from cabin-mate Zhibao Dong for a total of $7,900.

Most Chinese ship employees on Celebrity cruise ships are employed in the laundry department earning only around $1,000 a month. 

Its good to see a local sheriff's office involved in responding to cruise ship theft like this. Under federal law, cruise lines are not even required to report a theft of under $10,000. The FBI will not even respond to reports of cruise ship thefts of under $10,000. Unless a local law enforcement entity gets involved, crew members can steal from passengers and other crew members and know that the worst that will happen is they may be fired and sent home.      

The Eclipse was last in the news when 55 passengers were held up at gun point in St. Lucia ten days ago.  

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The Houston Chronicle has an interesting article about five passengers arrested in Galveston when a cruise ship returned to port.

The passengers were on the Carnival Magic cruise ship and were arrested because they all has outstanding criminal warrants. Three women and two men were arrested and handcuffed and taken to jail in Galveston.

The criminal offenses included forgery, felony tampering with government records, and felony property damage. 

The arrests took place after the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) ran the names from the cruise passenger manifest through various databases. If outstanding warrants are located, the CBP will make an arrest once the cruise ship returns to port after the cruise. 

Arrests like this are common, according to the director of the port in Galveston, although five on one cruise ship is higher than normal. 

I have always wondered why these checks are not conducted before the ship sails so that the arrests take place before the cruise. Otherwise it sounds like most families will find themselves cruising with one one or two criminals with outstanding warrants.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia / Thomas Doerfer     

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Miami news station WSVN - 7 aired an interesting interview with Francesco Schettino last night and asked: Is he a coward who caused 32 people to die the night his ship the Costa Concordia capsized? Or is he is a professional who did all that he could to avert disaster due to mistakes by his crew? 

An Italian judge is in the process of considering evidence whether criminal charges should be filed against him and other Costa employees. 

Schettino blames his bridge team for navigating off-course towards the island and then failing to properly conduct the course change he ordered. He calls the incident an accident and questions why the prosecutors are trying to turn the incident into a crime.

The helmsman, from Indonesia, left the jurisdiction and will not return to Italy for trial if one is ordered.

Channel 7's investigation does not address the events which followed the cruise ship striking the rocks.

WSVN-TV -

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Earlier this week the Disney Wonder was involved in another incident where it picked up Cuban rafters at sea trying to sail to South Florida.  This was the third such incident where a cruise ship stopped rafters at sea in the last ten days.

You can read about the prior case involving the the Disney Wonder here, and a prior incident involving the Carnival Conquest here.   

Some people call these type of incidents "rescues" but the fact is that unless Cuban migrants reach dry land, they are transported back to Cuba and often end up in one of Castro's jails. I call them "interceptions." Watch the video below where it appears that the rafters were not in distress and do not appear to have been wanted to be "rescued" by the Disney cruise ship. You can watch the video here.

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The popular cruise fan site Cruise Critic is reporting that the Carnival Ecstasy's return to Port Canaveral this morning was delayed due to a brief power failure last evening.  

Cruise Critic states that the Ecstasy lost power for around 12 minutes while sailing back to Port Canaveral at the end of a five-night Bahamas cruise. 

Carnival released a statement, saying that  "All hotel services and propulsion were quickly restored and the ship is currently underway on its way back to its homeport."

Carnival attributed the power outage to a "mechanical failure."

The Ecstasy is an old Fantasy class cruise ship launched in 1991. Carnival has been under criticism for neglecting maintenance on its ships.

Leave a comment below or join the discussion on our Facebook page.

Photo Credit:  Wikipedia / Sparrowman980 

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Today was another weird day in the world of cruise law.  Sitting in my office I watched CNN coverage of the bombing in Boston on my big screen TV's most of the day while also following the travel industry's internet coverage of the unveiling of images of Royal Caribbean's Quantum of the Seas (as well as filing a few lawsuits against my favorite cruise line).

It was a strange contrast watching the somber coverage of the deadly Boston bombing with the gushing praise by travel agents and cruise fans of artist-drawings of a silly looking, gigantic but-not-yet-built-cruise ship which touts all types of frivolous contraptions. 

I didn't see any photos or video of larger and better equipped medical facilities to take care of the residents and guests of this gigantic floating city, or police substations for this sometimes dangerous maritime community, or helicopters to medevac ill guests and crew to safety or to assist in rescuing overboard passengers, or top notch security systems to keep the terrorists at bay.

The cruise ship has not been built yet (it is scheduled to come on line in the fall of 2014) but that did not stop the cruise line CEO and cruise president from showing digital images and video of all types of weird and futuristic things. 

One of the first images I saw on Twitter was a photo taken by the popular @CruiseGuy of Royal Caribbean CEO Richard Fain arriving at the Quantum of the Seas presentation in a bumper car with a Royal Caribbean logo painted on the top. You guessed it - Royal Caribbean will offer the first cruise ship with a bumper car rink! Hundreds of drunk passengers without helmets smashing into each other on the high seas! That should keep the defense lawyers at the cruise line busy for a decade.

CEO Fain seems like a good sport. Years ago he was photographed riding on the carousel on the new Oasis of the Seas and he surfed a FlowRider when the Independence of the Sea debuted a while back. So why not ride a bumper car which he could smash into President Goldstein on stage?    

A big hit seemed to be the "virtual balcony" for the dark, interior cabins for those passengers who can't afford the real thing.  Hhmmhh . . .  a virtual view. Sounds depressing to me. Every time I look out at my virtual view I realize that I can't afford a real view, like from the Royal Loft. But the real question is who will be the first lawyer to file suit when a tipsy passenger breaks his nose smashing into the wall after forgetting its just a virtual balcony?  It won't be me, but trust me it will happen. How many broken noses will it take before the virtual balcony doors have virtual warning signs?

Then there is something called simulated sky-diving which the Quantum will premier. Sure sounds dangerous, but again it is "simulated" right? Looks like flying to me (broken neck anyone?). Take a look at the video here.  

Royal Caribbean has been sued for injuries and death on its FlowRiders (simulated surfing), rock walls, skating rinks and zip-lines. Simulated sky-diving may continue Royal Caribbean's tradition of having the most innovative and dangerous attractions on the seas. Let's hope that the sky-diving injuries are just "simulated" too.    

But the best "gee-wizz" attraction will be a Jetson-famiy futuristic mechanical arm that magically transports passengers high above the ocean in a glass capsule. Its called the "North Star." Kinda like a amusement park ride of the future that has never been tested on land, so-let's do-it-on-the-high-seas!

I'm going to go ahead and file a lawsuit on that one today.

If you missed the debut, watch below for a summary!

Leave a comment or join the discussion on our Facebok page.

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A newspaper in Italy is reporting that six and one-half years before the Costa Concordia disaster, another Costa cruise ship ruptured its hull during a "sail-by" maneuver off the coast of Capri.

Libero Quotidiano reports that in June 2005, the Costa Fortuna was sailing by the island of Capri off the western side of Italy.  The Fortuna, owned by Carnival and operated by Costa Crociere (Costa), had 3,500 passengers and crew members aboard.  According to the newspaper, the ship cruised into shallow water during what is called a "sail-by" or "salute" to entertain the quests.  Just like the Concordia, the Fortuna's hull was ruptured by rocks in the shallow waters and the cruise ship began to take on water.

The Italian newspaper writes that the Master and officers of the Fortuna did not report the incident to the Italian Coast Guard or any maritime or port officials. The officers then ordered the use of pumps at maximum effort to keep the water from sinking the ship. The Fortuna was able to make it to the port of Palermo in Southern Italy. Once back in port, Costa had the hole repaired and then continued the cruise the following morning with all of the passengers.

The only thing reported by Costa was that there had been an abnormal rise in the temperature of an engine. After making this false report, Costa "buried" the incident.  

The incident came to light as part of the investigation into Costa following the 2012 Costa Concordia disaster. One of the photographers who worked in 2005 on Fortuna reported the incident to the Master of Palermo. His story has been verified.  Investigators said that there is "numerous and insurmountable" evidence to support the photographer's account. The incident was a "real critical situation," and it was only favorable weather conditions that avoided a disaster. 

Another Italian newspaper, La Nazione, covered this story and has additional information.  The reference to the 2005 incident is contained in a 700 page report about the Costa Concordia which focused on prior "sail bys."  On page 619 of the report, there is a reference to the Costa Fortuna cruising 300 meters from the coast near Sorrento when it hit a shoal and began to take on water, "just before a greeting to the island of Capri." The impact caused a gash in the hull "deep and ten meters long."  Passengers were disembarked from the ship in dry dock where the ship was repaired during the night by Fincantieri workers and set off on the morning of June 15 2005. The Master, Giuseppe Russo, did not report the incident, and the ship officers falsely stated that while cruising from Naples to Palermo there had been an unexpected rise of temperature.

La Nazione explains that there was never any indication of the incident to the maritime authorities until January 18 2012, when the wave of emotion caused by the sinking of Concordia and of the 32 victims, caused one of two Costa Fortuna photographers, Roberto Cappello, to come forward. 

This story was first reported last year by the U.K. press. The Sun reported that Fortuna ship photographer Cappello was on board the ship when he felt and heard a "loud bang" during the "sail by." The ship then rolled from left to right. Cappello later photographed damage to the cruise ship’s keel and broken propeller blade. However, Costa demanded and confiscated his photographs. Costa later claimed that the ship had "struck a whale."

Does anyone have information about this incident?  Are there any former crew member who worked on the Fortuna with information to share?  Leave a message or discuss the issue on our Facebook page.

April 15 2013 Update:

Costa sent a letter to the newspaper strongly denying the incident and threatening to sue.

According to La Nazione Grosetto, Costa categorically denies that the Fortuna was Involved in a collision in shallow water near Capri on June 13, 2005 which caused a leak in the hull, as reported by a photographer on board the ship. Costa states that after departure from the port of Naples, around 7:00 PM on June 13 2005, the Fortuna experienced only a "minor technical problem" to a propeller shaft which did not compromise safety or navigation. There was a short stop in the dock in Palermo, the next port, and repairs were successfully performed between 14 and 15 June 2005. On June 15 2005, the ship was permitted to leave the dock, with certificates issued by the certifying authority competent, and the cruise ship departed Palermo at 9.00 AM on its cruise itinerary.

Costa Cruises reserves all legal action against those who continue to spread news which is defamatory to the company's image.  

Photo Credit: Wikipedia / Hanseaticus

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"Poop ships" and Carnival have become synonymous this year following the public relations debacle as thousands of passengers aboard the Triumph cruise had to endure several days without working sanitation as they were towed to Mobile Alabama.

This evening, a news station in Houston is reporting that the Carnival-owned Princess Cruises' Crown Princess is experiencing grand problems with its toilet system as well.

KPRC-Houston reports that the Crown Princess experienced a blockage within the vacuum toilet system which affected some 410 staterooms in the aft part of the cruise ship. The news station quoted a passenger saying "by the bathroom, it was flooded, it was wet in the carpet." Another passenger said the ship "smelled of backed-up sewer." Many passengers couldn't use the toilets in their cabins. Passengers had to get up in the night and take elevators to use the public restrooms.  One passenger told the Houston news station: "I will never, ever, ever, ever cruise with Princess again, ever."

Our last articles about the Crown Princess included a passenger going overboard last month and a dreaded norovirus outbreak on the Crown Princess during its transatlantic voyage from Venice Italy.   

Hat tip to Professor Ross Klein's website CruiseJunkie where I first read about the story.

Photo Credit Wikipedia / CB2379  Watch the video below:

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A passenger aboard the Disney Wonder sent a couple of photographs of the boat "rescued" between Cuba and South Florida.

As we mentioned yesterday, the Disney Wonder and the Carnival Conquest cruise ships were involved in separate incidents where they picked up Cuban nationals who had set out to sea to try and escape Cuba and get here to the U.S.  

Carnival released a number of photos of the rubber boat which the Conquest responded to which we posted in our earlier blog article.

The photos below of the wooden little boat were taken by a passenger Darrin Heath who is aboard the Wonder with his family.

Photos like this seems sad to me. The boat was filled with people with their hopes and dreams of a better life here. Now they are floating at sea empty. And the people once aboard will return to Cuba.  

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A Carnival cruise ship has become the sixth cruise ship this year to flunk a sanitation inspection by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The Carnival Fascination failed the surprise inspection with a score of only 84. You can read the report from the CDC here.  It's full of dirty and unsanitary conditions in the galley and food serving areas, as well as problems with the recreational water supplies.

The Fascination had a problem which we are hearing about more often, that is when crew members are experiencing acute gastrointestinal illness but keep working. This substantially increases the chances that they will infect other crew members and the passengers that they come into contact with. The problem is particularly critical when the infected crew are food handlers. 

Five other cruise ships have failed CDC inspections this year.

Two weeks ago we wrote about the Celebrity Summit, the Golden Princess, the Sea Dream Yacht Club's Sea Dream, and the Caribbean Fantasy operated by America Cruise Ferries all of which flunked the CDC inspections. You can read our article: Disease Breeding Grounds: Three Cruise Ships Fail Health & Sanitary Inspections

A week ago, we wrote about another Celebrity Cruises ship, the Celebrity Century, which also failed the inspection.

Read the U.K.'s Daily Mail article:  Carnival Fascination Fails Health Inspection After Dead Flies, Leaking Brown Material and Cockroach 'Nymph' Found on Board

Photo Credit: Wikipedia / Jonathan Schilling

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During a six day cruise out of Miami, Norman Mosch swallowed 87 pellets of cocaine during a stopover in Jamaica back in December of 2012.

The Sun Sentinel writes that cruise passenger Mosch swallowed 2 pounds and 2 ounces of cocaine-filled pellets after he had been recruited to smuggle the drugs back to Miami. Not surprisingly, he felt ill and spent the remainder of the cruise in his cabin.

When Mosch returned to South Florida at the end of the cruise, he spent the next several days in agony on the floor in a garage at the house of his "friend" who had involved him in the cruise drug deal.

Mosch couldn't pass the pellets although he took lots of laxatives. One of the pellets exploded and Mosch ended up in an emergency room where he underwent surgery to remove over 80 remaining pellets. He unconscious for over a month. When he came out of the coma he was charged with criminal conspiracy to import the cocaine 

The article explains that Mosch is a Vietnam Vet who has gone through some hard times. He's heading for a jail term but he's lucky to be alive.

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A number of readers have asked me for information about the little four year old boy who nearly drowned last week aboard the Disney Fantasy cruise ship.

Today there is a short article in the Orlando Sentinel indicating that the child may face "extensive brain damage" but his parents, "helped by their faith, remain optimistic their little 'warrior' will continue to recover." 

The boy, whose first name is "Chase," and his family are identified in the article.

The article makes reference to comments the parents are posting on a site to share personal health news as well as the family's Facebook page. 

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Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I find lots of information about things that the cruise lines would prefer you not know on Professor Ross Klein's website called CruiseJunkie.com.  A silly name I know, but the information is quite serious if you are interested in accurate information about cruise passengers and crew who disappear under mysterious circumstances, fires and collisions, and disease outbreaks on the high seas.  There is no other credible website like this anywhere which tracks such information in the cruise industry. 

Yesterday Professor Klein's website contained information about a gastrointestinal illness (GI) outbreak aboard the Celebrity Infinity cruise ship. He linked to the CDC Vessel Sanitation website which contained a report that 101 of 2086 passengers (4.84%) and 17 of 927 crew (2.05%) have reported ill with gastrointestinal illness. Two CDC Vessel Sanitation Program environmental health officers and an epidemiologist boarded the ship on arrival in Fort Lauderdale on April 1, 2013 to conduct a targeted environmental health assessment and evaluate the outbreak and response activities. 

But when I clicked on the link to the CDC information, the website said:

"The page you requested cannot be found at this time. It may be temporarily unavailable or it may have been removed."

So what happened?  I don't know. 

Professor Klein questions whether this is a mistake of some sort or whether there is a cover-up at play.

Again I don't know. But I do know after being a lawyer for 30 years that there is a very cozy relationship between the cruise lines and federal agencies like the CDC whose surprise inspections are hardly a surprise. And last year it became obvious that after Congress passed a law requiring the cruise lines to report crimes to the FBI which had to post the data on a Coast Guard website for the public to view, these federal agencies worked behind the scenes with the cruise lines to cover the crime statistics up.  

So what's up with the CDC posting a GI outbreak and then the information disappearing?

Celebrity has had difficulties with its shipboard sanitation this year with the Summit and the Century failing CDC inspections for health and sanitation.  

Is the removal of the report of the outbreak aboard the Celebrity Infinity a mistake or is something else more sinister going on?

I'd like to hear from passengers and crew members whether there was a recent gastrointestinal illness or norovirus outbreak on the Celebrity Infinity?  Please let us know.

Am I being overly-suspicious? Maybe so. But I'd rather be paranoid than a naive sap who looks the other way while another federal agency and a cruise line play games behind the public's back.

April 7 2013 9:30 PM: The CDC report on the Celebrity Infinity has reappeared. Here it is.  Celebrity Cruises has the dubious distinction of 2 failed CDC inspections and a GI outbreak for 2013.

Photo Credit: Celebrity Infinity  - Wikipedia / Yankeesman312

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The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that the Disney Fantasy cruise ship returned to Port Canaveral yesterday night shortly after sailing from the Florida port after 2 passengers experienced medical emergencies. 

The medical emergencies involved a 6 year old child with diabetes and a 77 year old man with a heart condition. 

The Disney cruise ship initially sailed from Port Canaveral around 5 PM but returned at around 8:30 PM to disembark the two passengers for emergency medical treatment at a local hospital.

Readers will recall that the Disney Fantasy was the location of a near-drowning last week when a 4 year old child slipped below the water in the Donald Pool which is not staffed with a lifeguard.  The incident sparked a debate about parental responsibility and whether the pool was safely designed and adequately staffed. You can read about that incident here. 

Photo Credit: Joe Burbank, Orlando Sentinel

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Earlier this week I wrote an article about a 4 year old boy who almost drowned in a pool on the Disney Fantasy cruise ship.

I advocated having a lifeguard at every pool on a cruise ship, especially on Disney ships which cater to families with kids.  Lifeguards are needed because parents are not perfect, and there is a tendency for parents to let their guards down when they are on vacation.  And why shouldn't Disney do it?  Like Carnival, Disney pays no U.S. taxes on its enormous cruise revenues by registering its ship overseas. It has money to burn. 

Disney also claims that it trains over 1,000 lifeguards each year for its resorts and cruise ships. 

Kids deserve to have their parents and the cruise line working together to keep them safe.

A few people agreed, but most were quick to blame if not condemn the parents of the child who was pulled from the pool. The comments on my Facebook page were harsh.

Today I received a nice email from a concerned cruiser. She makes some good points, which Disney should consider:

"Hi Jim,

My family and I disembarked from the Disney Fantasy in Cape Canaveral on Sat March 30. While we had a terrific time, I was saddened to hear that a 4 year old boy nearly drowned getting on that ship just hours later. That news has pretty much spoiled my good memories because I have trouble bearing to reminisce about my good time in the midst of another’s tragedy. My prayers are with the boy and his family.

While on our 7 day Eastern Caribbean cruise aboard the Fantasy (Mar 23 to 30), I noticed that the pool areas where extremely chaotic and in my opinion an accident just waiting to happen. The design of the “Donald Pool” where the boy nearly drowned is what I would consider unsafe. The pool is over 5 feet deep but has very small width and length. It cannot accommodate the number of kids on the ship safely without kids being jumped on and kicked in the head etc. Also, because of the very small length and width compared to depth, there is not enough room around the edges for parents to adequately supervise the children. When my kids were swimming I had a very difficult time finding any room around the pool to watch them. I tried to get into the pool with my children and the lack of room in the pool resulted in my being jumped on, kicked in the face, etc. Also, the perimeter of the pool has a shallow area that pushes parental seating (and therefore supervision) even further away and obstructs the view of the children in the deep water.

In addition, there is a gigantic screen TV showing Disney movies that easily diverts people’s attentions.

There are a very limited number of deck chairs around the pools but these are inadequate to allow supervision of the children and often only serve to block the view of other adults relocated to being further back away from the pool due to its design. I was very uncomfortable that Disney had no lifeguards at the pool but they had more than one person coming around to the deck chairs asking if you would like an alcoholic drink.

Finally, Disney in most of its show’s encourages adults to relax and allow their kids to roam the ship unattended. In fact one of the comics that they have in their shows makes a joke about parents not letting kids out of their sight and says “it’s a ship, where can they go”!

The design of the pool, the atmosphere of the ship, the easy access to alcohol and the lack of lifeguards are simply drownings waiting to happen, no matter how vigilant the parents. Unless Disney makes some changes to their procedures, and assumes a better level of corporate responsibility, I unfortunately suspect we will see more drownings on the Disney Fantasy in the years to come.

With deep concern and prayers for all . . ." 

April 8, 2013 Update:  According to the Orlando Sentinel, the child is struggling with his recovery at the Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando.  

Photo Credit: USA TODAY
 

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The Royal Gazette reports that a 52 year old U.S. cruise ship passenger was sentenced to prison for 12 years for attempting to smuggle cocaine into Bermuda. 

Jane Carmichael, from Hazelhurst, Georgia, was arrested on the Celebrity Summit when the Bermuda police accompanied by sniffer dogs came aboard the cruise ship in May of last year. 

Ms. Carmichael said that a Celebrity Cruises crew member asked her to deliver the cocaine to a bar which the newspaper did not identify. She was caught on the ship with four packages strapped to her body. The packages contained 3,452 grams of cocaine.

Ms. Carmichael had compelling circumstances for a shorter sentence.

She reportedly had been sexually abused as a child and she spiraled into depression following the death of a grandson. Her mother died a year before the cruise and she was also struggling financially after losing her job. She made several attempts to commit suicide.

Her defense lawyer argued that Ms. Carmichael had led a tragic life and had been “a victim of manipulation.”

We first wrote about this case a year ago. At that time a second passenger had been arrested, and a Celebrity crew member had been taken into custody as well. It sounds like only the drug mule and no crew members were prosecuted.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia / Yankeesman312

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Yesterday, I wrote a short article here about a 49 year old man who reportedly sexually assaulted a 15 year old boy on the Royal Caribbean Mariner of the Seas cruise ship.  As I mentioned earlier, a FBI press release states that Todd Nordahl, of Tuscon Arizona, was arrested when the Royal Caribbean cruise ship returned to Galveston from a seven-night cruise. Nordahl was charged with sexually abusing the boy on March 27. He allegedly provided alcohol to the minor victim, made sexual advances toward the child and then sexually assaulted him.

Sexual assaults on Royal Caribbean cruise ships, as well as on other cruise lines, are more frequent than the cruise industry will admit. There are many hundreds of crimes which have occurred over the years on the Royal Caribbean fleet - child porn freaks, child predators and sexual deviants - both crew members and fellow passengers.  

In 1999, Royal Caribbean commissioned a study to access the frequency of sexual assaults on its fleet of cruise ships. The independent experts concluded that sexual misconduct on Royal Caribbean and Celebrity cruise ship occurred "frequently." 

The experts recommended that certain steps be taken to reduce the number of incidents. In response, the cruise line implemented none of the recommendations. Instead, Royal Caribbean began a PR campaign stating that sexual misconduct was "rare" and touted that the "safety of passengers was its highest priority." The Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) later adopted the "safety is our highest priority" slogan as its official talking point.

Our firm was the first to uncover and obtain an order compelling the cruise line to release this report to the public.

Royal Caribbean, in my assessment, continues to perpetuate a fraud on the American public by telling them that their cruise ships are safe, when it knows that that sexual assaults are "frequent."  

Since then there have been many sexual assaults of children throughout the Royal Caribbean - Celebrity Cruises fleet of ships.  Here are some of the recent cases of child porn addicts, sexual predators and men convicted of assaulting children aboard Royal Caribbean / Celebrity cruise ships:

Two years ago, a 15 girl was sexually assaulted by who she describes as a uniformed Royal Caribbean crew member aboard the Rhapsody of the Seas cruise ship. The crime occurred after the cruise employee let himself into the child's cabin while her parents were at a different part of the cruise ship. Like most cruise ship crime cases, the FBI did not arrest anyone and the crime remains unsolved. See the video below to watch the disturbing story.

Timothy David Webb, age 32, (left) was arrested after he disembarked Royal Caribbean's cruise ship Grandeur of the Seas as a passenger at the Norfolk cruise ship terminal. Webb is a convicted sex offender and has a prior conviction sodomy in the state of Virginia. The customs agents pulled Webb from a line of passengers disembarking the cruise ship and searched his laptop, which contained child pornography videos.

A 15 year old girl was raped on the Allure of the Seas last year. The crime occurred after the girl was lured from the cruise ship's teen club called "Fuel" when a 15 year old boy told her he was having a party in his room. The young girl, who was vacationing with her family, was led to believe that she would meet friends there. However, after entering entering the cabin, she was confronted by an older passenger, Luiz Scavone, age 20. His full name is Luiz Antônio Scavone Neto (right). The Broward Sheriff's Office (BSO) said that Scavone and the 15 year old boy prevented her from leaving, removed her clothing, forced oral sex, and then both raped her. "The victim told them 'no' several times and tried to leave but was not able to," according to the BSO. Scavone and the 15-year-old boy have been charged with "lewd and lascivious battery." Both pled guilty to the crimes.

Amado Nicholas Hernandez, age 31, (left) is a pedophile who was employed by Celebrity Cruises as an audiovisual manager and provided onboard guest-entertainment services aboard the Constellation cruise ship. Hernandez was arrested after police determined that his computer contained 450 photographs and about 250 video files of child pornography portraying a total of 44 different victims. The criminal complaint filed against Hernandez alleged that upcoming cruises included several stops in Mexico. Hernandez, in documented online chats, reportedly had bragged that he had bought young boys for sex in Mexico and “almost offed one,” the criminal complaint alleges. He reportedly dressed as Santa Claus on the Celebrity cruise ship and was photographed with the children of passengers sitting on his lap.  

A Royal Caribbean crew member has pleaded guilty to the sexual abuse of a 14 year old girl during a Caribbean cruise. 25 year old Fabian Palmer admitted engaging in sexual relations with the girl during a cruise from Baltimore in December 2010. Crew member Palmer was employed by Royal Caribbean as a pool attendant and interacted regularly with passengers during cruises. He met the girl and her family earlier during the cruise. Palmer took the child into a men's locker room on the Enchantment of the Seas and engaged in sexual acts in the bathroom.

Federal authorities arrested an Idaho man who took a cruise from Port Canaveral with more than 1,000 images of child pornography on a laptop he took on the cruise ship. According to a complaint filed in Orlando federal court, authorities were inspecting cruise passengers onboard Royal Caribbean's Monarch of the Seas cruise ship on December 10, 2012, when they discovered that the laptop computer of cruise passenger Gary Lee Reed, of Blackfoot Idaho, had around 1,162 images and videos depicting child pornography. The images included sexual abuse of toddlers and babies. Reed reportedly admitted that he has viewed child pornography for many years. He was arrested and subsequently indicted by an Orlando federal grand jury on a child pornography charge.

A Pittsburgh-area man was sentenced to nearly five years in federal prison for traveling to Florida in order to take a cruise so he could molest a young boy. Seventy-three-year-old Sherwood Stevenson pleaded guilty to traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct. Stevenson fondled a 6-year-old boy while in a hot tub on the Royal Caribbean Liberty if the Seas cruise ship in December 2009. When that boy got away, Stevenson made brief contact with another boy. Stevenson told investigators he took the cruise so he could molest young boys.

We have handled over 75 sexual assaults of women and children on cruise ships over the past decade. We maintain a large data-base of many hundreds of such crimes on cruise ships.

Cruise lines will never tell you the truth about sexual assault. It is the cruise industry's dirtiest secret.    

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As I mentioned earlier, Carnival responded to Senator Rockefeller's letter inquiring into the cruise line's avoidance of U.S taxes and its refusal to reimburse federal agencies for services rendered with what I characterized the other day as a "screw you!" letter.

Today news sources are reporting that Senator Rockefeller characterized Carnival's response as "shameful."  

Carnival's letter dodged the central question of exactly what and how much the cruise line pays in taxes.

A recent audit of Carnival's finances on behalf of NBC News revealed that Carnival paid only 0.6% in taxes on the billions and billions of dollars collected from its passengers over the last five years. That's less than 1% in local, state, federal and international taxes. 

One thing is clear to me at this point. Senator Rockefeller is not going to drop the issue after receiving a blow-off letter like this from Carnival's CEO Arison.  

Rockefeller convened a hearing last year after the Costa Concordia disaster and grilled the cruise line's representatives at that meeting about the non-payment of taxes, non-payment for the services of the Coast Guard and other federal agencies, and pollution.

Rockefeller seems likely to schedule another one soon. 

This may be a good time to introduce legislation to create some meaningful oversight of foreign cruise lines given the public's loss of confidence in Carnival following its streak of cruise ship fires and disabled ships.   

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A 49 year old cruise passenger was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a 15 year old boy during a recent cruise aboard the Royal Caribbean Mariner of the Seas.

According to a FBI press release, Todd Nordahl, of Arizona, was arrested when the Royal Caribbean cruise ship returned to Galveston from a seven-night cruise. 

The charges are that on March 27, Nordahl provided alcohol to the minor victim, made sexual advances toward the child and then sexually assaulted the boy.

Nordahl, 49, is being held in the Galveston County Jail. There is a hearing scheduled tomorrow in Federal Court in Texas before U.S. Magistrate Judge John R. Froeschner at 2:00 PM.

Sexual assaults on cruise ships are one of the cruise industry's dirtiest secrets.  Tomorrow we will post some of the most devious child porn addicts and sexual predators caught on Royal Caribbean cruise ships.

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Multiple news outlets are reporting that the infamous Carnival Triumph cruise ship has broken loose from its lines at a port facility in Mobile Alabama where it has been moored since February 14th and drifted from the dock.

The cruise ship sustained some damage, with one news outlet reporting that the ship sustained a hole on the starboard side of the stern.  You can see the damage to the vessel in a photo here and below via WKRG. Some news stations are reporting that dock workers may have fallen into the water.

We will update this once we receive additional information. 

April 3 2013 Update: An employee of BAE Systems that operates the shipyard fell into the water and remains missing.  

Photo Credit: Top - Melvin Evins / Twitter @mle724; Bottom - WKRG

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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), another Celebrity Cruises ship flunked a surprise inspection.

The Celebrity Century failed the CDC inspection, receiving a score of only 78.

Last week we reported that another Celebrity cruise ship, the Summit scored, flunked an inspection with a score of only 81. Three other cruise ships received failing scores as well.  So far this year there have been five cruise ships with failing grades. Read our article: Disease Breeding Grounds: Three Cruise Ships Fail Health & Sanitary Inspections.

The most disturbing finding was not just that the Century was dirty with contaminated food debris, but that crew members worked while ill with gastrointestinal sicknesses. Several of the ill ship employees worked in the galleys or interacted with passengers while ill.  The other cruise ships who flunked the inspections earlier this year also had ill crew members who worked with food and around passengers as well.  

These findings are significant because the cruise lines always blame the passengers when there are norovirus outbreaks and accuse the quests of not washing their hands.  The outbreaks may be due to ill employees who may be contaminating the food and infecting passengers.  

You can read the report of the Century here. 

The report indicates that two cruise ship cook worked while ill before reporting to the ship's medical infirmary.  A sick hair stylist worked all day around passengers before going to the medical center. And an ill gift shop attendant worked before going to the medical center and continued working after he was suppose to be in isolation.

A particularly disgusting finding was that the toilet intended for galley workers was found locked when the galley was in service, and when the inspectors opened the door, the bathroom had no toilet paper.

And you wonder why there are norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships?

Leave a comment below or join the discussion on our Facebook page.

Photo Credit: Celebrity Century Cruise Ship - Wikipedia / Emesbe

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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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Newspapers are reporting that a four year-old boy was pulled from a pool on the Disney Fantasy cruise ship, taken to Cape Canaveral Hospital, and then airlifted to Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando on Saturday afternoon. 

The incident occurred after the boy's family had boarded the ship and before it had left Port Canaveral in Brevard County,

Brevard County medical personnel arrived on the cruise ship to respond to the incident which occurred around 3:30 p.m. The incident was describes as a "potential drowning" at the family pool. The articles on line indicate the boy had a pulse when taken from the cruise ship.

Comments are being made on the on-line Disney message boards that the child’s parents were not in the pool when the accident happened but ran over while emergency rescuers worked on the boy. There was no lifeguard at this particular swimming pool although the cruise line positions lifeguards near the water-slides some cruisers are saying. 

April 1, 2013 Update: Imperfect Parents & Corporate Irresponsibility: Why No Lifeguards on Disney Cruise Ships? 

Photo Credit: Fodors

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WWBT NBC12 in Richmond aired a consumer video today about the types of questions which consumers should ask before selecting a cruise. 

The video was produced in response to the recent troubles at sea with the stranded Carnival Triumph cruise ship, and the recent "suspicious death" aboard Royal Caribbean's Enchantment of the Seas cruise ship earlier this week which have left some passengers thinking twice about taking a cruise.

A travel agent from Richmond explains that all cruise lines have a passenger contract in effect. She suggests that cheap prices may mean riskier sailing.

NBC12.com - Richmond, VA News

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Cruise Critic is reporting that three cruise ships recently failed inspection by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The cruise ships are the Celebrity Summit, Princess Cruises' Golden Princess and the SeaDream II.  

Take a moment and read the actual CDC reports of these ships. They are disgusting.

You can understand how easily norovirus and other gastrointestinal viruses can spread after reading about cooks and food handlers working while they are suffering from acute gastrointestinal symptoms. The monitoring of water treatment on some of these cruise ships is spotty and there was even one ship using a reverse osmosis system (which is suppose to be used only when the ship is underway) that was sucking up nasty water in the ports.    

The report for the Celebrity Summit is here. You will read about several crew members, including food handlers, who were suffering from acute gastrointestinal (referred to as AGE) symptoms but were still working, including handling food. The gastrointestinal surveillance logs were not being completed. There were widespread dirty and greasy conditions with flies and insect droppings in the bars and galleys.

The report for the Golden Princess is here. The Princess Cruises ship also had crew members with acute gastrointestinal symptoms continuing to work throughout the day even though they were obviously ill in the morning.  An assistant buffet steward was suffering from GI problems but worked the buffet from 9:30 Am and did not report to the ship infirmary until 4:00 PM. There were inadequate reports regarding potable water facilities.  The ship had dirty and soiled areas, including the signature Princess restaurant Sabatini's.        

The report for the Sea Dream Yacht Club's Sea Dream II is here. This is the ship that was operating its water system continuously, including at port, and had been doing so for years. There were also dirty and unsanitary conditions noted.

The next time there is a norovirus outbreak and the cruise line instantaneously blames the passengers for not washing their hands, there may be a lot more to the story.

March 27, 2013 Update: In reading cruise expert Professor Ross Klein's website, I realized that Cruise Critic omitted another failed CDC score by the Caribbean Fantasy operated by America Cruise Ferries. You can read the report here. The deficiencies include failing to maintain acute gastrointestinal sickness logs, potable water deficiencies, galley and potwash cleaning shortcomings, and the failure to maintain cleaning equipment in proper order including several dish-washing machines and conveyors which had been not in proper condition for over a year. 

Photo Credit:

Celebrity Summit - Wikipedia / Yankeesman312

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Cruise expert Professor Ross Klein and the Cruise Critic message boards are reporting that on Sunday, March 24th a passenger was reported overboard from the Coral Princess cruise ship operated by Princess Cruises.

There is a vague reference to a passenger-possibly-going-over-the-rails on the Cruise Critic site, but as is the case with most overboard cruise ship cases there are no clear facts and lots of speculation.

There should never be a debate about what happens when a passenger or crew member goes overboard.  All cruise ships should have state-of-the-art surveillance cameras to document what happens when a person goes overboard. The ships should also have motion detection systems which signal the bridge immediately when someone leaves the cruise ship on the high seas - whether it be intentionally or accidentally or criminally.

All of the Cruise Critic members jumped immediately to the conclusion that the case involves a suicide. They just as quickly offered their on-line-prayers and condolences.  

But there is no statement by Princess Cruises about what happened, assuming you were naive enough to believe the cruise line PR. There's no report of the results of an official investigation, but that's not unusual because Princess Cruises is incorporated in and registers it cruise ships in Bermuda, to avoid U.S. taxes and safety regulations, which is indifferent to what happens on Bermuda flagged cruise ships. And there is no report of an investigation by law enforcement officers in the next port of call.

Was this an accident, a suicide, or a crime?  I don't know.

It's a real shame that there are no news accounts, no official investigation and only lots of speculation by cruise fans who blame the dead passenger, say a hollow prayer and then forget about it.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia 

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Last Sunday the Liberty of the Seas cruised upon two stranded boaters as the cruise ship was returning from the Caribbean.  The ship stopped and picked up two Cuban men.

As WPTV reports, Royal Caribbean originally said that its cruise ship picked them up. But later it issued this statement, saying: The two Cubans did not board the Liberty of the Seas, but were retrieved by a coast guard vessel…"

But cruise passenger Emily Zazdin, who filmed the rescue, said  "I got video of them coming up to the ship and they were taken aboard."  

The Coast Guard said they picked up the two men from the cruise ship and found they have legal status in the U.S. The Coast Guard took them to the border patrol offices in Marathon, where their legal status were confirmed, and they were released.

You can see in the video (courtesy RSS 622) at the bottom the Coast Guard arriving at the cruise ship to take the men away in a Coast Guard vessel.  

Just goes to show you, take anything the cruise line PR people tell you with a grain of salt.

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Last night I received an email from a person who follows cruising who received information that there may have been what is being described as a "murder / suicide" on an unidentified Royal Caribbean cruise ship. There was a vague posting of the alleged incident on the Disney boards. 

This morning I received another email from a passenger who just disembarked the Enchantment of the Seas cruise ship.  The person's email is as follows:

"Just got off Royal Caribbean Enchantment of the Seas. They were detaining everyone on the 7Th floor and the police were there collecting statements. The crew wouldn't say what was going on but other passengers said there was a murder/death on the 7th fl. Post if you hear anything about it."

My understanding is that the Enchantment OTS is moored in Baltimore at the moment.  

If you have any information about this alleged incident, please leave a message or post a comment on our Facebook page.

Update March 25 2013:  I received the following information this morning from a person who wishes to remain anonymous:

The deceased person is reportedly a woman in her 60's who allegedly was found on the floor by her husband.    

She reportedly had fallen inside the cabin earlier the same evening and hit her head and went to bathroom where she fell again this is when husband called for help. Nurses arrived to the cabin to attend the situation however she was pronounced dead at 5 AM.

(Please note that I cannot verify any of this information or any comments below). 

The cabin was thereafter sealed at some point until arrival into port where investigations will begin.

We were also provided with a copy of a photo of the door of the cabin in question which shows a plexi-glass cover over the key hole and key card slot with a lock around the handle.  

The FBI has told news stations in Baltimore that there are "suspicious undertones" surrounding the death.

A local CBS news station in Baltimore aired a short video on the investigation.

March 28, 2013 Update: The AP is reporting that an "autopsy shows that a Virginia woman found dead aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise ship died of natural causes.

FBI spokesman Rich Wolf has identified the woman as 64-year-old Katherine Kennedy, of Midlothian, Va. He says Kennedy died of heart disease.

Her husband found her dead Sunday in her cabin on the Enchantment of the Seas cruise ship. FBI agents met the ship when it arrived in Baltimore on Monday to begin investigating the unexplained death.

Wolf says Kennedy also had a laceration on her forehead, but authorities determined that she got the cut when she fell down. They said it had nothing to do with her death."

Photo Credit:

Top: Rageousgtx at en.wikipedia

Bottom: Anonymous

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Two U.S. Coast Guard air crews from San Diego and Sacramento worked together to medevac a sick cruise ship passenger who was in need of emergency medical attention. 

According to NBC-7 San Diego, the Holland America Line (HAL) cruise ship, Zaandam, was sailing approximately 200 miles southwest of San Diego when a 71-year-old passenger began experiencing what is described as a serious internal medical condition. 

The HAL cruise ship was en route from Hawaii to Ensenada, Mexico. When the passenger became ill, the ship changed course to sail nearer to San Diego. 

A MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew took off from San Diego to meet the ship. A C-130 Hercules airplane crew from Sacramento provided support during the rescue.

The top video shows the helicopter crew hoisting the ailing passenger from the cruise ship.

The bottom video is taken from the C-130 aircraft. 

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The Crew Center website reports that two cruise which arrived in Lisbon, Portugal from Brazil earlier this week were arrested for possession / smuggling of seven kilograms of cocaine.

Two two passengers were Argentinean and had boarded an unidentified MSC cruise ship in Santos, Brazil. They arrived in Lisbon after a transatlantic cruise on a cruise ship to Lisbon in possession of the drugs.

The arrests took place in the cruise terminal of Santa Apolonia, as the two men disembarked the cruise ship into the Portuguese capital.  The men were around 40 years old. The cocaine was reportedly contained in wrapped packages that the men were carrying in two backpacks. 

Photo Credit: Crew Center 

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Lawsuits continue to be filed against Carnival arising out of the fire-disabled Triumph cruise ship.

Passengers were subjected to disgusting conditions due to overflowing toilets and a lack of air-conditioning. We made a decision not to be involved in any lawsuits against Carnival in this case. Yes, many people were inconvenienced but most sustained no physical injury and certainly nothing permanent. Read our article: Carnival Triumph Cruise From Hell: Here Come the Lawsuits!  

Carnival offered a full discount, a future cruise credit, a waiver of charges for onboard purchases amd $500.  Crew members received nothing.

A copy of the lawsuit is below. It should make for interesting reading to scroll through the lawsuit and see the particular complaints made by these 17 passengers who decided to file suit in federal court in Dallas Texas.

The Carnival passenger ticket requires that all disputes like this must be filed in federal court in Miami.

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The media's microscope is focused on Carnival right now following the large number of recent engine and propulsion problems involving the Carnival Triumph, Dream, Elation & Legend and the Carnival-owner P&O Cruises' Ventura cruise ships.   

The defenders of the cruise line are responding to the PR mess by insisting that such incidents are "rare."  But you will find no historical perspective, and no reference to a data-base of any type.

Business Insider posted an article today: "A Photo History Of Carnival Cruise Ship Disasters."  There were a couple of interesting photographs of the fire which erupted aboard the Carnival Ecstasy in 1998 as the cruise ship was trying to said out of Government Cut at Miami Beach.  The two photos below, via Reuters, I have never seen before.

Carnival's passengers and crew members were extremely lucky in that incident. The ship's on-board system did not suppress the fire, which charred the entire stern of the ship. But the incident occurred near the port. Other vessels were able to quickly respond and eventually extinguish the fire. If the fire had occurred just an hour or two later on the high seas and away from the fire boats, the Ecstasy would have burned down to the hull.

The Business Insider article contains a link to the NTSB report of the fire, which is interesting reading.

I was disappointed that the article did not mention the deadly Star Princess cruise ship fire in 2006. This cruise ship was operated by Carnival-owned Princess Cruises. This fire is an important piece of evidence in the history of cruise ship fires. You can see some photographs in our article "Ten Years of Cruise Ship Fires - Has the Cruise Industry Learned Anything?"    

Photo Credit:

Photos nos 2, 3: Business Insider / Reuters

Photo no. 4: ForeignPolicy.com

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A passenger aboard the Regent Seven Seas Voyager cruise ship is stating on Cruise Critic that the ship is experiencing propulsion problems:

"We are trying to make our way to Shanghai and the ship has propulsion issues again. Our arrival is delayed 6 hours due to the propulsion issue and because we have missed high tide. We personally have lost 1 of our tours due to conflicting times, unfortunately it is one that was a big motivator for this trip. They have not mentioned to anyone on board that this is the 2nd time in the past couple of months the ship has had propulsion issues.

Not too impressed with the situation.

As well we are now missing 1 of our ports. Sounds vaguely similar to a couple of months ago on this ship."

There is also a comment on Twitter by a person who apparently communicated with a family member on the Voyager:

"Just talked to family onboard RSSC Voyager. 6 hrs late into Shanghai-propulsion problem. Skipping stop in Xiamen to get to HK."

If this information is accurate, then this is the sixth cruise ship which has experienced a engine / propulsion problem in the last two month.  Five of Carnival Corporation's cruise ships have suffered engine / propulsion problems: the Carnival Triumph, Dream, Legend & Elation and the Carnival-owner P&O Ventura.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia (GroszekGroszek)

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The case of a young girl strip searched by Carnival Cruise employees is expected to reach the jury early this week. 

The case involves allegations that over-zealous Carnival officers strip searched a 17 year old passenger suspected of possessing pot while aboard the Sensation cruise ship.

The search allegedly included a cavity inspection and the girl was told to remove her tampon in front of two male ship officers.

Carnival usually does not comment on pending litigation but went out of its way to tell newspapers that the claims were "far-fetched" and to basically call the girl a liar.

We have written a couple of articles about the outrageous allegations in the case:

Lawsuit: Carnival Cruise Lines Strip Searches Girl Looking For Pot

Court Permits Teenager Strip Searched on Carnival Cruise Ship to Seek Punitive Damages

The jury's verdict, pro or con, will come at a particularly bad time for the cruise line. The media has Carnival under a microscope with fires and engine problems plaguing the Carnival Triumph, Dream, Legend and Elation over the past two months and revelations that Carnival does not pay U.S. taxes or reimburse the U.S. for the services of federal agencies such as the U.S. Coast Guard.  

The jury trial, which began last week, is before U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenbaum down here in South Florida.

We will report on the verdict as soon as it is announced. 

March 18 2013 Update: Defense verdict for Carnival.  The case was defended by Miami defense lawyers Curtis Mase and Lauren DeFabio. We will update this once we obtain a copy of the verdict form and obtain additional information.. 

Photo Credit: Wikipedia (Wknight94)

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The AP is reporting that New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer is calling on the cruise ship industry to adopt a "bill of rights" to guarantee passengers certain protections while cruising. 

Senator Schumer says that he will be asking the cruise lines to voluntarily adopt certain guidelines which include guarantees that cruise ships have what the AP describes as "sanitary conditions, back-up power, medical staff and other standard procedures."

Passengers would be entitled to a full refund if a trip is abruptly canceled due to mechanical problems.

"Wild West of Travel Industry"

A newspaper quotes Senator Schumer stating: "Cruise ships, in large part operating outside the bounds of United States enforcement, have become the wild west of the travel industry, and it's time to rein them in before anyone else gets hurt. This bill of rights, based on work we've done with the airline industry, will ensure that passengers aren't forced to live in third world conditions or put their lives at risk when they go on vacation."

This news comes just a day after another Democratic Senator, Jay Rockefeller, wrote a letter to Carnival CEO Micky Arison complaining about Carnival Corporation's shoddy safety record and chastising the cruise tycoon for not paying taxes and not reimbursing the U.S. government for Coast Guard services. 

A cruise ship bill of rights is long overdue.  As matters now stand, the cruise lines have drafted one-sided cruise tickets which form the legal contract between the cruise line and passenger and protect the cruise industry from virtually every type of situation.  

Expect major push back by the cruise industry which wants to keep everything just the way it is.

Have a thought? Join the discussion on our Facebook page.

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On the heels of power and propulsion difficulties facing Carnival Cruise Line cruise ships Triumph, Dream, Legend and Elation, it is now being reported that another cruise ship operated by a Carnival Corporation brand, P&O Cruises, is suffering propulsion problems.

Passengers are reporting that the P&O Ventura has broken down several times over the past three days and is having major problems with one of its two propulsion units.  The situation sounds similar to the problems which the Carnival Legend as it limps back from a Caribbean cruise to Tampa with only one of its propulsion system working. (Its has been pointed out to us that the Legend has two Azipod systems, whereas the Ventura has conventional diesel engines).  

I first heard of the Ventura's problems in an article by U.K. cruise blogger John Honeywell (Captain Greybeard) who writes:

"P&O's Ventura continues to make its way across the Atlantic at reduced speed thanks to a fault with the power to its starboard propeller, is expected to reach Southampton on schedule next Saturday, after missing a visit to Madeira scheduled for Tuesday.."   

Several people are leaving comments on the popular Cruise Critic forum:

The Ventura is ". . . broken down and just drifting!"

".  .  . they are now moving again but have been given no explanation."

P&O commented ". . .  We are currently working with the manufacturers and shore support to identify and rectify an issue with the starboard propulsion motor on Ventura. We can assure everyone that power and services on the ship are unaffected."

" . . .  looks like still having problems, the person on board has now said that as they were floating around so long and now cant seem to get over 18kts they now cant go to Madeira but will be diverting to Ponta delgada." 

The media is in a frenzy reporting on all of Carnival's problems. But, so far, no one is reporting on the problems facing Carnival Corporation's P&O Ventura.  

Carnival Corporation is the world's largest cruise owner and operator in the world. It operates: Carnival Cruise Lines, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises and Seabourn in North America; P&O Cruises (UK), and Cunard in the United Kingdom; AIDA Cruises in Germany; Costa Cruises in Southern Europe; Iberocruceros in Spain; and P&O Cruises (Australia) in Australia.

The Ventura was built in Italy and is owned by Carnival Corporation. It is flagged in Bermuda and was launched in 2007.

Photo credit: Telegraph

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WTSP in Tampa reports on the plight of the Carnival Legend cruise ship which left last Sunday from the Port of Tampa under full power but will return limping home tomorrow.

There's a problem with one of the cruise ship's two propulsion pods that is substantially reducing the Legend's speed.

Carnival canceled the ship's port stop at Grand Cayman.

Ironically, the Legend came to the aid of the fire-stricken Carnival Triumph last month. 

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With Carnival under a microscope, the cruise line continues to experience bad PR as yet another Carnival cruise ship experienced a mechanical failure.

The Chicago Tribune reports that last weekend, the Carnival Elation had to get a tugboat escort down the Mississippi River after a mechanical problem.

In the last 2 months, four of Carnival's ship suffered full or partial power failures, the Triumph, Dream, Legend and the Elation. 

It's early in the year, stay tuned.

March 16 2013 Update:  That didn't take long: Yet Another Carnival Cruise Ship Flounders - P&O Ventura Suffers Propulsion Problems
  

Photo Credit: Vacay.ca / Why You Should Say No to a Vacation Cruise 

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I thought that I was experiencing deja vu while reading accounts that a cruise ship struck underwater rocks in a Norwegian fjord yesterday, resulting in damage to the ship's hull.

The Marco Polo, operated by Cruise and Maritime Voyages, was sailing from Sortland, Norway, when the incident occurred. 

A week ago we reported on a similar grounding which occurred when Hurtigruten's Kong Harald struck a submerged rock and took on water in another fjord in Norway.

On the same day, Lindblad Expedition's National Geographic Sea Lion ran aground near Panama.

Regarding the latest grounding, Cruise Critic is saying that the rock which the Marco Polo hit was "uncharted." This was what Captain Schettino claimed after he rammed the Concordia into rocks off of the coast of Giglio.

You can read another story about cruise ship operators using the "uncharted rock" excuse: "Uncharted Rocks" and Other Tall Tales - Clipper Adventurer Ran Into A Charted Hazard" 

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A newspaper in New Zealand reports that a passenger, identified only as a man from Dunedin, New Zealand, is missing from the Celebrity Cruises' Solstice cruise ship which left Port Chalmers, New Zealand today. 

It is less than clear whether the man disembarked from the cruise ship, leaving items, including his passport, on board, and didn't return. Or whether he disappeared at some earlier time while the cruise ship was sailing. 

The article does not state when the man was last seen. It should be easy to determine whether the passenger used his sea pass card which should have been scanned when he boarded or disembarked the cruise ship.  Unfortunately, this does not always occur.

In another case, American passenger Sarah Tessier Powell set sail on the Holland America Line Veendam cruise ship last year. She disappeared.  Police in Canada speculate that Ms. Powell may have walked off of the HAL ship and didn't return.  

But how is that possible?

Passenger gangways are supposed to be heavily monitored by security with each passenger's sea pass card scanned and the gangways always covered by closed circuit television cameras.

Is this another one of those cases?  Or is this a passenger overboard case which the cruise line didn't realize until the ship arrived in port?

Anyone with information please contact us.

Photo Credit: Constantine Kulikovsky via Wikimedia

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According to a news account in Greece, a 25 year old Filipino crew member aboard the Norwegian Jade died when the cruise ship was in Katakolo, Greece.

In addition to the skimpy information contained in the newspaper, we learned that the incident occurred early this morning when cruise passengers were preparing to disembark for sightseeing ashore (including visiting the ruins of Olympia).

A mooring line snapped while the crew member was standing on a mooring deck platform (at the level of deck 7). The crew member was violently struck by the recoiling rope. He was knocked overboard and into the water at the port.  According to the news account, divers took several hours to retrieve the dead man's body in the murky water. 

The crew member was not fitted with either a harness or a life vest and he was not wearing a hard hat. (Some people say that his hard hat was subsequently found floating in the water).

This afternoon, the Norwegian Jade (previously named the Pride of Hawaii) continued on to its next port of call in Piraeus.  The Jade is flagged in the Bahamas.  It appears that the ship sailed without a representative of the Bahamas Maritime Authority conducting an inspection of the rope or analyzing the accident and taking statements from the crew and witnesses.  The ship is now continuing to sail to Pireus this evening.   

Cruise lines like NCL have worked hard to strip crew members of their rights.  Crew members from the Philippines, in particular, are limited under the Philippines Overseas Employment Agreement (POEA) to very small death benefits even in cases like this where the cruise line failed to enforce basic safety procedures.  

You can read our article about the POEA here. NCL took the lead in enforcing unfair arbitration clauses which deprive seafarers of their rights under maritime law.

Without significant financial consequence to the cruise line in cases like this, there is no incentive to improve safety of the ship's hard working crew. 

If you have information about this fatality, please leave a comment below.     

Photo credits: Norwegian Jade - janiahola.fi; web cam - NCL; scene of accident - ekathimerini.com

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A year ago I wrote an article about an over-zealous Carnival security officer who allegedly strip searched a 17 year old passenger suspected of possessing pot while aboard the Sensation cruise ship.

The search included a cavity inspection and the girl was told to remove her tampon in front of two male ship officers.  "Lawsuit: Carnival Cruise Lines Strip Searches Girl Looking For Pot" 

Carnival PR representatives were dismissive of the lawsuit, characterizing the claims as "far-fetched." The cruise line basically called the teenager a liar.

The case has been litigated for the past 11 months. Carnival recently argued that punitive damages should not be permitted because none of the employees involved in the incident were working in a "managerial capacity." Carnival essentially argued that they were just low level employees and any wrongful conduct was not part of any type of policy or procedure condoned by the cruise line.

The federal court disagreed, holding that "the fact that these officers follow directives and protocol from their supervisors does not necessarily mean that they could not also possess the discretion to ultimately determine Carnival's strip search policy." 

The case is now heading toward trial.

Read lawsuit here.

Story credit: Courthouse News Service

Photo credit: Huffington Post

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Several years ago, U.S. based cruise lines began insisting that injured crew members seeking compensation for their injuries must pursue their claims through arbitration in foreign countries.

Companies like Carnival, NCL and Royal Caribbean started moving to dismiss lawsuits filed here in Miami, arguing that seriously injured crew members are not entitled to jury trials in the U.S. but must file arbitration claims in either their home countries or where the cruise ships are flagged.

The cruise industry's lawyers understood perfectly well that many of these foreign countries, like the Philippines, Bermuda or Panama, had virtually no laws that provided compensation to their employees or the existing compensation scheme was a pittance.          

In 2003, the NCL Norway blew up at the port of Miami (photo right).  Eight Filipinos were scalded to death. Many other crew members were seriously burned in the explosion.

NCL responded to lawsuits filed by the dead men's surviving wives and children by moving to dismiss the cases and arguing that the grieving family members could not file suit here in Miami, where the explosion took place and NCL was headquartered. Instead, the only claims permitted were in a non-jury arbitration process in Manila where the damages for wrongful death were limited to around $50,000.

NCL won its motions and paid very small amounts to the families, even though the 45-year-old Norway cruise ship was in deplorable condition. You can read our analysis here. 

Since then, most of the cruise lines have drafted onerous terms and conditions in the crew member's employment contracts which prohibit lawsuits to be filed in the U.S. and limit recovery to the smallest imaginable amounts for serious injuries even in cases where the cruise line is grossly negligent.    

A recent case illustrated just how unfair the arbitration process is.   

Filipino crew member Lito Asignacion worked as a senior engine fitter on board the vessel M/V Rickmers Dalian (flagged in the Marshall Islands) for Global Management Limited.

In October 2010, while the ship was in the port of New Orleans alongside of 7th Street Wharf, crew member Asignacion sustained serious burns of his abdomen and legs when scalding water overflowed a tank. The crew member underwent extensive and painful medical treatment in the burn units of West Jefferson Medical Center and Baton Rouge General Medical Center in Louisiana, U.S.A.

Asignacion was treated and underwent skin grafting burns of 35% of his body.

He thereafter was returned to the Philippines where he continued undergoing medical treatment at a number of hospitals and with a number of doctors who performed plastic surgery. He is now unemployed, disabled and scarred for life.

Asignacion filed suit in state court in Jefferson Parish where the accident occurred, but his case was dismissed and he was ordered to proceed with arbitration in the Philippines.

The shipping company argued that the case was controlled totally by Philippine law and Asignacion had no rights whatsoever under U.S. law.  The company argued that under the Philippines Overseas Employment agreement (POEA), the crew member suffered a grade 14 disability which would entitle him to only 3.74% of USD $50,000 or a total award of $1,870.00 (US).

The Filipino Labor Board agreed and awarded Asignacion just $1,870.

The labor board made a point of stating that the shipping had offered the burned crew member $25,000 “out of compassion and generosity," implying that he had foolishly rejected the "generous" offer.  The opinion reads and sounds vindictive.

The labor board also cited language from a prior decision that compensation for serious injured Filipino seafarers is low because they ere perceived as crew members "who complain too much.”  

The award is a disgrace.  The process is the result of a kangaroo court.

This is how shipping companies and cruise lines doing business in the U.S. treat their crew members from the Philippines and other countries outside of the U.S.

The case name is Lito M. Asignacion, Complainant, vs Rickmers Marine Agency Philippine, Inc.,Global Management Limited, and Navis Maritime Services, Ind., Respondents. AC-305-NCMB-NCR-100-07-11-12.  If you would like a copy of the decision, please contact me: jim@cruiselaw.com. 

Republic of the Philippines, Department of Labor and Employment, National Conciliation and Mediation Board, National Capital Region, Intramuros Manila. The award was by: 

Jesus S. Silo - Chairman.

Leonardo B. Saulog - Member.

Gregorio C. Blares, Jr. - Member.

Photo Credit: Rickmers Dalian

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The final score today: under-water rocks - 2; cruise ships - 0.

Cruise Critic reports that a Hurtigruten cruise ship ran aground and took on water in a Norwegian fjord north of the Arctic Circle.  The 490 passenger Kong Harald had to wait for the tide to lift the cruise ship off a rock at the entrance to Trollfjord. The ship cruised to Svolvaer, where all of the 258 passengers onboard disembarked. Hurtigruten cancelled the remainder of the cruise, and the ship will be dry-docked for repairs to its breached hull. 

Meanwhile a Lindblad Expeditions "adventure ship" struck a submerged rock causing damage to the hull of the vessel and a propeller, according to USA TODAY.  The 62 passenger National Geographic Sea Lion was departing the Las Perlas Islands, 70 miles from Panama City, when it struck a rock. The Sea Lion will enter dry dock at Panama City to undergo repairs. The next departure of the vessel, scheduled to begin March 9, has been canceled. 

No crew or passengers were injured in these mishaps.

It seems too soon after Costa Concordia for cruise ships, large or small, to strike under-water rocks.

Photo Credit: Costa Concordia - AP via Voice of America

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Cruise lines do a great job keeping photographs and video of cruise ship fires away from the public.

Has anyone seen photos of the engine room of the Triumph, which is just the latest cruise ship to become disabled?  Or the engine room of the Carnival Splendor?  The Costa Allegra?  Royal Caribbean's Azamara Quest?

Cruise lines prefer to keep the images out of public sight and then say that the fire was "small" and "quickly extinguished."  

A few photos have seen the light of day such as the catastrophic explosion aboard the Queen Mary 2 in 2010 and, of course, the deadly fire aboard the Star Princess in 2006.

I'd like to see exactly what happened on the Triumph.

But the chances of the Bahamas Maritime Authority releasing photos seems somewhere between slim and none. No need for the Bahamas to embarrass its customer, Carnival, I suppose.   

The only photo I am aware of involving the Triumph was released by the U.S. Coast Guard but it does not show much except the back of a Coast Guard representative in the engine room. Kinda of a PR shot for the Coast Guard, we-are-on-the-job-so-don't-worry kind of thing. Great, but how about a report and some friggin' photos for a change? We know the Bahamians won't release anything.

One crew member sent me the photo below of the Triumph after it was towed into Mobile and asked me not to mention his name.

But I believe that the soot on the stern shown in the photo was probably caused by smoke from the exhaust of the diesel engines of the tugs. You can also see where the tugs rubbed against the stern. I'm not 100% about this. If you have a thought, please leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.     

So does anyone have photos of the engine room in the Triumph or, for that matter, the Splendor, the Allegra or the Quest?

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The fire on the Carnival Triumph cruise ship is being investigated by the Bahamas because Carnival elected to register the Triumph in that country to avoid U.S. taxes, labor and safety laws. As the "flag state" for the Triumph, the Bahamas is charged with the responsibility of investigating fires, casualties and crimes on that ship. The Bahamas requested the involvement of the U.S. Coast Guard as well as the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

The questions arise will the Bahamas really conduct an objective and honest investigation? Will it ever release a copy of the final report into the investigation into the fire?  And if so, when?

In considering these questions, remember that in the last disabling fire on a Carnival cruise ship several years ago, the public has still not seen the report of the flag state. In November 2010, the Carnival Splendor caught on fire and was disabled.  Because Carnival flagged the Splendor in Panama, Panama was responsible for the official investigation. Panama called upon the U.S. Coast Guard to assist it. The Coast Guard finished its reports to the officials in Panama long ago.

The Coast Guard quickly sent out "marine safety alerts" about the design defects and construction and maintenance shortcomings in the Splendor engine room.  Remarkably, the Coast Guard did not even identify the Splendor in its alerts.

It's now going on two and one-half years later but Panama still has not released a report.

Will Panama ever release the report?  Not if Carnival doesn't want it to.

Who has authority to force Panama or the Bahamas to release a report or punish them if they refuseto do so?  No one. There is no U.S. federal oversight organization. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is toothless.  A former NTSB chairman called the IMO a "paper tiger."  This is exactly how the cruise lines want the system to work.

Two years ago, Disney youth counselor Rebecca Coriam disappeared from the Disney Wonder cruise ship.  The Bahamas was responsible for investigating the disappearance because Disney registered the Wonder in Nassau to avoid U.S. taxes, labor and safety laws.  

The Bahamas sent a lone policeman to Los Angeles to meet the cruise ship when it returned to port. He conducted a short visit on the ship and concluded his report long ago. But the Bahamas refuses to send Rebecca's mother and father a copy of the report.  

After the Triumph was towed to Mobile, a newspaper article appeared in a Bahamian newspaper that the Bahamas was sending detectives to the U.S. to investigate a sexual assault on the Triumph. The Bahamas denied that the ship where the rape was alleged was the Triumph. It disclosed only that a Bahamian flagged ship was involved. The Bahamas promised to provide information once its detectives returned from the U.S. Of course, it has released nothing.    

If your child vanishes on the high seas, or you are raped during a cruise, or your family flounders for a week on a stinky fire-stricken ship, flag states like the Bahamas and Panama don't believe that they have any obligation to release any information to you.  Their alliances are with the cruise lines which fly their flags. Companies like Carnival and Disney hide behind the foreign flags and are complicit in the conspiracy to deceive the public.

It's a dishonest, secretive, rotten system.  Its a system designed to conceal the truth and to avoid the foreign flagged cruise lines from embarrassment.  

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The Bermuda Sun newspaper reports that two crew members employed on a Bermuda flagged cruise ship are heading for criminal trial after being accused of raping a woman.

As is often the case in Bermuda, the Bermudian press did not mention the name of the cruise line or the name of the cruise ship.  There is no prohibition from doing so, but the newspapers there seem inclined not to want to cause any embarrassment to Bermuda's U.S. based cruise line customers which register their ships in that island to avoid U.S. taxes and wage and safety laws.

The case involves two Italian crew members, age 26 and 27, aboard the Grand Princess cruise ship, operated by Princess Cruises of Santa Clarita California. 

The sexual assault at issue allegedly occurred on January 12, 2013.

Trial is scheduled for April 27, 2013.

Bermuda has a sorry record of prosecuting Princess crew members when they are accused of raping women on Princess cruise ships. No crew member has ever been convicted and imprisoned for sexually assaulting a woman aboard a Princess cruise ship although multiple sexual crimes have been alleged over the years.

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A newspaper in Jacksonville reports that a local resident sailing on a Carnival cruise died earlier this week during a stop in Cozumel Mexico.   Andrew Wooten, age 50, was reportedly swept away by an undercurrent and drowned. 

Mr. Wooten was the president of Safety Awareness Firearms Education, a firm that conducts training. He was providing continuing education courses on the cruise. 

According to the newspaper, Wooten apparently drowned during an  excursion after sailing to Mexico on the Carnival Elation cruise ship. 

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A reader of Cruise Law News sent me these photographs today showing crew members on an unidentified MSC cruise ship washing the tops of tenders.  

The two crew members to the left seem to be wearing life vests but its less than clear whether they are wearing harnesses and are tethered to the ship.

Upon closer inspection, the bottom photo shows an employee obviously wearing no life vest or harness.

A slip and fall from that height would be a good way to drown or suffer serious injury.

Crew members who contact us often talk about "ship life."

"Ship Life" seems to be the state of reality that actually exists on cruise ships.  It is different from what the company policies and procedures say and what the cruise line projects as the company's image.

Sometimes upon the rush to get the job done, there is pressure to cut corners and not use the proper safety equipment. The same pressure to proceed to get the work accomplished often exists even if the proper equipment is not available or the equipment is faulty or not adequately maintained.

We all remember the five deaths and three injuries in January when a Thomson Majesty lifeboat with 8 crew members dropped upside down into the water.   

What do you of the photo below?  Whose responsibility is it that work is not performed under these circumstances?

PS. I don't know who took these photos so please contact me if you want credit. Anyone know which ship this was and where it was docked? 

Leave a comment below or join the discussion on our Facebook page.

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On February 10th the Carnival Triumph's engine room caught fire fire and was quickly extinguished. No one was burned. No one choked and gasped for air. No one died. No family members mourned the loss of their loved ones or buried their dead.

Three weeks later there is a litigation frenzy with lawyers from New York to Miami to Mississippi suing Carnival for billions of dollars.

And you wonder why people hate lawyers.

Don't get me wrong.  I don't like the cruise lines. As a former National Transportation Safety Board chairman said, the cruise lines are an "outlaw industry" which suffers from "bad actors."

But suing Carnival if you are not physically injured or seriously sick is wrong, as I have said in other articles.  

There are a hoard of lawyers out there soliciting your business who will sue Carnival whether you have bothered to see a doctor or not.  Just Google "Triumph cruise lawyer" and see the long line of lawyers asking you to call them, such as:

"Carnival Triumph Lawsuit Attorney" - Video - New York lawyer asking for one billion dollars!

"Carnival Triumph Cruise Ship Lawyer" - Video - Florida lawyer who filed class action lawsuit.

What are these attorneys advocating?  None of these lawyers have ever gone to Congress advocating the rights of cruise passengers or crew members injured at sea. Is this just about money?

Contrast this latest Carnival fire on the Triumph with the last fire where a passenger was killed on the Carnival-owned Star Princess cruise ship (above right). Georgia resident Richard Liffridge died when he and his wife, Vicky, tried to crawl down a burning smoke filled hallway as the fire engulfed the ship.

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.   

We represented the Liffridge family. Richard's daughter, Lynnette, joined the International Cruise Victims organization and testified before Congress regarding the cruise ship fire. She demanded changes to protect future cruisers. She later boarded the same cruise ship where her father died and made certain that the ship was retrofitted with sprinkler systems and heat detectors which were lacking from the ship's balconies where the fire started which killed her father.

Will anyone of the inconvenienced passengers on the Triumph call on their Congressional representatives and ask for a Congressional hearing about cruise ship safety like Lynnette did?  Will anyone travel to Washington D.C. at their own expense to hold the cruise lines accountable?  Will anyone demand changes on the cruise ships to protect the public?  Will anyone work behind the scenes and board the Triumph and see with-their-own-eyes if anything has been done to ensure the safety of the next families who will cruise on the ship?

Or is this just a lawsuit money-grab for a few thousand dollars and a free Carnival cruise? 

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Shipworld.org reports that there was a false alarm earlier this week regarding an overboard passenger from P&O's Pride of York.

The Shipworld website mentions that at 10:45 PM on Monday February 25, 2013, the Pride of York notified the Dutch Coastguard Center that a male passenger may have gone overboard 90 kilometers west of Hoek van Holland. The ship was sailing from Zeebrugge to Hull when the incident was reported.

The Dutch Coastguard sent two helicopters along and two rescue vessels, the Koopmansdank from Neeltje Jans and Jeanine Parqui from the Hoek van Holland station. The Dutch naval vessel Schiedam and the Rijkswaterstaat vessel Arca also joined the search.

However, after a headcount established that everyone was accounted for, the search and rescue operation was called off around 11:50 PM.

There was also a false alarm of a person overboard from the Sapphire Princess cruise ship on Monday. A head count revealed that all passengers and crew were on the cruise ship, which was sailing from Los Angeles to Hawaii. 

Photo credit: theferry.wikia.com

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Yesterday evening I received a tweet from a Twitter friend in Antigua: "several cruise passengers witnessed a day light killing in the tourism area of #antigua today." Later I was told that an "attempted robbery at one of the shops led to a gunman shooting the woman in the head. She died on the spot around 1.30."

This morning the Antigua Observer covered the sad story: Mother of 5 Gunned Down in Heritage Quay. 

The newspaper says that "a 38-year-old mother of five was gunned down in broad daylight yesterday – the latest in an alarming spate of shootings and robberies across the country." The victim was working as a sales person at First Gadget Electronic Store on Thames Street.

The store is located in the heart of St John’s within the cruise tourism zone Heritage Quay.

Antigua has had its share of violence and crime in areas frequented by cruise passengers. Last month an altercation between a store owner and cruise passengers escalated into a highly publicized fight between the cruisers and the police in St. John's.   

More serious incidents over the last few years involved a young woman from a cruise ship being murdered ashore, cruise passengers attacked and robbed (ironically while tourism and cruise officials were meeting to discuss the issue of safety of cruise visitors in Antigua) and six cruise passengers from Brooklyn arrested after disputing a cab fare and getting into a fight with the local police.

Caribbean countries like Antigua have  precarious relationships with the cruise lines. Some cruise lines temporarily stopped calling in Antigua following the murder of a passenger from the Star Clippers in 2010.

In 2009, Carnival suddenly pulled out of Antigua - Carnival Drops Antigua Like A Hot Potato.

The murder of the store employee in the tourist area comes at a time when Antigua announced that it formed a new police unit to protect tourists from crime and its tourism officials announced that they were optimistic about attracting tourists to the island notwithstanding the increase in violent crime.

The police and government officials are involved in trying to deal with the PR fall-out in the tourism sector. There is a reward offer of $50,000 for info leading to the arrest of the gunman and there is talk about asking for the death penalty (public hangings).

Tragic incidents like this will continue to make the local citizens frightened, and continue to plague the island's relationship with the big Miami based cruise lines that unload thousands of people into Heritage Quay. 

Photo Credit: vibesantigua

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This morning the Carnival Miracle returned to New York with the body of an 18 year old high school student aboard.

The young man, scheduled to graduate from Saratoga Springs High School this spring, reportedly died of alcohol poisoning last night. He has been described as a "polite young man" in a local newspaper and as a "great, gentle kid" by extended family members on an on line cruise community website Cruise Critic.

18 year old kids are not suppose to die on cruises or during school breaks.

There will be debate where the alcohol came from and who is responsible for the young man's death.

One thing is certain. There's way too much emphasis on booze in the Carnival cruise experience. It's too easy for teenagers to gain access to alcohol on cruise ships. Its particularly easy when bartenders, working for tips, serve too many drinks without any regard to where the drinks eventually end up.  

In 1994, the LA Times published an article "Boy's Death Raises Issues of Drinking On Cruises." A 14 year old boy aboard Royal Caribbean's Majesty of the Seas consumed so much rum and tequila that he literally drank himself to death. The cruise line corporate communications manager at the time responded to the minor's death cavalierly saying "the best advice that you can give is that a cruise is a resort vacation. It's not a baby-sitting service."

So should parents watch over their teenagers like they zealously do at home?  That's not what the cruise lines like Carnival tell you to do.  

If you click on the "Cruise Booze" category to the left you'll see dozens of articles about excessive alcohol sales on cruises. The more booze on cruises, the greater the risk of crimes and death. As a parent of an 18 year-old-about-to-graduate, I find it hard to even think for a second of going on a cruise and returning without my son alive. 

Many years ago, my wife and I took a vacation to Disney World with our two boys. While my wife was watching our kids in the pool, I ordered a beer for myself and a wine for my wife.  The Disney bartender said he could sell only one drink per adult.  So I had to ask my wife to come buy her own drink.  I thought what a pain this was, but it was a responsible policy designed to keep alcohol away from underage drinkers.

There is nothing remotely resembling such a policy on cruise ships. Pushing alcohol is the business model of the cruise industry.

If this death becomes a story covered by the major press, you will see attacks on the parents for not supervising their child.  But most parents have no idea just how out-of-control cruise ships like Carnival are. Carnival earns many hundreds of millions of dollars aggressively pushing the booze. There are few security guards, There are no real safeguards like I experienced at the Magic Kingdom.  

Most parents spend their lives watching their kids like a hawk, but once on a cruise they get caught up in the fantasy environment marketed and sold by the "'fun ships."  They let their guard down. The result is tragedies like this while the cruise line makes millions of dollars selling booze.    

February 27 2013 Update: Here's the statement from Carnival we received this morning:

"We can confirm that an 18-year-old male guest passed away in his cabin at approximately 3 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 26 during an eight-day voyage of the Carnival Miracle which ended later that morning in New York. The cause of death has not been determined. With regard to speculation that he may have died from alcohol poisoning, we can confirm that, based on the preliminary investigation, there is no indication he was served any alcohol by shipboard personnel. Following his death, the cruise line contacted the FBI as per standard practice in this type of occurrence. FBI representatives boarded the ship on Tuesday morning to conduct an investigation. No foul play is suspected. We extend our deepest sympathies to young man's family and loved ones during this very difficult time."  
 

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Yesterday the New York Times published an insightful article about the failure of the cruise industry to design their cruise ships with redundant engine systems such that if one set of engines is knocked out by a fire or explosion, another set of engines in a separate compartment would provide power to the cruise ship.

Entitled "Lack of Backup Power Puts Cruise Passengers at the Ocean’s Mercy," the article explains that the International Maritime Organization (IMO) proposed guidelines calling for cruise lines to to equip cruise ships with backup engines and generators. The redundant engine systems and back up systems are are needed not only to maintain electricity, refrigeration, and toilet operations, but to maintain power to prevent the ship from pitching violently in strong waves.

Just yesterday I spoke with a retired Coast Guard officer about what happens when a ship at sea loses all power. He expressed concern of how the cruise ship would be evacuated if the vessel loses power. There would be no way to lower the lifeboats!  

The newspaper explains that pursuant to the IMO recommendations, any cruise ship built after July 2010 is required to have redundant engine systems. But the cruise industry largely chose not to add backup systems to new cruise ships.

The IMO, a United Nations organization, has no authority to impose sanctions when cruise lines ignore the IMO's guidelines.

A naval architect, Larrie Ferreiro, is quoted in the newspaper explaining that a cruise line can design the ships either to put more equipment or more people on it: “The more passenger cabins you can fit into that envelope the more revenue you can get." Only 10% of the cruise ships have redundant systems, according to the NY Times.

In the unregulated world of cruising, this means that 90% of the cruise ships out there may become "dead in the water" when an engine room fire breaks out. That places passengers and crew at unnecessary risk of injury or death at sea.   

Photo Credit: Carnival Triumph engine room - US Coast Guard   

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A reader of this blog emailed me for information after reading comments on the Cruise Critic message board that the captain of the Sapphire Princess announced that a person was sighted overboard from the cruise ship. 

The passenger commented that the ship was currently stopped as of around 11:00 PM last night. The crew was reportedly taking a head count of everyone on the ship.  

The cruise ship is sailing from Los Angeles to Hawaii. There have been no updates on the message board since late last night.

I requested information from Princess but have not heard anything yet.

February 26 2013 Update:  False alarm:

Princess says that there was "no person overboard. A passenger they thought they saw someone in the water. As we take reports such as this seriously we mustered all passengers and crw and all were accounted for. There were also no reports from any ships in the area about a missing person."

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A newspaper in Australia is reporting that a Care Flight helicopter rescued a 22-year-old crew member off a cruise ship off the coast of Arnhem Land.

The helicopter flew to the Celebrity Solstice which was sailing 500 kilometers north east of Darwin, Australia. 

The Celebrity crew member reportedly suffered a "cardiac problem." A nurse and doctor accompanied the helicopter after notification from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

The helicopter was expected to refuel at the remote town of Maningrida before flying  another 100 kilometers km out to sea to reach the cruise ship. Unlike many cruise ships, the Solstice has a helipad on the bow.

The newspaper reports that the Celebrity Solstice left Darwin yesterday on a two-day cruise to Cairns, in north Queensland.

Photo credit: Harrogate Flickr

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Newsweek's Daily Beast Blog published an insightful article about the real issues behind the Triumph cruise ship fire. Entitled "Carnival Cruise From Hell," the article explains that the situation involves a lot more than just another stinky ship bobbing around on the high seas. Rather, Newsweek writes that the fiasco is "a troubling indicator of pervasive safety problems in a booming industry with little oversight."

Written by Eve Conant, the articles points out that last month, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded the entire U.S. fleet of Boeing 787s over fire-safety concerns. But where is the maritime equivalent of the FAA overseeing the cruise lines? It has been outsourced to third world countries like the Bahamas which has neither the interest or capability of regulating the billion dollar U.S. cruise industry. 

Newsweek interviewed me for the article, but criticism from lawyers who routinely sue the cruise lines are often met with skepticism.  

What's impressive about the article is that Newsweek interviewed a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Jim Hall.

Unlike recent NTSB officials who angled for lucrative consulting jobs with the cruise lines and gave the industry a free pass, Jim Hall earned a reputation for objectivity and credibility when he was the NTBS's top dog from 1994 - 2001. He was involved in investigatng serious accidents in both the aviation and cruise industries. He voiced his concerns that there would be continued problems in the maritime industry because there was no real oversight over the cruise lines.

Here are the recent comment's made by Hall to Newsweek:

Jim Hall, head of the National Transportation Safety Board during the Clinton administration, says the industry is watched over by “paper tigers” like the International Maritime Organization and suffers from “bad actors” much like in the poorly regulated motor-coach industry, which saw its latest fatal bus crash in Southern California earlier this month. “The maritime industry is the oldest transportation industry around. We’re talking centuries. It’s a culture that has never been broken as the aviation industry was, and you see evidence of that culture in the [Costa Concordia] accident,” says Hall.

Ships may seem and feel American but are mostly “flagged” in countries like the Bahamas or Panama in order to operate outside of what he says are reasonable safety standards. “It is, and has been, an outlaw industry,” says Hall. “People who book cruises should be aware of that.”

Cruise lines are an "outlaw industry" watched over by "paper tigers?"  Spot on.  And remember these comments are by a former chairman of the NTSB.  

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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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Like any employee, crew members are not immune from being terminated. But termination on a cruise ship is a bit different from being fired at a regular job. It's like being fired and kicked out of your apartment all at once.

Better known as the "6 AM knock," crew members wake up to the ship’s security officers, banging at their cabin door, and delivering the news that the crew member must leave the vessel immediately.

Within about an hour, the terminated crew member must gather all of his or her personal belongings, hand in the ship cards, pay-off any shipboard debts, and walk off the gangway.  In most cases the crew member is are not given any explanation as to why she is being instructed to leave. A meeting is not set up with their superiors or the captain discussing the grounds for termination. Worst of all, the fired crew member doesn’t even know what legal rights she has in this kind of situation (that’s assuming there are any rights at all).

Typically once a crew member “rocks the boat," the cruise line finds a way to dispose of the problem immediately. All it really takes is aggravating the right people or protesting unfair treatment. Alcohol and drug tests are a good tool cruise lines use to make a case to fire a crew member. Most cruise lines have an alcohol and drug policy that allows them to conduct random tests. Security knocks on the crew member’s door, and hands the employee a little plastic bottle for urine testing.  

This is all done while the security officers wait outside the bathroom located in the crew member’s cabin. If this isn’t invasive enough, the bathroom door must remain open just a crack to ensure that the crew member doesn’t taint the sample. Can you feel the trust?

Interestingly, the results of these tests are never given to the crew member. It is not even clear where the sample goes once handed to the security officers. It is important to point out that I am writing from personal experience here. I have also spoken to several other crew members who were terminated and their stories are pretty much on par with my experience.

On any given night a hundred crew members could fail such a test, but the tests are often reserved for those who are vocal in criticizing procedures or who complain about sexual harassment or unlawful conduct.

What happens once the crew member walks off the gangway? Cruise lines tend to terminate a crew member when the ship is docked in a non-U.S. port. Although the flight is arranged and paid for by the cruise line, the crew member is rushed off the ship and sometimes has to board the flight in less than 2 hours. Once the crew member is off the gangway, they are no longer the cruise line’s responsibility. If the crew member misses her flight, she has to pay out-of-pocket for a new ticket. 

Employment on cruise ships is considered "at will" employment, meaning at the will of the employer. There is a saying in the cruise industry that a crew member can be terminated for good cause, bad cause or no cause. Maritime legal rights are virtually non-existent when the crew member is terminated.

Cruise lines don’t like problems. They don’t want crew members who will “make waves.” As soon as a crew member is labeled as a “problem,” they can expect a knock on the door around 6:00 AM.    

This blog was written by Danielle Gauer who worked as a dancer for several years on cruise ships prior to embarking on her university studies. She is currently completing her Juris Doctor at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law and will be sitting for the Ontario, Canada Bar admission examinations this June. 

Prior to law school, Danielle (middle, with Jonathan Aronson left, and Jim Walker right) was the recipient of the Ryerson University Gold Medal and H.H. Kerr Memorial Scholarship for high academic standing.

You can read Danielle's prior guest blogs below:

So You Want to Dance on the High Seas?

Life Below Deck 4: What Passengers Don't Know & the Cruise Lines Won't Tell Them

Cruising, "Eh!" to Z! What Canadians Should Know Before Getting On-Board . . .
 

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Just when you think that things could not get any worse for Carnival, news is just breaking that authorities are investigating what is being characterized as a "sex attack" on a Carnival cruise ship. 

A newspaper in the Bahamas is reporting that a team of of detectives from Nassau to Galveston, Texas yesterday to investigate an alleged sexual assault that occurred on a Carnival cruise ship.

The newspaper identified the cruise ship as the Triumph, which has remained in the headlines after it caught fire and had to be towed back to port.  However, the Bahamas Maritime Authority (BMA) reportedly stated that the incident did not involve the Triumph.  The BMA said that it was investigating a Bahamian registered vessel but not the Triumph. The BMA did not even acknowledge that they were investigating a cruise ship. 

The country of the Bahamas is responsible for investigating fires and collisions as well as crimes which occur on cruise ships flying the flag of the Bahamas.

Here's what the Bahamian newspaper is reporting: 

While the Bahamas Maritime Authority is leading the investigation into what caused the fire, detectives from the Royal Bahamas Police Force are also investigating a sexual offence claim, Assistant Commissioner of Police Anthony Ferguson said yesterday.

“We send some officers to Texas to head up the investigation. The ship is a Bahamian Flag Ship so wherever something happens we have to tend it. The officers went over there this morning and should be back sometime tomorrow. They are investigating a sexual offence matter that happened on the cruise. We should have some more information tomorrow on the matter.”

A statement is also expected from the Maritime Authority, according to London Representative Dwain Hutchinson. He said an investigation is underway and a statement will be released to the press “soon.”

Carnival flags six of its ships in the Bahamas, including the Destiny, Fascination, Imagination, Inspiration, Sensation and the Triumph.

Sexual assaults on cruise ships are one of the cruise industry's nastiest secrets.  We have attended several Congressional hearings which have studied the problem. There has been expert testimony before Congress that the risk of being raped at sea on a cruise ship is twice that of being attacked ashore.  

February 18, 2013 Update:  Carnival say that the incident but it does not appear to be related to any Carnival ships.

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Last night ABC News aired a one hour special on 20/20 following the Triumph cruise ship fire.

In the video below, you will hear from passengers on the "cruise from hell" talk about their experiences, and see the Carnival marketing and PR people run away from ABC's cameras.

I answered a few questions, and explained that unlike the U.S. commercial aviation industry with strict oversight by the FAA, there is no comparable federal oversight over the cruise industry. 

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The long tortuous tow back to Mobile ended last night with smiles of relief on the faces of the over-3,000-passengers as they straggled off the stinking stricken Triumph.  It was a happy sight to me. Yes, there were people still upset, understandably so, but the sentiment seems to be that they had all encountered a surreal experienced and had survived.

Cruise ship fires do not always turn out this well.  I have represented clients who waved goodbye to their loved one as they boarded a cruise ship only to return in a body bag.

Yesterday I was asked a dozen times during interviews about the rights of passengers when things like this happen on the high seas.  

The cruise lines have drafted terms and conditions in the cruise passenger tickets (considered by the courts to be the legal, binding contract) to protect themselves in virtually every imaginable circumstance.  Unless a passenger is physically injured or become physically ill (say due to the unsanitary conditions of sewage on the ship), they have virtually no rights at all.

The good news is that It appears that there were no injuries due to the fire. There very well may be no serious medical illnesses notwithstanding the seriously disgusting circumstances aboard the ship.       

Photo credit: Getty Images / NY Daily News

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Today CNN asked me to write an opinion piece regarding the state of affairs of the cruise industry following the fire aboard the Carnival Triumph.  CNN permits only the first 150 words of the article to be published so here you go:

Editor's note: James M. Walker is a maritime lawyer and cruise safety advocate involved in cruise ship law and maritime litigation with his law firm, Walker and O'Neill. He has represented crew members and passengers against cruise lines, including Carnival and Royal Caribbean. Formerly, he worked as a lawyer for the cruise industry.

(CNN) -- A Carnival cruise ship was adrift 150 miles off the coast of Mexico after an engine room fire. Cruise passengers were complaining about the lack of air conditioning, hot cabins, cold food and toilets that wouldn't flush.

As I watched the news broadcast, I thought it was a documentary about the Carnival Splendor, which suffered a disabling engine room fire in November 2010 off Mexico. But the story was about the Carnival Triumph, which caught fire early Sunday after sailing from Galveston, Texas, with more than 3,100 passengers.

The cruise industry says cruise ship fires are rare, but they are not rare. They happen with alarming frequency . . .  

Read the rest of the article here. 

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At this moment the 210 foot Coast Guard cutter Vigorous is escorting the disabled Carnival Triumph back to the U.S. The Coast Guard performs a remarkable job responding to emergencies such as cruise ship fires and the numerous helicopter medevacs involving ill or injured passengers who need medical treatment back here in the U.S.

But who pays for these services?  

Cruise lines have no obligation to pay the Coast Guard or other U.S. federal agencies for services like this. Most people don't know this. Many people also don't realize that the cruise industry pays no U.S. federal taxes because companies like Carnival and Royal Caribbean are registered in foreign countries like Panama and Liberia and fly the flag of countries like the Bahamas.  The industry collects around $35 billion a year, mostly from tax-paying U.S. citizens. But unlike you or me, the cruise lines are essentially exempt from paying the U.S. government anything on all of the billions and billions it collects each month.

So when it comes to paying for a Coast Guard escort of a foreign flagged ship back to an American port, you pay. That's right. Joe the plumber pays. Even though the cruise lines pay no federal taxes and you do, you pay. Even when the cruise ship fire occurs due to the negligence of the cruise line, you pay. 

Remember the last cruise engine fire which disabled the Carnival Splendor in November 2010?  The U.S. sent out an aircraft carrier (U.S. Ronald Reagan) and various U.S. Coast Guard vessels. You paid for all of that too.

The CEO of the International Cruise Victims (ICV) organization Ken Carver, requested information from the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") request. The U.S. Navy timely responded to Mr. Carver's FOIA request. The Navy disclosed that it delivered 60 pallets, weighing over 37,000 pounds, of "bread, luncheon meat, pop tarts, canned crab, water and paper plates."

Considering the cost of positioning an aircraft carrier, dispatching multiple aircraft and helicopters, and delivering tons of food and water to be dropped onto the cruise ship, the Navy stated that it spent $1,884,376.75 responding to the fire aboard the Carnival Splendor cruise ship. 

This figure does not include the costs incurred by the U.S. Coast Guard in responding to the crisis. Unfortunately, the Coast Guard has not yet provided any information in response to Mr. Carver's FOIA request dating back to earlier last year.

The Coast Guard's costs were undoubtedly another $2,000,000 or so in personnel and fuel costs for their vessels and helicopters.

I mentioned this issue last year in an article Your Tax Dollars At Sea - Who Pays When Things Go Wrong on Cruises? 

So here we are again with another foreign-flagged cruise ship disabled due to fire, operated by a foreign incorporated cruise line which pays no U.S. income taxes calling on good ole Uncle Sam to spend a few million dollars to bail it out.

Its time to re-examine why these cruise lines collect billions but pay no taxes and why you and me have to pay when their cruise ships catch on fire on the high seas and they call on U.S federal agencies for help.     

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Yesterday all of the major news stations were airing updates on the latest Carnival cruise ship fire. "Cruise from hell, "nightmare cruise" and so forth were the headlines.

It was like deja vu hearing the stories of loss of power, no air conditioning, hot cabins, cold food and toilets on the Triumph that did not work.  

ABC aired a rather sensational program yesterday, with images of the disabled ship bobbing like a big cork in the water, passengers literally crying that they want to go home, and accusations by other passengers that Carnival risked innocent lives by ignoring prior engine problems.

It may seem like the end of the world to many passengers on the entirely unpleasant cruise ship as well as to the concerned families back home. If the fire had spread, it might have been the end for the passengers. But It seems that most people have forgotten about an identical engine room fire which disabled the Carnival Splendor cruise ship back in November 2010. After everyone received a full reimbursement of the fare and flight expenses, it seemed like everyone forgot about the cruise from hell.

There was no Congressional investigation and no calls for a fleet wide inspection of the engines on Carnival's ships.    

Will this latest Carnival cruise fire be as easily forgotten?   

I posted images of the ABC special here. Click on each photo for a larger image and the captions.

You can read our initial article about the fire here, and our article about prior engine problems on the Triumph here.  

Photo credit bottom - Lisa Hirtz via ABC News

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When the news broke that the Carnival Triumph's engines failed due to a fire while the cruise ship was 150 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico, passengers on prior cruises quickly began voicing their concerns about propulsion problems on prior cruises.

You can read the comments to our article on Sunday entitled Here We Go Again: Engine Room Fire Cripples Carnival Triumph Cruise Ship where Carnival passengers across the country stated that their cruises had been marred by missed ports and slow voyages due to propulsion issues.

Other websites, such as the popular Maritime Matters, posted numerous comments from concerned cruisers about prior engine problems on the Triumph.  

There were also a number news stations which aired stories about persistent problems about this Carnival cruise ship. KLTV aired a program Texans Angry Over Cruise Experience (video) where one Carnival passenger complained about the cruise line's decision to "put money ahead of safety."

The problem in cases like this is that the cruise lines operate their ships virtually 24 hours a days, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.  The ships have a tight itinerary, rushing from port to port, and then disembarking several thousand passengers and re-loading the ship to head out again. Down time for a few days for maintenance means many millions of dollars lost and lots of unhappy customers. So the ships (as well as the crew) are pushed to and sometimes past their limits.   

One of the readers of our Cruise Law News Facebook page made this insightful observation yesterday:

"Money Talks - It is sad to hear that the news is now surfacing that prior to this ill-fated cruise that there were issues on recent previous cruises, which will cause a lot of backlash against the company. If an enquiry is launched it could mean trouble for Carnival. I just want to mention that crew onboard are mostly tip driven and senior officers are incentivised on revenue, so the motivation to ensure the cruise happens is pretty high from a crew and officer point of view. If the ship could not leave port it would mean that not only does the company lose revenue, the crew would be put at a disadvantage financially as well."

Have a thought?  Please leave a comment.

Photo credit: U.S. Coast Guard / Reuters

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This morning, the Carnival Triumph lost propulsion in the Gulf of Mexico after an engine room fire disabled its main engines.  The cruise ship’s fire suppression system kept the fire from spreading.

No injuries have been disclosed. Carnival says that all guests will receive a full refund and transportation expenses.

The next cruise scheduled is for tomorrow, February 11th. Passengers have been told that the cruise will not depart and they can cancel and receive a full refund or wait and see if the ship will sail later on a shortened cruise. 

News sources say that the fire broke out while the cruise ship was sailing about 150 miles off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, after sailing from Galveston on February 7th.

The ship's generator power is working but the cruise ship has no propulsion to return to port in Galveston. Some news sources are saying that tugs were deployed.

Carnival has experienced more than its fair shares of fires. The best known incident was the fire aboard the Carnival Splendor in November 2010.  The ship lost all power and had to be towed to San Diego (photo below right). The U.S. Coast Guard investigated and said that the Carnival Splendor CO2 firefighting system was a "recipe for failure."

It will be interesting to hear about how this fire started. The Triumph is an old ship, coming on line in 1999. 

There have been lots of fires and explosions on the major cruise lines in the last two years, including the Queen Mary 2, MSC Musica, Ocean Star, another fire aboard the Queen Mary 2, Bahamas Celebration, Costa Allegra, Azamara Quest, the Allure, the Carnival Breeze, Crown Princess, and the Adventure of the Seas - not to mention the smaller river cruise ships. 

Cruise ship fires are not uncommon. There have been over 90 fires on cruise ships since 1990. 

That's a little more than 4 a year.

Expect the cruise lines and cruise cheerleaders to down-play this latest fire but don't be fooled. Read our article "Ten Years of Cruise Ship Fires - Has the Cruise Industry Learned Anything?"

Photo credit: Carnival Triumph - Wikipedia / Scott L.

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Following the Costa Concordia disaster last year, the Cruise Line International Organization (CLIA) announced 10 new safety proposals that all of the cruise lines were suppose to follow.

One proposal was that cruise lines would no longer load crew members in the lifeboats during safety drills. Instead, cruise lines were suppose to lower the lifeboats into the water first, load the crew members in next, and then practice motoring the lifeboat around. The proposal envisions only a few crew aboard during the lowering of the lifeboat, and they must be essential to the operation. 

Today we learn that at least 8 crew members were in a lifeboat during a drill on the Thomson Majesty cruise ship, apparently in violation of the new CLIA safety proposal, when the lifeboat plunged 60 feet into the water. The lifeboat landed upside down. 5 of the crew are dead. 3 are injured. 

The cruise ship was docked at the pier of Santa Cruz port in La Palma, in the Canary Islands. Thomson Cruises is owned by the large German travel company TUI. The cruise ship is operated by Louis Cruises.

A local newspaper says that the nationality of the dead victims are three Indonesians, a Ghanian and a Filipino. The injured involve two Greek crew members in serious condition and a Filipino in what is being described as in less serious condition.   

There is a saying that most lifeboats drills injure or kill more crew than save lives. Lifeboats can fall suddenly due to operator error or suffer malfunctions of the moving parts or failure of the cables and hardware. The accident appears to have happened while the lifeboat was being raised. No one needs to be aboard the lifeboat when it is raised. A cable snapped on one side. A photograph on our Facebook page shows a frayed cable.  

You can see a dramatic lifeboat accident in a video here. Although it did not involve a cruise ship, you can see how things can go terribly wrong.

It's a shame that the lifeboat had crew members aboard while it was being lowered and raised in violation of the CLIA safety proposals. Why have 8 crewmembers in the boat while it is being raised anyway? The safety proposals are just that - proposals. It seems that at the end of the day, the cruise lines do whatever they want to do. 

Please leave a comment below or discuss this accident on our Facebook page. 

February 11 2013 Update: Cruise Critic has an interesting article: Lifeboat Tragedy: Did Cruise Line Ignore Safety Guidelines?  It quotes an expert on lifeboat drills:

"Alan Graveson, Senior International Secretary of Nautilus the U.K.-based seafarers' union, said: "I issued instructions seven years ago that preferably nobody should be in the lifeboat during a safety drill, and if that's not possible then there should be a maximum of two people.

"Lifeboats are meant to go one way -- and that's down -- I don't know why there were eight people onboard when they were winching it back up."

Photo credit: AP via Huffington Post.  Video credit: BBC News.

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Cruise Law News received a message late Saturday night indicating that a passenger went overboard from the MSC Fantasia.  Here's the message:

MSC Fantasia is in first day of a Carnival cruise. It embarked 4000 drunk pax today in Santos, Brazil and around 7 PM, the time to leave the port, we had one passenger go from deck 11 straight into the sea. It's 11.30pm and we're still looking for the passenger. We have the Federal Police on board and divers and we don't know where is the passenger . . .  was to drunk so he couldn't save himself.  Then they lowered a lifeboat but by the time they manage to get close to him, Costa Favolosa was getting out from the port so two small waves and the passenger was nowhere to be found.  We're standing by now but the party at the pool is at the MAX.  Drinks, music and naked pax. This is Brazil!

A newspaper in Brazil is covering the story.

This is the second passenger overboard from a MSC cruise ship in two days. Yesterday we reported on a Portuguese passenger who went overboard from the Divina in the Mediterranean.  

In December 2012, we reported on a cruise passenger who fell from an upper deck of the MSC Fantasia and died.

As you can see from the Fantasia's web cam, there seems to be quite a partying crowd on the cruise ship.

Please leave a comment if you have information about what happened.

February 10 2013 Update: The missing passenger was identified as Luciano De Lucca, age 30, from passenger cabin number 11063, located on the 11th deck.

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A reader of Cruise Law news has alerted me to another person going overboard from a cruise ship.

A newspaper in Italy states that a Portuguese man, 46 years old, was found dead off of the coast of Corsica. He was sailing as a passenger on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean sea when he went overboard for reasons not disclosed.

The Expresso XL newspaper reports that "the victim has been formally identified as a Portuguese man of 46 years who had disappeared from the vessel MSC Divina . . . "

The passenger had been reported missing from the MSC cruise ship at 1:00 PM today. The weather was calm.

Helicopters and a jet searched for the unidentified man after he was reported missing.  An investigation is being conducted into the case by shoreside maritime officials in France.

The French maritime authorities released the following statement (translated):

"This Saturday, February 9 shortly before noon, the body of a lifeless man spotted ten miles southwest of Bonifacio by a customs plane. He had taken part in the device search to try to find a passenger MSC Divina missing since 1am in the area.

Hoisted by the helicopter PUMA Solenzara, the victim has been formally identified as a Portuguese man of 46 years who had disappeared from the ship.

An investigation will be launched to determine the exact circumstances of his death."

Anyone with information please leave a comment below. 

Photo credit MSC Divina - Wikimedia Commons / Mllturro

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A year ago. Cruise Law News was the first one in the U.S. to report that a Royal Caribbean crew member, Fabian Zanzi, claimed that movie celebrity John Travolta sexually harassed and assaulted him during a cruise.  We had first heard of the alleged incident several years ago from a crew member client who worked on Royal Caribbean's Enchantment of the Seas cruise ship. 

We were told that a Royal Caribbean crew member claimed that Travolta came-on-to-him during a cruise on the Enchantment in 2009.  

Zanzi's lawsuit claims that after he served Travolta room service, Travolta disrobed, "forcibly embracing" Zanzi while naked, and engaged in "nonconsensual, inappropriate, extreme and outrageous" contact. 

Zanzi reported the incident to his supervisors at the cruise line. Royal Caribbean then punished Zanzi and kept him confined to his cabin. Travolta ended his cruise early and took a jet back to the U.S.    

Travolta denied everything of course. 

Travolta's lawyers responded to Zanzi's lawsuit by moving to dismiss it and to send the case to arbitration. This way Travolta could avoid the publicity of a jury trial. Arbitration usually results in lower damages awarded to the aggrieved party. This is how cruise lines respond to lawsuits by injured crew members.

A federal court judge recently denied Travolta'a motion to arbitrate the case. You can read the well reasoned opinion here. This means that the case would head toward a jury trial.

But yesterday, the Hollywood news reporters said that Zanzi's lawsuit had been "dropped," after the parties had stipulated to a dismissal.  Sounds to me like Travolta paid a settlement, after losing his arbitration motion, in order to avoid the prospect of all of his dirty laundry being aired out before a jury in Los Angeles. The parties probably agreed to keep the settlement terms secret.  A good move by Travolta to put this spectacle to bed.

Meanwhile, Zanzi is proceeding with his claim against Royal Caribbean that it falsely imprisoned him in retaliation for reporting the alleged sexual harassment.

The Zanzi - Royal Caribbean false imprisonment claim is in arbitration, so there will be no jury trial for the Hollywood reporters to attend. My prediction is that eventually the cruise line will agree to a settlement, subject to a confidentiality agreement.

Then the case will end like it began, with everyone trying to keep what happens on cruise ships secret. 

Photo credit - John Travolta - WENN

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The Smart Planet blog has an interesting article about the effects of the ever growing cruise industry upon ports in Asia.

Entitled Hong Kong Contends with Pollution from a Growing Cruise Industry, the article reveals the extent to which cruise lines are still burning bunker fuel while not even equipping their ships with the ability to plug into shore-side electrical power.  

The articles states that "emissions from berthed ships are considered the No. 1 contributor to Hong Kong’s severe air pollution problem and are said to account for 40% of greenhouse gases within its borders. Coming from cruise and cargo ships, these emissions outdo that of power plants and road vehicles."

Cruise ships and other large vessels are still burning bunker fuel while in port.

Bunker fuel is the nastiest and deadliest fuel in the world. Burning low-sulfur fuel is more expensive and there is no legal requirement in Hong Kong at this time to use the cleaner fuel.

Without a threat of a fine or some other legal consequence, the cruise industry will always choose the least expensive and most environmentally destructive path.

Check out a non-profit group's Facebook page about ship pollution in Hong Kong.

There are some interesting photos of ships polluting the port with deadly smoke, including the Star Pisces (photo above right).  Don't be fooled that this is just a problem over in Hong Kong. Star Cruises has maintained a large ownership of Miami-based Norwegian Cruise Lines for years.    

The article explains that Hong Kong’s air pollution is a major health threat and results in deaths in the city estimated between 1,200 and 3,00 per year.

At a cruise forum last week, Pier Luigi Foschi, the chief executive of Carnival Asia, objected to the requirement for cruise ships to use shore-side power. He said it is unrealistic to require ships to use on-shore power because many cruise ships are not equipped to be plugged in. That begs the question why at this late date all cruise ships don't have a big cable that can be hooked up to the clean electrical power at the ports around the world.  

You may recall Mr. Foschi was the CEO of Costa Crociere when the Concordia crashed last year.  I'm not so sure I would give much weight to anything he says.   

Photo Credit:

Top: Star Pisces - Hong Kong Pollution Watch Facebook Page

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A number of newspapers in Australia are reporting that police in the Northern Territory of Australia are investigating the death of a 24-year-old woman aboard a cruise ship which docked in Darwin today.

Commander Richard Bryson of the Crime and Specialist Support Command said the woman's body was found in her cabin. "The woman was a staff member on a cruise ship which is currently moored in Darwin Harbour," he said.

"A crime scene was established as the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident continue."

The newspaper articles state that the police refuse to release further information, such as even the name of the cruise ship.

Ship tracking services indicate that the Seven Seas Voyager operated by Regent Seven Seas Cruises (RSSC) is in Darwin today. The Seven Seas Voyager has a crew of 447 serving some 700 passengers.

Needless to say, the death of a young woman is unusual. 

The death of this young woman comes at a time when members of the International Cruise Victims (ICV) organization are petitioning the government of Australia for legislation to protect passengers and crew members who sail into Australian ports. ICV Australia Director Mark Brimble lost his wife on a cruise after she was given a date rape drug. 

An on-line cruise community says that the crew member in question was the lead female singer on the cruise ship, although this has not been confirmed. 

February 3 2012 Update:

A news station in Australia has video showing a Regent Seven Seas cruise ship as the location of the incident. 

The young woman was a talented performer for Jean Ann Ryan Productions which employ dancers and singers on cruise ships.

She apparently worked aboard the Seven Seas Voyager for a relatively short period of time after performing on other Regent cruise ships like the Navigator and Mariner.

Rest in Peace Jackie Kastrinelis.

February 4 2013 Update:

A newspaper in Australia quotes police saying that they do not believe that a crime occurred.  A coroner will prepare a report.   

We received information that the crew member had an accident the preceding day during a rehearsal where she hit her head and had been given medicine by the ship doctor. 

A news station in Australia has a video tribute to Ms. Kastrinelis below.

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According to the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act, cruise ships are required to have "acoustic hailing and warning devices" in certain high risk areas. These devices emit a high pitched noise that is directed toward approaching vessels and causes intense pain to the ears of the vessel's occupants. 

The reason for this law is is to protect passengers and crew members from pirate attacks by repelling pirate skiffs from approaching and trying to board vessels on the high seas. You can read accounts of pirates attacking cruise ships here to see that the risk of such an attack is foreseeable.

Unfortunately, some cruise lines are not in compliance with this new law which was passed in 2010.

But today I read a press release indicating that a major cruise line has chosen to use HyperSpike Acoustic Hailing Devices (AHDs) to protect five cruise ships. The cruise line is not identified.

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Thursday night a news station in West Palm Beach, Florida is airing an expose into passengers who are sickened on cruise ships.

WPTV - 5 aired a teaser video tonight entitled Cruise Ship Workers are Breaking the Rules, and Making Passengers Sick.

It sounds like the TV station will take a look at the outbreak of gastrointestinal viruses which have plagued the cruise industry over the years. It promises to reveal the cruise lines with the most problems (i.e., Princess Cruises and Holland America Line).

Cruise lines always blame the passengers for not washing their hands, and the passengers usually blame the cruise lines for having unsanitary ships.  Meanwhile no one is conducting a scientific analysis to determine exactly where the virus originated.  

I will be watching tomorrow night at 11:00 PM.   

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KTOO news station in Alaska reports today that the Environmental Protection Agency fined Princess Cruises $20,000 for dumping water from six swimming pools aboard the Golden Princess cruise ship into Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in 2011.

The EPA announced the fine against the cruise line yesterday.

Princess was forced to sign a consent agreement admitting responsibility and subjecting itself to a final court order. Princess admitted that it violated the Clean Water Act in May 2011 when it discharged more than 66,000 gallons of pool water into the pristine waters of Glacier Bay.

Princess Cruises claims that a "software malfunction," on the Golden Princess, somehow caused all six of the pool valves to open. This dumped chlorinated water from all of the cruise ship’s pools as well as whirlpools into the national park and preserve.

The waste-water permits for large cruise ships prohibit the discharge of pool and spa water in national parks and refuges. 

The fine comes at a time when the Governor of Alaska is agreeing to roll back the strict water emission laws of Alaska as urged by the cruise industry. 

Princess Cruises has the worst environmental record in the Alaskan waters, and has been caught discharging illegal levels of waste water over the recent years.  Before the state of Alaska began passing strict environmental laws, the cruise industry openly dumped raw sewage and chemicals throughout the Alaskan waters.   

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The L.A. Times has an interesting article today about whether the new cruise safety proposals marketed to the public after the Concordia disaster are really making a difference.

Entitled Questions Linger One Year After the Costa Concordia Disaster, the article by L.A. Times reporter Mary Forgione asks some tough questions whether the cruise industry has taken the steps necessary to make cruising safer for the public.

Interviewed in the article are two cruise ship survivors who give the issue some true perspective. Weighing in for the cruise industry is former travel agent Christine Duffy, who is now head of the cruise trade organization Cruise Line International Association, as well as cruise fan Carolyn Spencer Brown, who is the editor of the pro-cruise website and Expedia & Trip Advisor owned Cruise Critic.  

Ms. Forione interviewed me as the critic of the cruise industry, I suppose.

My take is that the proposals are rather modest. Plus there is no regulatory agency of any type which can actually enforce the proposals. The proposals are mostly happy-talk to try and convince the public that it's safe keep buying cruises. 

There are more pressing cruise safety issues to worry about that no one is talking about.

The risk of terrorism against a cruise ship is frightening, Consider this. But no one is discussing the inadequate, skeleton crews of security guards on cruise ships.

Nor is anyone focusing on the greatest risk to your family if you cruise. Sexual assault of children, girls and women. Just last week two officers aboard a Princess cruise ship were arrested on allegations that they raped a woman on the Grand Princess. No one is talking about that either. 

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News sources in the Middle East are reporting that a cruise ship carrying 112 Egyptian passengers sank in the Nile River yesterday evening after striking large rocks. The Al-Ahram's news website report that the incident took place near the Egyptian cities of Kom Ombo and Aswan.

Reports are that all passengers safely disembarked the sinking vessel which is called the King of the Nile.

In November of last year, we reported on another cruise ship which caught on fire on the Nile.  77 tourists were aboard but got off safely.

You can read the article Fire Breaks Out During Cruise Down the Nile. 

Please contact us if you have any information or photos of this latest incident.

Photo credit: Ahram Arabic News Website

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One of the topics I harp on here at Cruise Law News is the danger of having a sexual predator sailing in the next cabin to you while you enjoy a vacation cruise.  

Cruise ships of course do not screen passengers to determine whether they are sexual predators. The local port officials and sheriff's offices can easily perform background checks like this but they usually don't bother to conduct the checks until the cruise ships are at sea and then it's too late to arrest the undesirables before they can attack someone on the cruise.   

Today we have another example of why it is prudent not to trust the friendly man who is sailing next to your family's cabin.

WSVN-7 reports today that the police arrested a 30 year old man who allegedly sexually assaulted two underage teenage girls outside a South Florida shelter.  The news station states that Brian Denby was arrested after arriving back at the Port of Miami from a cruise this morning.

Three weeks ago, according to police, Denby was walking by a shelter for victims of abuse called "Kids in Distress." After talking to two teen girls who live at the shelter, he hopped the fence sexually abused the two girls. The police released his sketch and after a tip came in the officers were able to identify Denby.

The news station reports that Denby was on vacation on a Royal Caribbean cruise in the Bahamas. When the cruise ship arrived back to the Port of Miami today, the police and federal officials boarded the ship and arrested Denby.  He is in jail in Broward County charged with several counts of lewd and lascivious battery.

Photograph courtesy of Broward County Sheriff's Office via CBS News.

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Former cruise ship performer and soon-to-be-lawyer Danielle Gauer returns for another inside look at the cruise industry. You can read Danielle's prior articles about life as a cruise ship dancer here and what Canadians should know about cruising here.  Thanks Danielle for another great blog: 

Many cruise ship passengers wonder where the crew lives and what it's like “down below.”

Beneath the beautifully decorated lounges, restaurants, art galleries and shops is another city with its own rules and hierarchical structure. The jobs on a cruise ship are pretty much based on nationality which designates the type of living arrangement that crew member will have. Because the "lowest" jobs on the totem pole are the cleaners, those employees are usually situated on the lowest deck of the ship, in shared cabins with a communal washroom and shower to be shared with those living in that particular corridor.

The type of job also determines status in the crew hierarchy.  Hierarchy determines crew privileges and the kind of unspoken social rules that they must follow. As a dancer, I was considered a “non-striped” officer. As a result I was allowed to go in the guest areas of the ship, have a drink in a lounge, go to the top deck and sunbathe, and watch other entertainers on nights I wasn’t working. My “status” also permitted me to "hang out" with the high ranking officers who lived on the upper decks of the ship.

A cabin steward would not dare to try and socialize with an officer, and vice versa. There are cases where male officers would “shack up” with low ranking employees for the duration of their contract. The officer coin the subordinate crew member as their “mistress.”

For those who followed the Costa Concordia disaster, you may recall the good captain and his girlfriend. That is business as usual. 

The majority of crew members do not have any special privileges. These crew members include the cabin stewards and waiters who are predominantly Indonesian or Filipino, and who work 12-15 hours a day for little money. They are lucky to get time off in port to call home to their loved ones, as satellite calling cards on the ship can be quite expensive ($20 for 17 minutes of talk time back in 2006).

But the real question is . . .  what happens after work and the passengers are out of sight?

Usually located on deck 3 or on the “I-95” (the term is used to describe the main deck or “corridor” of the crew area), the general crew bar is open to all crew members. This means that even the highest ranked officers can party with the lowest men and women on the totem pole. There is also an Officer’s Bar which is designated to only the officers on the ship.

Aside from blatant segregation, the crew bar is alive with music and cheap booze, allowing crew members to party and get “tanked” till the early hours of the morning. The bartender working in the crew bar typically works on the ship in another capacity during the regular work day, but takes on the responsibility to get his/her fellow crew members liquored up so that they can actually enjoy their time on board the ship.

With lots of alcohol inevitably comes inappropriate behaviors involving both passengers and crew members. Much of this misconduct flies well below the radar. The only concern for the crew members is when they wake up with a hangover the next morning, or they find themselves terminated following an alcohol test. With that said, this is a risk that many crew members see worth taking.

I guess the common phrase still holds true, what happens in the crew bar stays in the crew bar . . . 

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Newspapers in Bermuda are reporting that two Italian crew members age 26 and 27, aboard the Grand Princess cruise ship, are charged with raping a female crew member.  Both of the men are believed to be officers.

The sexual assault at issue allegedly occurred on January 12, 2013, but there is no information where the cruise ship was located at the time of the alleged crime.

The remarkable thing about the story is that the crew members were actually arrested. Bermuda has been a complete joke about holding crew members legally accountable when they rape women on Princess cruise ships.  No crew member has ever been convicted and imprisoned for sexually assaulted a woman aboard a Princess cruise ship although multiple sexual crimes have been alleged over the years.

The charges are being heard in Bermuda because Princess Cruises registers its cruise ships there to avoid U.S. taxes and labor laws.

The two men were granted bail of only $5,000 each which is not much more than a passenger has to pay for possessing a few marijuana joints aboard a cruise ship in Bermuda. 

The last Princess rape case ended with the alleged rapist going free.

It is doubtful that the cruise-ship-beholden island of Bermuda will ever bring justice to a cruise ship rape victim.

Stay tuned.

Leave a comment below or discuss the incident on our Facebook page.

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Earlier this week, we reported on the death of a 47-year-old Indonesian crew member, identified as Sahid Bin Fauzi, who worked as a mechanic on the Costa Serena cruise ship. He died after falling into a ventilation duct of one of the ship's engines.

Today we learn that a criminal prosecutor in Genoa, Italy, where Costa is headquartered and where the cruise ship is flagged, has opened a criminal investigation into the incident.  An Italian newspaper reports that chief prosecutor Michele DiLecce has initiated an investigation under the theory that the death involved a case of involuntary manslaughter.   

The cruise ship was sailing between Buenos Aires, Argentina and Angra Ries, Brazil at the time of the crew member's death.

Criminal investigations of crew member deaths are unusual. It appears that there must be an indication of egregious conduct by the cruise line to prompt a criminal prosecutor to initiate such an investigation.

Are there any crew members out there with information to share?  

Photo credit: ilsecoloxix.it

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A lawsuit recently filed here in Miami illustrates the danger of cruise ship rape which most families who cruise do not realize.

The lawsuit filed last week alleges that Carnival served a young woman two margaritas, a Mojito and three double vodka drinks. Weighing only 118 pounds, the passenger was visibly intoxicated but the Carnival bartenders kept pouring drinks to the woman and her friends, one of whom was so drunk that she vomited on her.

Carnival crew members and officers were observed openly fraternizing and drinking alcohol with women in the ship's bar and disco club. The lawsuit alleges after the woman was intoxicated, two upper level Carnival ship employees, both large men, physically pinned down the wrists of the petite, small framed woman and took turns raping her. One Carnival employee sodomized her. The lawsuit states that the two men humiliated the woman and laughed at her when she resisted and protested.  

The theory of liability against Carnival is that the cruise line routinely over-serves alcohol to its passengers in order to increase profits and it does not maintain an adequate level of security to protect women on its cruise ships. While Carnival encourages excessive alcohol consumption, it does not enforce its alleged "zero tolerance" policy against crew - guest fraternization. In addition to the negligence allegations, the lawsuit asserts that the cruise lines is vicariously and strictly liable for the criminal conduct of its employees.

We first mentioned the incident last March - Was a Passenger Sexually Assaulted on the Carnival Victory?

The correlation between excessive alcohol and sexual violence against women is a topic we have discussed often here on this blog. 

Serving a young women what turns out to be 9 drinks, permitting crew members and officers to mingle with the drunk women in the disco, and providing no real security or warnings to passengers about the risk of being raped is a recipe for disaster.

Carnival nonetheless continues to aggressively advertise the sale of virtually unlimited booze. Just recently Carnival announced that it would impose a "limit" of 15 alcoholic drinks as part of its all-you-can-drink package. Of course fifteen (15) drinks is no limit at all.  

If a bar or restaurant served a woman 10 or 15 drinks and then employees of the restaurant raped the guest, the local police would probably end up arresting the bartenders and restaurant owner in addition to the employees who committed the crime. But on Carnival cruises, this seems to be part of the "fun ship" experience.

In 2006, I attended a Congressional hearing where a subcommittee listened to testimony where bartenders of Carnival-owned Costa Cruises served a 15 year old girl 10 drinks. A newspaper in Ireland wrote that in a period of 45 minutes the 15-year-old girl "was served 10 drinks in a bar on the cruise ship, two Sex on the Beach, four Woo Woos, two vodka and mixers, a shot of vodka and liqueurs." The young girl went overboard while trying to vomit over the railing. She has never been found.    

If you are a woman sailing on a cruise ship, watch how much you drink. Bartenders earn their living on tips and the food and beverage employees are under pressure to meet drink quotas. If you drink too much, stay with your friends. If you are a parent with teenage daughters, don't think that the cruise line will strictly enforce a drinking age of 21 or that it is safe to leave your children unattended. 

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When I started this blog, I included a section where I award cruise lines and cruise executives the title "worst cruise line in the world" for the company or person in the cruise industry engaged in the most outlandish conduct.

Some months it has been hard to award just one cruise line or person because there have been so many outlandish things happening lately in the cruise industry.  When the Costa Concordia disaster struck, I discontinued the practice because there were not enough award trophies to pass out. 

But today I decided to return to the "worst in the world" award after reading a news account involving a woman arrested after cruising with her family because of $85 in court costs which she didn't pay twenty-two years ago.  

The story involves a forty-one year old woman from Connecticut who sailed on the Disney Dream cruise ship with her husband and two kids. When the cruise ship returned to Port Canaveral today, the Brevard County Sheriff's office was waiting to handcuff her and haul her off to jail.  

It turns out that the woman, whose name I will not mention because she has been humiliated enough, owed the state of Florida $85 in court costs for an misdemeanor arrest for the theft of a pack of cigarettes in 1991 when she was 18 years old.  

Over the last two decades, she became married, paid for college, received a degree in architecture, had two kids, and is gainfully employed designing jet engines for a major aircraft manufacturer.

A cruise for 4 aboard a Disney cruise ship is a pricey ticket. And I bet she is a good mom who planned to take her kids to Disney World as well.  Certainly the economy of Florida benefits from her paying for the cruise out of a local port, flying into a local airport, renting a car or taking a taxi, paying tolls, buying food and staying in hotels.     

But instead we'll let the taxpayers pay for her to sit in jail in the Brevard County jailhouse which will not let her post bail because the court costs were levied in Orange County and she has to be transferred from Brevard County before she can be bonded out. It looks like she may spend as long as 4 or 5 days in jail before she is transferred to Orlando and released. 

Arresting a mother of two for non-payment of $85 in court costs is ludicrous. Why not arrest grandmothers for library books returned late? Yes, personal accountability is important but an arrest for $85 in court costs after 22 years given the significant amount of violent crimes on cruise ships today?

Ridiculous!  

I thought about giving the "worst in the world" award to the Brevard County Sheriff's Office because it does such a poor job arresting child predators and rapists on cruise ships. The port police and sheriff's department in Brevard seem to look the other way when foreign crew members steal jewelry and iPhones and computers from passengers on the high seas.

But I thought that the award should go to the news station, WESH-2 in Orlando, which ran the preposterous story. In addition to its article on line which you can read here, the news station aired a sensational piece showing the woman's mug shot, video of the woman in hand-cuffs, images of her being placed in the jail cell, photos of barb wire and high fences of the jail house, and the woman sobbing in contrition.

In a cruise industry with an alarmingly bad record for drunken shipboard violence and un-prosecuted sex crimes against women and children, we have the action team at WESH-2 grilling a mother over $85 dating back to when she was a teenager.    

The news station included video of the news reporter, Dan Billow (resembling Will Ferrell in his role as Ron Burgundy in Anchorman), chastising the poor woman in jail with these comments:

So, you know, isn't that just tough luck? This is your, er', problem. Uhm, I mean, you're the one who did this . . .     

Billow ends the nasty little segment with a friendly reminder to his viewing audience:

So it's worth remembering, before taking a cruise, pay any unpaid traffic tickets or any other outstanding legal matters, or a dream vacation might wind up like ****'s.

Thanks Dan, asshole! 

Leave a comment below or discuss the case on our Facebook page.  

News story & images: WESH-2 Orlando

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A reader of Cruise Law News in Italy has notified us of the death this week of a crew member aboard the Costa Serena cruise ship.

The incident involved a 47-year-old Indonesian crew member, identified as Sahid Bin Fauzi, who worked as a mechanic on the Costa Serena.  He reportedly died after falling into a ventilation duct of one of the ship's engines, apparently while working on the maintenance of fan grids.

A newspaper in Genoa where Costa is headquartered contains a short account of the crew member's death. The accident was revealed today although it occurred last Thursday, while the cruise ship was off the coast of Argentina.  

Other crew members reported Mr. Fauzi's "disappearance," following which the ship's chief engineer searched and located the crew member's lifeless body in the vertical ventilation shaft. It is less than clear how long it took before Mr. Fauzi's body was located.

The Costa Serena is a Concordia-class cruise ship for Carnival-owned Costa Crociere. The name Serena was intended to symbolize harmony and serenity.  The cruise ship has been the cruise line's flagship since 2007.

Photo credit of Costa Serena: ilsecoloxix.it 

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Sad news today in the world of professional baseball with word that legendary baseball manager Earl Weaver died at age 82.

Mr. Weaver was a one-of-a-kind manager who led the Baltimore Orioles to success, winning several American League pennants and the 1970's World Series while leading the league in ejections. Although short in stature, Weaver was viewed as a huge figure in professional sports for his strategy and leadership and his fiery confrontations with baseball umpires. 

News accounts indicate that he died after suffering an apparent heart attack on a Celebrity cruise ship, the Silhouette. There is not yet a clear indication of exactly how he died other than he reportedly collapsed in his cabin after dinner. He was sailing aboard the Celebrity cruise ship as part of a baseball theme cruise.

Don't let the recent videos being shown today of a docile, grey haired grandfather fool you.  

Earl Weaver was a force of nature.  

Just watch the video below if you want to gain an insight into his passion and competitive nature. Please overlook the curse words, that's not the point.  This is the manager who you want on your side, no doubt.  

And yes he made it into the Hall of Fame.

Happy eternal cruising Earl Weaver.

Video credit: Via David Brown / Yahoo Sports / YouTube vlud

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Newspapers in Australia are reporting that a cruise ship is on its way to rescue a round-the-world sailor whose sailboat was de-masted, forcing him to abandon ship into a life raft in remote waters southwest of Tasmania.

The Brisbane Times states that French yachtsman Alain Delord was attempting a sail around the world but became stranded at sea after his sailing yacht was damaged in rough seas. A cruise ship, Orion, diverted its course for Antarctica to assist in the rescue.

The 63 year old sailor was skippering the 10.6 meter sailboat named the Tchouk Tchouk Noguat.  Delord is an experienced mariner, having reportedly completed 17 trans-Atlantic voyages. He has been at sea for several months.

He keeps a blog about his adventures and last noted that he was plotting a course through severe winds measuring 40 knots and 10 meter seas. He was wearing survival gear when he entered the life raft. 

The Orion cruise ship should be at the location of the distress beacon tonight. The emergency beacon was activated yesterday, 500 nautical miles southwest of Hobart.

A French sailing magazine Mon Voile interviewed Mr. Delord in October and discussed his preparations for the trip, the reinforcement of the mast and the steps to be taken in the event of a de-masting.

Let's hope and pray that this turns out well for the Frenchman. 

January 20 2013 Update: Success!  The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Mr. Delord is safely aboard the Orion. His first meal?  "French onion soup, proceeded by a nice fresh green salad and lamb shank with a nice glass of red."

Photo credit: Mon Voile Mag

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A number of news stations in Florida are reporting on the rescue of two boaters by the crew of the Disney Dream cruise ship.

The incident happened on Wednesday as the cruise ship was sailing in Bahamian water at the end of the cruise 

WKMG 6 reports the Disney Dream responded to a distress signal and launched a lifeboat to bring two people stranded on a small pleasure craft on board. Disney officials said the two needed medical attention, food and water but are expected to be okay. 

The ship returned to Port Canaveral on yesterday morning with the two people on board.

The Orlando Sentinel also covered the story and stated that the two boaters were U.S. citizens. The stranded vessel was registered in Florida.

Passengers on the cruise ship took photographs of the rescue.  

Photo credit:

Top - Matt Crawford via WKMG 6

Bottom - Dan Tressler, II via Orlando Sentinel

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We are happy to have Danielle Gauer here at our firm. Danielle has firsthand knowledge of the inner workings of the cruise industry performing as a dancer for several years prior to embarking on her university studies. She is currently completing her Juris Doctor at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law and will be sitting for the Ontario, Canada Bar admission examinations this June.

Prior to law school, Danielle was the recipient of the Ryerson University Gold Medal and H.H. Kerr Memorial Scholarship for high academic standing throughout her program of study (Criminal Justice and Criminology) and extensive participation in co-curricular activities. Danielle is very interested in pursuing a career in maritime law and is a strong advocate of crew member and cruise ship passenger rights!

It seems that things have really changed since my days of performing on the high seas. Yes, I was a dancer on board a number of different cruise lines prior to embarking on my current journey of becoming an attorney. Interning with Jim Walker and Lisa O’Neill I have made a number of interesting observations regarding working as a performer on board a cruise ship.

In general, getting a “land-based” gig as a dancer and/or singer in the US is a grueling process, and for a Canadian, being successful in the industry meant breaking into the U.S. market. The thought of being hired as a performer on a cruise ship was a way to work for a US company, with American performers, performing high quality shows. Back in 2002 when I was auditioning to work in the cruise industry, the majority of cruise ship production companies hired only American performers and it was very rare for them to stop in Canada on their audition tours. I remember calling one production company situated in California, asking them if they hired Canadians. Their response at the time, “we have never been asked that before!” When I was hired through PGT Entertainment, based out of Florida, to work on-board Radisson Seven Seas’ M/S Mariner, I was ecstatic. Arriving for rehearsals to find out I was the only Canadian in a cast that was 90% American was even more amazing. But it seems a lot has changed since then.

It seems from my observations and contacts with performers who are still sailing on the high seas that the number of American performers has declined significantly. Cruise ship entertainers are being recruited from countries from Eastern Europe and Russia. The question is, why such a drastic change? The simple answer, high quality entertainment at a low cost!

Finding cheap labor has become more prevalent on cruise ships across most staff positions, and this includes on board performers. It has become an easy way for cruise companies to take advantage of foreign workers, who don’t expect the same salary or working conditions than a comparable performer from North America. This allows cruise ships to benefit from paying drastically reduced salaries, while also limiting liability and costs to maintain their overall workforce. And they do all of this while paying almost no taxes, by registering the company in foreign countries.

The issue goes much farther than simply salary. North American performers have a different expectation of what is acceptable practice and what is not. There is also usually no language barrier to overcome while working on a major cruise ship. But performers from Eastern Europe, for example, are less likely to know their rights, and also have the disadvantage of dealing with employers that operate in a different language.

Although the beautiful ports of call can be quite enticing, a declining quality in crew living arrangements, mandatory longer working hours, reduced benefits, and lower salaries, have enabled cruise companies to excel in taking advantage of recruiting non-American performers.

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Researchers in Europe, Japan, New Zealand and the U.S. have detected a new variation of norovirus which emerged last year.  The virus was and remains particularly prevalent in the United Kingdom where norovirus sickened over 1,000,000 people.  The virus was tracked back to Australia and has spread to a number of countries,  The U.S. Centers  for Disease Control (CDC) documented the new mutant virus to have entered the U.S. last fall.

The researchers' findings and conclusions are set forth in a publication "Indications For Worldwide Increased Norovirus Activity Associated With Emergence of a New Variant of Genotype II.4, Late 2012." The new virus has been labeled "Sydney 2012."

An article in Bloomberg explains that this virus has posed a problem for cruise lines late last year and will continue to plague the cruise industry this year. In "Sydney Vomiting Bug Poses Risk for Cruise-Line Passengers," Jason Gale explains that "new epidemics of acute gastro often emerge on cruise ships, where control is hindered by close living quarters and shared dining areas." 

Gale writes that cruise ships carrying sick passengers have docked in New York and Florida the past three weeks, "heralding a new wave of infections for which there is no specific treatment or vaccine." The article cites a professor of microbiology in Australia, Peter White, who says: “Cruise ships are almost a sentinel sensing system for norovirus. Norovirus is going to wreak havoc in their cruise industry for the next year while this new strain gets a grip.”

Last month we wrote about Cunard's Queen Mary 2 sailing into New York from the U.K. with several hundred passengers and crew members sickened with norovirus, Princess Cruises' Emerald Princess docking in Fort Lauderdale with over 200 ill passengers and crew, and the Princess Crown Princess arriving in Galveston from Europe with hundreds puking from noro. 

The researchers are quoted saying: “Cruise ship holidays create an environment in which norovirus is easily spread and outbreaks readily occur." Professor White, who identified the new mutation, refers to cruise ship passengers and says: “It’s almost impossible for them to protect themselves against a norovirus outbreak once it occurs. The only way you could do it would be to stay in your cabin the whole time and not go out.”

Photo credit: Bsip/Photoshot/UPPA/Zuma Press via Bloomberg

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A newspaper in the U.K. reports on the grave illness suffered by a 18 year old college student in England which left her fighting for her life.  

Chelsea-Rose Cartwright, photo left, developed septicemia from a virus she caught while on a cruise in the Mediterranean. Septicemia is a severe blood infection that can lead to organ failure and death. It often begins with chills, high fever, rapid breathing, and/or a rapid heart rate.  

Ms. Cartwright planned to be a bridesmaid at her father’s wedding during the cruise in November of last year. But she spent most of her time in a cabin with a fever. After she got off the cruise ship, she spent over a month in hospital. She underwent two 6 pint blood transfusions.

Her condition was so critical that her family thought that she would die. Ms. Cartwright's mother said “She could barely talk and could not walk. Her condition got worse and it got so bad at one stage we feared we may lose her.”

Ms. Cartwright became ill on a P&O cruise ship based in Southampton. 

She will be recovering in the hospital for another month.

Her mother stated to the newspaper that she is considering making an official complaint about how P&O staff cared for her daughter aboard the cruise ship.

Photo credit: Facebook

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If you like F*** bombs, you may find a video by comedian Greg Benson humorous.

It seems that funny man Benson has a cynical view of cruising. He gets right to the point with the video below. I suppose he shares David Foster Wallace's view of cruising (""A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again") except that he has kept his humor intact.

I first saw the video via an article by Gawker's article Cussing Cruise Ship Passenger Gives Explicit Tour of His Vulgar Surroundings. So I owe a hat tip to the people at Gawker. 

P.S. the F*** words are beeped so you can't really hear them.

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The disappearance of passengers and crew members at sea is one of the cruise industry's real problems.  The problem is compounded by the tendency of the cruise lines to place their reputation as a priority rather than providing information to the grieving families.  If the evidence tends to suggest that a crime occurred, or the circumstances involve facts that may place the cruise lines in an embarrassing light, the cruise lines suppress the information.

Most investigations fall to the country where the cruise ship is registered, such as countries like the Bahamas or Bermuda. These countries depend on the revenue generated from the cruise lines and assist the cruise lines in covering the true facts up.

The video below provides a look into cover-ups alleged against Celebrity Cruises, Disney Cruise Line (the Magical Company) and Holland America Line.   

January 7, 2012 Update: Follow the discussion on Facebook: What's more important to the cruise lines when someone disappears on the high seas?

A. The truth, or
B. The cruise line's reputation?

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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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It seems that Royal Caribbean has plans for a half-dozen new names for its cruise ships of the future.

Cruise Critic and a Royal Caribbean fan web site report that Royal Caribbean trademarked the names Anthem of the Seas, Passion of the Seas, Vantage of the Seas, Quantum of the Seas, Ovation of the Seas and Pulse of the Seas in trademark applications filed on November 2, 2012.

Royal Caribbean previously announced that it is building a new Oasis-class cruise ship. Perhaps Quantum of the Seas will be an appropriately ironic name for Royal Caribbean's next gigantic ship.

Royal Caribbean obviously has some long term plans in mind to have trademarked six new names. Previously Royal Caribbean announced that it will be building new cruise ships as part of its "Project Sunshine" with a new cruise ship coming on line in late 2014.

Right now the cruise line is keeping the name of its next ship a mystery.

What do you think of the new names?  What's your best guess for the name of the next Oasis-class ship?

Join the discussion on our Facebook page. There are some hilarious alternative names being suggested.

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With the New Year here, I'd like to start the year on a happy note.  No talk about fires or sinkings or other bad news involving cruise ships.

I have always thought that good things happen to people who dance. Well today I read about the guy who danced behind people on a cruise ship while his wife videotaped him. Sounds silly but I thought it was funny once I watched it.

Take a look. I think that it's a good way to start Year 2013. 

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ABC News aired a video look tonight at the recent spate of multiple norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships, focusing on the most recent outbreaks spreading to passengers and crew aboard the Queen Mary 2 and the Emerald Princess cruise ships. 

You can read about our articles about the Emerald Princess and the QM 2.

Watch the video below with ABC's Matt Gutman reporting:

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Royal Caribbean Cruises just announced a third Oasis-class cruise ship will be built at the South Korea-owned shipyard STX France after the financing fell through with the STX Finland shipyard.  

The as-of-yet unnamed gigantic ship will follow fellow behemoths the Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas which are ported in Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale.

CEO Richard Fain, who just sold $11,500,000 worth of RCL stock, proclaimed that "these ships have consistently generated outstanding guest satisfaction ratings and continue to produce superior financial results . . . "

The new billion-dollar-plus cruise ship is expected to come on line sometime in mid to late 2016. STX France provided Royal Caribbean with a one-year option to build a fourth Oasis-class ship with a 2018 delivery date. 

There is speculation where the new ship will be ported, with the South Florida Business Journal proposing Miami where Royal Caribbean is based and U.K. travel blogger Captain Greybeard raising the possibility of deploying the ship to the Mediterranean or the Far East.

What's my take on another "Giant of the Seas" arriving on the scene? First, its a continuing disaster for the environment. The supposedly most technologically advanced cruise ships in the world still burn highly toxic high-sulfur-content bunker fuel. And small Caribbean islands are forced to destroy ancient coral reefs as a price to pay from the privilege of hosting these enormous floating cities into their small ports.

The multi-billion dollar deal enormously benefits South Korea and France. The off-shore building project represents another drain of money and jobs from the U.S. to the South Korean conglomerate which owns the shipyard in France. 

The arrival of one or two additional Oasis-class ships will carry 5,000 to 10,000 additional cruise passengers. They will be trying to stay safe on the ship's various attractions like the rock-climbing wall, the zip-line and the incredibly dangerous FlowRiders which have caused serious injury and even death over the years.   

One would hope that the cruise line takes greater care in designing these amusement-park-like attractions to avoid the risk of serious injury.  Because as matters now stand, Royal Caribbean's gigantic sized cruise ships are good news only for the cruise line's executives and the personal injury lawyers representing the injured passengers.  

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Cunard's Queen Mary 2 is in the news with reports that over 150 passengers have been stricken with norovirus as the cruise ship sails on a thirteen night itinerary in the Caribbean from New York.

The Daily Mail states that 150 - 200 passengers have fallen ill with symptoms of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

There were reportedly norovirus cases on board the cruise ship during the transatlantic crossing to New York. The Daily Mail suggests that the cruise ship may therefore not been properly cleaned prior to this latest cruise.

Some cruise passengers are debating all of this on the Cruise Critic message board with one person speculating that as many as 500 people may have been affected during the cruise.  Carnival, which owns Cunard, said that although 130 passengers were affected only 19 currently have "active symptoms." 

The Travel Mole publication suggests that Cunard has been playing down reports that "hundreds" of passengers have been hit by the virus.    

If you are on the cruise, please leave a comment about how the cruise line has handled the situation.

Photo Credit: Daily Mail

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The Times Union newspaper has an interesting article today, about a family who survived the Costa Concordia disaster, entitled "Survivors Shun Ships After Duel with Death."  Written by Cathleen Crowley, the article explains that a family from Duanesburg, New York previously enjoyed cruising having vacationed on a dozen prior cruises. But on January 13 2012, their cruise aboard the Concordia quickly turned into a near death experience.

The story involves Joan Fleser, her husband Brian Aho, and their daughter, Alana, The family feels fortunate to have survived the ordeal which took the lives of 32 passengers and crew members, but "the chaos on the ship and the memory of the massive cruise liner leaning toward their tiny lifeboat still invades the family's thoughts daily."

Earlier this year, Joan and Brian attended Congressional hearings in Washington, D.C. which were convened to study issues on cruise safety following the Concordia debacle.  Joan told the Times Union: "It was very interesting and very upsetting seeing that the House Committee was stacked with representatives from cruise states and they were so pro-cruise industry." This is the same conclusion I reached when I attended the hearing.

I took a photo of the family at the hearing (together with Mississippi lawyer, John Eaves Jr.)

The family itemized a number of well-reasoned proposed safety improvements which you can read in the article here.  

The article also quotes Captain Bill Doherty who is director of maritime affairs for Nexus Consulting Group, a maritime consulting and security firm based in Virginia. Captain Doherty is a former naval officer and was the safety manager for Norwegian Cruise Lines. He is critical of the cruise lines inspection systems and lack of enforcement of existing safety rules.

Captain Doherty points out that the U.S. Coast Guard and government enforcement bodies in other nations outsource inspection duties to third parties, many of which are society groups funded by the cruise ship owners.

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Over 14 years ago, I was interviewed by Linda Coffman who has a very nice and exceedingly polite blog called CruiseDiva. Ms. Coffman's Twitter handle is @CruiseDiva. 

It was my first interview by anyone as best as I recall, long before I was interviewed on Larry King Live and Greta Van Sustern and the endless cable news talking heads.  I was a heck of a lot skinnier and had a nice head of hair 15 years ago. What the heck, 1,000 or so cases later, I certainly know a lot more now than I did then.

I have always felt a great appreciation to Ms. Coffman for the thoughtful interview well over a decade ago. I have added a few newer photographs, but the article is re-printed verbatim below:

CRUISES . . .  LIKE NO OTHER VACATION IN THE WORLD

Things that go bump in the night happen. And when they happen on a ship, the horror of the possibilities are heightened. Who would have paid to see the movie Titanic if the ship hadn't sunk? No one embarks on a cruise expecting the worst and no major cruise line purposely puts their guest and ships in danger, but the unexpected and unavoidable can occur during any voyage. In my travels, I've been rousted in the middle of the night by a fire alarm, spent the day at a Red Cross evacuation center, and suffered the indignity of Norovirus--all on dry land.

Perhaps the idyllic and carefree perception of cruise vacations is as much to blame as anything for passenger discontent when the slightest out-of-the-ordinary incident crops up. Cruise lines tout their products as 'simply the best' and 'like no other vacation on earth.' Are they telling the truth? Absolutely. It's true--the worst day on a cruise is better than any day on land. Unless, of course, your ship is on fire, the plumbing doesn't work, or you're dead in the water with a tropical storm fast approaching.  

No cruise line or ship's officers would purposely put their passengers and vessels in harms way. That simply wouldn't make sense. Often decisions to change course and skip a port are beyond their control, particularly when Mother Nature is calling the shots. And there are accidents. However, "unavoidable" is not much consolation to a cruising couple celebrating twenty-five years of marriage on the second honeymoon of a lifetime. 

Distracted by glamorous photos or dreams of moonlit walks on deck and midnight buffets, few passengers take the time to read the fine print, either in the cruise brochure or their ticket. Even if they do read it, the legal language can intimidate the average person.  

For an explanation of passengers' rights and assistance in translating the "contract of carriage" (cruise ticket), I turned to James M. Walker.  A specialist in maritime law, Mr. Walker is a member of the Maritime Law Association and serves on the Admiralty Law Committee of the Florida Bar. In addition to having the unique perspective of representing both cruise lines and passengers, he has handled cases for clients throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and South America.  

Mr. Walker graciously answered my questions, providing insight into passenger rights and what to do if things go terribly wrong on your vacation. 

How did you become involved in maritime law involving cruise ships? 

I grew up in a port city and our family traveled a lot. Our vacations seemed to revolve around the water - a trip down the Rhine, vacation in Malta, sailing in the Mediterranean Sea, and so on. I have always had an interest in the water. This turned into an interest in maritime law once I started law school at Tulane University, which has a pretty good maritime curriculum. Once I moved to Miami, rightfully called the “cruise ship capital of the world,” I joined a large firm which defended some of the larger cruise lines.  

Now that I am exclusively representing passengers and crew employees, I find myself traveling again on a regular basis. My practice provides me with the opportunity to travel to beautiful places like Vancouver and London, as well as small towns across the heartland of the United States, to meet with our clients.

What are your thoughts as a maritime lawyer regarding the collision involving the Norwegian Dream in the English Channel and the fire aboard Carnival’s Tropicale in the Gulf of Mexico some time back? 

These incidents raise important questions whether the cruise lines are devoting sufficient resources to protect passengers’ health and personal safety. Unfortunately, these mishaps are not isolated incidents. 

Take the fire aboard the Tropicale. Despite wide spread media coverage, few major news organizations reported the Tropicale’s prior problems which could be traced back to 1982 when a fire broke out during its inaugural cruise. 

Before the Tropicale fire, Carnival’s Ecstasy caught fire the previous year. Between those two incidents, the Sun Vista ignited off of the coast of Malaysia and 1,000 passengers found themselves in lifeboats in the Straits of Malacca. The video images of the Ecstasy on fire off of Miami Beach are hard to forget, but few people remember that the Ecstasy caught fire in 1996 as well. Carnival‘s experience with ship fires is not limited to the Tropicale or the Ecstasy. Remember the fire aboard Carnival’s Celebration in 1995 which forced 1,700 passengers to evacuate? All of this, and more, occurred in just four years.

After each incident of this type, the cruise lines immediately offer a reimbursement of some type and, perhaps, a free cruise. Inevitably, the story becomes old and everyone - including the cruise line - forgets about what happened, until the next collision, fire, or other mishap occurs.

A LOOK AT COMPENSATION

What do you think of the practice of some cruise lines offering free cruises to “compensate” for these type of mishaps?

It’s a good start, but is it adequate compensation? Lets look at the “cruise from hell” stories from the Tropicale. These passengers included families who brought their minor children aboard, couples honeymooning, or elderly citizens who used their limited savings for a relaxing vacation. Through no fault of their own, these nice people quickly found themselves in a nightmare - drifting in the Gulf of Mexico, nauseated, with a tropical storm approaching. Carnival’s offer of a full refund and a free cruise is a good idea, but is it adequate remuneration for their experiences? Does this reflect a greater commitment to safety, or just a more savvy public relations department?

The cruise lines are more likely to offer free cruises now than just a few years ago. Compare Carnival’s approach today with its attitude just a few years ago. In 1996, hundreds of passengers became sick and frightened when highs seas rocked the Tropicale as Hurricane Roxanne approached. 600 passengers signed a petition for a full refund. They believed that the captain threatened their safety by taking the cruise ship too close to the hurricane. Carnival responded with a $40 shipboard credit to make up for port charges on the missed ports in Grand Cayman and Cozumel. Does anyone really think this was sufficient compensation? Or was this just a public relations nightmare?       

Do you have any feel for how the passengers themselves regard these offers? 

Some passengers appreciate the “full-refund-plus-a-free-cruise” offer. But many people are not satisfied. The last thing they want to do is to step foot on a particular cruise ship again. 

Of course, the debate of a “free cruise or not” ignores the real issue of passenger safety. The important question is whether the cruise industry is devoting adequate financial resources to make their fleet as safe as possible for families and their children. Things like state of the art sprinkler systems, sophisticated security monitoring, and vigorous background checks on their employees.

Remember, this industry earns literally billions each year in profits, and pays less than one percent in U.S. taxes by registering their vessels in Liberia and Panama. The notion that the traveling public should be happy with a free cruise and a tote bag trivializes the fundamental issue of protecting the precious lives and personal safety of millions of passengers every year.

What is the most common complaint you hear from a cruise passenger?

There are two general types of complaints. The first is what I call the “disappointed expectation” complaint. A passenger becomes disappointed because he or she feels that the service was poor, the weather was bad, their cabin had too much engine noise, or something like this. These type of complaints generally do not belong in a courtroom.

The second type of problem is when a passenger has been injured aboard the cruise ship, due to an accident, food poisoning, or an assault. The most common situation is when a passenger slips on a deck, trips on an elevated threshold, or falls down a flight of stairs. It happens on every cruise.

The most common complaint we hear is when a passenger writes to the cruise line regarding a particular problem, and does not receive a response after several months. Most passengers who contact us are not the least bit “lawsuit-minded.” Yet, they find themselves frustrated by the cruise line’s lack of response after they return home.

What are some of the interesting cases you have handled?

When we defended several of the cruise lines in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, we saw virtually every imaginable type of claim. Of course, with more than five million people sailing on cruises from U. S. ports each year - and everyone attempting to escape from reality - there are a lot of unrealized dreams which turn into strange lawsuits. Single women sue claiming that there were not enough single men aboard the cruise ship. The next week, single men sue claiming that there were not enough single women.

My favorite story involves an elderly widow from Miami Beach who loved to sail aboard from Miami at least three times a year. Unfortunately, she would trip or slip or fall every other cruise. She would file suit every year in December and then try to settle the case as soon as possible for at least two free cruises - first class no less. She still sends me a holiday greeting card every December. 

You would agree that there is no constitutional or absolute right to a perfect vacation or cruise?

True.

So what are the types of things which go wrong that are not the cruise line’s responsibility?

Most problems which fall into the “disappointed expectation” category are not the cruise line’s legal responsibility. An example would be when cruise lines change the itinerary and the passengers miss a popular port.

The courts determine whether a cruise line is legally responsible to a passenger by reviewing the terms of the passenger ticket. I saw one judge literally pull out a magnifying glass to read the fine print buried in the ticket. The passenger invariably loses when this occurs, which is not surprising. The cruise lines have spent considerable effort drafting language which protects them from virtually every imaginable situation. The exception is when a passenger has been injured or assaulted - there is a federal statute which prohibits cruise lines from limiting their liability in these circumstances. However, this exception may not apply if the cruise ship does not call on a U.S. port. 

Cruise lines reserve the right to change their itineraries at their discretion. Do passengers have any right to compensation or a refund (other than port charges) if such a change is made?

No, based on the “fine print” in the ticket. For example, Royal Caribbean’s language says that it “may at any time and without prior notice cancel, advance, postpone or deviate from any scheduled sailing or port of call.” As a public relations gesture, some cruise lines offer $100 or so for missing a port. But this is dependent entirely on the cruise line; they hold all of the cards in these type of situations. 

Theft from staterooms is pretty uncommon on cruise ships, but if something disappears mysteriously from my cabin, what recourse do I have?      

Virtually none. Again, most tickets limit the cruise line’s liability for theft. Carnival excludes any liability for money, jewelry, or other valuables “left lying about the vessel or cabin.” This seems reasonable enough. But even if the cruise lines is negligent, there is a $100 limit of liability for lost valuables, and a $500 limit if the valuables are deposited in a safe-deposit box in the purser’s office and then lost or stolen. 

First, read your ticket and take steps to protect your rights! Passengers who are injured have to send a letter to the cruise lines within a short period, usually six months, advising the cruise line that they intend to seek compensation. Also, passengers have a very short period - usually only one year - in which to file suit when they have been injured. If they are one day late, they lose their right to seek compensation.    

When a passenger is injured on a cruise ship, what proof should they present to substantiate a claim for personal injury?

Of course, not all injuries are compensable. There are two issues to consider. The first issue is liability - it is the passenger’s burden to prove that the cruise line is legally responsible for the accident. The second issue is damages - medical expenses, lost wages, and other intangible losses caused by an injury. This issue is simple; keep receipts of all of your out-of-pocket expenses, insurance claims, and medical bills. Be sure to request your shipboard medical records before you disembark. The cruise lines will usually try to put you off the ship without them, but remember - these are records of your health, and you are absolutely entitled to obtain a copy before you leave. 

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Miami's WSVM Channel 7 television station is bringing us some bad news this Christmas Eve, reporting that passengers aboard a Princess Cruises cruise ship sailing on the high seas are ill with the dreaded norovirus.

According to News Station 7, more than 150 passengers and crew members reportedly caught the norovirus aboard the Emerald Princess.

This is the second Princess cruise ship in a week to report cases of the contagious virus.  The Crown Princess sailed to Galveston with over 100 cruise passengers and crew members ill with norovirus. You can read several comments by passengers criticizing the food serving and hygiene on the cruise ship  

The news station states that crews will sanitize the ship once it docks at Port Everglades on Thursday, whatever that means.

The sick passengers and crew were reportedly confined to their cabins to prevent a further spread of the disease on the 10-day cruise.

As far as cruise ships calling on U.S. ports, Princess Cruises has by far the most gastrointestinal illness outbreaks - with all of the cases involving norovirus.  According to the data collected by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), of the total number of 15 outbreaks, this is the ninth sailing with an illness outbreak on Princess cruise ships this year alone:

The Crown Princess suffered two outbreaks in January and February; the Ruby Princess in February; the Sun Princess in July; the Dawn Princess in August and September; the Ruby Princess again in October; the Crown Princess again in December; and now the Emerald Princess.  

As year 2012 ends, Princess has experienced more than 50% of the CDC documented gastrointestinal cases. Considering there are 26 cruise lines associated with the Cruise Line International Association, one cruise line having more than 50% of the sicknesses is quite a feat!

Princess' standard operating procedure is to always blame the passengers for bringing the virus aboard.  Let's wait and hear what Princess says this time. Who wants to make a bet that the cruise line PR representatives point the finger at the poor people spending Christmas Eve puking in their staterooms?

Anyone sailing on the Emerald Princess have comments about the latest norovirus outbreak?  

December 26, 2012 Update: The Global Dispatch states:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Vessel Sanitation Program team will be boarding Princess Cruises’ “Emerald Princess” as it arrives in Ft. Lauderdale Dec. 27 to investigate an outbreak of yet unknown etiology, which has sickened nearly 200 passengers and crew.

According to health officials, a total of 166 passengers and 30 crew were sickened with the symptoms of diarrhea and vomiting, resembling norovirus. The voyage dates for the cruise were from Dec. 17 to Dec. 27.

The CDC said the cruise ship took the following actions in response to the outbreak to include cleaning and sanitizing, making announcements to notify passengers and crew and to encourage hand hashing, collecting stool samples for laboratory analysis and reporting twice daily to CDC officials.

This outbreak follows a norovirus outbreak reported aboard a “Crown Princess” cruise destined for Galveston, TX. More than 100 passengers and crew were sickened in this outbreak, according to a Chron.com report earlier this week.

Norovirus is a highly contagious illness caused by infection with a virus of the same name. It is often called by other names, such as viral gastroenteritis, stomach flu, and food poisoning.

The symptoms include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and some stomach cramping. Sometimes people additionally have a low-grade fever, chills, headache, muscle aches, and a general sense of tiredness. The illness often begins suddenly, and the infected person may feel very sick. In most people, the illness is self-limiting with symptoms lasting for about 1 or 2 days. In general, children experience more vomiting than adults do.

Norovirus is spread person to person particularly in crowded, closed places. Norovirus is typically spread through contaminated food andwater, touching surfaces or objects contaminated with norovirus and then putting your hand or fingers in your mouth and close contact with someone who is vomiting or has diarrhea.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia (Holger.Ellgaard)

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This morning the Disney Wonder arrived in the port of Miami for the first time. It quietly slipped through government cut and nestled itself along side the cruise terminal at the port of Miami where it will start taking families on cruises with their kids dreaming of sailing with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.

Disney decided to stop sailing the Wonder on a Mexican Riviera route and re-positioned the cruise ship to here in Miami to begin taking passengers on Caribbean cruises. Later today, at 5:00 PM, the Wonder will be departing with a boat-load of families on its inaugural Caribbean cruise from Miami.

What fun for the kids and the proud parents. Certainly a happy time for families to be sailing with their children on a tropical Christmas cruise.

But for one family this Christmas season is a rather somber and frustrating time of year.

Mike and Ann Coriam from Chester England lost their daughter, Rebecca, age 24, from the Disney Wonder off the coast of Mexico last year.  Rebecca was a highly regarded youth counselor whose job was to take care of the kids on the Wonder.  She did not appear at the cruise ship's child facility for work one day. Because Disney flags its cruise ships in the Bahamas to avoid taxes and labor & wage laws, the responsibility for investigating the disappearance fell to a lone policeman in Nassau.

If you have ever traveled to Nassau, you will quickly learn that the police can't solve a crime when a thief rips a gold necklace from the neck of a visiting cruise passenger even if the robbery takes place across the street from the police station. The notion that a Bahamian police officer could solve a disappearance of a young woman during a cruise from California to Mexico is laughable if the situation were not so sad.

I sent a letter to Disney asking for some basic information and was completely ignored. The Magical Cruise Line people claimed that all information must come from the police in Nassau who refuse, as Disney knows, to cooperate with the Coriam family.        

The policeman eventually prepared a report regarding his "investigation," for what that's worth, but refuses to provide a copy to the Coriam family. Disney is indifferent to the Coriam's plight, and is hiding behind the stonewalling in the Bahamas. 

A newspaper in the Coriam's home town, the Chesterfirst, has published an article about the tragic and maddening tale, "We Want the Truth." 

“It will be two years in March since Rebecca’s disappearance and we are still no closer to knowing what happened to her on that ship,” said Mike.

“All we want is to know what happened to Rebecca so that we can have some closure, as it is the not knowing that is the most difficult thing to deal with.”

Mike and Ann are hoping that a new appeal for information, now raised in the House of Commons by Chester MP Stephen Mosley, will help bring the Corian family a step closer to establishing what exactly happened to their beloved daughter.

Mr Mosley had told Mike Penning, the U.K. Minister for Shipping, last month that the investigation by Bahamanian police had been “appalling” and that they had made “virtually no attempt at investigating Rebecca’s disappearance.”

“We are having to seek information from the other side of the world and it has been really hard for me, Ann and the rest of the family to deal with . . . the fact is that Rebecca isn’t here with us and we just don’t know what has happened to her."

“She is in our thoughts every single day and Christmas time makes it especially hard for us all. We miss her terribly.”

Later this afternoon, the Disney Wonder will sail out of the port of Miami filled with smiling-faced children. Whether they realize it or not, every family on the Disney Wonder is only a railing away from experiencing the same horror the Coriam family is suffering this Christmas Season.  

Photo Credit: Rebecca & Corian Family - Coriam Family 

Photo Credit of Disney Wonder - Jim Walker

Have info about Rebecca? Please contact the Coriam family website.

Watch a video about the case from Australia's Dateline program. Click on Lost at Sea.

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Coast to Coast Radio has a rather fascinating interview with Ken Carver, the Chairman of the International Cruise Victims (ICV) organization.

Mr. Carver talks about "odd and mysterious disappearances on-board cruise ships and how the industry stonewalls investigations of crimes on the high seas. He recalled how his daughter, Merrian, disappeared from a cruise in August of 2004, which led him on a quest to find out what happened to her. Carver detailed how the cruise ship company forbid its employees from discussing the case with his investigators and repeatedly lied about video tape evidence which would have shed light on Merrian’s fate. Based on his research, Carver revealed that Merrian’s story is not unique and that once every two weeks someone disappears from a cruise ship.

Carver also shared a number of other troubling details about the cruise ship industry, such as that they “take the legal position that they are under no obligation to investigate a crime,” whether it be a disappearance, sexual assault, or robbery. Additionally, the companies and their ships are registered in foreign countries, which makes criminal investigations the responsibility of those host nations and allows for the companies to avoid paying any U.S. taxes despite utilizing up to 21 different American government agencies.

Furthermore, Carver lamented that many former high ranking FBI and Coast Guard officials later find employment with cruise ship companies and, thus, those agencies frequently work against efforts to hold the industry accountable for these crimes."

Take a minute and listen to this information.

Mr. Carver discusses how the Miami-based cruise lines Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises lied and stonewalled to cover-up the disappearance of his daughter.

The website of the ICV is here.

The interview starts at 1:19:35.

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The Orlando Sentinel reported this afternoon that Federal authorities arrested an Idaho man who took a cruise from Port Canaveral earlier this month with more than 1,000 images of child pornography on a laptop he took on the cruise ship.

According to a complaint filed in Orlando federal court, authorities were inspecting cruise passengers onboard Royal Caribbean's Monarch of the Seas cruise ship on December 10, 2012, when they discovered that the laptop computer of cruise passenger Gary Lee Reed, of Blackfoot Idaho, had around 1,162 images and videos depicting child pornography. 

The images included sexual abuse of toddlers and babies.  Reed reportedly admitted that he has viewed child pornography for many years. He was arrested and subsequently indicted by an Orlando federal grand jury on a child pornography charge. (Anyone have a link to his mugshot?)

Cases like this may be surprising to some families who like to cruise but the arrest of cruise passengers and crew members is not uncommon. Consider the following arrests which we have blogged about here on Cruise Law News for just the last three years:

Paul Trotter, age 34, is the most prolific cruise child porn king known to the public so far. He worked for Cunard for seven years as a child supervisor aboard the Queen Mary 2, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth. He would take the children to areas not covered by surveillance cameras and physically and sexually abuse them. A real sicko, he would film himself sexually molesting the children to watch later. This was ultimately what got him caught. Someone tipped the police off in the U.K. where he lived. A police search of his computer revealed not only child pornography but his own videos of his crimes against the kids he was entrusted with on cruises. One newspaper reported that he supervised the "play zone" on 295 cruises over his seven years with Cunard. He admitted to abusing thirteen child probably because he was caught with images of 13 victims, is my suspicion. 295 cruises and several thousand children. A play zone of his own with no one supervising him while he abused the customer's kids. A pedophile's dream. How many more victims are there?  

Edward Brillantes Mangubat, age 40, is another pedophile who worked for Cunard. He was arrested in Halifax when Canadian Border officer searched his laptop computer and found sexually explicit video featuring children. Mangubat worked as a stagehand on Cunard's cruise ship Queen Mary 2. He worked on cruise ships for seven years.

Did he know Trotter and exchange porno tapes? Border agents went to Mangubat’s cabin and discovered that his laptop contained several videos showing “what can only be described as sexual assault of children,” including children under 12.” He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 120 days in jail.

Amado Nicholas Hernandez, age 31, (left) is a pedophile who was employed by Celebrity Cruises as an audiovisual manager and provided onboard guest-entertainment services aboard the Constellation cruise ship.

Hernandez was arrested after police determined that his computer contained 450 photographs and about 250 video files of child pornography portraying a total of 44 different victims. The criminal complaint filed against Hernandez alleged that upcoming cruises included several stops in Mexico.

Hernandez, in documented online chats, reportedly had bragged that he had bought young boys for sex in Mexico and “almost offed one,” the criminal complaint alleges.

Nyoman Putra, age 26, an Indonesian working as an assistant room steward on the Carnival Glory, allegedly had child pornography on a laptop computer. Canada Border Services Agency officers were inspecting crew members getting off the cruise ship when they nabbed the Carnival crew member at Pier 22 in Halifax.

Canada's border agents do a good job catching crew members who try and enter the country with child pornography.  Putra was an assistant cabin attendant. It should concern any parent who cruises with their children to think of pedophile cabin attendants coming into the stateroom.

Jay-Ar Ramos Trilles, age 23, of the Philippines pleaded guilty in Halifax provincial court to charges of possessing and importing child pornography. Canada Border Services Agency officer arrested an assistant waiter on the Costa Atlantica on Tuesday as he was getting off the cruise ship at Pier 22 in Halifax. Two sexually explicit videos of children were found on both a USB flash drive and a laptop computer. One of the videos depicted a boy and a girl between the ages of 10 and 12, while the other showed a six-year-old girl being sexually abused by a man. The prosecutor in Canada stated that the border agency is determined to keep such "abhorrent" material from being brought into the country. Trilles worked with Costa Cruises for three years.

Menandro Lim Lanzar, age 31, from the Philippines was arraigned in Halifax on a charge of importing child pornography. Mr. Lanzar was employed as a quarter master on the NCL cruise ship Norwegian Jewel.

Hendri Dharmawan, age 29, was working as a pastry chef on the Carnival Triumph when he was arrested in Halifax.  The crew member was caught with pornography on his iPhone as he returned to the Carnival cruise ship. The border police then accompanied him back to his cabin where they discovered over two hours of child pornography on Dharmawan's laptop and external hard drive. The footage depicted girls as young as eight and boys as young as 10 being abused.

Timothy David Webb, age 32, (left) was arrested after he disembarked Royal Caribbean's cruise ship Grandeur of the Seas as a passenger at the Norfolk cruise ship terminal. Webb is a convicted sex offender and has a prior conviction sodomy in the state of Virginia. The customs agents pulled Webb from a line of passengers disembarking the cruise ship and searched his laptop, which contained child pornography videos. 

Senad Djedovic, (right) from Bosnia and Herzegovina, was arrested earlier this year after he boasted about engaging in sexual relations with a 16 year old girl who sailed on NCL's Norwegian Star cruise ship with her parents. After the cruise ended, Djedovic exchanged emails with the underage girl and received a number of sexually explicit photographs. Other crew members on the NCL cruise ship observed the photos and learned the girl's age and reported Djedovic to NCL which contacted the FBI. A search of Djedovic's computers revealed child pornography. Under a sub-folder entitled "scandals" there were several videos depicting sexual acts with 12 to 15 year old girls. NCL employed Djedovic from 2005 to March 2012 aboard a number of different cruise ships.

After Djedovic was arrested, a number of crew members and friends came to his defense arguing that he should be acquitted because sex with a 16 year old is not a big deal and this kind of conduct is not illegal in most countries. Djedovic was sentenced to 8 years in prison.

These type of stories should serve as a wake up to parents who take their children on cruises. Yes, there are sexual deviants and predators on cruise ships. A cruise ship presents the same dangers as your home town.

The stories above mostly involve child porn, not sexual assault. We have discussed all types of cases on this blog about men abusing children, such as a Carnival waiter raping a 14 year old girl, to a youth counselor abusing at least 13 boys on Cunard cruise ship, to a 71 year old man from the Pittsburg area traveling down to Miami to molest a 6 year old boy on a Royal Caribbean ship. 

Our advice? Parents watch your kids. Yes, the U.S. federal agents and Canadian authorities will occasionally nab a child porno sicko with images on his iPhone or laptop but that's probably a fraction of the child porn coming on and off cruise ships. With 16,000,000 people sailing each year there are many thousands of sick perverts out there on the high seas. 

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I am being told by a reliable source that the U.S. Coast Guard is about to conduct an emergency medevac of an ill passenger from the Crown Princess cruise ship which is heading to Galveston and will arrive tomorrow.

It is less than clear whether there is any connection to the norovirus outbreak on the cruise ship.  The cruise has been under red level disease alert throughout the crossing from Europe.

The ship is facing heavy swells and the helicopter is facing strong winds.

The last medevac from the Crown Princess was in March.  You can see the video here.

Does anyone have information to confirm this latest story?

December 21, 2012 Update:  There's an update to this story we reported this morning:

The incident involves a 68 year old woman who was suffering from internal bleeding and had to be medevaced by a Coast Guard MH-65 helicopter which flew 140 miles south of the Mississippi River's Southwest Pass to the Princess cruise ship. The Times Picaynue states that the cruise ship alerted the Coast Guard station in New Orleans about 2 AM this morning, reporting that the woman had received blood transfusions on the ship. At the time, the ship was about 200 miles offshore. 

Photo and video credit: U.S. Coast Guard

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Yesterday I mentioned that over one hundred people are sick with norovirus aboard the Crown Princess cruise ship which will be arriving in Galveston tomorrow at the end of a 20 day cruise from Italy.  This is the third outbreak of noro on this particular Princess cruise ship this year.

According to the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), although there are cases of noro illness transmitted by hand-to-hand contact, the most likely cause of a norovirus outbreak is contaminated water.  Contaminated food is also a likely culprit.

But if you study the last one hundred cruise ship norovirus cases, one thing is certain - the cruise line will always blame the passengers for bringing the virus aboard.

The New York Times just published a short (three sentence) article about the latest norovirus outbreak on the Princess ship. The newspaper reports that Princess is again pointing its finger at its passengers:

"A spokeswoman for Princess Cruises says more than 100 passengers and crew members contracted a stomach virus on one of its ships, the Crown Princess. The illness struck during a Venetian cruise due to end Saturday at Galveston. The spokeswoman said the cruise line suspects the virus was brought on board by passengers." 

If the cruise lines don't flat out accuse the passengers of being the problem, there will always be an implication that the passengers must not have washed their hands.

The amazing thing about the cruise industry is the frenzy activity when the ships come to port. A tremendous amount of provisions are brought aboard at every port, literally hundreds of thousands of pounds of beef, chicken, pork, fish and shellfish as well as every fruit and vegetable under the sun. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of water are pumped into the ship. The crew members get on and off the ship and of course the passengers do as well.

Was the food and/or water served to passengers on the ship contaminated? Did the passengers or crew eat contaminated food ashore?  Were the hands of a crew member involved in food preparation infected?

Proving exactly how the virus appears on a cruise ship is a difficult scientific process. But no one is engaged in such testing.  Yes, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) test to determine whether the gastrointestinal illness is due to noro or e-coli, but that's where the testing stops.

So the public is left with the blame game.  The Crown Princess has not even arrived at the port of Galveston where the CDC inspectors are awaiting. But Princess is already telling the New York Times that its contaminated ship is the fault of unidentified guests and their dirty hands.     

Photo Credit: Centers for Disease Control

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A Galveston television station reports that a Princess Cruises' ship, sailing from Venice, Italy with a final destination in Galveston, has stricken nearly one cruise passengers with the dreaded norovirus.

KHOU states that the 20-day cruise turned out to be the "trip from hell" for dozens of passengers who fell ill. Ninety six passengers and six crew members on the Crown Princess became ill with the highly contagious norovirus.

With passengers stricken with nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, a spokesperson for Princess Cruises responded that the cruise line took "extra precautions" with sanitation such as disinfecting "high-touch surfaces like railings, door handles and elevator buttons, encouraging passengers to use correct hand washing procedures and enhancing this with the use of hand sanitizing gels placed throughout the ship." 

Like all other of the many cruise norovirus cases, there will be no effort to scientifically determine the cause of the outbreak and try and track it down to either hand-to-hand contact from a passenger or crew member or from contaminated food or water.  Yes the enhanced cleaning is appropriate but won't do too much good if the nasty bug is in the food and/or water.  

The Crown Princess cruise ship left Venice on December 2, 2012 and is scheduled to arrive in Galveston on Saturday.

The Crown Princess experienced several bouts of norovirus earlier this year resulting in hundreds sick and one cruise to be cut short.

The first outbreak struck on the ship's January 28, 2012 cruise cruise and again on the February 4, 2012 cruise with several hundred passengers and crew members becoming ill. After the second outbreak Princess brought the ship back to Fort Lauderdale two days early for an “enhanced cleansing protocol.”

The Crown Princess also had some nasty noro outbreaks in December 2011 which you can read about here and here.

Anyone with info about this latest outbreak please leave a comment below. Or please leave a comment on our facebook page about this story.

December 22, 2012 Update: I am informed that there was a "red alert" for disease outbreak aboard the Crown Princess throughout the Atlantic crossing.  The cruise ship is now in Galveston (as you can see from the ship's bridge cam) and the CDC will board.  If you were on the cruise, how do you think the cruise line handled the outbreak?  Is around 100 sick passengers an accurate number of guests affected by the norovirus?  

Don't forget to read: "Why Do the Cruise Lines Always Blame the Passengers When Norovirus Breaks Out?"

Photo credit:

Top: AP via Fox News

Middle: WPTV

Bottom: Princess Cruises

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The Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) publicity machine has been in full speed this week. As part of its marketing strategy that cruising is "extremely safe," CLIA announced in a press statement that it continues to review cruise ship procedures as part of a safety review which it started after the Costa Concordia disaster.   

Unfortunately, the safety review panel is producing lots of rhetoric and little substantive safety changes.  One of the new policies is that cruise passengers must attend a muster drill before the cruise starts. My reaction when I first heard this was "you mean the cruise lines don't already have a policy in place?" The aviation industry required pre-flight safety instructions to passengers fifty years ago. 

I have written about CLIA's much publicized 10 safety policies here and here.

Lots of the rhetoric is coming from CLIA's panel of so-called "independent" safety advisers. There is nothing remotely "independent" about the panel. Take, for example, Mark Rosenker who is always described as a "former NTSB chairman." What the cruise lines don't say is that Rosenker has worked in the private sector after leaving the federal government and has been a paid consultant for the cruise industry for years.

Two years before the Costa Concordia debacle, the World Cruise Industry Review referred to Rosenker as a "cruise industry advisor" and quoted him in 2010 saying "the industry has an outstanding safety record and the most dangerous part of the cruise is undoubtedly the drive to the port. It is very rare that people are injured on a cruise ship.”

Rosenker was a friend of the cruise lines even when he worked at the NTSB. In 2007, CLIA's Board of Directors wined and dined Rosenker during the annual Sea Trade cruise convention here in Miami. He gave a nice speech to CLIA which he began by stating " I am very pleased that your safety record is excellent." This was a rather amazing thing to say given the fact that just a year earlier, Princess Cruises' Star Princess ignited off the coast of Jamaica and burned through 100 cabins and killed the husband of one of our clients. (You can read about the Star Princess fire and many other cruise ships fires here).  

Rosenker even promised CLIA that he would help the cruise lines keep "sensitive" information about maritime accidents away from the public, telling CLIA "there are provisions in the law to keep certain voluntarily provided safety information confidential."   

This week Rosenker is back extolling on the safety of a cruise industry which puts money in his pocket, telling a travel agent publication that “it is important for consumers to understand that cruise vacations are extremely safe. This industry is highly regulated with tremendous oversight.”  Rosenker tells another cruise industry publication that “every aspect of the cruise industry is heavily monitored and regulated under US, EU and international law.”

An "independent" safety expert would not engage in such hyperbolic cheer-leading. In truth, we all know that the cruise industry is essentially unregulated. The cruise lines goes to extraordinary steps to incorporate their businesses and register their cruise ships in foreign countries to avoid U.S. taxes, wage and labor laws, and safety regulations. 

Rosenker has been cheering for the cruise industry for a long time. The Star Princess and Costa Concordia disasters did not dampen his enthusiasm one bit. That's what got him placed on the cushy job of the cruise line's safety panel where he will continue to cheer for the cruise lines under the guise of being an "independent" expert. 

Have a thought? Join the discussion on our facebook page.

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Below is a photograph of a crew member client of the firm. We can't mention his name, or which country he lives in, or the cruise line that he worked for, or the cruise ship where he worked, or his job position, or whether he settled his case or, if so, the amount of the settlement, or anything else because the cruise line required him to sign a draconian confidential agreement which basically will result him in being banished to a gulag in Siberia if he talks about why he hired our firm and how things turned out.

Gag agreements are an unpleasant part of the law business.  Large corporations like cruise lines often insist on them.  We rarely agree to them because doing so would perpetuate the secrecy and cover ups that many of the cruise lines are known for.  But sometimes, our clients will agree to confidentiality to move on with their lives.

This was one of those cases. 

So all we can do at this point is just post a photo of him (in the middle) with our lawyers here in Miami.

The anonymous client we will call him.

Is that a smile on his face?

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Several newspapers are reporting that a cruise ship passenger died during a snorkeling excursion while visiting the Caribbean island of Dominica.

The incident involves a cruise passenger from Royal Caribbean's Vision of the Seas cruise ship. The local police say that  Jim Caves of Riverside, California, was aboard Royal Caribbean's Vision of the Seas cruise ship, which docked today in Dominica. The news accounts suggest that Mr. Caves complained about feeling sick while snorkeling at a nearby beach with his wife and other family members. He was later pronounced dead.  There is not explanation offered regarding exactly what happened. 

It is currently unknown whether the excursion was booked independently or through the cruise line.

Snorkeling deaths in the Caribbean during cruises are not uncommon.  You can read about recent cases in our articles here and here.  

December 20. 2012 Update: Cruise Critic states that the passenger was on the "Champagne Snorkeling" ship-sponsored excursion, Cynthia Martinez, director of global corporate communications for Royal Caribbean Cruises Limited, told Cruise Critic, "when he began to experience breathing difficulties while snorkeling. He was transported to a local area hospital where sadly he passed away."

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The Miami Herald tells us this evening that a Princess cruise ship heading to Ocho Rios rescued five Jamaican nationals who reportedly have been drifting on a small boat in the Caribbean for three weeks. 

The Island Princess cruise ship brought the five Jamaicans onto the ship and is now sailing to Jamaica with them.  The Princess cruise ship will be calling on Ocho Rios tomorrow.

The Herald says that Jamaicans "were on their way to a barbeque and ran out of gas."  A cruise passenger reportedly said that "We noticed the boat slowing down . . . we pulled up and the occupants were screaming: 'No food, no water.'" 

A happy ending on the high seas it seems.

Anyone on the ship willing to share photographs or video of the rescue?

December 21, 2012 Update:  Today we were provided with photographs of the rescued Jamaicans by cruise passenger Deanna Couch.  Thanks Deanna!

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The Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) announced today that eight cruise line groups have agreed to be merged with CLIA in order to operate under a common organization.    

The associations are the European Cruise Council (ECC), Asia Cruise Association (ACA), Passenger Shipping Association (PSA/ACE), France's AFCC, Brazil's ABREMAR, Northwest and Canada Cruise Association (NWCCA), Alaska Cruise Association (ACA), and International Cruise Council Australasia (ICCA).

CLIA will be governed by what it is calling a "Global Executive Committee," chaired by Carnival Corporation Chief Operating Officer Howard Frank.

Christine Duffy will continue as the President and CEO of CLIA.

The new CLIA global organization will represent the cruise industry at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) based in London, and the International Labour Organization in Geneva.

The CLIA press release is silent regarding what new member lines will be joining CLIA.

In my view, the consolidation of these smaller cruise groups under the CLIA umbrella will strengthen South Florida-based CLIA's lobbying efforts world-wide and also infuse CLIA with additional money from the additional cruise line members. It may also help CLIA deal with critics of the cruise industry's environmental practices, cruise ship crime issues, and exploitation of cruise employees.

The inclusion of these various cruise organization under one roof is the natural evolution of the multi-national cruise lines increasing their control of the international cruise industry. 

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A Royal Caribbean galley worker who attacked a supervisor in May of this year on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison.

U.S. District Judge William Martini sentenced Donny Martin Crisanto, age 31, of Nicaragua, during a court appearance in Newark, New Jersey. 

Cristano had previously pleaded guilty to assaulting the supervisor on May 4 while working in the galley of Royal Caribbean's Explorer of the Seas cruise ship which sails out of Bayonne, N.J. to Bermuda and the Bahamas. 

The U.S. Attorney's Office released the following statement:

A Nicaraguan national who admitted to stabbing his supervisor aboard a cruise ship in international waters was sentenced today to 12 months and one day in federal prison, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

Donny Martin Crisanto, 31, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge William J. Martini to an Information charging him with knowingly and intentionally assaulting another with a dangerous weapon, with intent to do bodily harm, within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States. Judge Martini imposed the sentence today in Newark federal court.

According to documents filed in this case and statements in court:

On May 4, 2012, Crisanto was working as a galley utility employee aboard the Royal Caribbean International, Explorer of the Seas cruise ship, which was operating within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States. Crisanto was inside the ship kitchen, when he assaulted his supervisor, identified only by the initials “M.S.,” the head kitchen steward, with a dangerous weapon. After an earlier work dispute Crisanto approached M.S. from behind and, not acting in self-defense, Crisanto struck M.S. in the forehead and shoulder with a knife.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Martini sentenced Crisanto to one year of supervised release.

U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael B. Ward, in Newark, and Royal Caribbean, Explorer of the Seas ship security officers, with the investigation that resulted in the sentence. 

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A jury today convicted a 32 year old man for raping a a 15-year-old girl during a Carnival cruise. The girl was raped on the Carnival Sensation cruise ship by a man identified as Casey Dickerson, who then encouraged other boys to do the same.

We reported on the crime in a prior blog article. 

The gang rape of a fifteen year old girl on the Carnival cruise ship received international coverage with news stations across the U.S. and even the U.K. press covering the disturbing story of how a 31 year old passenger reportedly bought alcohol for four underage boys and they took turns raping the girl during a drunken party.

The issue of whether teenage girls are safe on cruise ships is an issue which we have written about a lot lately. Consider reading: Should I Send My Daughter on a Cruise?

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U.K. and Australian newspapers don't mince words. Unlike the U. S. media which may politely refer to nasty norovirus outbreak on a cruise ship as a "stomach bug," the U.K. press and an Australian newspaper are using some choice words to describe a vomiting virus which has swept through P&O's Oriana cruise ship, sickening many hundreds of passengers.

The P&O crew taped off areas of the ship "like a crime scene" while passengers said the liner reeked of vomit, the British tabloid The Sun reports.  Reports of 300 to 400 ill passengers have come from on board the cruise ship. "There might be a riot because the captain and crew refuse to listen. We'll refuse to disembark unless we get some answers. It's been a cruise to hell," British passenger Dave Stringer, 57, told The Sun as mentions in its article Fury Over Cruise Ship Vomit Hell.

It seems that P&O is blaming the passengers for allegedly bringing the virus aboard and then spreading it by not washing their hands - which is the cruise industry's usual defense to a sick ship.

The London Evening Standard reports that the cruise line appears to be involved in a cover-up:

"A spokeswoman for P&O's parent company Carnival said there had been 'an incidence of a mild gastrointestinal illness' among the passengers.

She added that as of today, of 1,843 passengers, 'the number of passengers with active symptoms is six.'

But passenger Paul Gilman, 62, told the Daily Mail: "It has been outrageous from start to finish. People were falling like flies, yet the crew were trying to insist everything was fine.

'Everyone is saying, this is a plague ship. It's a living nightmare.'"

The Oriana returns to Southampton today where, after "enhanced cleaning" takes place, the ship will re-rack with another 1,800 passengers for a holiday cruise.  Stay tuned for more vomit-cruise-from-hell stories.

Photo Credit: News Tank

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Costa is back in the news with a widely reported incident where the Costa Pacifica cruise ship violently struck a piling in the Port of Marseille this morning. The cruise ship sustained a gash of around 8 meters long, which luckily is above the waterline. 

Costa down-played the incident stating that the damage was just a few feet long and would not delay the cruise ship's itinerary.

The damage to the Costa Pacifica is very similar to damage to the Costa Classica.  Read our article two years ago: New Photographs Reveal Extent of Damage to Costa Classica. 

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A newspaper in South African reports that a man cruising aboard a MSC cruise ship has sued the cruise line, Mediterranean Shipping Company, for damages after experiencing a heart attack last year. The incident took place in April of 2011 while Hilton Curgenven was sailing aboard the MSC Sinfonia.

The gist of the lawsuit is that the cruise line allegedly provided Mr. Curgenven with sub-standard care and then dumped him in a port alone on a stretcher of the wharf. He alleges that the shipboard care consisted only of giving him an injection following which he went into a coma for six weeks.  Instead of airlifting him to a hospital, the cruise ship abandoned him at port in Durban and left a note on the stretcher diagnosing him with "severe chest pain and myocardial infarct . . . "  He claims that "thankfully, someone who knew me called an ambulance .  .  ." 

The case highlights some of the issues we have warned about in this blog, namely that the medical care on cruise ships is limited. Cruise lines are spending over a billion dollars building some cruise ships. But instead of investing in medical technology and premier doctors, the lines are paying for skating rinks, rock climbing walls, and flowrider attractions.  

The case also reveals that, as a general proposition, doctors and nurses on cruise ships are considered to be "independent contractors" for whom the cruise lines are not responsible. The ship doctors may appear and act like they are ship employees but they are characterized as independent contractors in the fine print of the cruise ship ticket.    

MSC Cruises responded to the lawsuit saying that Curgenven had entered into a contract knowing the Sinfonia was not equipped as a hospital and that medical personnel were not specialists. The cruise line also points out that Curgenven had failed to purchase his own insurance as well.

Photo credit: Wikipedia / Edgar Freitas

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Newspapers in Germany report that 67 passengers suffered "heavily illness" on a cruise ship last night aboard the Dutch river ship MS Bellriva. Around midnight the passengers began experiencing what is described as "agonizing nausea, diarrhea and vomiting."  

The cruise ship anchored in the district of Wiesbaden Biebrich on the Rhine River.

The newspapers say that the sick passengers were housed in quarantine in a separate area of the ship during the night. That seems quite difficult because the river ship has only three decks. Some passengers were sent to local hospitals in the morning after experiencing cardio-problems.

There were 188 people on board the ship, including 146 passengers. 

The newspaper state that the passengers were stricken with the dreaded norovirus.

50 members of fire rescue departments showed at the shore up to deal with the many ill passengers.

Videos show many medical responders wearing white hazmat suits standing under a sign on the entrance to the cruise ships saying "Welcome Aboard."   

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There are certain things you learn from crew members once they become your client. No matter whether the ship employees are from Jamaica, Serbia or India, or whether the crew members are employed by Carnival, Princess or Royal Caribbean, they all tell similar stories of "ship life."

Crew members regularly tell us that they work in excess of 12 hours a day but are prohibited from recording the actual hours they work. Waiters can't record their time spent showing up before meals to prepare their work stations, or attending meetings, or performing "side jobs."  Once they have worked their maximum hours, they have to log out and then keep performing tasks such as polishing the silverware. Cruise lines don't like paying overtime and the supervisor will get in trouble by the department heads if there is money spent on overtime wages for the crew. 

We also hear the same stories over and over from ship employees around the world about the tremendous amount of effort they spend trying to get the cruise ships ready for United States Public Health ("USPH") Inspections.   USPH inspections in theory are suppose to be unannounced, but in reality they are rarely a surprise.  Cruise lines routinely hire people in a supervisory position from federal agencies like the USPHS, FBI and Coast Guard. In turn, their friends in the federal government often give the cruise lines a head's up when the ship will be met by a team of USPH inspectors.

When a USPH inspection is about to happen, the food and beverage workers will literally work 18 to 24 hours on the days right before the cruise ship arrives in the port where the inspection will take place. There are certain types of baking pans and sheets used everyday for frying greasy food which are extremely difficult to get clean and probably won't pass inspection. There are hundreds of these pot and pans which the crew try and clean in the pot wash room (top photo) but it's difficult to get them all spotless. So what happens is that the galley cleaners are instructed to rack the pans and sheets in large trolleys and then hide the trolleys down in the crew quarters.

When the USPH inspection is truly a surprise, crew members tell us that there is often a mad scramble to dump everything dirty into boxes and cartons and then stash the stuff in crew members cabins and corridors on the bottom crew-only area on the bottom deck.

One crew members just sent me photos (right) taken of this practice. This was on the MSC Poesia during a USPH inspection in March 2011.

A bad USPH score is a kiss of death for a cruise ship F&B department head and his supervisors. Ships cut corners to pass inspection. 

When the U.S. inspectors leave the ship, the dirty pans, plates, cups and kitchen equipment are returned to the galley.  The ship cooks then get busy cooking for the next round of 3,000 passengers. 

Read the comments to the question "Do cruise ships hide dirty pot & pans from USPH inspectors?" on our facebook page. 

Photo credit:

Top - Kruzeri.com

Bottom - Anonymous

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Here's another great guest bog by one of our attorneys here at Cruise Law, Charles Gourlis, who takes a look at cruise line medical care for ship employees: 

Not all cruise lines are made equal. Some provide adequate medical treatment to their injured crew members, but there are several cruise lines that just won’t get “on board” (pun intended).

I try to live up to the saying, “Don’t Just Complain, Do Something About It!” So, in that spirit, I have a few recommendations for our friends at the cruise lines. My recommendations:

1. Invest in Quality Shipboard Physicians

Most shipboard doctors either were not qualified to attend medical school in the U.S. and are not licensed in the U.S. Most cruise lines hire non-U.S. doctors because it’s cheaper than hiring U.S. doctors. If shipowners paid their doctors salaries that were competitive with U.S. salaries, they would attract better-trained physicians. The quality of care would improve, diagnoses would become more accurate, and more serious injuries & illnesses would be prevented.

2. Bring Your Crew Members to Miami for Treatment

Most injured crew members are repatriated to their home country to receive medical treatment from doctors in their home country. This presents the same problem as problem number one. By bringing ill or injured crew to Miami for immediate treatment, all examinations, tests, and doctor’s visits are conducted by U.S. physicians here in Miami. Again, the quality of care would improve, the amount of care needed would decrease as American physicians more precisely diagnose conditions and deliver timely treatment, the need for drawn-out care would decrease.

3. Pay Your Crew Members, Not Your Defense Lawyers

As I outlined in my first guest bog post, most crew members sue only after the cruise line stops paying maintenance & cure and the crew member becomes destitute. The cruise line could prevent problems by coordinating with its local agents to ensure that all injured crew members receive maintenance payments on a timely basis every month and are promptly scheduled for medical appointments. As a result, thousands of crew members don’t languish at home while the defense lawyers for the cruise line earn their holiday bonus defending the cruise line.

Following these recommendations, the cruise lines could actually save the cruise line millions of dollars a year in needless medical and legal expenses. If the human factor wan’t a compelling enough reason to change the business practices, dozen’t saving money make a strong business case for pro-active medical treatment?

Photo credit: Pullmantur.es

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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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A number of sources are reporting on the death of a Brazilian man who fell from an upper balcony on the MSC Fantasia cruise ship today.

Some are saying that he fell from the eight or ninth deck to the fifth deck, apparently from an interior balcony.

The cruise ship was sailing between Santos and Rio de Janeiro, carrying 3780 passengers on a three-night cruise. The passenger is identified as Theobald Perelo. One newspaper in Brazil, A Tribuna, referred to him as the owner of one of the largest wholesale distributors in the region and a figure well known and respected in Ilheus, Bahia.

Another source said that the businessman was awarded a cruise and was traveling in the company of his son in law and some employees of the company (Distributor Perelo). The wife remained in Ilheus during the cruise.

There is a great deal of speculation about what happened, with reference to a possible heart attack which seems strange. How do you have a heart attack and then fall over a railing?  

Anyone with information please leave a comment below.

December 7 2012: we received this information from someone on the cruise ship:  

The guy fell from the balcony of his cabin from the ninth deck to the seventh deck onto to his head . . . he was 52 and had possible heart attack when he fell because he went straight down like a stone. He had no signs of alcohol in the blood. The ship was cruising from Santos to Ilhabela and was about 1:00 am when it happened. The police came today on board but they just took the body and left in less than an hour. The passenger was shearing the cabin with his son in law who was not present at that time. The Brazilians on board are saying that the police is corrupt big time and the captain got rid of them very fast.

Photo Credit:  Blog do Gusmao

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The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that 10% of the passengers aboard Holland America Line's Amsterdam cruise ship were sickened by a disease on the ship. It is not yet known whether the disease was norovirus or due to some other causative agent. 

The Amsterdam was in port in San Diego yesterday after a long cruise starting in Sydney Australia on November 11 and arriving in San Diego on December 5, 2012. 81 of 791 passengers became ill. This turns out to be 10.24% of all passengers (assuming all passengers reported their illness and the cruise line accurately reported the outbreak to the CDC). This is an extremely high percentage of affected passengers.

The cruise line's PR department down-played the outbreak saying "a number of guests reported to the infirmary with a common type of gastrointestinal illness."  The popular cruise site Cruise Critic (owned by Expedia travel company) shrugged the illness off as due to a "stomach bug" and repeated HAL's advice to passengers for "extra hand washing."

As usual, there is no discussion regarding the most likely cause of the outbreak. Cruise lines like HAL like to blame the passengers and suggest that they brought the virus aboard and it was then spread because other passengers didn't wash their hands. If this is viral based, due to norovirus, or due to e-coli infection, the real culprit is probably contaminated food or water.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), whereas "person to person" transmission of norovirus has been documented, "norwalk gastroenteritis is transmitted by the fecal-oral route via contaminated water and foods." The FDA indicates that contaminated water is one of the most likely causes of norovirus. The FDA reports that "water is the most common source of outbreaks and may include water from municipal supplies, well, recreational lakes, swimming pools, and water stored aboard cruise ships."

Most of the affected passengers reportedly became symptomatic after the cruise ship left its last port of call (Hilo, Hawaii) on November 29th. Are we to believe that suddenly 10% of the passengers suddenly stopped washing their hands? Or is it more likely that contaminated food or water introduced at the last port of call were the culprit?

The Friends of the Environment (FOE) has an interesting article that the problem is not sick passengers affecting the cruise ship, but sick ships affecting the passengers. FOE tracked the top 12 cruise ships with the most gastrointestinal outbreaks from 2000 to the present, based on the CDC data.

Out of the top 12 sickest ships, HAL operates 5 of them and has the top three sickest ships. HAL's Amsterdam is number 2. The Ryndam is number 1. The Veendam, which recently flunked a CDC health inspection (you can read about the filthy ship here and here), is number 3. The other HAL cruise ships which made the top 12 sickest list are the Volendam (no. 9) and the Zaandam (No. 11).  

Art credit: Chan Lowe / Sun Sentinel

Chart Credit: Friends of the Earth

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Last month, two cruise ships from Miami-based cruise lines arrived in New Orleans. NCL's Norwegian Star, with capacity for around 2,300 passengers, transitioned to the "Big Easy" and relieved the Norwegian Spirit which had been home-ported there.  

Royal Caribbean moved the Navigator of the Seas, a larger ship with a capacity of around 3,100 passengers, into the port of New Orleans where its Voyager of the Seas had been based.  

The cruise ships are based at the renovated Julia Street Terminal.  Both ships will be positioned in New Orleans for six months. 

The Port of New Orleans set a port record for cruise ship passengers for a two day period on November 17th to 18th when a total of almost 25,000 passengers arrived or departed on cruise ships. According to the Port of New Orleans, in 2011 736,908 passengers passed through the port. New Orleans is considered to be a "top 10" U.S. cruise port with 1,000,000 passengers expected by the end of this year. 

I lived in New Orleans from 1980 to 1987 before coming to Miami. I have warm memories of my time there at law school at Tulane and as a young lawyer.  During those years, the cruise industry was much smaller and there were no cruise ships based in New Orleans.  Now there are ships operated by NCL, Royal Caribbean and Carnival.  

One of the benefits of cruising out of New Orleans is the pre-cruise and post-cruise overnight stays in downtown New Orleans and the French Quarter. You can't beat the great food, the bars and late night cafe' au lait and beignets at Cafe du Monde.

I think it's time for Cruise Law to open up a maritime law office back in New Orleans!    

Photo Credit; AP / Andy Newman

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The lawyers here at Cruise Law are traveling again to Jamaica. We will be visiting our clients to see how they are doing. We will also make ourselves available to meet with any crew members (or their family members) who need to learn about the legal rights of cruise ship employees if they become ill or injured on cruise ships. 

Our team will be traveling to Montego Bay on Tuesday December 11, 2012 and will be available from December 11th through December 13th for consultation.  

On Wednesday December 12th from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM, we will be hosting a conference at the "Jamaica No Problem Room" in the beautiful Hibiscus Lodge in Ocho Rio. If you live in Ocho Rios or the Montego Bay area you of course know where that is. But if you don't, the address is 83 Main Street in Ocho Rios.

My partner Lisa O'Neill and co-counsel Jonathan Aronson will be will me.

The photo above was from our last visit to the famous "No Problem Room." We met a number of cruise ship employees from Jamaica whose problems we helped solve this year.

In the last two years, we have obtained over $3,000,000 (US $) in compensation and medical benefits for injured and ill Jamaican crew members. 

If the company has been unfair to you after you were injured on the cruise ship, or if you have medical problems like hypertension, diabetes. cancer or other illnesses which require treatment, please don't hesitate to contact us.

The flyer below has been posted on our facebook page.  We hope to see you in the "No Problem Room" in two weeks.   

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One of the most dangerous activities you can participate in during a cruise is found only on Royal Caribbean's cruise ships. It's the "FlowRider," a simulated surfing and water-boarding activity where a thin stream of water shoots up a sloped platform to create a wave-like flow of water.

Wipe-outs are expected. But what is not expected are the serious, life-altering injuries and, sometimes, even death.

You can see one such serious accident in the video below, where a young man falls on his neck. 

A considerable number of cruise passengers have been seriously injured on the Flowrider, which Royal Caribbean helped design and install on five of its cruise ships: one FlowRider on each of the Freedom class cruise ships (Freedom of the Seas, Independence of the Seas and Liberty of the Seas) and two on each of the Oasis class ships (Allure of he Seas and Oasis of the Seas).    

You will read absolutely no warnings about the dangers of the FlowRider on Royal Caribbean's website. Nor will you see any warnings whatsoever posted around the FlowRiders on any of the cruise ships. Even after a passenger was killed when he fell while trying to surf, the cruise line decided not to warn cruise passengers that the activity is, well, deadly. 

The cruise line's approach to the problem has been to require all passengers who participate in the activity to sign an electronic liability waiver. The process of scrolling through the electronic keypad in a long line is so quick that it's clear that no one reads the waiver. Moreover, the waiver is legally invalid. Earlier this year, the Eleventh Circuit Court of appeal struck down the Royal Caribbean waiver finding that it violated federal law (46 U.S.C 30509) which prohibits contract provisions that attempt to absolve a shipping company from its own negligence.  

At the moment, Royal Caribbean has an illegal waiver, and still no warnings on-line or warnings posted around the FlowRider.   

So what is the cruise line thinking? 

Some people think that Royal Caribbean may be going back to the drawing board to try and draft a new waiver.     

In a recent message thread on the website of the popular on-line cruise community Cruise Critic, there is discussion that the cruise line is working on creating a new and improved liability waiver - apparently for the purpose of trying to navigate around the statutory prohibition found in 46 U.S.C. 30509.  

If that's true, the new waiver will be struck down too. It's too bad that the cruise line won't post warning signs on its website or on the seven FlowRiders on its cruise ships. There are lots of people who don't understand just how dangerous this activity is.

If Royal Caribbean is going to be the only cruise line promoting this dangerous activity, it needs to spend less time drafting illegal waivers and more time drafting effective warnings before the next unsuspecting passenger steps on a surf board and breaks his neck.     

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The Voyager of the Seas has returned to Australia today after a 18 night cruise.  Like the previous cruise, this cruise aboard the Voyager ended with the cruise ship arriving in port with what appears to be hundreds of cruise passengers infected with norovirus.

We are beginning to receive emails from passengers who were sickened during the cruise (see comments below) and observed "many incidences we saw of poor food handling and personal hygiene practices of both crew members and passengers."

A newspaper in Australia has an article about the problem facing passengers: "Gastro Outbreak Hits Voyager of the Seas Passengers in Sydney Harbour." The article states that the boarding of the "mega liner Voyager of the Seas was thrown into chaos today following an outbreak of a gastrointestinal illness thought to be noro virus." The article mentions that, according to Royal Caribbean, around 135 passengers already aboard the ship were struck by the illness but disembarked in Sydney.

One passenger who contacted us said that around 150 cabins were quarantined which would suggest that Royal Caribbean may have underestimated the number of sick guests.  

According to the newspaper, the lines of passengers at the cruise terminal stretched hundred of meters as frustrated cruisers were left waiting for hours under the sun - many unaware of the cause of the delay. The passengers were required to complete detailed medical forms before they board, but quite frankly it should be the cruise line completing forms detailing the sickness of the cruise ship.  

A cruise line spokeswoman denied any connection between the long lines and the norovirus and blamed "thousands of passengers disregarding allocated staggered boarding times."

Many passengers were upset that the cruise line kept them in the dark. Some others were handed at the port an "information sheet" in which Royal Caribbean said those ill had been limited to ''a small percentage of guests.''

What is missing from the newspaper article is the fact that there was a massive outbreak of norovirus on this cruise ship during the prior cruise. No newspapers in Australia reported on the disease outbreak and the cruise line kept mum too. You can read about the prior cruise and the problem with norovirus in our article: "Norovirus Outbreak on Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas?"

One passenger, Steve, wrote to us displeased that Royal Caribbean had not disclosed that there was norovirus on the cruise ship when he boarded on February 5th: 

"In hindsight if we had been made fully aware through official channels that there was an outbreak on the ship, we would have probably gone home as the last thing I needed was to catch a bout of Norovirus. There needs to be a lot more honesty and openness in this industry, as too many people are vulnerable and gullible when it comes to trusting these big cruise companies who profess to have our best interests at heart. Never again RCCL!" 

If you were on the cruise, please leave us a comment about how the cruise line handled the situation, or leave us a comment on our facebook page.

Any New Zealanders on the cruise? There is a news reporter from New Zealand who would like to speak with you. Please email me at jim@cruiselaw.com and I will place you in contact with the reporter.

Anyone with photos, either of the "enhanced cleaning" or crew members wearing protective clothing, etc.? Send us your photos to jim@cruiselaw.com 

November 24, 2012 Update: New Zealand newspaper picks up the story: "Sickness Stalks Luxury Superliner"  As usual, no one in the media raises the issue of the cause of the outbreak. Contaminated food or water? Sick crew members? Or infected passengers coming aboard?  

Photo credit: 

Bill Hearne - top photos of Voyager of the Seas

Australia's Daily Telegraph - bottom photo of Royal Caribbean letter 

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A newspaper in Finland is reporting that twenty crew members received injuries during a lifeboat drill aboard the Findlandia cruise ship operated by Eckerö Line in Tallinn.

The newspaper states that crew members suffered broken bones and sprained ankles, as well as friction burns caused by trying to slow their descent during the steep drop into a life raft. 

Unlike most lifeboat systems in which the crew will board the lifeboat and then descend into the water, the system on the Findlandia involves a chute which drops straight down to the life rafts in the water. It does not look much different than chutes which construction crews use in dumping construction debris from upper floors into a dumpster on the street below.

You can see the system in the photograph to the left. It looks very dangerous.

The drill was suspended only when the Eckerö crew members refused to follow their colleagues down the chute.

”The exercise should have been called off as soon as the injuries came,” said a representative of a Finnish Transport Safety Agency Trafi.

A representative of the Finnish Seamen’s Union stated that the evacuation system used is "unsuitable and dangerous," although it was approved in the European Union.

Photo credit: D. Stenbäck / Trafi

Hat tip for story: CruiseInd and Cruisejunkie 

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A passenger aboard the Royal Caribbean Adventure of the Seas cruise ship states that an engine room fire broke out ten days ago.   

According to a comment on the Cruise Critic message board, the incident occurred on November 13th while the Adventure of the Seas was making the crossing across the Atlantic. A fire on board caused the cruise ship to lose power and electricity for about two minutes. Alarms sounded intermittently. Some passengers smelled or observed smoke. Later, some passengers were later told that a "power surge" caused an engine fire while others said the captain mentioned switching over to a second set of engines.

Apparently no one was injured and the ship continued on its way.

Other than this mention of the alleged incident on Cruise Critic, there are no other references to a fire on the Adventure of the Seas which I have located.

Although the incident sounds minor, there is nothing insignificant about even a small fire in an engine room of a large cruise ship with several thousands of passengers aboard in the middle of the ocean.

There have been over 80 cruise ship fires in the last two decades.  Read about some recent cruise ship fires here.

Anyone else have any information?. 

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ERR News reports that a man was rescued from frigid waters in Finland after being spotted falling from Eckerö Line's cruise ferry Nordlandia which sails between Helsinki and Tallinn.

Two witnesses observed a man fall into the Gulf of Finland. A sea rescue mission involving two ships and a rescue helicopter was launched. After 45 minutes, the helicopter located the man and delivered him on board. The man was resuscitated and transported to a local hospital.

Photo credit: Wikimedia / Bin im Garten

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A court case pending in Miami contains an insight into the number of sexual assaults which occur during cruises.

The case is Jane Doe v. NCL and involves an incident where a cruise passenger alleges that she was raped in the toilet stall of a public bathroom while participating in a "Pub Crawl" on the Norwegian Sun.  A "Pub Crawl" is what I would describe as a drinking game where NCL employees take passengers to bars throughout the cruise ship where they are served booze. I mentioned the case last year.  

The federal district court judge just entered a number of orders in the case which are of interest.

NCL filed a motion arguing that it owed no obligation to warn its guests of the risk of being raped on the high seas. The court rejected the cruise line's argument.

The court pointed to the fact that there were 23 allegations of sexual assault on NCL cruise ships for the 15 month period before the incident (January 2010 to April 2011). The history of prior sexual crimes on NCL's fleet of cruise ships raised the issue whether the rape on the Norwegian Sun was foreseeable which, the court held, is an issue for the jury at trial.

NCL also argued that it had no duty not to over-serve passengers alcohol during cruises.  The federal court also rejected this argument. The court adopted the holding of a state court case, Hall v. Royal Caribbean, where a state appellate court ruled that cruise lines face liability when they serve passengers alcohol beyond the point of intoxication.

The security report on this case concluded that the passenger was "extremely intoxicated." 

Last week, I mentioned that NCL just adopted a "all you can drink" alcohol policy for $49 a day.  In our experiences there is a direct correlation between too much cruise booze and sexual assaults. 

The passenger in the NCL case is being represented by Miami maritime lawyer Keith Brais who posted copies of the court orders on line here and here.

NCL is being defended by Miami lawyer Curtis Mase.  Mr. Mase was involved in a highly publicized case in 1999 where a trial court ordered Carnival to reveal the number of sexual assaults against cruise ship passengers. This was the first time a cruise line had to reveal the extent of shipboard crimes.

Carnival disclosed that there were 62 incidents on its cruise ships for a five year period.  Two weeks later, the New York Times reported that Carnival located another 46 incidents and raised the tally to 108 incidents of sexual misconduct over the preceding 5 years. 

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Last Friday, I wrote an article about a cruise ship incident where a passenger reported that a Celebrity Cruises crew member "indecently assaulted" her aboard the Celebrity Cruises' Millennium cruise ship as it sailed from Fiji to New Zealand. 

The cruise ship arrived early in the morning on Friday and was scheduled to depart later the afternoon of the same day. 

In my article, I mentioned that in our experience, rape cases involving women and children by cruise employees are rarely prosecuted in the criminal courts.

One of the problems is that crimes on the high seas fall into a jurisdictional "no-man's land." The Celebrity cruise ship flies the flag of Malta, an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. The alleged rape reportedly occurred in the waters of Fiji.  The nationality of the alleged perpetrator and victim are unknown, but they are probably not citizens of New Zealand which was conducting the investigation.    

Today, we learn that the local police in New Zealand declined to arrest anyone. A newspaper in New Zealand states that a police detective involved in the investigation cited, as one of other factors, "jurisdiction" as one factor in declining the case for prosecution.  Unless the cruise ship was flagged in New Zealand, or the assailant or victim were a citizen of New Zealand, or the alleged crime occurred in its waters, New Zealand would have no jurisdiction over the incident. 

The police detective said that there was "insufficient evidence" for a prosecution which is the usual type of comment we hear in cases like this.  The detective did not cite exactly what other factors may have played a part in declining the case, but he made disturbing comments about making certain that the cruise ship kept its scheduled itinerary.

Recognizing that the the Millennium was due to sail to at 4:15 PM last Friday afternoon, the detective pointed out that the cruise ship sailed on time: “We were aware of those tight time lines and our team got right into it from the first opportunity, and it wasn’t held up at all.”  This is interesting because an earlier account of the story said that the cruise ship captain didn't notify the local police of the alleged sexual assault until after the cruise ship arrived in port. How do you assemble a forensic team, conduct multiple interviews, administer polygraph tests, look for trace evidence, review video tape surveillance, conduct medical and laboratory tests and get your team off the ship for a timely 4:15 PM departure?  

Why should a professional law enforcement care about boat schedules when the vessel contains an alleged crime scene? 

One of the criticism of cruise ship crimes investigations is that the investigating law authorities are deferential to the cruise ship schedule and rush their investigations. Some suggest that local ports are afraid to jeopardize their relationship with large cruise lines by delaying a cruise ship's departure from port. Anger a large cruise line and you run the risk that it will drop your port like a hot potato. Unfortunately, crimes on cruise ships literally involve a moving crime scene that is often compromised due to the cruise line's business interests.

In the infamous case of honeymoon groom George Smith who "disappeared" from the Brilliance of the Seas under disturbing circumstances (we represented his widow in litigation against the cruise line), the local police investigation was so rushed that the Royal Caribbean cruise ship actually left the Turkish port of Kusadasi 45 minutes ahead of schedule. 

Later, I hired Dr. Henry Lee who assembled a team of nine forensic investigators, video and photography experts and detectives. When we boarded the cruise ship to inspect the Smith's cabin and balcony, the cruise line placed us under substantial time pressure not to interrupt the cruise ship's scheduled itinerary.    

Photo:

Top: Bay of Plenty Times

Bottom: MSNBC

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One of the web sites which I read from time to time is "TravelTruth." It is a site which describes itself as a "collaborative effort designed to offer the vacation consumer real world advice without exaggeration, deception, or sales bias. It is the ultimate insider’s view of how things really work, written by an award-winning team of travel consultants and journalists."  

TravelTruth recently addressed the issue raised by a mother who asked whether she should let her daughter vacation on a cruise ship in the Caribbean next spring.  The article is entitled "Bottom Line: Should My Daughter Do This Trip?"The article explains some of the dangers which we touch upon in this blog, namely the absence of independent police authorities on cruise ships, and the risk of sexual assault both on the ships and especially ashore in Mexico and the Caribbean islands.

If you are a parent thinking of taking your daughter (or son) aboard a cruise ship, consider reading the articles about the cruise lines below:

Carnival, Celebrity, Cunard, Disney, NCL, Oceania, Princess, and Royal Caribbean  

One of our goals at Cruise Law News is public awareness. Thus, the motto of our blog "everything the cruise lines don't want you to know."  The TravelTruth site also provided a link to our blog for parents to read if they are considering taking their daughters on a cruise.  

Our goal is not to scare the public from cruising, but to educate the public that its not safe to let your guard down aboard cruise ships while cruising with your children.  

Photos:

Top: Disney cruise passenger Lucas George Wickes indicted for felony sexual abuse and aggravated sexual abuse of minor aboard Disney Wonder.

Bottom: Royal Caribbean crew member Fabian Palmer indicted for felony sexual abuse of minor aboard Adventure of the Seas.

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A New Zealand newspaper reports that the police in the port city of Tauranga are investigating sexual assault allegations made against a crew member of the Millennium cruise ship which docked at the port yesterday morning after sailing from Fiji.

Police state a woman in her late 40's or early 50's accuses one of the crew members of the Celebrity Cruises ship of "indecently assaulting her" while the cruise ship was in Fiji waters.

Police state that the passenger alerted the ship’s captain who then informed Tauranga Police once the ship docked at the port in New Zealand.

The newspaper reports that "police are looking into the matter."

Cruise ship rapes are one of the problems which cruise lines try and keep secret.  

A decade ago, we represented a victim of a rape which occurred on this cruise ship. In our experience, the rape of women and children by cruise employees are rarely prosecuted in the civil courts. Behind the scenes, cruise lines work to defend their employees and build a case against the victims. 

In the civil courts, cruise lines are strictly liable when their employees sexually assault passengers on the high seas.  

November 18, 2012 update: No Surpirse - New Zealand declines to make arrest: "Citing Tight Cruise Itinerary and Jurisdictional Issues, New Zealand Police Decline to Arrest Crew Member in Alleged Cruise Ship Sexual Assault"

Photo credit: Sun Live 

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The Daily Record in the U.K. published an article today about who it is describing as a "notorious pedophile priest . . . caught enjoying a luxury cruise among families with young children." 

The article involves ex-Catholic priest Bill Carney who sailed on the P & O Ventura ship on a Mediterranean cruise with his wife.

The article states that Carney terrorized children for years in his native Ireland and was suspected of abusing "up to 32 named victims, with evidence that there were many more." Carney, age 62, became a priest in 1974 and, according to the newspaper article, used his position to molest dozens of children. "He attacked boys and girls from at least eight children’s homes," according to the article. An Irish government report into child abuse by priests described Carney as “one of the most serious serial abusers in the archdiocese of Dublin."

In 1983, Priest Carney was convicted of two counts of indecent assault. He received probation and the archdiocese paid compensation to six victims. He was not defrocked until 1992. 

Carney is not on the sex offenders’ register in the UK.

The Daily Record states that Carney was spotted on the P & O cruise last month, apparently by another passenger who identified him as the predator priest.  “But here he was without a care in the world – and we were surrounded by families and children." The newspaper points out that P & O describes the Ventura cruise ship as “very family friendly,” with “fantastic children’s clubs and a play area for under-twos."

Carney is not the only pervert ex-priest who likes to cruise. 

Last year, we wrote about George Neville Rucker, an accused predator priest, who sailed on a cruise to South America. Rucker is a defrocked Los Angeles priest who was accused of sexually molesting 33 girls.

Over the years, we have written about sexual predators of all types, young men, old men, eccentric celebrities, child counselors, youth counselors, bartenders, audio visual technicians, pool cleaners, and even captains. Parents need to know not to trust anyone with their children during cruises.

The cruise lines share all types of information with themselves about passengers they don't want on their ships, like casino cheats, credit card scammers, and litigious cruisers. But they don't track smiley faced pedophiles.   

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A number of people have contacted us, including one passenger "Nancy" from Australia, complaining about a recent, major norovirus outbreak on the Voyager of the Seas.  She writes:

"The Voyager of Seas has relocated to Asia Pacific region husband and I sailed on the relocation cruise from Singapore 22nd Oct 2012 to Fremantle Australia. There was Norovirus outbreak around 800 passengers affected undetermined number with chest infection, one Norovirus victim airlifted . . . The ships doctor was swamped with sick passengers couldn't cope turned people away untreated. Cabins were sanitized once during the 14 night cruise and measures taken to fight the infection cabins sanitized as we left the ship ,very hard to fight when there are 3000+ people in one place." 

Nancy also commented on the absence of any mention of the disease outbreak: "The outbreak didn't rate a mention on TV or news papers ($$ damaging to tourist trade)." (The image of the Voyager of the Seas to the left was from an earlier norovirus outbreak when the ship was sailing out of New Orleans in February). 

Another person commented:  "My Mother just went on the Singapore to Perth cruise & many people were quarantined . My Mother got sick the last few days of cruise & is still recovering, vomiting diarrhea etc. . . Virus of the Sea Ship . . ."    

Passenger Nancy appeared sympathetic to the cruise line and thought the outbreak may have been due to the failure of the passengers to wash their hands.

Like most outbreaks, it does not appear that any effort will be made to establish the real cause of the outbreak (i.e., a sick passenger brought the virus aboard, or food and water were contaminated, or a sick crew member spread the virus).

The last norovirus reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) involving the Voyager of the Seas was earlier this year on a January 28 to February 4, 2012 sailing. 

Royal Caribbean and sister cruise line Celebrity have experienced recent problems with norovirus outbreaks - the Celebrity Constellation sailing out of Southampton reportedly had 350 passengers stricken with norovirus last week, and the Rhapsody of the Seas was quarantined last month while in port in Fiji due to the port's concern that sick cruise passengers may infect the local community.  The U.S. media typically does not mention these type of outbreaks. 

Neither of these latest outbreaks were reported to the CDC because the ships did not call on a U.S. port. 

Can anyone else on the cruise verify the outbreak and comment on how the cruise line handled it?  

Please leave a comment below or follow the discussion on our facebook page about the outbreak.

November 23, 2012 Update: Norovirus Continues to Sicken Cruise Passenger on Latest Cruise

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A Filipino crew member working aboard a large container ship was arrested after allegedly staging his own disappearance as part of a plot to sneak into the U.S.  

Dexter Desquitado, age 38, worked as a crew member aboard the Singapore-flagged MSC Tokyo. On October 25, 2012, a federal grand jury indicted him on charges that while the container ship was in the Gulf of Mexico heading for Alabama, he staged a scene aboard the ship to create the impression that he had gone overboard. Meanwhile, he hid in another part of the ship, with the intention of sneaking into the United States.  When the MSC ship reached the Port of Mobile, he apparently entered the U.S. during the vessel's cargo operations. 

In legal papers filed by the prosecuting attorneys, the U.S. Government said "The very offense involved staging his disappearance at sea, hiding in a secluded area of the ship, and then surreptitiously escaping into the United States under the cover of night."

An earlier account of the incident indicated that at approximately 2:30 a.m. on October 15th, the missing crewmember was responsible for recovering the Jacob’s ladder after the pilot arrived. The ladder was later observed down with a shoe on deck indicating the possibility of the crewmember falling overboard.

The U.S. Coast responded by launching a large (and expensive) search and rescue effort. The vessels and aircraft involved in the unnecessary search included:

• Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew;
• Coast Guard Aviation Training Center Mobile HC-144 Ocean Sentry airplane crew;
• Coast Guard Station Dauphin Island 45-foot Response Boat—Medium crew;
• The 87-foot Coast Guard Cutter Seahawk crew;
• A 40-foot Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla boat crew;
• A 32-foot Mobile Police Department contender crew;
• A 32-foot Alabama Marine Resources jet boat crew;
• A 23-foot Daphne Search and Rescue boat crew; and
• A 27-foot Bon Secour Fire Department boat crew.

If convicted, Desquitado faces a $5,000 civil penalty and $1,062,423 for the cost of the search conducted by the Coast Guard as well as Alabama and local authorities.

Our blog has covered all types of crew member disappearances, including foul play, suicides and mysteries.  This is the first time that we have learned of a crew member faking a disappearance.  

Can anyone cite to a case involving a fake disappearance of a crew member from a large commercial vessel or a cruise ship?  Please leave a comment below or comment on our facebook page.   

Story and video credit: Mobile News 15

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The cover photograph on my facebook page is a Reuters photo of the capsized Costa Concordia.  A number of people have said that they were tired of the photo and asked me when I plan to change the photo?    

I'll admit that I'm tired of seeing the Concordia lying on its side at the port of Giglio. But probably not as tired as the people in Giglio who have to see this stricken cruise ship every morning when they wake up and look out their windows.

I said that I'll change the photo when Costa finally tows the sunken monster out of Giglio port and takes it to a scrap yard.  

Some people didn't realize that the cruise ship has not moved since the fateful night of January 13th. Others asked how Costa planned to remove the ship.

Which brings us to the "Parbuckling Project," a/k/a the Concordia wreck removal project. 

Costa plans to float the cruise ship into a vertical position and then float the ship and tow it away. "Parbuckling" is the technical term for the process of rotation of the wreck to a vertical position.  Not as simple as it sounds, but that's the plan. 

In partnership with Titan / Micoperi, Costa has created a website which explains and illustrates the removal plans. You can see some interesting diagrams and photos which will be updated as the project progresses. 

Credit: Noticias de Cruceros

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This morning, the Free Lance newspaper in Fredericksburg, Virginia published a cruise story with a happy ending. Entitled "Friends’ Actions Aboard Ship Save Woman’s Life," the article is about cruise passenger Patty Bliss who joined 25 other women from the Sheriff’s Office and government offices in Stafford County for a weekend getaway two weeks ago on Carnival Glory’s “cruise to nowhere.” 

Shortly after boarding the cruise ship, the women were enjoying food and drinks on deck. Suddenly, Ms. Bliss slumped over in her chair.  

The women observed Ms. Bliss not breathing. She had no pulse. Her skin turned grayish–purple. She had suffered sudden cardiac arrest, causing her heart to stop pumping blood throughout her body.  “I thought she was gone,” said one pf the women, Sgt. Nancy Morin, who was also traveling with two daughters. Morin's oldest daughter was certain that Ms. Bliss was dead. She began crying.

But Sgt. Morin and Detective Christine Hammond sprang into action. They initiated cardiopulmonary resuscitation with Morin compressing her heart and Hammond blowing into Bliss’ mouth. The newspaper writes:

Bliss’ heart didn’t start beating on its own. Other women in the group asked crew members for an automated external defibrillator, a device that sends an electric shock to people suffering from cardiac arrest . . . .

. . .  crew members weren’t responding, but instead “ran around in circles trying to figure out what to do.”

One of the women in the group then clapped her hands in the face of one crew members and told him to get the device “and get it now!”

By this point, Morin and Hammond reportedly had given CPR to Ms. Bliss for 15 to 20 minutes.

According to the newspaper, when the defibrillator arrived, a crew member shocked Bliss once, but the device indicated another shock was needed. When the crew member hesitated, one of the women pushed the button to shock Bliss again and again. 

Finally an ambulance took Ms. Bliss off of the cruise ship to a hospital where the doctors implanted a defibrillator in her chest.  

Ms. Bliss may have missed the "cruise to nowhere," but she was fortunate to fall ill in port around a group of women trained on how to save her life. 

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The U.S. Coast Guard issued a press release indicating that it medically evacuated a passenger from a cruise ship 50 miles southwest of Point Loma yesterday afternoon.

The Carnival Inspiration cruise ship contacted the Coast Guard yesterday shortly before noon requesting a medevac for a 26 year old man who was experiencing rapid heart rate and possible cardiac complications.

Coast Guard Sector San Diego dispatched an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew to fly to the cruise ship to perform the medevac.

The aircrew hoisted the man and the ship’s nurse to the helicopter and transported them to San Diego, where they transferred the ill man to emergency medical personnel.

This was the third medevac from a cruise ship this weekend.  Previously the Coast Guard rescued a pregnant passenger from the Disney Magic and flew her to a hospital in Galveston, Texas.  And an ill passenger was hoisted by a helicopter, operated by the Australian Navy, from the Sea Princess cruise ship and taken to a hospital in Australia.   

Photo / video credit: U.S. Coast Guard

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News sources are reporting that the U.S. Coast Guard rescued a woman "experiencing pregnancy issues" on a Disney cruise ship approximately 180 miles from Galveston coast early today. 

A Coast Guard helicopter crew medevaced the 31 year old woman from the Disney Magic cruise ship and flew her to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. The captain of the ship requested the medevac late yesterday Friday night.

Disney reportedly said passengers cannot sail on a ship if they are more than 24 weeks pregnant.

This is the second cruise passenger medevaced from a cruise ship today.  Earlier this morning a helicopter rescued a passenger from a Princess cruise ship off of the coast of Australia. 

The U.S. Coast Guard video of the Disney medevac is below:

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A number of news outlets are reporting that a fire broke out aboard an Egyptian cruise ship, which caused the evacuation of 77 tourists during a cruise on the Nile River.

The fire reportedly occurred due to a short circuit near the stern of the cruise ship as it sailed between Luxor and Esna in southern Egypt.

Some of the tourists refused to get back on the cruise ship after the fire.

The news is rather skimpy at this point.  If you have additional information or photos please leave a comment below.

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A newspaper in Australia reports that an Australian Navy helicopter airlifted a sick elderly passenger from a Princess cruise ship off the coast of Western Australia after a medical emergency today.

The elderly passenger was suffering from acute stomach pains.  In response, the Sea Princess cruise ship contacted the Royal Australian Navy frigate HMAS Toowoomba which was was training nearby the cruise ship as it sailed north of Cape Naturaliste.

The helicopter airlifted the passenger to Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital for treatment.

The Sea Princess continued its cruise and is due to arrive in Adelaide in five days.

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A family cruise aboard a Disney cruise ship turned from fun to terror when the ship encountered Hurricane Sandy. 

The McGee family from Franklin, Tennessee were expecting a great time when they booked a 7 day trip (their first cruise) on the Disney Fantasy to the Caribbean. 

The McGees had fun for the first four days but when the ship tried to sail back to Port Canaveral, Hurricane Sandy turned the vacation into a terrifying journey. "I think it's only by the grace of God that there wasn't any serious injury," said McGee. "I would really appreciate it if Disney would say, ‘We made the wrong decision. We shouldn't have done that to our guests.'"

Disney offered the McGees and other passengers a 25 percent discount on a future Disney vacation, but Ms. McGee believes the Disney staff should have done more to keep the passengers informed and safe.

Story / Video credit: News Channel 5

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CNN's iReport has a story and video of the effect of Hurricane Sandy on the Disney Fantasy cruise ship.

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Cruise expert Professor Ross Klein's website refers to a case of an Israeli passenger who went overboard in the Mediterranean Sea during a vacation cruise earlier this month.

According to the Y News Net newspaper in Israel, the passenger was identified as a 43 year old Israeli taxi driver from Hadera who did not return from a leisure cruise to Cyprus he went on three weeks ago.

Police officials said there was a chance that the man had fallen off the ship and drowned.

However, an Egyptian newspaper, al-Masry al-Youm, reported that the man had been shot dead. 

The police launched an investigation into the incident after learning of the man's disappearance, taking collecting statements from the ship's crew and passengers and checking security cameras.

The man was reportedly seen in the ship's bar and pool area a day before the ship docked at Haifa Port.

The body was discovered by Egyptian authorities and was transferred to Israel on Friday. It was taken to a forensic institute, where the circumstances of death are being examined.

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A newspaper in Italy is reporting that a U.S. passenger became sick with meningitis and was taken ashore for medical treatment once the ship arrived at port.

The Corriere del Mezzogiorno newspaper reports that when the Seven Seas Voyager cruise ship arrived at the port of Messina, one U.S. passenger was taken from the cruise ship to a hospital in Gaeta. However, no other passengers were allowed to disembark - apparently out of concern that they may also be sick and infect people ashore.

The newspaper account states that the passengers were given prophylactic medications but must wait at least 48 hours to avoid others from being infected. 

Meningitis is a serious disease affecting the mucous membranes surrounding the brain. It can be spread in the air, person to person and through contaminated food or water. It can be deadly.

Last month four crew members were infected with meningitis while working on the MSC Orchestra cruise. They were hospitalized in a medical facility in Italy.  One crew member died. The frightening thing about that case was that two of the crew members worked in the cruise ship's galley which increased the prospects that the passengers could be infected.

Anyone aboard the Seven Seas Voyager with information to share, please leave a comment below.

October 29, 2012 Update: The Cruise Critic message board has a comment that this was a "suspected" case of meningitis and the Italian Health Ministry indicated that the passenger tested negative for the disease. 

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One of the first comments from the Carnival Destiny cruise ship about a passenger going overboard earlier this week was by another passenger who remarked on Twitter that it took well over a hour to complete the rescue. The tweet stated that the overboard passenger had to tread the water for one and one-half hours.

Another person left a comment to my article about the incident, stating:

"The woman's friends who knew she had fallen had a difficult time convincing the crew to stop the ship. They chose to search the ship first. Fortunately a passenger in an above deck had reported hearing a splash and that info convinced them to stop the ship and look in the water. She was not rescued for over an hour. She tried to swim after the ship until it disappeared and she was left in total blackness. . . ."

Coast Guard regulations and the requirements of most cruise ship safety management systems (SMS) required by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) state that the vessel must immediately take steps to rescue a person who goes overboard.

Vessel operators must also notify the Coast Guard and other vessels in the vicinity if the overboard person is not "immediately" located in the water. Once a man overboard is reported, most SMS cruise line policies require a prompt reduction of speed of the ship, a "Williamson Turn" to head the ship back to the location of the overboard person, the deployment of extra look-outs, the use of spotlights, and preparation to deploy life craft. While this is happening the captain can order a muster and head count if there is any doubt about whether a passenger went overboard. 

Why didn't this occur in this case?  If the comments by other passengers are true that the cruise ship did not promptly turn around and the overboard passenger was forced to tread water for over an hour, this is in violation of Coast Guard regulations and basic maritime rescue procedures.

Last month, a similar incident occurred on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, the Allure of the Seas. A young woman went overboard and reportedly struck the arm of a passenger standing on a lower balcony. The passenger reported the incident immediately but the cruise ship sailed on and did not report it for over two hours.  The cruise line initially falsely stated that it immediately initiated a search and notified the U.S. Coast Guard. When confronted with the fact that it actually delayed for over two hours, Royal Caribbean said that it decided to search the ship first so as to avoid unnecessarily causing the Coast Guard to deploy search aircraft and rescue vessels.  

Unlike the Carnival case where the passenger was eventually rescued and taken to a hospital ashore (photo above), in the Royal Caribbean case the passenger was never found and her body was never recovered.

There were many comments after the fiasco aboard the Allure of the Seas that no one can survive a fall of 100 feet from a cruise ship, but the Carnival Destiny incident shows otherwise. In both cases, there were criticisms by other passengers that they were inconvenienced by the delay and/or they missed the next port because of the overboard. Cruise lines have to then deal with whining customers and unhappy people demanding credits and discounts.  

Are cruise ships under so much pressure to keep their itineraries that they are ignoring basic search and rescue protocols? 

Yes, everyone should be happy that the Destiny passenger survived. But the issue needs to be explored to understand why the ship delayed in searching in the water rather than wasting time looking around the ship.The next overboard will not be so lucky. 

The notion advanced by Royal Caribbean's PR people that cruise lines can delay a rescue for a couple of hours is preposterous. It's exactly the opposite of what the applicable maritime rules and regulations require.  After all, the Allure of the Seas is touted as the largest cruise ship in the world. In an emergency, no one has the luxury of searching an entire floating city before initiating a search and calling the Coast Guard for help.

A person struggling in the water at night does not have time to wait a hour or two for help.    

Photo credit: Jetaria Taylor

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WSVN - Miami Channel 7 reports that a cruise ship passenger went overboard from the Carnival Destiny Saturday night after the ship left the port of Miami.

The news station states that the 29 year old female apparently jumped from the cruise ship but was rescued by the ship's crew who used a rescue boat to pick her out of the water.

The Destiny diverted from its scheduled port in Ocho Rios, Jamaica to Key West where the woman was disembarked yesterday for medical treatment at a hospital. The cruise ship will now head for Grand Cayman.

A number of passengers left comments on Twitter to the effect that the overboard passenger may have struck a lifeboat on the way down and treaded water for over one and one-half hours. One passenger took a photo of the lifeboat (below) involved in the rescue. 

Anyone with photos, video or information about what happened please leave a comment below. 

October 25, 2012 Update:  Why Did Carnival Delay Rescuing An Overboard Passenger From The Destiny?

Photo credit:

Top: WSVN 7

Bottom: @NStookey Twitter 

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Newspapers in Cyprus and Israel are reporting that security forces in Cyprus thwarted a planned terror attack against Israeli tourists.

Cypriot security forces seized a powerful explosive in the port of Limassol, local paper Alithia reported. The explosive was described as capable of causing "massive damage."

The newspapers state that the perpetrators intended to target Israeli tourists visiting on cruise ships to Cyprus which is a popular tourist destination for Israelis. 

Earlier this summer, Cyprus arrested a Lebanese man with links to Hezbollah who was planning attacks on Israelis in the country.  Israel has said the attacks were part of a concerted effort by Iran, which employs the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah as its proxy to target Israelis around the world.

No one in the U.S. seems to have reported on this story.

Two weeks ago, I wrote an article about the targeting of cruise passengers by terrorists:

27 Years After Hijacking of Achille Lauro, Can Cruise Ships Keep Passengers Safe in the Middle East? 

In April I blogged about a plot where Arab terrorists envisioned hijacking a U.S. based cruise ship, forcing the passengers to wear orange Guantanamo-like jump suits and then videotaping their execution. 

There are numerous studies by security companies and U.S. governmental organizations which have studied terrorist organizations and concluded that terrorism against cruise ships is likely.

Take a look at this report by the RAND organization. 

The World Cruise Industry Review publication concluded that the most likely terrorist scenario is the hijacking of a cruise ship and its passengers: "A cruise ship is boarded and commandeered, while perpetrators hold and potentially injure or kill passengers if demands are not met – as in the Achille Lauro attack."

The issue has been written about by a number of experts, including Commander  Mark Gaouette who is the former director of security for Princess cruise line.  He wrote a book specifically addressing the issue of cruise ships as a target for terrorists.

Photo credit top: Cruise Time Tables

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On October 8, 2012, we reported on four crew members aboard the MSC Orchestra who were sickened with meningitis. 

According to AFP in Rome, today one of the crew members, Ermandiasa Gede, age 32 from Indonesian, died of the infection nine days after being hospitalized.

Two of the other crew members, a 26-year-old Brazilian crew member and a 32-year-old Filipino, reportedly recovered. However, the fourth sick crew member, a 47-year-old Italian cook, remains on life support.

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Today, a Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) former assistant cruise director was sentenced to nine years in jail for possessing child pornography.

Senad Djedovic, from Bosnia and Herzegovina, was arrested earlier this year after he boasted about engaging in sexual relations with a 16 year old girl who sailed on the NCL Star cruise ship with her parents. 

After the cruise ended, Djedovic exchanged emails with the underage girl and received a number of sexually explicit photographs.

Other crew members on the NCL cruise ship observed the photos and learned the girl's age and reported Djedovic to NCL which contacted the FBI. A search of Djedovic's computers revealed child pornography. 

NCL employed Djedovic from 2005 to March 2012 aboard a number of different cruise ships. 

We wrote a series of articles this year about this case which you can review here, including videos of him singing on YouTube. 

After Djedovic was arrested, a number of crew members and friends came to his defense arguing that he should be acquitted because sex with a 16 year old is not a big deal and this kind of conduct is not illegal in most countries. We received bizarre comments to this blog to this effect.

Parents who consider cruising with their teenage daughters should take into consideration that this is the mentality of some crew members toward your underage children.

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A newspaper in Italy is reporting that a Royal Caribbean crew member disappeared from the Serenade of the Seas earlier this morning.

The Adnkronos newspaper in Rome reports that the Serenade of the Seas was sailing from Mykonos. Upon arrival at the next port around 7:00 AM this morning, it was discovered that a cabin steward was missing. (Another news account says he was a cleaner).  The newspaper mentions that the last CCTV image of the crew member on the cruise ship was around 1:00 AM and shows the employee walking through a door.  There apparently are no images of the crew member going overboard.  The crew member is reportedly from the Philippines. 

The newspaper states that a search was conducted by five Coast Guard patrol boats and two aircraft.

This is the third person to go overboard from a Royal Caribbean cruise ship in the last three weeks.

On September 20th we reported on another crew member who went overboard from this same cruise ship, the Serenade of the Seas, as it was sailing to Italy. You can read our article here. 

On September 17th a passenger disappeared from the Allure of the Seas shortly after it sailed from South Florida.

In addition to these three Royal Caribbean overboard cases, on September 29th a passenger went overboard from the P & O Aurora cruise ship.

On October 9th we reported on a Holland America Line passenger who disappeared during a cruise on board the HAL Veendam. 

Five passengers missing from cruise ships in the last month. Unfortunately there is no news coverage of cruise ship overboard cases unless the person is a U.S. passenger.  The U.S. press has virtually no interest if a "foreign" crew member goes overboard. Royal Caribbean will not make a statement unless a major media outlet makes an inquiry.  

If you have information about this latest overboard please leave a comment below, or join the discussion on our facebook page.

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Today I read an article on the BBC website stating that Cunard canceled a tribute to eccentric British television star Jimmy Savile who sailed regularly on Cunard ships, and other cruise ships, before his death.

For the U.S. readers of this blog unfamiliar with Mr. Savile, he was a popular disc jockey and television presenter for BBC Radio and Television. In the 1960's and 70's, he hosted the popular TV music program Top of the Pops and Jim'll Fix It which catered primarily to children. He was known for his fundraising and support of charities and hospitals. He was knighted by the Queen in 1990. 

A few years before his death in 2011, things began to unravel for Sir Savile. He was the target of allegations of child sexual abuse. After he died in October last year, these allegations increased. Several women stepped forward to claim that Savile sexually abused them while they were girls.

Nonetheless, Cunard cruise line had planned a tribute to Savile where the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship would sail by Scarborough, where Savile was buried. BBC News reports that a Cunard spokesperson had previously characterized Savile as a frequent Cunard cruise passenger and a "true friend of Cunard."

But after an ITV documentary aired last week about Savile's alleged abuse of children, including girls on the premises of BBC, an additional 40 women reported that Savile abused them while they were children. The U.K. police described Savile as a "predatory sex offender" who had a "predilection" for young girls.

It was at this point that Cunard finally decided to distance itself from its celebrity passenger Sir Savile.  

The concern I have when I read stories like this is the safety of children on cruise ships. Pedophiles plan their lives to come into close association with children and will prey on them if the opportunity exists - whether it's a hospital, orphanage, BBC's premises, or a luxury cruise ship.

If you think it's far-fetched that a pedophile would target children on a cruise ship, consider the fact that a Cunard youth counselor, Paul Trotter, is currently in jail in the U.K. after pleading guilty to abusing at least 13 children over the course of many years while working throughout the Cunard fleet.  

I have not located any evidence that Savile sexually abused anyone on Cunard's ships, but there is some disturbing accounts that he may have abused girls on a P & O cruise ship.

The U.K.'s Mirror published an article indicating that two passengers notified the captain of a P & O cruise ship that Savile had acted inappropriately with their daughter during a cruise - "I Kicked Sleazy Jimmy Savile Off Cruise Ship." The article states that after the captain of the P & O Canberra heard the complaints of the parents of a 14 year old girl, the captain told Savile ". . . he disgusted me and I wanted him off my ship when we reached Gibraltar.”  

Back in the 1970's when the incident aboard the P & O cruise ship occurred, cruise lines did not report sexual perverts to the police.  That was long before laws existed that required cruise lines to report such shipboard crimes to the authorities. At best, all that happened was the captain would kick the pervert off at the next port.  That permitted the pedophile to continue his ways on other cruise ships.

Other newspapers have raised the issue whether Savile sexually assaulted children on cruise ships. The U.K.'s Express newspaper published an article written by a journalist who commented that Savile was a regular on Cunard cruise ships and he observed Savile ". . . leering at girls and young women in the hot tub."

Sir Savile last sailed with Cunard, on the Queen Elizabeth, in September 2011 - thirty-five years after he was accused of abusing a girl on a P & O ship and one month before he died.

October 17, 2012 Update: The Sun newspaper in the U.K. published an article today about "Sue" age 16 who recalled Jimmy Sevile's conduct aboard a P & O cruise ship back in 1978, 

Photo credit:

Top: Sydney Morning Herald

Bottom: Mirror 

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Twenty-seven years ago today, the world saw terrifying television images of Palestinian terrorists holding passengers aboard the Achille Lauro cruise ship hostage. The terrorists demanded the release of 50 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. 

There were over 20 nationalities of passengers booked on the cruise, but the terrorists stated that Americans would be the first to be executed if their demands were not met.   

Leon Klinghoffer, age 69, was from New York City and was vacationing with his wife, Marilyn, and their friends, when the Achille Lauro sailed for Port Said, Egypt.  Although Mr. Klinghoffer was disabled and in a wheelchair, the terrorists picked him to be the first to die. They shot him in the chest and head, and then forced two crew members to dump him and his wheelchair over the side of the cruise ship.

That terrible crime occurred in October 1985. Now 27 years later, are cruise passengers, particularly Americans, any safer?

We have seen civil unrest across North Africa. President Mubarek is gone from Egypt and Colonel Gaddafi of Libya is dead. Good riddance to both I say, but both countries now seem more dangerous to Americans than ever. Last month we saw anti-American demonstrations on the 9/11 anniversary in both of these countries, and the murder of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya in Benghazi.

On the front page above the crease of the New York Times this morning are several articles about violence in Syria with a photo of a Syrian firing a Kalashnikov rifle. I not sure who is fighting who anymore but they all seem to have the potential to take their violence to U.S. interests.

In April I blogged about a plot where Arab terrorists envisioned hijacking a U.S. based cruise ship, forcing the passengers to wear orange Guantanamo-like jump suits and then videotaping their execution. 

The World Cruise Industry Review concluded that the most likely terrorist scenario is the hijacking of a cruise ship and its passengers: "A cruise ship is boarded and commandeered, while perpetrators hold and potentially injure or kill passengers if demands are not met – as in the Achille Lauro attack."

27 years after Leon Klinghoffer's dead body was dumped into the Mediterranean Sea, the danger of terrorism against cruise ship passengers seems greater than ever before. Have cruise ships increased the number of security guards aboard their cruise ships? I doubt it. Every cabin occupied by a security guard means less revenue for the cruise lines.    

The current strategy seems to be to simply skip ports in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia until things calm down. But that's a short turn fix; when the street protests are over, there remains the risk of jihadists plotting a cruise ship to target. Will the cruise security teams be ready?

If terrorists can over-power several heavily armed U.S. Marines and kill our Ambassador in Libya, does anyone really think that they are safe sailing on a Holland America Line or Princess cruise ship sailing into Tunis or Port Said?