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An 18 year-old cruise passenger is facing a felony charge in Broward County after he and a gang of others beat and bloodied another passenger to the point of unconsciousness while on the Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas last Friday, according to WPLG Local 10 News.

Broward County police officers boarded the Liberty of the Seas after it returned to Port Everglades from a cruise to the Bahamas and arrested Michael White of Siler City, North Carolina.

At least two men were arrested (including White), although that person’s name did not appear in the Broward county court records according to the news account.

The Broward Sheriff’s arrest report indicates that the arrest followed a violent encounter in and around an elevator on the Royal Caribbean cruise ship. A couple of other passengers asked a group of teenagers and young men to “stop jumping up and down on the elevator” which was causing it to sway.

Investigating officers said the group started yelling and saying, “Bitch, who are you talking to?”

When the elevator stopped on the eighth floor, the couple tried to exit the elevator but were attacked.

“Once (the victim) got out, he said he started getting struck by individuals in the face area, causing him to stagger backward. After staggering backward, he fell to the floor and that’s when he started getting kicked. Also, at this point, (the victim) said he blacked out and the next thing he knew, he woke up in a pool of blood on the floor.”

White was arrested on a felony charge of aggravated battery causing bodily harm.

BSO records show he was released from jail on Saturday after posting a $5,000 bond.

This violent attack follows at least one other dangerous incident when the CEO of a financial services company choked and threatened to kill a fellow passengers who was dancing on a Virgin Voyages cruise ship (the Resilient Lady):

Carnival Cruise Line has essentially cornered the market, so to speak, on shipboard violence in its nightclubs and pool bars over the years. Not surprisingly, Carnival has the most physical assaults “leading to serious bodily injury” as per the language of federal law with a total of a least fourteen (14) physical assaults with serious bodily injury reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2023. (In comparison, there are only eight (8) physical assaults with serious injury on all other cruise lines combined making the fleet of Carnival cruise ships by far the most violent cruise ships sailing on the high seas).

Another Brawl Breaks Out on the Carnival Paradise

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Image credit: Liberty of the Seas – WikiEK at English Wikipedia GNU Free Documentation License; Michael White – browardcountymugshots via WPLG Local 10 News.

According to a local news station in Houston, Texas, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in Galveston found drugs while performing a baggage examination of a cruise passenger following the return of a cruise ship to the Port of Galveston Cruise Port on April 20th.

While checking the baggage, CBP officers reportedly found several vape pens with marijuana THC and several prescription pill bottles. Two of the bottles reportedly contained a powdery substance which tested positive for fentanyl and heroin, according to a press release by CBP. 

Another local news station in Houston reported that the cruise passenger was apprehended with more than 70 grams of heroin mixed with fentanyl and nearly 100 grams of THC vape oil, according to CBP officials.

CBP caption: Heroin and fentanyl were seized from a cruise passenger in Galveston on Sunday, April 20th.

CBP did not release the name of the passenger arrested. USA Today reported that the passenger, a 63-year-old U.S. citizen, was turned over to local authorities after he was arrested. The Port of Galveston Police Department identified the man as a resident of Henderson, Texas who was charged with possession of a controlled substance, a second-degree felony.

Although USA Today decided not to identify the passenger, a review of a database showing the identity of people arrested last Sunday by the Galveston Police Department, indicated that one 63-year-old man was arrested at the port of Galveston for possession of drugs. Jeffrey Don Conkey, age 63, was identified in the online database. A search of his name revealed that the Galveston County Daily News covered the drug arrest in more detail than all other newspapers. It confirmed that Conkey, of Henderson, Texas was returning from a cruise to Mexico when “federal law officers reported finding 2.5 ounces (over 70 grams) of heroin mixed with fentanyl, and 3.4 ounces (over 95 grams) of THC vape oil in his luggage Sunday at the Port of Galveston.”

Credit: Busted Newspaper.

“Conkey, a passenger on a Royal Caribbean ship, was picked for a more detailed than usual screening because he had been ‘encountered for bringing marijuana through a border crossing back in 2018,’ according to a probable cause affidavit.”

Conkey was booked in the Galveston County Jail and later released after he posted a $75,000 bond.

The CBP did not identify the name of the cruise ship where the person disembarked. However, the only cruise ship to arrive at the port of Galveston on Sunday, April 20th was Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas which returned from a seven day cruise to Roatan, Honduras and Costa Maya, Mexico. It is not unusual for federal law enforcement to not disclose the name of the cruise ship to avoid causing embarrassment to the cruise line.

According to the CDC and the CBP, synthetic opioids like fentanyl are the primary cause of overdose deaths in the United States.

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April 24, 2025 Update: Conkey was also arrested in July 2021 on drug charges.

Image credit: Drugs – CBP press release via KHOU 11 (Houston); CBP press release; Jeffrey Don Conkey – Busted Newspaper; Harmony of the Seas – Kees Tom commons / wikimedia; Harmony of the Seas at Galveston port – Houston Public Media.

On April 8, 2025, we reported on the arrest of a Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) crew member on the Norwegian Bliss who was apprehended at the port of Los Angeles at 8:30 a.m. on April 4th for possession and transmission of child sexual abuse materials (CSAM).

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) stated in a press release that its investigation began almost two years ago (on July 24, 2023), “when agents received a cybertip from the National Center for Missing and Endangered Children (NCMEC) about an online account uploading files depicting children being sexually abused.” FDLE stated that the uploads of child sexual abuse materials (probably videos) “originated from Pappa’s account that is registered in Nassau County (FL), and that Pappas was employed by Norwegian Cruise Line.”

NCL has released very limited information about its pedophile ship employee working on its cruise ship. It released this cursory statement in response to an inquiry from USA TODAY about the arrest:

“The employee was dismissed from the company with a Do Not Rehire status as we have zero tolerance for this behavior.”

NCL is not revealing the pervert’s job title, how long he worked for NCL, or the possibility that he has videos of children who sailed on NCL cruise ships. We have inquired whether any NCL crew members know his job title or have access to any photographs of him.

Several NCL ship employees responded. All wish to remain anonymous fearing reprisal from NCL for speaking with our firm. We have learned that Pappas worked as the “Head of Broadcast” (i.e., a broadcast technician) aboard NCL’s Norwegian Bliss cruise ship. A colleague of his on the ship wrote: “This is truly horrifying — this man was onboard with unfettered access to children and Wi-Fi (in his position as head of broadcast he had more access to WiFi than regular crew) for the entire time he was under investigation.”

One of his colleagues provided us with a link to his Facebook page. He goes by “Banks Pappas” (Theo) and uses the photograph below on his home page.

We are in the process of obtaining a copy of the court file in Florida (where he will be prosecuted for his sex crimes), as we were unable to obtain any records or even a mug shot from the criminal and police files in Los Angeles.

We are still trying to determine how long Pappas worked aboard NCL cruise ships or whether he worked for other cruise lines in the past. If you have this information, we promise to protect your anonymity and will not reveal your identity under any circumstance.

April 16, 2025 Update:

I’m told by a reliable source (a P&O Australia crew member) that Pappas “worked for P&O Australia as well. He was video manager and made the cruise video back in the day. He was fired in 2012.”

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Image credit: Child Sexual Abuse Materials Image – Addressing Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM): A Comprehensive Perspective; Theodore Burbank Pappas, Jr., – Facebook.

Cruise stocks rallied following President Trump’s announcement on Truth Social that all reciprocal tariffs will be paused for 90 days. This comes after cruise stocks dropped considerably last week with some major brands falling as much as 13 to 16 percent (in one day) after Trump’s initial tariff announcement on over 90 countries on his self-proclaimed “Liberation Day.” Read: Trump Tariffs Cause Cruise Stocks to Tumble.

A breakdown of major cruise stocks as of today is as follows:

Cruise Stocks Closing Prices April 9th:

  • Carnival Corporation: $19.61, up 17.50%
  • Royal Caribbean Group: $209.51, up 16.27%
  • Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings: $18.39, up 18.34%

Cruise stocks have been more volatile than the average S&P 500 companies in response to Trump’s tariff announcements. The S&P 500 jumped 9.5% today while major cruise stocks almost doubled that.

Notably, Cruise CEOs down-played (or played dumb) the potential negative effect tariffs had on the cruising industry at Seatrade Cruise Global’s event in Miami Beach, as reported by Cruise Industry News. In response to tariffs, Josh Weinstein CEO of Carnival Corporation said “The uncertainty and ripple effect absolutely has an impact. As of now the answer is we don’t know. It takes some time for people to get comfortable with the uncertainty.”

Drops in cruise stocks are due to more than just uncertainty. Concerns over consumer discretionary spending are front and center with the recent volatility. Cruise vacations will be the first item many families cut if they face financial insecurity due to the inflationary nature of tariffs. Investors have similar concerns regarding consumer discretionary spending for major U.S. airlines as their stocks dropped last week and mostly recovered today.

The 90 day pause on tariffs may bring stability to the global economy and industry outlook on cruising. Uncertainty will still prevail with Trump excluding China from the pause and raising its tariffs to 125%. The response from China, the internal backlash Trump will face, and the effects on the stock market remain to be seen.

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A Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) ship employee has been arrested at the port of Los Angeles, California and charges with 13 counts of possession of child sexual abuse material, according to a release from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). 

Theodore Burbank Pappas, Jr., age 47, was arrested by the Los Angeles Port Police and is currently being held at the Los Angeles Police Department Detention Facility with no bond. He will be extradited to Florida and prosecuted by the Office of the State Attorney, Fourth Judicial Circuit.

A review of the booking information show that Pappas was arrested at 8:30 a.m. on April 4, 2025, and then booked at the Los Angeles County Jail on the afternoon of the same day. On April 4th, 2025, the Norwegian Bliss was the only NCL cruise ship to arrive in Los Angeles, for a 5-night Mexican Riviera cruise. 

FDLE says they began investigating Pappas in 2023 when agents received a cyber-tip from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children which had flagged an online account, registered to Pappas, uploading files with images of children being sexually abused, according to FDLE.

In addition to the child sexual abuse material charges, Pappas is also charged with one count each of transmission of child sexual abuse material and unlawful use of a two-way communication device (i.e., a cell phone), which are all felonies. 

FDLE obtained an arrest warrant and the Los Angeles Port Police arrested Pappas on April 4th. He is currently being held at the Los Angeles Police Department Detention Facility without bond, awaiting extradition to Florida.

Last year, there were at least 17 arrests of crew members for possession of child pornography / sexual abuse materials involving a number of cruise lines. Crew members from six companies were arrested on child pornography charges: Carnival – 7; Royal Caribbean – 4; Disney – 3; Celebrity – 1; Holland America Line – 1: and World Explorer -1.

In the past, we have referred to these type of cases as involving “child pornography” as opposed to “child sexual abuse materials.” While the term child pornography is still widely used by the public, it’s more accurate to call it what it is: evidence of child sexual abuse. That’s why many organizations stopped using the term child pornography and switched to referring to it as CSAM — child sexual abuse materials. We will now refer to these cases as involving “child sexual abuse materials.” As one sexual assault victim organization explained:

“While some of the pornography online depicts adults who have consented to be filmed, that’s never the case when the images depict children. Just as kids can’t legally consent to sex, they can’t consent to having images of their abuse recorded and distributed. Every explicit photo or video of a kid is actually evidence that the child has been a victim of sexual abuse.”

April 9, 2025 Update:

We have learned that Pappas worked as the “Head of Broadcast” (broadcast technician) aboard NCL’s Norwegian Bliss cruise ship. A colleague of his on the ship wrote: “This is truly horrifying — this man was onboard with unfettered access to children and Wi-Fi (in his position as head of broadcast he had more access to WiFi than regular crew) for the entire time he was under investigation.”

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Image credit: Norwegian Bliss – Sea Cow CC BY-SA 4.0, commons / wikimedia; Child Sexual Abuse Materials Image – Addressing Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM): A Comprehensive Perspective.

Due to cuts by the Trump Administration, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is now lacking the staff and resources to continue cruise ship health inspections under the Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP).

“Restructuring plans” by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK, Jr.) wiped out the VSP’s ability to control and monitor illness outbreaks on cruise ships.

Cruise Industry News reports that there were significant layoffs earlier last week in the CDC’s Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice, which oversees the VSP.

Cruise Industry News reports that “the VSP was put in place to inspect health standards on cruise ships, issuing a very public score on how well ships are operating and maintaining public health standards across eight areas. It also monitors data on illnesses onboard and responded to outbreaks.”

CDC May Stop Inspecting Cruise Ships

The cut back comes at a crucial time for the cruise industry which is experiencing an unprecedented number of gastrointestinal outbreaks on cruise ships.

As we reported last week, this year there have been 12 outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness on cruises calling on U.S. ports. Ten of these outbreaks were caused by the very contagious norovirus. Last year (2024), there were 16 gastrointestinal (GI) outbreaks on cruise ships. In 2023, there was a total of 14 cruise outbreaks. At the current rate, on an annualized basis there will be 48 GI cruise ship outbreaks if the cruise sicknesses continue at this record rate.

The Street reported “with the recent uptick in cruise ship norovirus outbreaks, the loss of a program designed to prevent and control public health issues on cruise ships is concerning news for cruise passengers.”

CBS News reported that the most recent outbreak report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention founds that 224 of 2,538 passengers became ill from norovirus while on board the Cunard cruise line ship Queen Mary 2, along with 17 crew members. The outbreak comes on the heels of the worst year for cruise ship-based gastrointestinal outbreaks in over a decade, according to CNN.

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April 13, 2025 Update:

This story has been picked up by the national press:

CDC Cuts Cruise Ship Health Inspectors as Puke-Filled Year Rages On

CDC’s cruise ship inspectors laid off amid bad year for outbreaks

HHS Lays Off All Full-Time Cruise Ship Health Inspectors Amid Illness Outbreaks: Report

Image Credit: Queen Mary 2 – Ahecht CC BY-SA 4.0, commons / wikimedia; gastrointestinal outbreak – CDC VSP.

Following President Trump’s tariff announcement yesterday (April 3) and the market downturn, cruise stocks have dropped across the board. Cruise Industry News reports today that the major cruise line traded “considerably down at market close compared to other major companies and the S&P 500 index.”

U.S. Tariffs Send Cruise Stocks Plummeting

“While the S&P 500 average ended the day at almost 5 percent down, that was far better than the three cruise lines below on the stock exchange as Wall Street worries about consumer spending on discretionary items was front and center.” Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings stock prices all dropped between eleven and seventeen percent.

Cruise Stocks: Closing Prices April 3:

  • Carnival Corporation: $17.28, down 13.69 percent;
  • Royal Caribbean Group: $188.33; down 11.17 percent; and
  • Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings: $16.31; down 16.36 percent.

It is clear that the tariffs will continue to affect discretionary spending, plus there’s the issue of tourists outside of the U.S. boycotting travel to U.S. ports.

I don’t pretend to be a financial analyst but these factors will undoubtedly cause cruise stock to continue to fall, as least in the short term. The S&P 500 average ended the day down five and one-half percent (5.50 %) after losing over 2,200 points. The three major cruise stocks continued to fall today but not as much as the Dow Jones.

Today’s Cruise Stocks Closing Prices:

  • Carnival Corporation: $16.50, down 4.46% percent;
  • Royal Caribbean Group: $177.93, down 5.86 percent; and
  • Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings: $15.69, down 3.74% percent.

As the conservative Wall Street Journal reported, “after the tariff announcement was made, Wall Street was plunged into a two-day rout that erased $6.6 trillion in stock-market value.

Readers of our Face Book page left us the following comments regarding these issues:

  • No doubt the tariffs will definitely affect discretionary spending, plus there’s the issue of tourists outside of the U.S. boycotting travel to U.S. ports.
  • Planes are full going to Europe. Not so much on return.
  • The tourist market out of Australia has seen Japan and Korea become top tourist destinations. The US lost its lustre a long time ago.
  • The sentiment towards traveling from Europe to the US is quite negative. Not yet a “ban” but people are discussing those matters a lot.

The president says that he is committed to imposing these tariffs, so it appears that consumer prices will continue to rise and discretionary spending will tighten. Canadians and Europeans may continue to be hesitant to travel to the U.S. and travel on cruise ships based here. Read: “I feel utter anger”: From Canada to Europe, a movement to boycott US goods is spreading.

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Image credit: PortMiami – PortMiami

Passengers on Quark Expeditions’ Ocean Explorer ship heading back from Antarctica experienced a harrowing journey through the turbulent Drake Passage, where the expedition cruise ship hit waves as high as 30 to 40 feet.  Passengers described the 48 hour experience as being trapped on a “never-ending roller coaster at sea.”

One passenger, travel blogger Lesley Anne Murphy, documented the ordeal in the video below:

It looks like great fun. But when I first watched the video, I felt nervous. I instantly thought that the window facing the bow of the cruise ship might blow in causing a disastrous influx of water into the ship.

This is exactly what occurred when a large wave hit the Louis Majesty Cruise Ship sailing in Mediterranean waters in 2010, killing two passengers and injuring fourteen others. (The Ocean Explorer has stronger bow windows, hopefully?) You can read about the disaster in our article at the time: Monster Waves Hit Louis Majesty Cruise Ship. Our YouTube page shows a video produced by CBS News about the deadly incident:

The wave and wind conditions at the time of the Louis Majesty catastrophe should have clearly alerted the officers on duty to warn the passengers to secure themselves in their cabins.  The Master should have instructed the passengers to keep away from the public windows, particularly at the vessel’s bow. The cruise ship was heading directly into the waves and those passengers killed and injured were particularly vulnerable in the public areas at the bow.  

All cruise ships have what are called “safety management systems” (SMS) or “safety and quality” (SQM) protocols which address how the vessel should be operated in rough weather and the types of precautions which should be considered to protect the passengers.  What type of safety procedures did the cruise ship have at the time? Did the vessel’s officers ignore them?

I can’t help but think what the officers aboard the Ocean Explorer were thinking with passengers walking outside of their cabin while the ship was encountering these weather conditions?

The Louis Majesty used to be NCL’s Norwegian Majesty and, before that, the Royal Majesty operated by Majesty Cruise Lines from 1992 – 1997.  Long before I began representing passengers and crewmembers, I represented Majesty Cruise Lines (around 1995) when this cruise ship was based in Miami.  I have been on this ship and in the area where the glass blew out.  It was unimaginable fifteen years ago that passengers lost their lives on this ship. It’s baffling to me that just last week the Ocean Explorer didn’t implement safety precautions. 

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Image credit: Ocean Explorer – Ulstein; video – Storyful / Lesley Anne Murphy; Louis Majesty – CBS News.

Ambassador Cruise Line, a UK-based company that operates three cruise ships (Ambience, Ambition and Renaissance) from regional ports across the UK, revealed yesterday in a press release that it will install what it calls an “advanced man overboard (MOB) detection system,” called ZOE, aboard the Ambition cruise ship. The ZOE system is designed to detect and track passengers and crew members who fall into the water during man overboard (MOB) incidents using a “combination of infrared and daylight cameras, sensors, and software.”

The MOB system was designed and manufactured by Zelim, an Edinburgh-based maritime safety innovator. The installation of the ZOE equipment is suppose to deliver “instantaneous detection and tracking of persons in the water” following MOB incidents. “There is now proven technology available that mitigates the risk of losing lives to MOB incidents, especially in rough seas and in hours of darkness,” according to a Zelim spokesperson.

The technology also recently passed Lloyd’s Register approval tests with a 98% MOB detection rate.

The Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act (CVSSA) of 2010 requires passenger vessels operating out of U.S. ports “to integrate technology that can be used for detecting passengers who have fallen overboard.” There are very few cruise line operating ships out of U.S. ports which have automatic man overboard systems installed. Many companies, including all Royal Caribbean ships and every vessel owned by Carnival Corporation (nearly one hundred ships), have no MOB systems installed. Most of these companies unconvincingly claim that MOB systems are allegedly unreliable.

There have been 420 passengers and crew members who have gone overboard from cruise ships and ferries since 2000, according to leading cruise expert Dr. Ross Klein. There have been 170 people who have gone overboard from cruise ships owned by Carnival Corporation, 86 from Royal Caribbean / Celebrity Cruises / Silversea Cruises, 32 from Norwegian Cruise Line, 27 from MSC Cruises, and only 2 from Disney Cruises.

Only one person (a crew member) has gone overboard during an Ambassador cruise. Ison Dias, age 27, from Goa, India, went overboard from the Ambience last May. He is survived by parents who were reportedly living in the U.K., at the time of their son’s disappearance, where the Ambience is home-ported. He reportedly was last seen on CCTV video in the early morning of May 3, 2024 on an open deck of the cruise ship. There was a delay of around 7 hours between the time that he went overboard and when the ship turned around to retrace its path.

Update to Overboard Crew Member From Ambassador Cruise Line’s Ambience Cruise Ship

Mr. Dias’s disappearance is exactly the type of incidents which automatic MOB systems are designed to address. A prompt alert that he gone went overboard and a system which could track him in the water even at night could have resulted in a timely search and rescue. Without such a system, looking for a person who went into the sea at nighttime is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

There are currently no laws which require Ambassador to install automatic MOB systems because it sails only from U.K. and European ports. Only the U.S. has such a law (the CVSSA) requiring cruise lines operating out of U.S. ports to install such life-saving technology.

To our knowledge, only one European cruise line (MSC Cruises) has installed an automatic MOB system but only on only one MSC ship. In 2017, we reported that MSC Cruises announced that it had installed a state-of-the-art man overboard system on the MSC Meraviglia and was planning to deploy similar systems across its fleet of cruise ships.

MSC Cruises indicated that it developed an “intelligent video capturing and analysis system” in collaboration with “security technology experts, Bosch and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.” The Swiss-based cruise line announced that it has tested the new man overboard system on the company’s newest ship which debuted in June (2017).  MSC reported that “through over 25,000 hours of video analysis, extensive software testing and continuous algorithmic updates, the system has now reached a confirmed accuracy level of 97%.”

All cruise ships operated by Disney Cruises have such systems.

All other cruise lines, such as Royal Caribbean / Celebrity Cruises and all Carnival Corporation-owned ships, refuse to install such reliable and effective MOB systems.

Kudos to Ambassador for investing in passenger and crew member safety, especially when there is no legal requirement to install such state-of-the-art technology in the first place.

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Ambition cruise ship – Zelim; Zelim website – Zelim

The average CEO of a company included in the S&P 500 makes 268 times more than their median employee, a figure that outrages many. Cruise line CEOs blow this number out of the water.

The top cruise line CEOs are paid a minimum of several hundred to well more than 1,000 times more than a median ship employee. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings’ (NCLH) Harry Sommer makes 380 times more than the median NCLH crew member, Royal Caribbean’s Jason Liberty collects 953 times more than the median RCCL crew member, and Carnival Corporation’s Josh Weinstein brings home a staggering 1,398 times more than the median Carnival employee.

Leading the CEO pay discrepancy is Carnival Corporation’s CEO Weinstein who made $23,566,603 (million)in 2024 compared to the median employee salary of a Carnival crew member of just $16,854. Royal Caribbean CEO Jason Liberty is next making $17,216,276 (million) in 2023 compared to a median RCCL crew member of $18,073. At the “low” end of the trio, Norwegian Cruise Line Holding’s CEO Sommer made $8,864,592 (million) in 2023 compared to the median NCL crew member employee salary of $23,330.

There is no possible justification to such an absurdly high CEO – median crew compensation ratio. Highlighting this discrepancy, Carnival’s Weinstein hourly salary comes out to $11,800 meaning he makes the average Carnival crew member annual salary in less than an hour and a half.

Cruise line CEOs also receive a full range of perks such as luxury automobile allowances which often exceed the total compensation of a typical crew member. For example, while the Del Rio father and son (Del Rio Jr.) team were the CEO and president of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Oceania Cruises, respectively, they collected over $45,000 a year in luxury car allowances. Del Rio Sr. also received $100,000 in a travel expense allowance, tax preparation service and a $20,000 country club allowance in 2023 when he retired on June 30th. In 2023, he still received $12,372,976 in compensation, bonuses, and “other compensation,” including $2,000,000 for consulting plus items such as a car allowance and executive medical insurance. Former CEO of Celebrity Cruises Lisa Lutoff-Perlo received an exorbitant luxury car allowance of $52,747 in addition to her compensation of $9,700,000 in 2023.

Proponents of higher cruise executive pay might argue that crew members’ salaries are not accurately captured in the median numbers as they are usually employed 8-9 months out of the year, and are provided “free” meals and room and board.

This argument is nonsense. Crew members work a minimum of 12 hours of physically demanding work a day, 7 days a week, for months at a time, living in close quarters under deck. Crew members in the last two decades have lost many of the maritime rights they previously had when U.S. maritime law applied to jury trials in U.S. courts when they were injured as of a result of their long hours of work. Crew members are now required to pursue international arbitration in feckless countries like Panama and the Bahamas where a single arbitrator paid by the cruise line will apply the law of these non-U.S. countries.

The greediest cruise CEO in the last decade, by far, has been Frank Del Rio, Sr., who took home over 67,000,000 in two years alone.

I have written extensively over the years about how cruise CEO’ collect obscene amounts of money while hard working crew members work extremely hard to make a living with few benefits and no retirement, pension-profit or 401k benefits at all. Some of my prior articles include:

Stock Awards During a Deadly Pandemic? NCL’s CEO Frank Del Rio Rakes in $36,400,000 in 2020 While Crew Members Struggle

NCL’s CEO Frank Del Rio Collected Over $17,800,000 in 2019 – 1,052 Times More Than Wages of Median NCL Crew Member

Carnival Corporation CEO Arnold Donald’s Compensation Increased Over 35% in the Past Two Years of the Pandemic to Over $15,000,000 While CCL Stock Declined Over 60%

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Image credit: Cruise ship sailing on sea of money – AARP; Harry Sommer – NCLH ; Jason Liberty – Royal Caribbean Group; Josh Weistein – Tradewinds.