This has been an exciting week in the crazy world of cruising.
The Allure of the Seas Arrives in South Florida, But No One Noticed: Last Thursday Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas, the world’s biggest cruise ship, arrived in its home port of Port Everglades after sailing across the Atlantic from the shipyard. The Allure
Pirate attacks against cruise ships have occurred and will continue to occur in the future. It’s a subject we have written about: Cruise Line Liability for Injuries to Passengers and Crew Members Caused by Pirate Attacks, Are Cruise Lines Taking Adequate Steps to Protect Passengers from Pirate Attacks?, and Somali Pirates – A
The Observer in St. Kitts-Nevis is reporting that cruise passengers on a tour bus were robbed this morning, apparently during an excursion from a cruise ship – "Busload of Tourists Robbed at Gunpoint."
The robbery reportedly occurred in the Sandy Point area on the island. A "local tour bus of cruise passengers had been robbed at gunpoint along
Now that the disabled Carnival Splendor is back in a U.S. port, some lawyers are advertising that the passengers should consider filing a lawsuit. One cruise site, offering "cruise insider expert advice," is shilling for a Miami lawyer: "Now is the time to join the November 7, 2010 passengers in a joint effort for compensation. Contact us if you were on this cruise
Last night, the U.S. Coast Guard performed a medical evacuation of a 75-year-old passenger who became sick while cruising on the Holland America cruise ship, Oosterdam, about 180 miles southwest of San Diego.
A HC-130 Hercules aircraft from the Coast Guard station in Sacramento located the HAL ship ship. A MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter dispatched from the Coast Guard’s San Diego
This week ends with tugs finally towing the Carnival Splendor cruise ship back to port in San Diego, following a fire in the engine room early Monday morning.
The video below from ABC News 10 contains interviews with passengers, images of passengers finally disembarking, and a brief animation of the fire breaking out in the engine room.
For
As I watched CNN and MSNBC interview passengers disembarking from the ill fated cruise aboard the Splendor, passenger after passenger stated that no one explained to them that the cruise ship had been disabled due to a fire. Several passengers said only that thee was "some smoke." One of the reporters on CNN responded "that’s incredible!" upon
A fire broke out this morning in the engine room on the Carnival Splendor during a cruise to the Mexican Riviera (Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas.) Passengers were told to move from their cabins to the Lido Deck on the upper level.
The fire burned from around 6:00 a.m. until it was extinguished around 9 a.m. according
CCN Travel has an interesting article this morning "Cruise Line Chief: We’re in a Better Place." The cruise line’s President Adam Goldstein talks about the "enormous excitement" generated by its two new mega cruise ships, the Oasis of the Seas which debuted last December and the Allure of the Seas which is now sailing from
The fun thing about writing your own blog, or running your own law firm, or having your own donut shop for that matter, is that it provides you with an opportunity to be competitive with other blogs, law firms and donut shops.
One of my goals this year was for Cruise Law News (CLN) to
I am fascinated regarding what travel writers and cruise experts write about these days.
Gene Sloan’s blog on USA Today called CruiseLog features a debate on which Royal Caribbean cruise ship is bigger, the new Allure of the Seas or the Oasis of the Seas. I suppose comparing the gargantuan Excess of the Seas with the monstrous Indulgence of the Seas (with over
This week I have been visiting my parents in El Dorado, Arkansas. It is always great to get back to my roots in my home town in Southern Arkansas – which has about the nicest and friendliest people in the country.
Yesterday I ran out to a local thrift store to look at vintage books and records (I found a 1958 Elvis Presley LP – G.I.
Most cruise passengers who sail on luxury cruises to the Caribbean, Mexico or Europe have a false sense of security. They think that if anything goes wrong during the cruise, the cruise line will take care of them. But when passengers get sick, the reality is that the cruise line will dump them off of the cruise ship as
Last month I ran across an interesting blog called No Cruises In Placencia which focuses on the plight of the tranquil fishing village of Placencia, Belize which Royal Caribbean has targeted as a future site for a new port for its cruise ships.
Placencia is located in southern Belize, and is described as one of the most beautiful locations in Central America where it
U.S. Customs busted four passengers for drugs in two separate incidents this week aboard Royal Caribbean’s Serenade of the Seas cruise ship.
Accordingly to Hispanically Speaking News, U.S. Customs officers seized cocaine and heroin aboard the Serenade of the Seas when the cruise ship was docked in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The Customs officers conducted a random inspection
I just had my first podcast which is featured on Kevin O’Keefe’s Real Lawyers Have Blogs.
The podcast was an interview of me by LexBlog’s Colin O’Keefe entitled: Talk of the LexBlog Network : Jim Walker of Cruise Law News Go to the link and then click on the play button if you want to
Yesterday I reported on a settlement which a passenger from Texas reached after she was seriously injured while trying to step off a tender boat onto the dock in Grand Cayman. The case illustrates the liability of cruise lines when they fail to safely transfer their passengers from the cruise ship to shore during ports of
