March 2011

Today a newspaper in the U.K., the Chester Chronicle, contains an interesting article "Family Demand Answers as Investigation into Chester Disney Cruise Ship Worker Continues."   Although the article is a bit of a rehash of events since last week about the disappearance of youth counselor Rebecca Coriam from Disney Cruise Line’s Wonder cruise ship, the newspaper reports that: 

" … cousin

My Brazilian friend, Alexandre Gonçalves da Rocha, alerted me today to an accident which recently occurred at the port in Buenos Aires when the MSC Opera struck the dock. 

Alexandre is a Brazilian who works as a maritime pilot at the port of Itajai since 1998 (no, he was not piloting this cruise ship!).  He writes a great maritime blog

The Royal Gazette in Bermuda reports that a judge in Bermuda dismissed the sexual assault charges leveled against a "41-year-old Filipino national" by a "26-year-old Filipino woman" who worked with him on a Bermuda registered cruise ship. 

Readers will recall that in a previous article two weeks ago, we reported that Filipino crew member Johnwill Reyes Abdon allegedly

Over the past years, we have been involved in a number of cases where cruise passengers and crew members have been victims of crimes on cruise ships heading to the Bahamas or ashore in downtown Nassau.  We have witnessed the local police bungle the cases miserably and quickly close their files. 

The Bahamian police cannot solve crimes against

Michael and Ann Coriam returned to the U.K. with their younger daughter’s belongings but no answers regarding the circumstances surrounding her disappearance.  Sky News released a video today of the Coriam family’s interview with the media in Los Angeles before their return home. 

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/swf/vidobj/sunplayer.swf?embedCode=Y2aWRjMjpL8R8-UMQtIIR-o8dKnYkpFG&xmlDir=http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/swf/vidobj/xml/sun&links=http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/video/news/sky-news/3495879/Brit-vanishes-on-Disney-ship.html&share=true

Credit:  Sky News via The Sun Newspaper  

Read our other stories about this case:

What

A number of different news stations are reporting that the Coriam family remains without an explanation regarding the circumstances surrounding the apparent overboard disappearance of their daughter, Rebecca, from Disney’s Wonder cruise ship last week.

The Wonder returned to port in California yesterday amidst reports that the Coriam family had flown to Los Angeles to meet the cruise ship. 

A newspaper in the U.K. reports that a cruise ship captain pled guilty last October to sex crimes against a 14 year old girl.  The Spalding Guardian newspaper identifies the sex criminal as Captain Peter Russell, who entered the girl’s cabin, apparently when her parents were not present, and performed an unidentified sex act on her.    

The parents and aunt of missing Disney Cruise Line employee Rebecca Coriam arrived in Los Angeles today from the U.K. seeking information about the young woman’s unexplained disappearance from the Wonder cruise ship.  The video of Mr. and Ms. Coriam from ABC-7 Los Angeles is below.

We have written a number of articles about this situation:

What

The disappearance of a youth counselor from the Disney Wonder cruise ship this week raises the issue of who is responsible for conducting investigations when crew members disappear at sea.

Disney released the following statement to us yesterday:

"The Mexican Navy has been conducting searches since Tuesday, and we immediately contacted the FBI and the

In the past day our office has received numerous requests for information about a woman who apparently went overboard from the Disney Wonder cruise ship two days ago.

There are no reports of this alleged incident in the mainstream press.  This does not necessarily mean anything because the last three cruise line overboard were either not reported

The medical journal "Clinical Infectious Diseases" published an article entitled "Disease Transmission and Passenger Behaviors During a High Morbidity Norovirus Outbreak on a Cruise Ship, January 2009."

Of some 1842 passengers on the cruise ship, 1532 (83%) returned questionnaires provided by the researchers.  236 (15%) met the norovirus definition.  

Cruise Ship Norovirus This particular cruise had a passenger vomit in

Celebrity Cruises Cruise Ship - Crew Member Overboard A reader of Cruise Law News informs us that a crew member from a Celebrity Cruises ship disappeared at sea. 

Indian crew member Anthony Rodrigues went overboard on March 10, 2011 from the Celebrity Constellation.  Mr. Rodrigues was a 19 year employee of the cruise line.  His family members in Mumbai were not notified for two days and

The Telegraph newspaper in the U.K. contains an interesting story today about the use of gag orders by large corporations in England to prevent the public from learning of potential safety hazards.     

Called "hyper-injunctions," the gag orders are used to protect a corporation’s reputation by barring an individual from discussing embarrassing information which may affect a corporation’s business and legal interests.  

Cruise Ship Water Tank - Potable Water - Toxic?The

Newspapers in India are reporting that a young man working as a crew member on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship disappeared at sea.

"Disappearances" at sea have been a regular occurrence on Royal Caribbean cruise ships over the past several years.   

The Times of India ("Did ‘Missing’ Ship Staffer End Life?") and the Hindustan Times ("Chef Commits