December 2011

As this year comes to a close, it’s time to look back at some of events of 2011.

Jewel of the Seas Crew Member InjuryLast year started out with a bang.  Our firm represented a seriously injured crewmember in a case against Royal Caribbean.  Our client sustained a debilitating back injury, underwent an unsuccessful surgery, and needed a second surgery which

On Sunday we received emails inquiring about a Celebrity crewmember who went overboard from the Summit cruise ship.  The Summit was sailing from San Juan, Puerto Rico, where it is currently based, to Barbados when the cruise employee disappeared. At the time we had no information.

Today the U.S. Coast Guard issued a statement that the missing crewmember is a Filipino

Cruise Ship - Centers for Disease Control - CDCIn a story widely reported in the national media, the Centers for Disease Control failed Royal Caribbean’s Monarch of the Seas after conducting a surprise vessel sanitation inspection last month. 

On November 18, 2011, CDC inspectors boarded the Monarch of the Seas, which is the cruise line’s oldest vessel, and found numerous public health risks and violations if the

Professor Ross Klein’s website CruiseJunkie contains disturbing comments from a cruise passenger aboard the Carnival Splendor cruise ship who reports that on December 15th during a sailing to the Mexican Riviera a gruesome physical altercation took place in cabin 1306.

Here are the comments:

Carnival Cruise Violence - Cruise Ship"Wild, out-of-control alcohol-fueled domestic fight – starts at 9PM, escalates to most certainly a felony assault (or worse)

A fifty-one year old employee of Carnival Cruise Lines has been arrested for organized fraud and theft.  

Miami resident Serafin Sanchez was arrested and booked on two criminal counts, described as organized theft of more than $50,000 and first degree fraud in excess of $100,000.

According to the arrest warrant, Mr. Sanchez is a shore-side employee of Carnival

The popular cruise blog written by Gene Sloan for the USA Today newspaper published an article yesterday entitled "Outbreaks of Illness on Cruise Ships at Multiyear Low."

CruiseLog cites statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control ("CDC") of 11 outbreaks of illnesses so far in 2011, down from 14 in 2010 and 15 in 2009.  It concludes that this reflects

CBS Channel 4 reported today that a check of a suspicious package at the Port of Miami resulted in the evacuation of a cruise ship terminal.  The evacuation was ordered after a police dog alerted to the package.

Miami police ordered the evacuation of Terminal C, which was in use Friday by NCL’s Norwegian Sky cruise ship.  CBS reported

One of the stories I never tire of reporting is when a Coast Guard helicopter plucks a sick cruise passenger from the deck of a cruise ship and takes the passenger ashore for emergency medical treatment.

The skill of the U.S. Coast Guard in rescuing people from cruise ships is rather remarkable. The Coast Guard can fly 200 miles out to sea

WSVN – TV reports that the U.S. Coast Guard medevaced a cruise passenger after she experienced symptoms of appendicitis.

The incident occurred on December 12, 2011 on the Royal Caribbean Explorer of the Seas cruise ship about 130 miles southwest of Key West.  A Coast Guard helicopter hoisted the 21 year old cruise passenger and

A number of news sources are reporting that yesterday the U.S. Coast Guard medevaced an ill cruise passengerman from a cruise ship to a North Carolina hospital for treatment.

The ship doctor on the Norwegian Cruise ine’s Gem cruise ship notified the Coast Guard that  a 38-year-old man was going into shock. The cruise ship was reportedly about 75 miles east of