Of the over 3,000 passengers aboard the Costa Concordia cruise ship when it capsized, two Americans were lost, Gerald Heil, age 69, and Barbara Heil, age 70, of Minnesota. They are among fifteen passengers who were either trapped in the cruise ship or lost at sea.
Over the last five weeks since disaster struck, I
Cruise expert Professor Ross Klein’s website cruisejunkie.com contains interesting comments from a passenger from the Carnival Triumph regarding what some thought was a man overboard situation.
The passenger commented that on February 6th, while the cruise ship was docked in Progresso, Mexico, the cruise ship’s PA speaker blared “Bravo,Bravo Starboard.” A lifeboat was lowered to
Seatrade Insider has an interesting article today entitled "Costa Battles Media Onslaught, Concordia Scams."
The article raises the issue whether there is a future for the Costa Crociere brand following the Concordia disaster. The article quotes Costa CEO Pier Luigi Foschi admitting that Costa’s sales across the fleet are 35% below the
A rather ordinary couple of weeks in the world of cruising: 1,000 passengers or so sick with diarrhea and vomiting caused by gastrointestinal outbreaks on five cruise ships, 16 brawling passengers kicked off a cruise, a crewmember (a child activities supervisor no less) arrested on charges of molesting a child, a cruise passenger acquitted of
A reader of Cruise Law News in Brazil has informed us that a crewmember of the Armonia cruise ship, operated by MSC Cruises, died yesterday after being admitted to the hospital in serious condition.
A newspaper in Brazil (G1 in Sao Paulo) reports that a local woman, Fabiana Pasquarelli, age 30, was taken from
A newspaper in the Cayman Islands is reporting that a 56 year old cruise ship passenger was found dead in the water Wednesday afternoon.
The cruise passenger was found floating on the water by people on a boat in Coral Gardens. They lifted the man onto their vessel, but found he was unconscious and unresponsive
Earlier this week, we reported on the arrest of former Cunard child supervisor Paul Trotter on allegations that he abused a child and possessed indecent photographs of children on his computer.
The British police investigated Mr. Trotter (photo below, playing piano on Cunard cruise ship) after the parents of a child, identified only as being
Yesterday, New York lawyers for Costa Concordia cruise survivors filed an amended lawsuit in Miami, adding 33 additional passengers as plaintiffs. The lawyers are seeking $78 million in compensatory damages and $450 in punitive damages for a total amount of $528 million on behalf of 39 passengers.
Although the lawyers called the original filing a "class action" lawsuit, the case was
The San Francisco Weekly Blog reported today that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) busted three cruise ship passengers in San Francisco with nearly 13 kilos of cocaine last month.
The CBP and local law-enforcement officials found two separate discoveries of a large amount of cocaine on a cruise ship at Pier 35 on January 25th after the
The Royal Gazette newspaper reports that a judge in Bermuda sentenced two U.S. cruise passengers to six years in jail each after trying to smuggle pot into Bermuda.
Bermuda Judge Carlisle Greaves sentenced the two female Carnival cruise passengers from Georgia, Alloah Releford, age 24, and Latoya Powell, age 27, for attempting to smuggle in 2.7kg of cannabis resin into the country.
The two
Several news stations in the U.K. are reporting that the police arrested a former Cunard crewmember on charges that he sexually molested at least one child during a cruise.
Paul Trotter, age 34, of Pontefract, West Yorkshire, in the U.K., is alleged to have abused the child between December 20, 2011 and January 5, 2012 while working
A number of cruisers have been contacting our office asking about a sickness outbreak aboard the Celebrity Cruises’ Constellation cruise ship.
The Centers for Disease Control ("CDC") officially placed the Constellation on its vessel sanitation list of ships with sickness. The Constellation sailed on January 28th from Fort Lauderdale and returned yesterday, February 11th.
95 out
A criminal trial against a South African man accused of raping a South African woman during a cruise ended when the trial court ruled that the alleged rape did not occur in the territorial waters of South Africa.
A newspaper in South Africa published a disturbing story about the defense raised by the lawyers for a passenger who
A newspaper in Australia is reporting that 16 cruise passengers, with ages between 18 and 23, were booted off the P & O Cruises’ Pacific Dawn cruise ship for fighting.
The incident occurred late at night, with some newspaper accounts suggesting that the men were intoxicated and fighting over a woman.
The Observer reports that one of the
Swamped from a tide of bad publicity following the Costa Concordia disaster, the cruise industry today announced a change to its safety drill policy. The new policy? Hold your breath:
All cruise lines will begin to provide a safety briefing to the passengers before the vessel sets sail.
That’s it? Why wasn’t this the law a hundred years ago, after
A CBS television station in California aired an interesting program this week regarding the unexplained disappearance of a young man from a Holland America Line cruise ship last summer.
Blake Kepley, age 20, vanished from the HAL Oosterdam last July during a cruise from Seattle to Alaska.
The disappearance occurred when my family was vacationing near Seattle. I wrote about the incident in my
Yesterday the Third District Court of Appeal of Florida issued an opinion which revisited the infamous "deep throat" case involving a corrupt claim supervisor at Royal Caribbean and a crooked Miami maritime lawyer.
The case is entitled Wingate v. Celebrity Cruises, Ltd. and is available online here.
You will recall that the case involved a local Miami
A blogger of international news at the Examiner, Edward Owens, published an interesting article today regarding the disappearance of a passenger from Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas cruise ship.
You will recall that last week, Irish cruise passenger Kenneth John Gemmell went overboard from the balcony of his cabin on the eleventh deck
