October 2014

In July of 2013, Senator Rockefeller introduced the Cruise Passenger Protection Act of 2013. The bill was designed to provide the Department of Transportation (DOT) with greater authority to protect consumers and investigate complaints of unsafe conditions and ill-treatment on cruise ships.

The cruise industry opposed the proposed cruise legislation because it was designed to

Princess Cruises announced that it is canceling port calls to West Africa because of the Ebola epidemic.

The cruise line is avoiding Cotonou, Benin; Lome, Togo; Team, Ghana; and Dakar, Senegal.

Princess had scheduled a 30-day West Africa Adventure cruise departing May 5, 2015.  

Ebola As we reported two weeks ago, Regent Seven Seas, Seaborne

7 News Belize reports that after Belize’s Ministry of Immigration announced new stringent measures for Ebola screening at the Belize Harbor, Carnival and Royal Caribbean "threatened to pull scheduled cruises fast and furious."

In an article entitled Cruise Ships Balk At New Ebola Screening, Threaten Mass Cancellations, the leading news station in Belize said

Bahamas Weekly reports that last weekend the police in Nassau, Bahamas arrested a U.S. citizen for possession of marijuana. The report says that he was a 33 year old man from Jacksonville, Florida.

The Florida man was arrested for possession of pot on Saturday, October 18, 2014.

Around 4:30 PM last Saturday, the “Tourism Policing

The cruise industry finally instituted Ebola-specific protocols after the highly publicized incident yesterday when a healthcare worker from Dallas was discovered to be on a Carnival cruise to the Caribbean. 

TravelPulse published an article discussing the new protocols Cruise Industry Adopts Stricter Ebola Screenings.

Cruise lines like Carnival are finally asking cruise passengers whether

ABC News reports that a Dallas health care worker who handled clinical specimens from Ebola-infected Thomas Duncan is on a Caribbean cruise aboard the Carnival Magic.

The cruise line says that the female worker is allegedly being "self-quarantined" and is being monitored for signs of infection. She apparently has no symptoms yet. 

She departed on a

Several readers of Cruise Law News sent us articles today reporting that Greek police officers boarded the Costa Magica while it was in the Port in Piraeus, Greece and arrested four passengers who had possession of firearms.

The Croatian newspaper Slobodna Dalmacija Daily reports that the incident occurred on Thursday October 2nd.

Approximately 3,000 other

We have been contacted by passengers on the Adventure of the Seas, complaining about an a norovirus outbreak.

This morning we received this latest comment:

“My family have just returned from a European cruise onboard Royal Caribbean’s Adventure of The Seas. There was a nasty outbreak of noro virus inboard affecting many guests which