It seems that after an elevator malfunctioned on the Carnival Inspiration last weekend, with five guests inside, Carnival handled the situation poorly according to the comments posted on Facebook online.  A reader of Cruise Law News sent this link to me today:

The Carnival officers who eventually responded appeared to be disinterested in the situation and allegedly either blamed the young men and/or told them “not to touch anything”. . .

One of the guests caught in the broken elevator posted on Facebook: that when officers finally appeared “. . . they didn’t ask us what happened and they just started trying to pry the doors open with a “box wrench” which caused it to slip anymore…”

One of the passengers appeared to pass out before he was freed from the elevator, according to the comments.

Carnival eventually responded to the situation, according to the men, by banning them from future cruises with Carnival. Carnival delivered a letter from the master of the Inspiration, Crescenzo Palomba, to each of the men before they disembarked from the ship. It stated:

“This letter will confirm your discussion with Carnival Cruise Line (“Carnival Inspiration”) personnel where you were informed that you will be disembarked from the vessel and not permitted to sail onboard any Carnival Cruise Line vessel in the future.  This decision was based on your actions on the current cruise, which were a violation of the ship rules.  Interfered with the safety and/or enjoyment of other guests on the ship of caused harm to Carnival.  Your attempt to book a future cruise will result in cancellation and a possible loss of deposit monies.   You will be responsible for all travel expenses incurred and an invoice will be sent to your home address for payment.  Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.”

You can watch the videos taken by the Guests here.

Three years ago, an electrician employed by Carnival died after being crushed in an elevator shaft aboard the Carnival Ecstasy.

April 5, 2019 Update:  Newsweek covered this story this morning.

One of the guests Eric JT Kim who was trapped in the broken elevator denied any misbehavior on the cruise ship and denied that they did anything to cause the elevator to malfunction. He states on Facebook ” . . . we had no other incidences or actions that were out of line on the cruise. I’m assuming the “actions” they’re alluding to is their elevator malfunction . . . according to Carnival, we are to blame for the elevator being stuck. There were several of us in the elevator but there was no alarm signal for overweight capacity. We thought it was fine, until it wasn’t . . .  unfortunately there’s no more to the story . . . Our accounts were shutdown from being able to make any purchases on the cruise. On our way out towards customs we were held up and pressured to sign the release of liability. We denied and were here today . . . we’ve been cruising on Ccarnival for over 10 years, as an annual guys trip. It’s unfortunate and confusing that they’d hand us a banishment, but what can we do ya know?”

A Carnival spokesperson was quoted in an article by the Daily Mail, which identified six guests who were stuck in the broken elevator which the cruise line blamed, as saying that there are “always two sides to every story.  We had a group of guests stuck in one of our elevators last week for approximately 30-40 minutes. Our onboard team was summoned to provide assistance. Unfortunately, because of the extensive damage to the elevator doors and cabling caused by the guests, the work took longer than expected.”

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Video/photo credit: Jacob Burrola / Eric JT Kim