The cruise industry promotes the safety and security of cruising by telling the public that all luggage is carefully x-rayed before being loaded onto cruise ships.
Post 9/11, the concern that terrorists may target cruise ships led to the implementation of the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) code which requires that all cruise
The L.A. Times Travel Section reports today that three cruise lines have announced that they plan to return to crime-plagued Mazatlan.
First, Holland America Line’s Veendam will return in November. Norwegian Cruise Line’s Star will return in December. The third line, Azamara, will sail the Quest to Mazatlan in February 2014.
In 2010 and 2011
A dispute has erupted in Nassau whether cruise passengers who disembark in the Bahamas should be warned of the risk of violent and often deadly crime.
In response to the widespread violent crimes and high homicide rate in the Bahamas, Carnival Cruise Line finally began warning its passengers of the crime problems ashore before the
There has been a great deal of debate over the past decade regarding the amount of crime which occurs on cruise ships. The cruise industry claims that crime is "rare," whereas at least one cruise expert who testified before Congress stated that the rate of crime on cruise ships is twice that of crime ashore.
A criminologist for the cruise industry, Dr. James Alan Fox, published an article earlier this week which contains a great deal of unsubstantiated and misleading opinions about crime on cruise ships.
The cruise industry routinely hires Dr. Fox when Congress scrutinizes the cruise lines for not honestly reporting crimes. The Cruise Line International Association (CLIA)
Over 8 years ago George Smith went overboard from the Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas cruise ship in the Aegean Sea during his honeymoon cruise.
By all accounts, Royal Caribbean covered the true circumstances of the crime up. In the process, this less-than-honest cruise line sparked a national interest in what really happens on
The following is an editorial / opinion piece by the Miami Herald which was published tonight:
"Crime on the high seas isn’t just about illegal commercial fishing practices, drug-running and Somalian pirates. Unfortunately, it also comes in the form of sexual assault, theft and suspicious disappearances on what are supposed to be pleasure cruises.
Under
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CBS travel expert Peter Greenberg has interesting comments on the recent crime statistics released by the three major cruise lines.
Carnival, NCL and Royal Caribbean posted 237 crimes which allegedly took place on their cruise ship over the last 2 to 3 years. This is the first time that the cruise industry has ever publicly
Today a local NBC station in South Florida posted a video of the recent disclosure of cruise ship crime statistics.
You can read the article here.
The video (below) includes an interview with me about the provisions of the Cruise Vessel Safety and Security Act of 2010 (CVSSA) which permitted cruise ship crimes and
Tonight NBC News aired a segment on the recent hearing before the Senate regarding the issue of cruise ship crimes.
Senator Rockefeller scheduled the hearing in a year filled with high-profile cruise ship mishaps. NBC correspondent Mark Potter reports that lawmakers are turning their attention to the amount of crime that takes place while vacationers
Today the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation will conduct a hearing on whether there needs to be greater Congressional oversight of the cruise industry in light of recent cruise ships mishaps.
There are two recent examples of cruise line conduct which the committee should consider in determining whether Congress should take a closer eye
It has been eight years since George Smith disappeared from the Royal Caribbean Brilliance of the Seas in the early morning hours of July 4, 2005.
The cruise line initially stated that it had no idea what happened. But in 2012 it was revealed that Royal Caribbean took possession of a video shortly after the
The headline today in the Nassau Guardian newspaper blasted “Elderly Woman Shot at Home” during a robbery. Another front page story involved an unrelated but even more deadly title “Men Charged with Murder.”
These headlines are hardly rare. Two weeks ago, a U.S. crew member was shot dead during a robbery in downtown
Two days ago we reported on a ruling made by a judge in California holding that a cruise ship passenger accused of strangling and throwing his former wife overboard from a cruise ship in Italy could be prosecuted in state court.
But yesterday, the same judge reconsidered his ruling and decided that he did not have
Crimes on cruise ships on the high seas often fall into jurisdictional no-man’s lands where prosecutions are impossible to pursue.
But yesterday a judge in Orange County, California ruled that local prosecutors can try a criminal case against a cruise passenger accused of strangling his ex-wife and tossing her off a cruise ship in Italy
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Disney Cruise Line’s decision to sail its Disney Dream out of the jurisdiction to Nassau, Bahamas has caused concern and outrage not only with the local police department in Brevard County but has also caught the attention of the new Attorney General for Brevard County, Phil Archer.
After watching the video tape obtained by WKMG
In a disturbing case we have covered over the years, U.S. lawyer, Lonnie Loren Kocontes, entered a plea today of not guilty in the strangulation death of his ex-wife, Micki Kaneski, during a cruise off of the Italian coast seven years ago.
This case seems to stand in stark contrast to the cruise industry’s claim
Over three years ago, a U.S. cruise passenger, Nina Elizabeth Nilssen, age 30, was murdered while vacationing in Antigua near the English Harbour / Falmouth area. She had been cruising with her parents, an uncle and aunt, sister and brother-in-law aboard the Royal Clipper, a tall masted ship operated by Miami based Star Clippers.
The
