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Jim Walker

Everything the cruise lines don’t want you to know” is the motto of Cruise Law News, authored by Jim Walker.

Jim is the founding partner of Walker & O’Neill, a Miami-based maritime law firm that has represented more than 2,500 clients, including survivors who testified before Congress on cruise ship safety.

Today noted maritime historian, mariner, and host of the popular maritime YouTube page “What’s Going On With Shipping?” Sal Mercogliano  posted a reference to the Crystal Symphony sailing the Red Sea:

Crystal Symphony Sails Through High-Risk Red Sea Shipping Zone

Yes, the Crystal Cruises ship actually transited the dangerous Strait of Bab

Miami-Dade police officers arrested a cruise passenger from Indianapolis, Indiana last Friday on charges that he molested a teenage girl on a recent Carnival cruise, according to Miami’s local 10 News.

Passenger Arrested on Carnival Conquest for Child Molestation Charges

Police arrested Jason LeFavour, age 44, when the Carnival Conquest returned to PortMiami, on

In an exclusive story, Cruise Law News has learned that cruise industry giant Carnival Corporation plans to incorporate its business in the United States (in Florida). Carnival intends to announce this historic development tomorrow, April 2nd, at Carnival’s headquarters in Miami. 

Carnival Corporation Plans U.S. Incorporation and Regulatory Shift

Since 1972, Carnival has incorporated its

On Friday, March 22, 2024, an explosion in the engine room of Holland America Line’s (HAL) cruise ship resulted in the release of steam which led to the death of two crew members. The catastrophic explosion, combined with a series of mistakes in responding to the accident, caused the deaths of two HAL employees, including

A gastrointestinal disease outbreak aboard the Holland America Line (HAL) Koningsdam cruise ship has sickened 110 passengers and crew members, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Gastrointestinal Outbreak Reported on the Koningsdam Cruise Ship

The CDC found that 98 of 2,522 (3.89%) guests and 12 of 961 (1.25%) crew member have

The Miami-Dade Police Department arrested a twenty-one (21) year old man from Georgia for sexually propositioning a fourteen (14) year-old boy in the sauna of the Explorer of the Seas, according to numerous local new accounts. The police charged cruise passenger Anish Shan of Columbus, Georgia with two felony violations of Florida law:

Virgin Voyages’ Resilient Lady has created quite a stir over the last several months when it called on Hobart, Tasmania during its regular three-six day cruises from Melbourne and Sydney. The cruise ship has been extensively photographed belching out smoke which fills the port, sparking a heated debate whether the public is seeing just harmless

Today, the Miami New Times, via Alexa DeLuca, reported that a second Disney crew member on the Disney Dream cruise ship was arrested at Port Everglades for possession and transportation of child pornography. Acting on tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a Special Agent with the Department of Homeland Security

A 72-year-old U.S. passenger died yesterday after falling from a passenger ship into the Grand Harbour in Valletta, Malta, according to the local press in Malta.

Passenger Overboard Incident in Valletta Involving MSC Cruise Ship

The incident happened at about 5 P.M. on February 14, 2024 when the cruise ship was docked at the Grand

It’s been about a week since cruise passengers Dongayla Dobson and Amber Shearer disembarked from the Carnival Elation and visited the Pirate’s Cove resort in Freeport, Bahamas where two Bahamian employees, at a beach resort advertised by Carnival, reportedly sexually assaulted them. You can read more about the facts of this terrible situation below:

The recent news from the Bahamas where two young U.S. women from a Carnival ship were drugged and raped involved a foreseeable, horrific crime at a Bahamian resort promoted by the cruise line, according to the victims.  Earlier this week, the two young women, who are from the state of Kentucky, sailed on the Carnival

Yesterday, the Department of Justice (DOT) finally released the fourth quarter of last year’s cruise crime data. The DOT data for the fourth quarter of 2023 reveals that fleet-wide for all cruise lines there were thirty-three (33) sexual assaults / rapes. This brings the total number of sexual assaults / rapes on cruise ship for