Carnival Spirit Cruise ShipNewspapers in Australia are reporting that two passengers disappeared from a Carnival cruise ship. A 26-year-old woman and a 30-year-old man were unaccounted for when the cruise ship docked in Sydney Harbor today.

The couple were last seen on deck last night, but failed to disembark when the Carnival Spirit cruise ship docked in Australia.

The New York Times Travel Section published an article today about the topic of cruise ship "mishaps" such as collisions, fires, evacuations, groundings, and sinkings.

The problem is that there is no centralized agency collecting data about such incidents. Plus the cruise line industry is notoriously secretive about events that are inconsistent with the notion

Cruise lines hate U.S. governmental scrutiny of their business operations.  

The whole purpose of incorporating their businesses and flagging their cruise ships in foreign countries is to avoid U.S. taxes and the scrutiny of federal regulators. This business model permits the cruise lines to pay virtually no U.S. taxes and to avoid U.S. wage, labor

King of the Nile FireTen days ago we reported on a fire which occurred aboard a small cruise ship / river cruise called the King of the Nile. The reports out of Egypt were that none of the passengers or crew members were injured.

But the popular cruise blog Noticias de Cruceros reported passenger accounts suggesting that the

The Cruise Critic message boards contain a discussion that there was a fire aboard Princess Cruises’ Coral Princess cruise ship last night.

The comments indicate that there was a great deal of smoke but the fire was extinguished without injury to passengers or crew. There is conflicting information regarding exactly where the fire occurred. There

Tonight local ABC Channel 6 news station aired a special program Missing at Sea regarding the disappearance of cruise passenger Jason Rappe’ from the Eurodam cruise ship operated by Holland America Line (HAL).

Mr. Rappe’ went overboard last November after participating in a "Pub Crawl" on the HAL cruise ship where the cruise line plied