A proverbial “rogue wave” struck the Vision of the Seas cruise ship a week ago, on September 20th 2025, as the Royal Caribbean ship returned to Baltimore from Bermuda. The incident caused the cruise ship to rock sharply, sending dishes and glassware tumbling across dining rooms and bars. A viral TikTok video of the incident shows
Royal Caribbean topped all cruise lines in crime during the second quarter of 2025, per the most recent crime report from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). The DOT reported 43 crimes for all cruise lines from April 1st to June 30th, 2025, bringing the total reported crimes to 91 so far this year.
This
Last week, a cruise passenger on a Norwegian Cruise Line ship (some sources identify as the Norwegian Bliss) faced the indignity of becoming stuck in a water slide overhanging the water. The incident was captured on video, and then posted on TikTok. The short video clip shows the woman lying unceremoniously on her back
A Carnival Cruise Line passenger from Kingsport, Tennessee was arrested in Miami, Florida after federal authorities found child pornography on his phone according to court documents. Jason Alan Miller, 48, was arrested shortly after disembarking the Carnival Horizon and was charged with possession and transportation of child pornography.
At the port in Miami, Miller was
I am excited to share several updates we made to Cruise Law News that will improve the appearance and function of the site.
The biggest change is to our homepage. Instead of the single story blog format, the homepage will now show multiple stories at once. This change allows readers to quickly see all the
Four additional Filipino crew members, this time from the Carnival Pride, were detained and deported while in the Port of Baltimore, on September 7th, 2025, according to an account in the popular CruiseMapper. This brings the total number of Filipinos recently deported to well over 100.
A Filipino galley steward, who worked
A Carnival crew member, Reza Heta Pratama, was sentenced in New Orleans by a federal district court judge for possession of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). Pratama, a citizen of Indonesia, was arrested in July 2024 when the Carnival Valor docked in New Orleans following a cruise to Mexico last summer.
Carnival instructed Pratama to
George Smith disappeared over two decades ago on July 5, 2005, from Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas. What followed was a mishandled crime scene, a family denied answers, and a case that forced the public to see how little accountability exists at sea.
George Smith was on a honeymoon cruise with his newlywed bride
A man jumped overboard from Royal Caribbean’s Rhapsody of the Seas after he lost more than $16,000 in the ship’s casino. The man has been identified as Jey Xander Omar Gonzalez Diaz.
The incident occurred around 9:15 a.m. on September 7, just as passengers were disembarking in San Juan following a week-long Caribbean voyage.
Gonzalez
A crew member aboard the Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas stabbed a fellow crew member before jumping overboard to his death. The incident occurred on July 24th during a seven-night voyage from PortMiami to the Caribbean.
According to the Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF), the altercation involved a 35-year-old male and 28-year-old female
Multiple news sources are reporting that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently deported at least 18 Filipino crew members from the Carnival Sunshine in Norfolk, Virginia. The ship employees reportedly were not provided with the opportunity to retain legal counsel but were forcibly detained and taken from the Carnival cruise ship in handcuffs and
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently detained and deported crew members from a cruise ship operated by Victory Cruise Lines. I was first contacted three days ago by a cruise passenger who communicated with four crew members who informed him that CBP officers boarded the Victory I cruise ship while it was docked at the
A 71-year-old man has been criminally charged after he assaulted a teenage girl onboard a Carnival cruise ship off the coast of Queensland.
Australian police say that the man – who was not known to the 14-year-old child – approached the girl near a lift shortly before 11p.m. last Thursday and grabbed her. Police apprehended
A crew member employed on the Carnival Valor pleaded guilty to possession of Child Sexual Abuse Material (“CSAM”) in a federal district court last week. Reza Heta Pratama, a citizen of Indonesia, was arrested
Carnival maintained its reputation as the most violent cruise line leading all cruise lines in crime for 2025 per the recent report from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). The last time a cruise line had more crime than Carnival was Royal Caribbean from April 1st to June 30th of 2022.
The DOT releases cruise
A second man was arrested for the death of a 60-year-old British man on the MSC Virtousa during its May 3rd–5th voyage. The man was identified as a 56-year-old from Richmond, London. The man’s name was not released by authorities. The first man arrested was a 57-year-old man from Exeter. Both men
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a report in October 2024 stating there were at least twelve Legionnaires’ disease occurrences on two cruise ships. Ten cases were serious enough that cruise passengers required hospitalization. The CDC did not identify the cruise line(s) involved.
This story was first reported by Travel + Leisure
The popular Crew Center blog published an article last week titled Smoke From First Cruise Ship of Alaska Season Alarms Juneau Residents. It mentioned that in mid-April, Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL)’s cruise ship, Norwegian Bliss, sailed into Juneau, becoming the first ship to arrive in the Alaskan capital and officially launching the 2025 cruise
