One of the focuses of Cruise Law News is not only crime on cruise ships, but crimes in ports of calls. 

Cruise lines have a legal obliCrime in the Caribbeangation to warn passengers of crimes which occur in the ports of call where they take their passengers. Cruise lines like Carnival and Royal Caribbean have agents in

Advertising Age reports that Carnival Corporation will be advertising its first Super Bowl commercial next year. Carnival has prepared four possible one-minute commercials as part of its multi-brand marketing initiative. 

Each year, around ten million people a year sail on a Carnival brand, such as Carnival Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, Holland America Line, Costa Cruises, Cunard, Seabourn

I was sitting in Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport this morning when I read a travel publication’s headline that Christine Duffy was just named president of Carnival Cruise Lines. Reading the headlines made me feel like I was having an out-of-body experience.

Christine Duffy president of Carnival?

I stopped for a moment and thought, is today

Nine years ago, I attended my first Congressional hearing regarding dangers to cruise passengers on the high seas. George Smith, of the Greenwich Connecticut area, had disappeared in the Aegean Sea during his honeymoon cruise.  I represented Mr. Smith’s widow. Senator Chris Shays (R-CT) convened a hearing to inquire into the disturbing circumstances surrounding Mr. Smith’s

Nassau BahamasThis weekend was one of the bloodiest in the Bahamas this year. Seven people shot and three dead.

By my calculations, the death toll for the year in the Bahamas is 118 (last year was 119 murders). The murders are primarily in Nassau. 

According to the Tribune, an 18-year-old out of jail on bail

This morning I received a number of emails from residents of Roatan about an extremely violent murder of a local merchant in Roatan (Coxen Hole) near the port. 

Four men attacked and repeatedly beat Mr. Marcelino Vásquez (age 58), the proprietor of a store called "Commercial Vasquez." An article in Teledifusora Insular states that Mr. Vásquez

Many cruise passengers began asking us when the Insignia will sail again, even before the ship’s burned-out engine room stopped smoldering.

Of course we don’t know. The investigation into the fire is just beginning. Investigators from the Marshall Islands (the flag of the Oceania cruise ship) has just started. The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and

Costa LuminosaThis morning I learned that a fire reportedly broke out on a Costa cruise ship in the early morning hours on December 11, 2014.

The cruise ship involved reportedly is the Costa Luminosa.

Around 5 a.m. on December 11th, while the cruise ship was sailing in the North Atlantic, diesel engine number 4 reportedly

On November 27, 2014, I received a communication directly from a Royal Caribbean crew member indicating that the United States Public Health (USPH) conducted a surprise health inspection of the Freedom of the Seas on November 23rd. The crew member said that the USPH flunked the cruise ship for being unsanitary.  

The crew member

This weekend saw some excitement involving the Oasis of the Seas.

On Saturday night, PTZtv (which operates the web cam for the Port of Ft. Lauderdale) began tweeting that the Oasis, which had just left port in Ft. Lauderdale, was quickly heading back to port after a cruise passenger had experienced an injury