caribbean

Nassau Bahamas - Crime WarningThe newspapers in Nassau continue to report the high rate of armed robberies and murder. 

If you are thinking of taking a cruise to Nassau, don’t trust the U.S. based cruise lines or U.S. travel agents to be transparent with you. That would be a mistake. There are hundreds of millions of dollars to be

Last night the Caribbean Princess cruise ship returned early to Houston, Texas with passengers and crew members suffering from a gastrointestinal illness (GI) outbreak. There are around 173 people officially reported to be ill on the ship, mostly passengers. A Houston news station says the outbreak was caused by norovirus.

Determining the type of GI

Twenty-seven years ago, a state appellate court in Florida held that a cruise line owes its passengers a duty to warn of known dangers beyond the point of debarkation in places where passengers are invited or reasonably expected to visit. Carlisle v. Ulysses Line Ltd., S.A.,475 So. 2d 248, 251 (Fla. 3rd DCA 1985). 

The Carlisle

Yesterday I talked about the recent armed robbery of 22 Carnival cruise passengers who were traveling in a bus back to the port in Puerto Vallarta during a Carnival sponsored excursion.

I mentioned that the cruise lines and tourism officials would quickly start a PR campaign to convince the public that robberies of large groups

The international press is reporting that Gahadhar Pradhan, a crew member (waiter) from P&O’s Aurora cruise ship, was pistol-whipped over the head and shot during a mugging while ashore in Philipsburg, on the Caribbean island of St Maarten. 

We first learned of the incident via Crew Member Shot - Caribbean Violence - Cruise Shipthe cruise blogs by Captain Greybeard in the U.K. 

The crew member was shot in

Leagle just published a decision from New Jersey which illustrates what can happen when a cruise passenger does not read the fine print in the ticket issued by the cruise line.

Costa cruise passenger Audrey Winograd sailed on the Costa Magica from Florida to the Dominican Republic.  While ashore in the shopping district of La Romana, several men

St. Lucia News On Line reports that Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) dropped St. Lucia from its 2010-2012 schedule.

The article states that NCL abandoned St. Lucia because of attacks on cruise passengers which occurred on three occasions while the cruise passengers were sight-seeing on the island.

St. Lucia - Crime - Cruise ShipsIt’s about time.

Last December, we reported on out-of-control

In 2004, The Miami New Times interviewed me as part of an investigation into how cruise lines treat their crew members once they become ill or injured. The article was entitled "Screwed If By Sea – Cruise Lines Throw Workers Overboard When It Comes to Providing Urgent Medical Care."

The article focused on

Cruise fans, travel agents and cruise communities have been abuzz in anticipation of Royal Caribbean’s new cruise ship – the "Oasis of the Seas."   "Amazing! . . Wow! . . Look at that!" . . . have been the extent of the popular media’s insight into this new super mega ship.    

But a few journalists have questioned the environmental appropriateness of this monster of a cruise ship.

For the past many years, I have watched cruise lines respond to each disappearance at sea by blaming the passenger.

Selling Dreams of Carefree Vacations

Cruise lines like Carnival and Royal Caribbean spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year to create the illusion of carefree vacation getaways where hard working Americans can relax, let