Late last Friday, I received a tweet from one of my 9,000 friends on Twitter informing me that a cruise ship had run aground off the coast of Italy. Not much was known about what happened. No one in the media was initially reporting on the incident.
I stayed up all Friday night and Saturday morning watching the increasingly frantic twitter
Business Week reports that the Cruise Lines International Association ("CLIA") spent $453,444 lobbying the federal government in the second quarter this year.
CLIA is the cruise industry’s trade organization which promotes the interests of the cruise industry.
It lobbied Congress, the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and the U.S. Coast Guard on issues such as vessel
Forbes is reporting that the Cruise Lines International Association ("CLIA"), the trade trade group which promotes the interests of the cruise industry, spent $490,650 in the first quarter this year, lobbying the U.S. government.
The cruise industry lobbied Congress, the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Customs & Board Protection, State Department, Homeland Security Department, Transportation Department, Justice Department on
Last week I was away from my computer traveling in Jamaica to visit crewmembers while the story broke about the U.K.’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency detaining the MSC Cruises’ Opera cruise ship for safety violations.
The incident was the type of event which I would normally and quickly write about. But by the time I returned to Miami the cruise
"Naked Law" by AVVO recently published an interesting article "What Happens to Cruise Ship Criminals?"
The article poses the following scenario:
"A group of young women take a seven-day cruise to the Caribbean, a trip they’ve been planning for months. The second night on board, they have a couple of drinks in one
Yesterday, Travel Pulse published an "interview" of Christine Duffy, the incoming president of the Cruise Line International Association ("CLIA"). CLIA is the cruise industry’s trade organization responsible for promoting the cruise lines’ interests and lobbying Congress.
We have written a few articles about CLIA and their Pravda-like view of the facts regarding the cruise industry. We were hoping
A temporary power outage on Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 in September was caused by the "catastrophic failure of a capacitor and explosion in an 11kV harmonic filter" on the vessel, according to the U.K.’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) which issued a marine safety report yesterday.
On September 23rd, the Queen Mary 2 was approaching Barcelona early in the morning when
This week was another interesting week in the strange world of cruise law. Just consider:
A Cruise CEO With Billions of Dollars But No Soul?
Carnival Cruise’s CEO Billionaire Mickey Arison was named the richest man in Florida again by 
Fortune magazine with a net worth of $4,100,000,000. So why does he pay his injured and ill crew
Today the Senate will debate amending the Death On The High Seas Act (DOHSA) to permit the families of the oil workers killed in the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion to recover compensation for their emotional damages for losing their husbands and fathers. The House of Representatives previously voted to amend DOHSA.
We have discussed the inequities in this archaic law which has been
This was a historic week in the world of cruising.
Congress passed the Cruise Vessel and Safety Act, which will help make cruising safer for U.S. families. Cruise lines will be required to install peepholes in cabin doors, maintain anti-retroviral medications and rape kits for victims, improve crime evidence handling procedures and – for the first time in
Today, the House of Representatives passed a bill – H.R. 5503 (also known as the SPILL Act) – which will amend the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA). H.R. 5503 will permit the widows and children of the oil rig workers killed in the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster to be compensated for their grief, mental anguish and suffering due to the deaths
As we suspected, the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) is working behind the scenes to derail efforts to amend the Death On The High Seas Act (DOHSA).
Yesterday we obtained a copy of a letter (below) sent by CLIA to Congressional representatives in Florida. CLIA is trying to rally opposition against H.R. 5503 which will permit widows and children recover compensation for their grief and
Mother Jones published an interesting article this morning by Stephanie Mencimer, "Will the Cruise Industry Do BP’s Dirty Work?" about how the cruise line lobbyists may join forces with BP to help the oil company dodge liability for the eleven workers killed on the Transocean drilling rig.
You see the drilling rig is considered to be a
A local ABC affiliate in Boston WCVB TV5 recently aired a special investigation into the issue of cruise ship crime: "Crimes On Cruise Ships Often Not Reported – Local Victims Hope Laws At Sea Change."
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The ABC affiliate accurately concludes that cruise lines are not required to report crimes on cruise ships in international waters. The
Canada’s Globe and Mail reports today that the cruise industry is lobbying Canada lawmakers to try and avoid the clean air regulations passed two months ago by the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
As we reported in April, Over Cruise Industry’s Objection, IMO Creates Air Pollution Buffer Around U.S. and Canada. The IMO voted to enact regulations requiring
Continuing with Cruise Law News’ Top 10 Reasons Not To Cruise, we reach reason number 9 not to cruise:
Bunker Fuel – Nasty Tar Sludge!
This reason is personal to me.
My Dad is an oil man. In the 1960’s we lived in Texas and Oklahoma as kids when my Dad worked for seismic
A handful of recent stories have shed light unwanted light on the image-conscious cruise industry. Cruise lines like Carnival and Royal Caribbean spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year to paint pictures of care free vacations. But here are some stories published in the last few days which make you realize that the fun-filled family cruise may a bit different than
On Friday, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) passed a regulation requiring cruise ships, tankers and cargo ships to switch to low-sulfur fuel when they operate within 230 miles of the U.S. and Canada.
As reported in the Houston Chronicle, the new regulations should cut emissions linked to thousands of illnesses and premature deaths each year, according
