Last week the Department of Transportation (DOT) published its quarterly cruise crime data for Q4 2025. The data followed similar trends from the last several years, with one exception — Carnival Cruise Line (hereinafter Carnival) reported only three (3) crimes on its ships and zero physical assaults with serious injuries.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) reported 44 crimes across all cruise lines in Q4 of 2025. Royal Caribbean led the cruise industry in crime while Carnival saw a sharp drop compared to Q3 2025.
The DOT tracks crimes by the quarter they were reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as part of the
A passenger went overboard from the Star Breeze while the cruise ship was sailing off the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia. The Windstar Cruises ship sounded a “Code Oscar” after it discovered the passenger was missing.
According to a local media report from Tahiti, the passenger involved is a 66-year-old male from the United
A seventy-seven year old passenger reportedly went overboard from Holland America Line’s Nieuw Statendam in the early morning hours of January 1, 2026 as the cruise ship was returning to South Florida. Online posts on social media show the HAL ship was sailing northeast of Cuba when the incident occurred.
The Nieuw Statendam was on
Carnival Cruise Line (Carnival) is again the cruise line leader in onboard crime, per the Q3 cruise crime data maintained by the Department of Transportation (DOT). The DOT reported 47 crimes for all cruise lines from July 1 through September 30, 2025. In total, the DOT has reported 138 crimes so far this year.
The
This past June, a 5-year-old girl fell overboard from the Disney Dream while the ship was sailing to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, from the Bahamas. The girl’s mother was taking photos of her on the ship’s railing when the child lost her balance and fell backward.
The child fell through an open porthole into the water.
A man broke into the cabin of a female crew member in the middle of the night and sexually assaulted her on October 9th. The sexual assault occurred aboard Costa Cruises’ Costa Favolosa while the ship was sailing to Genoa, Italy.
According to local Italian news, the perpetrator used a magnetic key card to
A passenger went overboard from the Norwegian Jewel on Monday, October 20th. The Norwegian Cruise Line ship is currently on a 12-night transatlantic voyage from Barcelona to Miami. The incident occurred shortly after the ship departed from Ponta Delgada, Portugal.
The Norwegian Jewel changed course on October 20th, at 10:15 PM and began a 10-hour
Disney Cruise Line built its reputation as the safest, most family friendly vacation at sea. The data tells a different story.
According to U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), sexual assaults and rapes on Disney Cruises have exploded over the past three years.
From 2019-2022, Disney had just one-to-three incidents reported each year. Those numbers surged
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
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
Yesterday U.S. District Judge Julie R. Rubin sentenced Jalen Thomas Kelley, 22, of Abingdon, Maryland, to 20 years in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release, for raping a minor who was sailing with her family on a Carnival cruise ship out of Baltimore, Maryland. This news comes from a press release by
The cruise crime data, released earlier this week as part of the quarterly reporting by the Department of Transportation (DOT), again shows that Carnival Cruise Line clearly has the most sexual assaults and rapes as well as the most physical assault with serious personal injuries, both in total numbers and on a per capita basis.
A seventy-two year old man was reported missing on Monday morning from the Ruby Princess when it returned to port in San Francisco following a five day cruise to Mexico, according to numerous national and local news stations.
It
The Miami-Dade Police Department arrested a passenger who disembarked from an unidentified cruise ship at PortMiami last weekend on charges of “purchasing child sexual abuse material online.”
Miami-Dade Police arrested Nicholas Gardener, age 24, of Brampton, Ontario who was initially held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center
The Department of Transportation (DOT) cruise crime statistics, mandated by the 2010 Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act, continue to show that Carnival Cruise Line remains by far the most likely cruise line to experience physical and sexual violence at sea.
Assaults With Serious Bodily Injury
Carnival Cruise Line reported eight (8) assaults with
The Miami Herald reports today on a disturbing case aboard the Carnival Magic where a cruise guest, who became irate when asked to be quit in a theater on the ship, “smashed his cocktail glass into a man’s face and beat him during a theater show.”
The vicious physical assault was first reported by a
Yesterday, the Department of Justice (DOT) finally released the fourth quarter of last year’s cruise crime data. The DOT data for the fourth quarter of 2023 reveals that fleet-wide for all cruise lines there were thirty-three (33) sexual assaults / rapes. This brings the total number of sexual assaults / rapes on cruise ship for
