A passenger on the Freedom of the Seas sent us a copy of the video that he took of the fire.

There are a couple of things to note.

First, as you can hear on the video, this passenger and his wife were on their balcony and had seen black smoke 15 minutes earlier. The

Freedom of the Seas Fire Falmouth JamaicaA hoax is defined as a "deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth."

Royal Caribbean engaged in a hoax when it characterized the big, dangerous fire on the Freedom of the Seas which engulfed the little port of Falmouth with billowing black smoke as just a "small fire."

Cruise lines used to be able

Freedom of the Sea Fire Falmouth JamaicaThere is an ongoing social media battle between the cruise industry and the proponents of improving the industry. This blog is part of that struggle.  Our motto is “every thing the cruise lines don”t want you to know.”

Every time there is a cruise ship fire, the cruise lines rush to send out the message

Freedom of the Seas Cruise Fire JamaicaI have received several calls this morning from friends in Montego Bay and Ocho Rios that the Freedom of the Seas is on fire as it approached the port of Falmouth, Jamaica.

I also have friends / former Royal Caribbean crew members in Falmouth who are going to obtain photographs of the blaze on the

Cruise Passengers in JamaicaNewspapers in Jamaica are reporting that two U.S. citizens from a Carnival cruise ship are unaccounted for after disembarking in Falmouth on Monday, January 12th.

The two men are identified in the Jamaica Observer as 42-year-old Shelby Person and 45-year-old Tyrone Rideout, both of Weeping Willow, Maryland.

They disembarked from the Carnival Victory shortly after

Caribbean Crime Cruise ShipThe last thing that a family going on vacation wants to think of is being victims of crime. Cruise lines spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars a year creating idyllic illusions of tropical vacations on beautiful Caribbean beaches.  But behind that slick marketing facade lies danger.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime recently