Table Of Content
- David Zaslav earned $49.7 million in a year when Warner Bros. Discovery struggled
- Scottish Man Overboard From the MSC Euribia – Sixth Person Overboard From a MSC Cruise Ship in Last Four Months
- Second Disney Crew Member on Disney Dream Cruise Ship Arrested on Child Pornography Charges
- Twenty-Year Old Passenger Goes Overboard From the Liberty of the Seas Cruise Ship
- Silver Nova Experiences Gastrointestinal Outbreak as the Silversea Cruises’ Luxury Cruise Ship Sails to Fort Lauderdale
The Cruise Vessel Safety & Security Act (CVSSA) of 2010 requires cruise ships calling on U.S. ports to report certain shipboard crimes to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The CVSSA was the result of the efforts of the International Cruise Victims (ICV) which is a grass-roots organization created in 2006. The IVC was successful in convincing Congress, for the first time in the history of the cruise industry, to require the mandatory reporting by the cruise lines of certain crimes which occur on cruise ships. Under the CVSSA, cruise lines are obligated to report homicides, suspicious deaths, physical assaults resulting in serious bodily injuries and sexual crimes outlined in 18 U.S.C. 2241, 2241, 2243 and 2244.
David Zaslav earned $49.7 million in a year when Warner Bros. Discovery struggled
Reports of sexual assault on cruises in late summer of 2019 spiked 67 percent from the previous year, according to the Washington Post. CLIA argued that cruise ship crime rates should be based on the total number of people cruising in any year (around 31,500,000 cruised last year) rather than the average number of people populating cruise ships on any given day. By analogy, the per capita crime statistics for U.S. cities are calculated based on the number of residents in a city. Imagine how the crime statistics for New York City would be diluted if instead of calculating crime rates based on the number of residents in the city (approximately 8 million), this number was inflated to include the hordes of tourists (more than 30 million people) who visit the city annually. Disney Cruise Line reportedly had five (5) incidents of physical assault with serious bodily injury on its four ships. This is a bit surprising as the typical violence on cruise ships, at least in part, is due to the excessive alcohol served to guests which typically does not occur on Disney ships which cater to kids and family vacations.
Scottish Man Overboard From the MSC Euribia – Sixth Person Overboard From a MSC Cruise Ship in Last Four Months
Two weeks ago, we reported on a criminal case brought against a passenger named Michael Truman who viciously attacked another guest on the Carnival Magic. According to a local newspaper article, the victim was walking out of a theater on the ship to look for a crew member to remove Mr. Truman after asking him multiple times to quiet down. Truman then reportedly climbed on top of the victim and continued striking him, leaving facial lacerations that required 19 stitches, an affidavit in the court file reads. The absence of such systems on 99% of cruise ships clearly indicates that the cruise industry is not serious in taking meaningful steps to reduce deadly cruise ship overboard cases.
Second Disney Crew Member on Disney Dream Cruise Ship Arrested on Child Pornography Charges
All the while, officers on the Jewel kept the rising COVID-19 count secret from the guests and would lie to them when questioned. Congress enacted the CVSSA with the laudable goals of educating the traveling public and making them aware of the substantial risks of sexual violence on certain cruise ships. The per capita rate of sexual assaults on Carnival ships of 40 per 100,000 is significant. It is a higher per capita rate than twenty states, including California, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina and Georgia (and over a dozen other states). Congress rejected CLIA’s argument and concluded that per capita cruise crime statistics should be calculated based on the average number of passengers sailing at a particular time, not on the annual number of passengers over the course of a year. CLIA’s misleading method of calculating crime substantially understated the rape rate on cruise ships.
Carnival Corporation, the owner of the M/S Rotterdam, has not installed a single MOB system in its fleet of around 100 cruise ships since the CVSSA required such systems over 12 years ago. Despite previous outbreaks, employees on the Grand Princess cruise adopted no changes to the daily routine, did not try to impose social distancing among passengers and did not warn guests that a previous passenger died of COVID-19, according to family members. As the industry continues to sit idle in U.S. waters, some cruise lines, including Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Virgin Voyages and Norwegian Cruise Line have moved itineraries for their ships abroad to the United Kingdom, the Caribbean and Israel, among other locations. Carnival Cruise Line also threatened this month to move its ships out of U.S. waters. Multiple news organizations are reporting that a man from the state of Kansas pleaded guilty today to murdering his longtime girlfriend during a cruise from Florida to the Bahamas in January 2018. Nevertheless, cruise lines, including Carnival, continued to promote and sell excursions to Coki Beach/Coki Point.
Today, I watched a TicTok video posted by Crystalmerier3 who recently went on a four day vacation cruise from Galveston, Texas to ports in Mexico with her seven-year old daughter. During the cruise, they went together to a movie on the Lido Deck to watch Spiderman when mom went for about one minute to get a drink for her child. Miami-Dade police officers arrested a cruise passenger from Indianapolis, Indiana last Friday on charges that he molested a teenage girl on a recent Carnival cruise, according to Miami’s local 10 News. The UKMTO stated that the Master of the Crystal Symphony reported that “they were hailed by an entity claiming to be the Yemini Navy who requested that the vessel turn on its AIS (Automatic Information System).
Republican senators introduce legislation to overrule CDC, start cruising by July
Yes, its a sad fact that when two of its guests from one of its cruise ships were reportedly drugged and raped during a shore excursion, a billion-dollar corporation like Carnival would amateurishly try to cover-up the truth that it promoted tours to this resort. Dolphin denied that it had any obligation to passengers off of the cruise ship and further denied that it had a duty to warn of crime in the ports of call where it disembarked its passengers. The appellate court in Carlisle disagreed, holding that the cruise line’s legal duty to its passengers does not end at the gangway and it must warn of dangers where the passenger is invited to, or may reasonably be expected to visit. There have been four other people who have gone overboard in the last three months from MSC cruise ships. The last person (a passenger) overboard from a cruise ship which we reported on involved the MSC Preziosa on December 31, 2023. Family members on Facebook commented that they were frustrated by the lack of communications by the cruise line and the fact that there was no timely announcement on the ship that a person went overboard.
Death on the high seas: Cruise passengers face head winds with COVID lawsuits
Man Overboard From Wonder of the Seas - Why Hasn't Royal Caribbean Installed A Single MOB System On Its Cruise ... - Cruise Law News
Man Overboard From Wonder of the Seas - Why Hasn't Royal Caribbean Installed A Single MOB System On Its Cruise ....
Posted: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
The recent news from the Bahamas where two young U.S. women from a Carnival ship were drugged and raped involved a foreseeable, horrific crime at a Bahamian resort promoted by the cruise line, according to the victims. Earlier this week, the two young women, who are from the state of Kentucky, sailed on the Carnival Elation from Jacksonville to Freeport in the Bahamas and went to a resort promoted by Carnival (Pirate’s Cove Resort) after paying the cruise line shore excursion fee of $56.99. The sexual assault rate on a per capita basis for Carnival Cruise Line as of 2019 was nearly 40 (39.6) per 100,000. This number is calculated by taking the number of sexual assaults on Carnival ships reported to the FBI in the last 12 months (43), and dividing it by the total number of people on Carnival’s fleet of ships (around 75,000 passengers and approximately 33,500 crew members for a total of 108,500. The CVSSA data disclosed last week indicates that there are reports that ten sexual assaults and rapes of passengers occurred on Disney Cruise ships in the first nine months last year.
The residual pollutants which scrubbers try to remove from the air are called “scrubber sludge” or simply “sludge, which is a toxic mix of metals, such as lead, nickel and zinc, as well as hydrocarbons, sulfur, and nitrogen compounds. In the “open loop” systems commonly used by most cruise ships, the toxic and acidic sludge is then dumped back into the ocean. But the fact is that the soot and toxic by-products of burning bunker fuel don’t just magically disappear. Most ships temporarily accumulate the toxic sludge after when the scrubber washes the stacks with water and then dump the sludge into the water.
The Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act of 2010 requires that cruise lines report certain crimes, such as physical assaults and rape/sexual assaults, to the DOT. In addition, Carnival has by far the highest number of sexual assaults and rapes of any cruise line on the high seas. Carnival ships have a higher per capita sexual assault rate (per 100,000) than 27 states in the U.S. Most cruise lines do not perform background checks which include child predator databases. Most cruise lines and Disney, in particular, require strict confidentiality orders in sexual assault cases. So the public does not hear about many cases of sexual assault and molestation at sea.
Congress rejected CLIA’s argument and concluded that per capita cruise crime statistics should be calculated based on the average number of passengers sailing at a particular time, not on the annual number of passengers. On Friday, March 22, 2024, an explosion in the engine room of Holland America Line’s (HAL) cruise ship resulted in the release of steam which led to the death of two crew members. The catastrophic explosion, combined with a series of mistakes in responding to the accident, caused the deaths of HAL employees Joseph Terrado and Wawan Gusnawan. While quickly consuming the beer and hot dog in the excitement of the moment, cruise lawyer Walker happened to have Florida articles of incorporation which he handed to Micky to sign as well as U.S. flags to fly on the Carnival fleet of cruise ships. She immediately reported the incident to Carnival’s security but was rebuffed as you can see in the video. Crow was thirty-five (35) years of age when he met the sixteen (16) year old child during a cruise in July 2019 on an unidentified Princess Cruises ship.
Early this month, the CDC issued additional technical guidance but offered no concrete timeline to signal when cruising could resume. Ms. Dobson and Ms. Shearer both are now taking anti-retoviral HIV medication, after they were examined and treated on the Carnival cruise ship. The women told a media outlet in Kentucky that they have “bruises up and down” their legs which are confirmed by photographs taken after the rapes.
Of course, the obligation of cruise companies to install MOB systems on cruise ships calling on U.S. ports exists regardless of whether the person went overboard intentionally or was thrown or fell. A small percentage of sexual crimes against women at sea are prosecuted by the U.S. federal government. I attended a hearing in 2007 before Congress regarding cruise ship crime where a senior FBI official testified that only 7% of sexual assaults on cruise ships are prosecuted in federal court.
Like cruise ships throwing bags filled with oily rags overboard or crew members being instructed to hide dirty pots and pans and trollies full of food in the crew member cabins and hallways. I write about issues which cruise lines and travel agents prefer that the public not know about. Meanwhile, guests aboard the Carnival Panorama stated yesterday, via Twitter, that Mexico will not permit passengers from the cruise ship to disembark the cruise ship in Cabo because there reportedly are COVID-19 cases involving guests onboard. As usual, Carnival Cruise Line refuses to disclose the number of positive virus cases, whether crew members are also infected, and whether there are any Omicron variant cases involved. This state health department even informed the public that one crew member was infected with the Omicron varient. The Washington Post reported this week that cruise ships “reported nearly 15,000 cases between Dec. 30 and Jan. 12, the agency said.” This averages more than 150 infected passengers and crew per cruise ship.
Yesterday, a passenger on the Royal Caribbean Symphony of the Seas stated via Twitter that there are as many as 36 COVID-19 cases amongst the guests, based on information received from a crew member. This guest’s family member was infected and he was complaining that she was largely unattended by the medical staff while attepting to find infomation about the testing procedure for him and his family. Although we do not have data from all of Royal Caribbean ships, it is reasonable to assume that the rest of the company’s fleet is experiencing a similar number of infected crew members and the ships are struggling to offer uninterrupted basic services. Passengers on these ships tell us that the absence of ship employees is obvious around the ships. Passenger cabins not being attended to by stateroom attendants, bartenders and waiters are missing from restaurants and lounges, and entertainment is being cancelled are some of the typical comments we hear from guests. Our busiest day was April 7, 2014 when over 110,000 visitors read our article when we were the first to report on the murder of a NCL crew member in Roatan, Honduras near the port.
Last December, the CDC warned that all travelers should avoid cruise travel during the omicron surge. Last month, 247,433 people read 843,370 pages of Cruise Law News (per Google Analytics). Today we enjoyed a great day in St. Petersburg, Florida at my father-in-law’s house. The institute received more than 2,000 nominations for the "Best Legal Blog Contest." It then narrowed the field to 250 blogs which it is calling the "most exciting, entertaining, and informative legal blogs online today." The majority of our Facebook fans are crew members who use Facebook on a regular basis to communicate with their family and friends. No other cruise line experienced more than one (1) physical assault against a passenger last year.
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