Cruise Ship Law

The story below is really horrifying and re-iterates points we have been bringing up on our maritime law blog since its inception. When you are at sea you are at the mercy of the shipping company. You have to be prepared to protect yourself and your family, under any circumstances and in any situation...and you can not rely on the shipping company to help you.

One resource we believe is helpful for persons about to depart on a cruise is the Cruise SOS web site. The site provides a free card which you can download and keep in your wallet while you are on your cruise. The wallet sized card contains emergency contact information including the FBI, Coast Guard, maritime lawyers and more. As well as steps to take to protect yourself and your rights in case you are injured or are the vicitim of crime on a cruise ship. We highly recommend all cruise passengers carry this card with them. Its a very simple step to take and will provide you with the knowledge you need most if you are forced into a bad situation on a cruise ship.

On a Cruise, Law of the Sea can be Rocky

BY ELLEN CREAGER
FREE PRESS TRAVEL WRITER

One moment, they were enjoying a pleasant 12-day Mediterranean cruise on the Grand Princess. The next moment, they were stranded in Kusadasi, Turkey, unable to call home, $5,800 in debt and afraid.

How did Yvonne Boike of Berkley and her fianci, Nick Panos of St. Clair Shores, go from cruising delight to disaster in just a few short hours?

Their tale is not just a personal travel horror story. It's a wake-up call for anyone who cruises.

As cruise lines add exotic ports of call in distant destinations, passengers may not realize that in an emergency they will likely be dropped off at any port in a personal storm -- even a remote one in a faraway land. When it happens, you'll be on your own. And travel insurance may not protect you.

"I'm still having nightmares," says Boike. It started Sept. 7, when Panos woke up on day six of the cruise, sick to his stomach and coughing up blood. The couple hurried to the ship's clinic. There, a doctor did about $1,000 worth of tests. Concerned that Panos had something more serious or contagious, he told them both would have to disembark and go to the hospital on shore.

Panos asked if they could delay until the cruise reached Greece, where he had friends. No, said the doctor. They asked whether Boike could remain aboard since she wasn't sick. She couldn't.

A ship's nurse called their travel insurer, Travelex, and the couple was whisked off the ship into a Turkish ambulance in Kusadasi, a resort village in the Aegean Sea.

"I was in shock," says Boike. "But I assumed they would call our emergency contacts or the U.S. Embassy for us." She assumed wrong.

Out to sea

Nearly 12 million people cruise worldwide each year. Almost none of them realize one major fact, says Mark Pastronk, a travel attorney in Washington, D.C.: "A cruise ship is not really a floating resort. It is more like a foreign country, and you're pretty much on your own.

"You are at sea, legally. American law doesn't apply to a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean. You're nowhere."

Cruise ship passengers can be put off wherever and whenever the staff sees fit. They don't have to take you back. They are also not obligated in an emergency to call your emergency contact.

"Every one of those is an 'it depends' type of thing," says Michael Crye, president of the International Council of Cruise Lines, which counts Princess as a member.

"Cruise lines generally have port agents who know the port and facility," he said. "They rely heavily on a port agent to handle medical arrangements and evacuations as necessary."

But what if something goes wrong? How does he suggest passengers protect themselves? "Consider taking out travel insurance."

Isolated in the hospital

Princess contends that Boike and Panos could have called family from the cruise ship, and that the policy is not to make the partner of an ill person disembark. Yet, the couple says they never had a chance to call their families, and Boike was forced off.

The couple were not cruise novices. It was Panos' 17th cruise and Boike's 10th. The two senior citizens were healthy when the cruise boarded in Rome, stopping at Monte Carlo, Florence, Naples and Kusadasi, en route to Greece.

Now, the couple found themselves at Kusadasi Private Hospital, in a room with a bed, folding couch, no working telephone, and no one who spoke English. For two days, they had no contact with the outside world. He lay sick in bed, an IV needle strapped to his hand.

Late the second day, a mysterious man came in and told them he was working with their insurance company. Boike used the man's cell phone to call her surprised daughter, Cindy Cobb, in New Hampshire.

"That's when we found out the cruise line had notified nobody," Boike says. "We disappeared and nobody even knew where we were."

Meanwhile, who was the mysterious man? Princess contends he was a representative of its port agent. Boike doubts it: "If he was from Princess, it was news to me."

By the time the phone in their room was finally fixed on the third day and they called Travelex, the agent told Boike, "We've been looking for you."

Buying travel insurance

Since 9/11, Americans have become more cautious world travelers. Thirty percent now take out trip insurance, and an estimated 1 in 6 of those will file a claim. Among cruise passengers, 70% take out insurance, according to the U.S. Travel Insurance Association. It costs between 4% and 8% of the trip cost, or about $160 for a $3,000 cruise.

"A lot of people get the cheapest thing, which is penny wise and dollar foolish," says Travelex spokeswoman Chris Buggy. Most important are medical coverage and a policy that pays for the unused portion of an interrupted trip.

Insurance is critical for a cruise, say travel attorneys.

Why? Mishaps at sea are governed by 19th-Century maritime law, making it hard to win any lawsuit, even for injury or medical mishaps. Cruise lines' passage contracts limit or deny liability for anything that might go wrong on a ship, whether it's missed ports, personal injury, theft, blunders by doctors, beauticians or gym instructors, injury on a shore excursion, even bad food.

If your ship does not touch a U.S. port, you have even less protection.

Here's what the Princess contract says: "The ship has the right to confine you to your room or disembark you at any time if its personnel decides your presence might be detrimental to your health or someone else's."

You pay first

By the fourth day, Panos was feeling better. A doctor told him he had gotten a gastric infection but was not contagious. He was ready to rejoin the cruise, which had cost the couple $7,000. But the Grand Princess had long departed.

The only option was to find a way to get home.

That's when they found out their $92 bare-bones travel insurance policy wouldn't cover Boike's $1,300 plane ticket from Turkey to Detroit or the cost of the unused portion of their trip.

Also, it wouldn't pay medical costs up front. Panos would have to pay $4,800 to the hospital.

While declining to comment specifically on this case, Buggy of Travelex said that's the way most travel insurance medical plans operate.

You pay first. They pay later.

'Somebody dropped the ball'

Early on Sept. 11, Panos paid Kusadasi Private Hospital $4,800 with his Visa card. They paid another 150 euros ($190) cash for a shuttle to the Izmir Airport 80 kilometers away. They flew to Istanbul, slept 7 hours overnight inside the airport, then flew to Frankfurt, then finally back to Detroit.

The couple has since written to Princess, asking to be reimbursed for Boike's $1,300 flight. They also want credit for the six days of the cruise they missed.

Most of all, they want an apology.

"The question we have is, where was customer care?" Panos says.

More than a month has now gone by. The couple has not heard from Princess, but the Princess statement to the Free Press disputes the couple's claims: "We regret that Mr. Panos is unhappy with the circumstances and events following his disembarkation. ... It is unfortunate that Mr. Panos did not have the proper travel insurance arrangements."

The ICCL's Michael Crye says it sounds like a giant misunderstanding.

Says Florida cruise industry analyst Stuart Chiron: "Somebody definitely dropped the ball."

Last week, Travelex paid up, reimbursing Panos for his $5,800 medical expenses on board and on land.

The Grand Princess left the Mediterranean on Wednesday to spend the winter cruising in the Caribbean out of Galveston, Texas.

Panos and Boike are cruising again. They'll take another one in Hawaii in December, on Celebrity.

But Panos says he has learned something that cruise lines definitely won't want passengers to hear:

"I learned that unless you are on death's door or break a leg, never go to the ship's doctor."