Cruise Ship Law

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — A new report that takes a critical look at the North American cruise ship industry is calling for stringent regulations to halt the environmental pollution caused by the massive vessels.

Getting a Grip on Cruise Ship Pollution was authored by Dr. Ross Klein, a professor at Memorial University's school of social work, and an expert on the cruise ship industry. It was released by the U.S.-based environmental group Friends of the Earth.

"The report lays out the deleterious effects of pollution from cruise ships — many having significantly negative impacts on human health and the health of the marine environment," Klein said in a statement.

Since 1998, Klein said, the cruise industry has been fined more than $60 million for environmental violations.

He said the industry has come out against a Canada-U.S. call for an emission control area that would require ships to use cleaner burning fuels because it would add between $8 and $15 a day to a passenger ticket. Even with this measure, Klein said, the fuel required would still be much dirtier than fuel used in automobiles.

His report was produced in part to provide supportive documentation for the Clean Cruise Ship Act currently before the U.S. Congress. He said he has also been contacted by members of parliament who are interested in addressing the problem in Canada.

The report says a cruise ship can produce every day more than 180,000 litres of sewage, over two million litres of grey water (produced by bathing, cooking or cleaning), 18,000 litres of oily bilge water and as much as 17 tonnes of solid waste.

"Much of this waste is discharged into the environment directly, or indirectly as incinerator smoke and ash. In addition, a cruise ship, like all ocean-going vessels, produces significant air emissions from burning large amounts of fuel and contaminates waters through ballast water that introduces non-native species," the report says.

It also says treatment of waste water has been found by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to not adequately meet water quality standards set for onshore sewage treatment plants. It adds that while the cruise industry has introduced initiatives to better deal with cruise ship waste streams, "these measures often fall short."

Klein proposes a wide-ranging set of recommendations for reform of the cruise industry, which earns billions of dollars a year around the globe.

Among them: limits on the discharge of waste and bilge water at sea; electronic transponders to alert land-based authorities when a discharge line is open as well as observers on board ships; research on the effects of untreated sewage on marine life; a requirement for cruise ships to sort other waste onboard and off-load recyclables only at ports with recycling facilities; and establish penalties for violations.

Maxim Magazine named Charles Lipcon the World's Best Prosecutor of Cruise Lines. Charles was featured in article entitled "Wet and Wild" . The article was an expose of some of the dangers on the high seas. Charles was quoted as the authority on maritime law and cruise ship assault prosecutions.

The cruise lines only have to report crimes involving Americans to the FBI, and even those are underreported. The cruise lines don't want their passengers or their crew members to be crime victims.

Charles Lipcon, Maritime Attorney, said "The cruise lines only have to report crimes involving Americans to the FBI, and even those are underreported. The cruise lines don't want their passengers or their crew members to be crime victims." The public statistics show the FBI opened 184 cases of crimes on cruise ships between October 2001 and February 2007, including 101 sexual assaults, 12 missing persons, and 13 deaths.

Charles Lipcon is a maritime attorney with the law firm of Lipcon, Margulies & Alsina, P.A. This firm handles many cases against the cruise lines both for passengers as well as crew members. Charles Lipcon has also been featured as a top Miami Maritime Lawyer by Florida Trend's Legal Elite and a top attorney by Super Lawyers.

Charles Lipcon is the author of one of Amazon's top 30 selling travel books, Unsafe on the High Seas. This book details some of the dangers of cruise ship travel from assaults to missing people. It also covers the victim's rights and how they can defend themselves. The book does not try to persuade you into not taking a cruise, but rather teaches you how to cruise safer. The book can be ordered from Amazon.com.

About Lipcon, Margulies & Alsina, P.A.
Lipcon, Margulies & Alsina, P.A. is a Miami, FL, Law Firm focusing on maritime and admiralty personal injury claims against cruise lines and other boat owners. Lipcon's maritime lawyers represent passengers and crew injured on ships worldwide.

While the holidays are a time for relaxation and travel, health emergencies can and do happen. A study of cruise ship emergencies published online December 7, 2009, ahead of print in the American Journal of Cardiology suggests patients with known cardiovascular disease could benefit from pre-travel precautions such as a new medical evaluation before leaving and bringing all medications, updated medication lists, physician contact information and a hard copy of their baseline 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) with them.

Gian M. Novaro, MD, of Cleveland Clinic Florida (Weston, FL), and colleagues examined data they collected between January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2005 from 100 consecutive adult cardiology consultations for passengers aboard 5 large cruise lines.

The most common symptom was chest pain (50%) followed by dyspnea (19%), palpitations (13%), syncope/near syncope (10%) and “other,” which included vague symptoms such as nausea, rashes and weakness (10%).

Mean age was 66 years and the most common principal diagnosis was acute coronary syndrome (58%; ST-elevation MI in 21% and non-ST elevation MI in 37%). Other diagnoses included atrial arrhythmias (15%), syncope (5%), noncardiac chest pain syndromes (5%), decompensated heart failure (4%), acute pericarditis (3%) and dyspnea (3%). Over the 2-year period, the on-board mortality was 3%. These deaths occurred in patients who presented with non-STEMI, pulmonary edema and profound hypotension.

Nearly 75% of patients requiring a cardiology consultation were triaged off the ships to a shore-side hospital. Of these, 10% reported active cardiac symptoms in the days to weeks before cruise ship travel. Triaged passengers were similar in age to those not requiring triage and had a similar prevalence of pre-existing coronary artery disease. During hospitalization, at least 20 patients required cardiac catheterization followed by PCI or CABG. Mortality among these patients was 4%.

Better Safe Than Sorry

Dr. Novaro and colleagues say while the risk of cardiovascular events aboard cruise ships is low, their report highlights the not insignificant risk of morbidity and mortality for passengers who do develop symptoms

While the medical staff aboard the cruise lines had access to ECG, continuous telemetry monitoring, chest radiography, oxygen saturation, arterial blood gas, and laboratory studies, there was variation in the types of available medical therapy.

Therefore, the researchers say it is important for passengers to inform themselves about cruise ship medical capabilities. While most large cruise lines adhere to guidelines set by the American College of Emergency Physicians, many smaller or independent cruise lines do not, and only minimal information about their medical evacuation or telemedicine capability may be available.

They recommend the following medical checklist for passengers prior to cruise ship travel:

- Pack an adequate supply of all medications and bring an updated medication list
- For passengers with known coronary artery disease, travel with sublingual nitroglycerin
- Bring a hard copy of a 12-lead ECG if baseline is abnormal
- For passengers with pacemakers, defibrillators, coronary stents, or heart valves, carry a manufacturer’s card
- For passengers with known cardiovascular disease, travel with physician’s contact information and a recent summary of medical history
- For the elderly, sedentary, or those with known cardiovascular disease, consider pretravel evaluation with physician
- Evaluate new cardiovascular symptoms or change in clinical status with physician before travel
- Check with physician regarding safety of initiating an exercise program
- Consider purchasing medical evacuation insurance if not covered under existing health insurance

In addition, Dr. Novaro and colleagues say prospective passengers should keep in mind that some behavioral changes related to travel such as dietary indiscretions, altered sleep cycles, increased alcohol intake, and increased physical exertion may worsen or precipitate cardiovascular events.

Celebrity Cruise Line has once again received flack for ‘promoting a binge drinking culture’ after launching an 'all you can drink' offer on a number of its cruise ships. These special packages are designed to let cruise passengers to drink as much as they wish, during a cruise, from as little as £20 per night.

The packages range from £20.75 per night for a much beer as you can swallow, through to £89 per night for the ‘Captain's Package’ which includes specially selected premium wines. A drinks package that offers such strong choices as bourbon and vodka, costs £31 per night. While Celebrity says that it wishes to promote sensible drinking, several charities and anti-alcoholism groups have criticised the cruise line for encouraging people to drink excessively. Their concerns are based on the fact that it can be very difficult to keep track of who much you have drunk if you’re simply showing a pass to a bartender, and that the effects of over-drinking can lead liver damage, infertility, a range of cancers and depression.

However the results don’t have to be long-term to be disastrous: it’s claimed that recent problems in Antigua where cruise passengers fought with police and were left behind in custody when their ship sailed, may have been due to alcohol. And of the 130 people who have jumped off cruise ships in American waters in the past 15 years, at least half had been drinking heavily before they chose to enter the water, and while many are recovered, some are never found again: in March 2008 a woman jumped from a cruise ship off Key Lago during an argument with her boyfriend. Her body was never found.

That enormous, new, 6,000-passenger cruise ship, Oasis of the Seas, that you've been reading so much about, will begin sailing an odd itinerary this coming May. Every other week throughout the year, it will devote three of its six days of weekly operation to simply wandering at sea, without stopping anywhere. On two other days, it will go on one day to a “private beach” called Labadee on the coast of Haiti, and on another day to another private beach and artificial village called Costa Maya on the coast of Mexico. On only one remaining day will it stop at an actual Caribbean port inhabited by real people.

Is this an accident? An idiosyncratic decision by a cruise line official? Far from it. The moment you begin analyzing the itineraries of the other gigantic new ships that have begun sailing or are about to (the 4,300-passenger Freedom of the Seas, the 4,200-passenger Norwegian Epic, the 3,800-passenger Carnival Dream), you find that all of these humongous vessels, on at least every other week and sometimes every week, will be devoting three of their six days of sailing to simply wandering at sea, without stopping. On other alternating weeks, they will spend one of their remaining three days at either a private beach in the Bahamas or a private beach in Mexico.

So, in addition to offering a new kind of onboard experience filled with toys and games, the four new gigantic ships – larger than any others – will be cruising unusual itineraries, to say the least. Their routes will be designed to keep all their thousands of passengers together for almost all of the cruise, and walled off from the cruel realities of nearby islands. Foreign travel will not be their specialty.

Why has this policy been adopted? I have three theories:

(1) By devoting half of their six days per week to simply sailing at sea, the ultra-large ships retain all the income that passengers would normally spend in ports. Instead of that income going to land-based restaurants, bars and shops, it goes to restaurants, bars and shops within the cruise ship. Instead of income going to land-based casinos, it is spent at ship casinos. Instead of income being spent at jewelry and liquor shops on land, it is spent at jewelry and liquor shops at sea. This is all so painfully obvious, and points up the desperate need of the cruise lines to earn extraordinary amounts from onboard spending to pay back their billion-dollar investments in these humongous new ships.

(2) By featuring stops at fake villages like Costa Maya or fenced-in private beaches like Labadee (surrounded by barbed wire and guards to keep out the unfortunate people of Haiti), the cruise lines again retain much of the spending that passengers would otherwise direct to foreign entrepreneurs. Obviously, the merchants that one finds on the “private beaches” and fake villages will be mainly in the employ of the cruise lines.

(3) And finally, the ships are so large that they really can't go to interesting small ports, such as those of Grenada, Dominica, St. Lucia or elsewhere. The only actual ports able to receive them are the overcrowded docks of St. Thomas, St. Maarten and Nassau.

And that's why the giant new ships will spend most of their time wandering the open sea or heading to "private beaches," while their passengers play with toys and games on deck.

ABOARD THE OASIS OF THE SEAS -- Always wished you had a quick and easy way to track down your children on a cruise ship? On one ship, at least, now you will.

When Royal Caribbean's new Oasis of the Seas begins regular cruises next month, the muster station wristbands that all young children on cruise ships must wear will be enhanced with a passive electronic device that will allow their parents to track them in real time as they wander the ship -- an industry first.

The wristbands are being rolled out in conjunction with the debut of an onboard smart phone system called Royal Connect that's designed to make it easier for passengers to keep in touch with eachother.

Passengers will be able to rent Royal Connect phones for $17.50 a voyage that they can use to track their children, call and text other passengers who have Royal Connect phones and call cabins.

The phones also can be used to call onboard areas such as the spa and restaurants to make reservations, and they also display the latest shipboard activities.

Royal Caribbean's Chief Information Officer, Bill Martin, offered USA TODAY a sneak peek at the yet-to-be-announced phone system today on board the ship during inaugural festivities. The phones are Apple iPhones configured to only work on the ship (you can't call home), and he says the line will have 800 on board Oasis by January.

Martin says the line will rent them out on a first-come, first-serve basis to passengers in three locations, the conference center of Deck 3, the Adventure Ocean kids area on Deck 14 and in the concierge lounge.

"We think they're going to be extremely popular," says Martin, adding that eventually the line could add more applications to the phones in addition to calling, texting, tracking and activity lists.

"We could add an Internet browser or (add an application to) play music on it," he says.

The new tracking system for children and Royal Connect phones only will be available on Oasis for now as they require a dedicated wireless network that doesn't exist on older ships. But Martin says the system could be retrofitted to other vessels down the road. "Because (the concept) is brand new we need to see what the reaction is going to be," he says.

Martin says there's no age limit to who can have one of the phones. A parent could rent one for his or her 10-year-old child to carry so they could call and text each other while roaming the ship. One caveat, though, that may keep some parents from letting their kids have them: Renters who don't return the phones or return them damaged will be charged $1,000.

"These are expensive devices," Martin notes. Unlike the less expensive iPhones that consumers buy, "they're not subsidized by any carrier."

Martin notes that parents who don't want to spend the $17.50 to rent a phone but still want to track down their child's location on Oasis will be able to go the guest services desk to do it.

Oasis of the Seas, larger than life on the ocean's horizon Friday morning, swaggered into Port Everglades, sounding her horn as a crowd of onlookers at John U. Lloyd State Park beach let out a cheer.

"Wow!" cried one early riser, joining revelers with binoculars and blankets to greet the 225,000-ton megaship. "It's so amazing!" shrieked another. "It's huge."

The world's largest cruise ship was accompanied by a flotilla of small boats and doused by water cannons as she headed into her new home port.

At the park, Marsha Scharf, of Chesterfield, Mo., rubbernecked from the beach and thumbed through a text message on her cellphone. "TJ says 'Can you tell which ship we are?' "she laughed to her fiancé, Tom Smyka, who stood next to her clicking pictures with a digital camera.

Scharf said her son, Timothy J. Scharf, had sent the text message from onboard the Oasis, where he has been working since August as the IT manager. "It's his 33rd birthday," she said.

Dana Steinberg, a retired merchant marine from Hollywood, arrived early at John U. Lloyd Park Friday to behold the mammoth ship, which has seven neighborhoods, including a Boardwalk reminiscent of Coney Island. The ship has not one, but two rock-climbing walls, an ice-skating rink, and 24 specialty restaurants among an array of entertainment and activities. The ship's theater will feature a 90-minute production of the Broadway hit Hairspray, which the cast has been practicing during the crossing.

"It's the largest in the world," Steinberg said. "I've never really been on a cruise, but I love ships."

Joy Rodeberg, 13, played along the beach with her sisters Sarah, 15, and Rebecca, 8, as the Oasis grew larger on the horizon. "My dad told me about it: It's the world's largest ship," said Joy, toting a welcome poster.

The Oasis, carrying crew and construction workers, braved high seas and hurricane force winds in the North Atlantic Ocean, which stretched the journey from its shipyard in Turku, Finland to Fort Lauderdale to 14 days -- two days longer than planned. But Royal Caribbean officials say the giant ship performed excellently in the rough seas.

Now that the ship is in Port Everglades, workers will put the final details on the vessel. Perhaps the biggest job is the installation of some 12,000 shrubs, plants and trees to give Central Park, the first of its kind park-at-sea, a leafy, green ambiance.

Miami-based Royal Caribbean plans a private performance by pop singer Rihanna on Nov. 19, followed by a national television debut on ABC's Good Morning America Nov. 20 from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.

The ship will sail on several promotional cruises with travel agents, journalists and guests before making its first revenue cruise Dec. 1.

The naming ceremony is slated for Nov. 30 during a fundraiser to benefit the nonprofit Make-A-Wish Foundation, which provides treats to children with life-threatening illnesses. Tickets for the event begin at $750 per person.

It’s always happy hour in the Crew Bar. Cashiers selling $1 beers and $2 packs of Marlboro Lights are swamped from the moment they open their metal shutters at 8 p.m. till they close them at 1 a.m. Darts pierce the wall next to an ignored television, wall-mounted speakers pound away at a lusty tangle of bodies on the dance floor, and everywhere a thick haze of cigarette smoke is fed by the collective breath of British dancers, Indonesian room stewards, Balkan restaurant managers, Filipino galley cooks, and East Bloc engineers. The starched uniforms worn upstairs are replaced here by sweatpants, shorts, T-shirts, and engine room monkey suits—anything that can be sacrificed to smoke and spilled booze.

The door creeps open with unusual caution and in walk two girls—clutching purses, teetering on heels, smacking their lips. They timidly work their way through the cluttered tables and chairs, leaving a trail of toppled empties and calling for some guy named Chad*. 
Pent-up engine room mechanics lick their chops, catty chorus girls sharpen their claws, and somewhere in the corner Chad—a ship musician new to the scene—senses he has made a very big mistake.
“Never invite animals to Crew Bar,” whispers Evan the Illusionist.
“Animals?” asks Chad.
“Passengers,” says Evan.

Chad jumps up and leads the girls out the door and up the stairwell they never should have seen. But he knows he’s on the surveillance camera with them now, and tomorrow there will be punishment. This is his first contract on a cruise ship, but soon he too will start calling the passengers “animals,” and he will never again fool himself into thinking any of them could ever blend into the world of the crew.

Welcome to the other side of the pleasure cruise, the place where the red carpet and teal wallpaper end and the smiles in uniform either drop to frowns or curl up into sinful grins. It begins behind every door marked crew only, and it’s a world unknown to everyone but those running the ship. That is, until we gained entry—spending seven days on a boat with the people whose cruise never ends.

DAY 1: SHIP TIME 17:00, SUN DECK
It’s embarkation day at the Port of Los Angeles, and the sun deck is packed with passengers sipping the first of many rum specials, oohing and aahing at the first of six Pacific sunsets. We’re setting out for the Mexican Riviera aboard a 92,000-ton marriage of German engineering and Middle American luxury. The 1,120 staterooms are booked to capacity with well over 2,000 passengers. Longer than a football field, it makes the Titanic look like a tugboat.

Each year 12 million Americans file onto cruise ships in port cities such as Miami, L.A., New York, and Seattle, bound for places like the Caribbean, the Mexican Riviera, and Alaska. Some will miss their departure time and have to chase their luggage by boat or plane, at their own expense, until they can catch the ship at the next port of call. Some will be the victims of crimes in the murky jurisdiction of international waters, and some will be the perpetrators. A handful will die on board, and a handful will go missing overboard. A few thousand will get the stomach flu, but the vast majority will get exactly the dream vacation they were looking for; because on average, for about every 2,000 passengers aboard a ship, there are roughly 1,000 crew there to make sure of this.

They are the lifeblood of the nearly $25 billion-a-year North American cruise ship industry—from the dishwasher working 72 hours a week for $400 a month to the magician working two hours a week for $10,000 a month.

DAY 3: SHIP TIME 13:00, PARADISE BAY POOL, DECK 12
Lounging on an upper tier of the sunbathing decks by the pool, Evan the Illusionist is appraising this week’s new batch of women. His tanned and toned physique covers the fact that, at 35, he’s older than most of the other entertainers on board. In a pile on Evan’s chest are the weekly newspaper clippings his father sends to his Port of Los Angeles P.O. box. He says reading these makes him feel like a kid off at summer camp instead of a man without a home.

“I did some TV work last year,” says Evan. “I’ve got an agent in L.A. But then I got offered another ship contract, and I couldn’t afford not to take it.”
Evan is at the top of the crew ladder. He lives in an officers’ cabin, has passenger privileges, and earns top dollar for his two hours of work a week. He spends most of his days by the pool sending drinks to young women across the plastic adult play set of faux palm trees and curly slides. A waiter well familiar with this routine carries over the offerings and points back at Evan. The ladies shoot big smiles, recognizing the shock of wavy black hair from last night’s headline act at the Starz Theater—where Evan the Illusionist pulled a few dozen Ping-Pong balls out of his mouth, turned them into balloons, and then bisected a pretty young dancer with a piece of sheet metal.

Lying on the chaise next to Evan and sharing the magician’s bucket of Coronas is Ray, a 30-year-old pothead surfer turned comedian. Ray criticizes Evan’s game while he thumbs a stripe of sunscreen onto his nose. “Have some balls, man. Just go over there,” chides Ray, brash and confident on the surface, but at the end of the day just a cougar hawk with a good line of talk. Evan, on the other hand, is all chivalry and shyness off-stage, but it’s he and not Ray who’s the center of several ship rumors of backstage threesomes and illicit affairs. As they debate their philosophies of seduction, a poolside cover band from Trinidad plays “Red Red Wine” for the 1,000th time since we set sail.

Both Ray and Evan have used their countless hours at sea to become professionals at the pickup. Whereas their land-based counterparts might spend a couple of nights a week at this pursuit, for these men it’s a full-time job. They come on board thinking they’ll write the next hot screenplay, read the classics, teach themselves to play guitar—all those things a guy with time on his hands will set out to do before he takes women and booze into consideration. So then they end up doing this seven days a week and God knows how many hours a day—forever working on the tan, the buzz, and the perfect approach.

“You do your job and then have 20 hours of free time a day,” says Daniel Thibault, CEO of Proship Entertainment, a Montreal-based cruise ship talent agency. “Some people can use it really well as a stepping stone to another level in their careers. Other people just get lost there, start drinking till oblivion, and do the same routine over and over again, and all of a sudden it’s all they can do.”

Evan throws his ID charge card down for another round of drinks, and Ray leans over the railing to watch a fortysomething woman sunning on her stomach, reach behind her back to undo her bikini top against the threat of tan lines.
“Naughty girl,” whispers Ray.
“In the ’80s, maybe,” says Evan.

“That’s a sexy woman, man. I don’t care how old she is,” says Ray.
“That’s a naughty girl,” says Evan, pointing to a young woman coming down the slide. “She looks over 18, right?”
Ray shrugs. Evan flags down the waiter to send over a drink.

DAY 5: SHIP TIME 20:00, STARZ THEATER, DECK 12
The 1,000-seat theater is packed to capacity for the adults-only ’70s song-and-dance show. The Jamaican cruise director sashays around the stage in a Gucci suit, three buttons of his shirt undone, warming up the crowd with an endless rendition of the ’60s bubblegum-rock hit “Hey! Baby.” Oozing charisma from every pore, he embodies a cruise ship's rags-to-riches fairy tale of working your way up from the bottom—in his case, from room steward to cruise director. When he’s not wooing widows or talking weather with family men, he’s been known to strut his stuff in the crew bar in a pink crop-top. At the back of the theater, Captain Hans sits in his private loge like Caesar at the Colosseum, his gold epaulets and Papa Hemingway beard glowing in the house lights. On the ship he is the final rule of law; if there is a fight in a bar it’s he who decides who gets locked in the brig. If there’s a disturbance among the crew, Captain Hans decides who should be fired. Whenever anyone in the crew mentions Hans–-men and women alike—they say his name the way a schoolgirl speaks the name of her crush.

Finally darkness falls on about 1,000 gray heads, and a few bars of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” rumble through the room. As the beat reaches a crescendo, the stage lights come up to reveal 20 fit and attractive young singers and dancers holding sultry poses in fog-machine mist. Their mesh and leopard-print attire borders on indecent. Housewives squeal as male dancers taunt them with sweaty biceps and roving hands—fooling every one of them into thinking it’s women who interest them and not the other male dancers in their troupe.

The girl-next-door lead singer has a penchant for threesomes, and left a job playing a main character at Euro Disney to work on the ship. Her handsome male counterpart ran away from Off-Broadway obscurity to be a star at sea; on port days he can be found sprawled out by the pools of portside resorts wearing nothing but nipple rings and a Burberry Speedo. The background dancer, 25, has been on ships since she was 19 and doesn’t have much of a life back 
home anymore. Because, explains cruise ship entertainment director Thibault, “If you stay on ships too long, no one back on land remembers you.”

SHIP TIME 23:00, CALYPSO BAR, DECK 12
The show’s performers are now sipping appletinis at Manhattan’s Martini Bar—an alcove off the Calypso Bar that looks like a three-walled sample room at Ikea. They’re staying off the serious drinking for now, because tomorrow is Acapulco Night, the port where they’re all allowed enough shore leave for things to get messy.

Before long it’s curfew hour for the performers. They’re dressed like passengers—if a bit more stylish—but they still have to wear their name tags in passenger areas, and at midnight they find their way to the crew only doors that lead them down to the bowels of the ship. The curfew is just a taste of the big brother presence of authority felt among the crew. The ubiquitous surveillance cameras serve as an around-the-clock warning to would-be rule breakers. Crew infractions aboard this ship range from the comical to the criminal. In a Deck 2 laundry room, a group of female dancers left six dryers filled with their clothes and returned 45 minutes later to find that their underwear had been stolen.

News travels fast on a ship, and the dancers quickly discovered that a group of men had auctioned them off within the crew. The men were all fired. In another incident, security was called to the lower decks when eight men were caught cooking a whole pig’s head in their cabin on a hot plate—here again, all were fired. An entire shift of engineers was reprimanded after treating a particularly surly superior to a week without plumbing or air-conditioning in his stateroom. But then there are the darker stories: a singer who was roofied by a juggler, a dancer who was twice sexually assaulted by other crew members. Many of the crew are paid in cash, which leaves them particularly vulnerable to theft.

The issue with crimes at sea isn’t that people are at greater risk on a ship than they are on land; the on-board crime rate is lower than most national averages, and the crew’s rules are strict and punishments harsh and final. The problem is that once a crime is committed, a conflict of interest arises. “The cruise lines don’t want their passengers or their crew members to be crime victims,” says Charles Lipcon, author of Unsafe on the High Seas and perhaps the world’s most successful prosecutor of cruise lines. “But if it happens, they become the adversary of the victims; they work against them because they’re afraid they’ll have a financial liability.” Added to that threat is bad press if someone is convicted of a crime aboard one of their ships.

In recent years a series of high-profile disappearances, unprosecuted rapes, and other unsolved mysteries at sea has brought increased scrutiny to the cruise industry. The FBI opened 184 cases of crimes on cruise ships between October 2001 and February 2007, including 101 sexual assaults, 12 missing persons, and 13 deaths. According to another source, 131 people have gone missing or overboard since 1995. “The FBI numbers are low,” says Lipcon. “The cruise lines only have to report crimes involving Americans to the FBI, and even those are underreported.”

Most of the time the high-tech eye of authority and the threat of strict punishment keep the tension of life at sea in check. But the tension is always there, and it’s easy to see when the booze starts flowing down in the Crew Bar. On this ship there is a .08 blood alcohol limit for the crew at all times, and though it isn’t all that uncommon for people to be fired for intoxication, the rule seems to go entirely ignored on Acapulco Night.

DAY 6: SHIP TIME 23:00, CREW BAR, ACAPULCO NIGHT
The Crew Bar peace has been shattered by the 12-hour furlough in Acapulco, where even the lowest echelons of the staff are allowed a few hours of shore leave to squander their meager incomes at beach clubs with bungee-jumping cranes, cage-dancing sorority girls, and bare-bellied Mexican barmaids hawking shots of cheap tequila. The scrum at the bar are waving their charge cards, while six-packs of Amstel Light and Smirnoff Ice are floated overhead like crowd surfers in a mosh pit. The floor is sticky, and the air is choked with smoke, the smell of sweat, and the aggression of drunken men who’ve gone too long without touching a woman. “You have these people working all the time, cooped up. They don’t have a chance to have a relationship and they get drunk and this is what happens,” says Lipcon.

A scene erupts by the door as a Caribbean woman slams her boyfriend against a wall. “’Dis happen ev’ry Acapulco Night!” she yells, in a frenzied patois. “Why you do this to me?” she screams before letting go of him and stomping back to the dance floor to join the sweaty mob that spawned the drama in the first place.

In the gay corner, Pacific Islanders who are “gay at sea” but have families back home stare down a ballroom dancer and a “would’ve been, could’ve been” Broadway singer. On a vinyl banquette, a Bavarian receptionist bawls into the arms of a man who wants to sleep with her. One by one slender chorus girls succumb to a day of hot sun and a night of hard drinking and are escorted away from the wolfish stares of the dishwashers and mechanics by uninterested male dance partners—back to their tiny cabins to throw up, pass out, or both.

The night has begun to topple over toward dawn and the threat of work in the morning. Soon the hallways outside will fill with crew members stumbling back to cramped bunks below the water line—six to a cabin without a bathroom—and dancers headed to the semi-privacy of their one-roommate abodes. Officers and headline acts will retire to private cabins, and a mixture of them all will wander around knocking on familiar doors for one last shot at some action.

Upstairs the all-night buffet is operating as usual, dishing out soft-serve ice cream, fish ’n’ chips, and pizza to a graveyard shift of elderly travel-point collectors, middle-aged Parrotheads, and their hyperactive, sunburned children. The Calypso Bar’s dance floor is hopping with stiff-backed men sweating through their Tommy Bahama shirts and divorcées with rum-blushed cheeks singing along to Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.” They’re a happy lot. They’ve shared hot tubs with strangers, gotten drunk at breakfast, and eaten three lunches in one day. This is their ship for the week, and the staff has helped them believe that their week is the best that’s ever been and that everyone working on the ship is thrilled to be here to enjoy it with them.

Soon they will all be asleep in their staterooms, dreaming of the morning maid service, the breakfast buffet, and a tour of some town whose name they can’t pronounce from the safety of an air-conditioned van. None will sense the downstairs madness or that tonight’s sick and stumbling dancers are tomorrow’s headline entertainment.

They don’t need to know about the lives of the crew any more than they need to know that on last week’s cruise, this ship struck and killed a sleeping gray whale and had to divert to Mazatlan, Mexico so the propeller pods could be unclogged and the blades replaced. They don’t need to know the rumors among staff that when one of them dies, the body is stored in a walk-in freezer. They don’t need to know that the food they leave on their plates is fed to the fish—down to 
the chocolate, the salad greens, and the curly fries. They don’t need to know that when they flush their toilets, the remains of their Promenade Grille hamburgers and their surf ’n’ turf dinners at Bogart’s Steakhouse are trapped in a tank, where they are solidified and stored for months.

They don’t need to know any of these things, and they never will, just as long as they don’t stay here long enough to notice that all is not as it seems.

Cruise lines serving U.S. ports would be required to improve crime reporting and safety measures under a bill approved Friday by the House of Representatives.

The measure would require cruise ship
to publicly report shipboard crimes, install peepholes in cabin doors and employ U.S. doctors and at least one crime-scene investigator, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The cruise industry has been a target of criticism over cases of missing passengers, sexual attacks and widespread illnesses aboard ships.

Most cruise ships, registered in foreign countries, are exempt from federal oversight and do not have to report shipboard crimes and illnesses or comply with U.S. labor laws.

The measure -- the first of its kind to go to a House vote -- drew praise from advocates of stricter oversight.

"I am absolutely thrilled," said Kendall Carver, the president of International Cruise Victims, whose daughter disappeared while on an Alaskan cruise in 2004. "It's been a long road and justice is winning out against an industry that really did everything they could to avoid regulations."

The legislation also would require video-surveillance systems, time-sensitive key cards and technology to help determine when someone goes overboard. And ships would be required to have anti-retroviral medications for rape victims to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, and sexual assault victims would have to have access to a rape-crisis hot line.

Cruise Lines International Association, an industry lobbying and marketing organization, says it supports the legislation. The association calls cruising one of the safer forms of leisure travel.

ix Carnival cruise ship passengers have been detained on the island of Antigua after a dispute over a cab fare ballooned into an alleged brawl with police.

The Antigua Sun today reports the six U.S. citizens -- Dolores Lalanne, 25, Mike Pierre Paul, 24, Joshua Jackson, 25, Shoshonnah Henry, 24, Nancy Lalanne, 22, and Rachael Henry, 27 -- have been charged with assault, battery and malicious damage and will be kept in the country pending trial.

The alleged brawl took place Friday after the cruisers arrived on the island aboard the Carnival Victory for what was supposed to be a 10-hour port call. The Associated Press says the incident began after the cruisers refused to pay a cab driver who gave them a tour because they believed they were being overcharged. The wire service says the driver had quoted the group $50 for a tour ending at a beach, and the dispute arose after he later told them the fare would be double to take them back to their ship. After the cruisers disputed the charge, the driver drove them to a police station, where the alleged brawl broke out.

The six cruisers, initially jailed on Friday, were released Monday on bail of $5,000 but have had to surrender their travel documents and must check in regularly with the court, the Sun reports.

The Sun says one of the passengers, Shoshonnah Henry, walked into Monday's court hearing with a limp her attorney said was the result of Friday's scuffle. The lawyer told the court the cruisers had endured deplorable conditions over the weekend in Antigua's jail that included being subjected to repeated mosquito bites.

"The females’ faces are riddled with bumps and marks from being kept at the station," the Sun quotes the lawyer as saying.

The Sun says Shoshonnah Henry faces the majority of charges and is accused of beating four police officers -- a male and three females -- during the melee. One of the officers, Dee Dee Frederick, allegedly sustained an injury over one of her eyes, had her hair pulled out at the root and was bitten several times in the back, the news outlet reports.

The 2,758-passenger Carnival Victory was on a seven-night Southern Caribbean voyage out of Barbardos that ends Wednesday.

The legislation would make shipboard crime reporting mandatory and require installation of security latches and peepholes on cabin doors, among other measures.

The nation's cruise ship industry, in a turnaround from its long-standing position that no additional government oversight is needed, endorsed proposed federal safety legislation Monday, paving the way for increased security measures on cruise ships.

Cruise Lines International Assn., the industry's chief lobbying and advocacy organization representing 24 member cruise lines, sent a letter of support to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), one of the bill's sponsors. Association President Terry Dale said in the letter that he would work to ensure the passage of the comprehensive security bill.

If it passes, the bill would make shipboard crime reporting mandatory and require installation of security latches and peepholes on cabin doors. Ship physicians would also have to be trained in sexual assault examinations.

Ken Carver, president and founder of International Cruise Victims, called the shift "a historic moment."

"I think they've really taken a lot of heat, and I'm glad to see them joining forces," Carver said, adding that he believes with the cruise industry's backing the bill will pass.

The $38-billion-a-year industry had maintained that cruises were one of the safest forms of vacationing and that its own self-regulation was adequate. But in recent years, after several high-profile reports of missing persons and sexual assaults, cruise lines had increasingly come under scrutiny.

If the bill passes, it would be a significant victory for safety advocates who have long alleged that the industry skirts regulation by registering its vessels in foreign countries to avoid U.S. labor laws and income tax.

The industry requested one major concession: deletion of an amendment to the Death on the High Seas Act that would have allowed surviving relatives to recover damages for emotional suffering and bereavement, as well as any pain and suffering the victim may have experienced before death.

Under the existing law, survivors of people who die at sea can recover only lost wages or burial expenses.

If a retired person died, for example, family members would get little if any money, Miami maritime attorney James Walker said.

The legislation would also clarify the long-debated issue of crime reporting. The bill would establish a reporting structure based on the current voluntary reporting guidelines.

Each ship would be required to maintain a logbook to record all deaths, missing persons, alleged crimes, and complaints of theft, sexual harassment and assault. That data would also be posted on a website maintained by the Coast Guard.

Royal Princess Cruise Ship Update, 5:44 p.m. EDT: The latest from Princess is that the fire has been extinguished, but passengers will remain at their muster stations until further notice. The ship is currently operating on emergency power and lighting. We'll keep you posted.

(3:23 p.m. EDT) -- A fire broke out in the engine room on Princess Cruises' Royal Princess at 8:10 p.m. local time on Thursday as the ship was departing from Port Said, Egypt. No injuries have been reported, but one passenger was taken to the ship's medical center after complaining of chest pain.

A statement from Princess says that passengers aboard were called to their muster stations, and fire teams were deployed. All 733 passengers and 393 crewmembers have been accounted for. Royal Princess is currently in the middle of a 12-night Holy Land sailing from Rome to Athens and is now anchored off the coast of Port Said.

Princess spokeswoman Karen Candy said there is no word yet on whether the incident will delay any of the ship's remaining calls in Ashdod (Jerusalem), Haifa, Kusadasi or Patmos Island. Royal Princess is due in Athens on the 25th.

Princess has established phone lines to field inquiries from family members of passengers and crew aboard the ship. For inquiries about passengers, dial (800) 693-7222. For inquiries about crewmembers, call (661) 753-2804.

We'll keep you posted as further information becomes available.

The annals of shipboard entertainment are a study in the growing ADD-ness of travelers; there once was a day when week-long ocean crossings were happily passed with games of shuffleboard and skeet shooting, and then we graduated to learning napkin-folding and wine pairings during Caribbean cruises. These days however, it seems as though even 4-night trips require access to D-list celebrities, rock climbing walls and mini-golf greens.

Would you believe that we've done all of the above—well, we watched the skeet shooting and never touched the celeb—and yet we remain flabbergasted by the amenity that Royal Caribbean is trying to bring onboard their new Oasis of the Seas. It's a freaking blimp-on-a-string!

Technically, the baby dirigible you see above is something called an "aerostat," a possible future entertainment option aboard the 5,400-passenger Oasis if she passes her sea trials and they surmount some practicality issues. If it gets a green light, the airship will raise from its stern docking station to rise 165 feet above the ship, giving some brave passengers postcard-perfect views down onto their vessel.

What do you think? Should a ship be towing a floaty thing full of paying passengers while in the middle of open water? Would you go up in it? Perhaps the probable failure of this idea will mark an end to the installation of massive "wow" features onboard ships, and maybe then we can just get back to cruising.

Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Seas Add Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Seas to the list of ships affected by suspected H1N1, the virus formerly known as swine flu the vessel is stuck at sea after being denied entry to two ports so far this week.

The vessel, currently sailing a seven-night Southern Caribbean itinerary, was banned from calling in St. Lucia Wednesday and Antigua Thursday after two crewmembers and a passenger exhibited flu-like symptoms, according to a Royal Caribbean press release. Cruise Critic got word of the situation via Twitter.

Colin James, chief executive officer for the Antigua and Barbuda Tourism Authority, tells us that although all three people were quarantined and treated during the ship's last call in Barbados, officials kept the ship from visiting St. Lucia. Permission to dock in Antigua was also denied, based on advice from Antigua's chief medical officer and minister of health.

James also added that the cases were confirmed swine flu; however, a Royal Caribbean spokeswoman says that full lab results have not yet been made available.

Scheduled stops remaining on Adventure of the Seas' current itinerary include St. Maarten and St. Croix. There has been no word yet on whether those stops will occur or where the ship is headed next.

In May, other Royal Caribbean crewmembers also fell ill with swine flu on Serenade of the Seas, as did crew on Holland America's Zaandam. Both ships were sailing Alaska itineraries at the time.

The cruise ship Pacific Dawn has been diverted to a remote north Queensland cay after three new suspected cases of swine flu were reported.

All three suspected new cases were among crew members, who had been swabbed for flu and cleared after the ship docked in Sydney on its last cruise.

All crew on the vessel were given Tamiflu as a precaution before the vessel left Sydney for a planned cruise to the Whitsundays and Cairns.

But it is possible that crew members who had not shown symptoms of the flu in Sydney would not have tested positive for the disease, even though they could have been carrying it.

The Pacific Dawn is currently cruising up the Queensland coast with a new load of passengers after docking in Sydney on Monday when it was the centre of a swine flu alert.

On the cruise into Sydney, flu-like symptoms were reported by 172 passengers - five of whom were Queenslanders who subsequently tested positive for the disease.

The ship had reportedly been disinfected, and crew members tested and cleared before a new load of passengers boarded for the Queensland cruise.

The three crew members today suspected of having swine flu have tested positive to Influenza A. They are now all in quarantine aboard the Pacific Dawn.

The latest suspected infections have forced the liner to cancel its Whitsunday plans, and it is now heading for remote Willis Island, 400km off Cairns.

The island, home to a weather station, is just 500m long and 150m wide and its highest point is reportedly just under 10m above sea level.

A New South Wales Health officer on board the vessel has swabbed all three crew members so tests can be done, but the vessel is so far offshore that it will be some time until they can be sent to the mainland for testing.

A smaller vessel is due to meet the Pacific Dawn off the southern Queensland coast to bring the swabs back to the mainland for testing.

The results are expected to be known before the ships' scheduled arrival at Port Douglas.

Also today, Queensland Health confirmed eight cases of swine flu in the state.

The list now includes a four-year-old boy who tested positive for the disease.

He is being treated in Nambour Hospital. The boy was among the passengers on Pacific Dawn's previous cruise into Sydney.

Meanwhile, Queensland Health is considering opening a second flu clinic as the number of cases rise.

An influx of suspect swine flu cases at the Gold Coast Hospital in Southport prompted authorities to set up a flu clinic at Robina Hospital on Tuesday.

Now Queensland's chief health officer Jeannette Young says a second clinic may be opened.

"We are considering whether to open a flu clinic at the Gold Coast Hospital," Dr Young said.

"We are keeping a very tight control over this and we are making the decisions as they come up."

Before news emerged of the latest suspected infections on Pacific Dawn, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said questions need to be asked about how infected passengers of a P&O cruise ship were allowed to travel interstate, as well as the wider implications for the handling of entry of any passengers from international destinations.

Ms Bligh said the cruise operators were co-operating fully and the ship would not dock in a populated area for several days if cases were confirmed on board, until the incubation period of the swine flu had lapsed.

She said this was the first time systems formulated in preparation for the Avian flu scare five years ago were put in place and "quite frankly it begs a lot of questions".

Ms Bligh said state and federal governments were in daily contact about developments in the swine flu pandemic, to ensure they were as prepared as possible and to ensure the public was fully informed.

Ms Bligh emphasised that parents needed to have a "plan B" as schools could be closed without notice if there was a confirmed case in the student or staff population.

"No school has closed yet, but we are saying to parents this could happen at short notice so they need to talk to grandparents or have some plan B in place."

British pensioners on a cruise ship bravely fought off machine gun-armed Somali pirates by hurling deckchairs and tables at them.

The holidaymakers were enjoying a midnight Mozart concert onboard MSC Melody when pirates armed with Kalashnikovs attempted to board it using grappling hooks and ladders.

But passengers forced them back to their boats by throwing chairs and tables over the stern of the ship as Israeli security guards onboard the cruise liner fired warning shots.

The ship was a week into a 22-day cruise in the Indian Ocean, 180 miles north of the Seychelles, when it came under attack from pirates in speedboats.

Maureen Gawthrop, 66, from Barnsley, said: 'We were enjoying a classical concerto on the pool deck when everyone heard a cracking sound.

'The applause for the musicians died down suddenly and someone came running in from the open deck and shouted "pirates".

'Crew members acted quickly to evacuate passengers into their cabins and told them to lock their doors.

'We went to our cabin and we could hear bullets whizzing and clanging as they hit the ship.

'I saw a white speed boat riding alongside on the wake of the ship about 15 yards away. There were eight men dressed in green camouflage who turned and fired at us.

'We couldn't believe it was happening, it was unreal.'

Husband Roy, 66, added: 'We later learned what we witnessed was the aftermath of the incident. The pirates had tried to get on board the ship with short rope ladders and failed.'

Ian Moakes, 62, from Forest Town, Mansfield, said passengers were terrified as the hijackers began shooting at the ship.

He said: 'We were told to go to our cabins, lock the doors and not to answer the door to anyone and they would let us know what was happening.

'A lot of the crew were elderly and very frightened because they didn't know what was going on.

'I was very frustrated because there was no news coming through and I was stuck in the cabin.'

The ship's captain ordered security guards to fire two warning shots to scare off the attackers, but many of the passengers did not know the full extent of the attack until 36 hours later.

'There were a lot of angry people on board as a lot of misinformation was given out.

'Only when we got off the boat at Aqaba did I realise that it could have been a lot nastier - there were bullet holes in the side of the ship from their Kalashnikov rifles.'

Wife Jessie, 61, said the ordeal had no put her off travelling abroad.

'It was not until after the incident that I realised how serious it was,' she said.

'It ruined our holiday but we will go again - just not to the Indian Ocean, it is far too dangerous.'

Owner of MSC Cruises, Gianluigi Aponte, said the ship's crew took all necessary precautions to avoid the attack, which happened in April.

He said: 'We are very proud that our crew proved to be able to promptly tackle the emergency.

'At the moment of the attack, the ship was 600 nautical miles from Somalian coast, in an area that is not considered dangerous, and 180 nautical miles from Seychelles.

'All security measures adopted worked perfectly. Captain Ciro Pinto followed all security protocols provided, guiding the ship out of danger with a sequence of evasive manoeuvres.'

Pirate attacks on ships passing through the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean have soared this year, with attacks nearly doubling between January and March.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- State health officials had expected to get verification Monday that a crew member aboard a cruise ship in Alaska waters contracted swine flu, but officials may have to wait a bit longer.

Ann Potempa, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Social Services, said it looks increasingly unlikely the verification would come Monday.

The testing was done at the Washington State Public Health Laboratory and was being verified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Dr. Jay Butler, Alaska's chief medical officer, announced Sunday that the crew member aboard the Serenade of the Seas had a probable case of swine flu but testing was being conducted by the federal health agency for confirmation. No other people aboard the ship reported flu-like symptoms since the woman became ill on May 2. She was placed in isolation two days later.

The female crew member underwent a course of treatment with Tamiflu, an anti-viral medication that is effective against swine flu. She has not had flu symptoms or been running a fever for several days.

Cynthia Martinez, spokeswoman for Royal Caribbean International, said the female crew member completed a CDC-recommended 7-day period of isolation, but she did not know if the crew member had been cleared to rejoin the crew. She said the woman will have to meet with the ship's doctor and be cleared to go back to work.

The Serenade of the Seas is on a 14-day cruise to southeast Alaska and Canada. Its next port-of-call is in Sitka on Tuesday. It departed San Francisco and headed north on May 2, the same day the female crew member began feeling sick.

Butler has said there is no reason to restrict the movement of passengers aboard the ship, as long as they are not reporting flu-like symptoms.

Before embarking on the Alaska cruise, the Serenade of the Seas departed San Juan, Puerto Rico for a 14-night Panama Canal voyage in which the ship visited Mexico, the country hit hardest by swine flu. Scientists now say that the new strain of swine flu could have sickened 23,000 people in Mexico before anyone realized it was an epidemic on April 23.

Butler said the ship's medical staff followed strict isolation procedures to prevent the spread of the illness.

At least 61 people have been killed by swine flu around the world, and the World Health Organization has confirmed 4,800 cases.

Butler said the case aboard the ship can't be considered Alaska's first case for several reasons, including that the testing was done outside Alaska and the crew member is not an Alaskan.

Have you had your breakfast/lunch/dinner yet? Because this story is bound to upset your stomach.

While on a Mediterranean cruise, 58 year old Raymond Evans hurt his knee during a fall. The injury was nothing serious, but the ships doctor put Mr. Evans on an antibiotic regimen, just to be safe.

Despite the shots, his widow said his condition started to deteriorate, and that the back of his knee was turning black. This developed into a "blotchy blackness" that spread to his chest, elbow and fingers, and he was admitted into the ships hospital.

When the ship docked in Alexandria, Egypt, Mr.Evans was transported to the intensive care unit of the city's hospital where he died hours later. The total time from noticing the blackness on his knee till death was just 24 hours.

A pathologist told the official inquiry that Mr.Evans had been infected by the flesh-eating bug necrotising fasciitis

The pathologist concluded that Mr.Evans had not caught the bug during his fall, because the symptoms of the flesh eating bug usually start hours after being infected, so the most probable source was something on the cruise ship that entered through his wounds.

This is of course just another example of the health risks involved with cruise ships. For years, cruise lines have struggled with the norovirus as we previously covered here, here and here. Still, common sense and basic hygiene precautions should help keep you perfectly safe when you get on board.

The recent decisions by cruise companies to redeploy ships from Alaska voyages in 2010 will have broad ripple effects in the state's economy, particularly in Southcentral-Interior Alaska regions.

The visitor loss is estimated at 140,000 in 2010, which translates to 1,800 tourism-related jobs lost statewide, and a loss of $72 million per year in annual payroll.

In Southcentral Alaska, there will be 300 cruise-related jobs lost in 2010 of 3,000 employed in a typical year. In the Interior there will be 309 jobs lost of 2,500 usually employed due to cruise ship tourists.

Ralph Samuels, Holland-American Lines' vice president for Alaska, presented the dismal projections on lost passengers and jobs May 30 in a presentation to the Resource Development Council in Anchorage.

The redeployment in 2010 is a one-two punch for the state's tour industry, however, because 2009 is likely be a down year as well. The ships and passengers may come north but tourists are likely to tighten their wallets, Samuels told the RDC.

Cruise ships will operate because schedules have been committed and the companies will fill them through heavy discounting, he said. One company is now offering a seven-day cruise to Alaska for $299.

"The passengers will be there but will they spend any money once they get here? That's what has people worried," Samuels said.

Land tours to Denali National Park and Fairbanks from cruise ship ports in Seward and Whittier are likely to suffer in 2009.

Many people hope a rush of late reservations may improve things but it has been slow so far, Samuels said. For example, reservations were down 40 percent from last year for the locally owned Riverboat Discovery tour in Fairbanks, and the family-owned company will probably hire a third fewer people to staff the operation this year, he said.

As for 2010, Alaskans helped encourage the departure of the ships by approving a voter initiative implementing a $50-per-passenger tax on cruise tourists. To top it off, much of the money hasn't even been spent because of legal questions over what it can be spent on. It's still sitting in the state treasury, Samuels told the RDC.

The consequences of the redeployment are even worse than the numbers would indicate, however, because those ships, and the marketing dollars that go with them, will be competing with Alaska, luring vacationers to the Caribbean or Mediterranean instead of Alaska.

The cruise companies' profit margins in Alaska are taking a beating for a lot of reasons, the long sailing distances across the Gulf of Alaska being one, but the $50 passenger tax is high on the list. The redeployed ships won't return until margins improve and the effects of the 2010 redeployment will likely extend through 2011 and 2012, Samuels said.

The national recession set the stage for this, but the $50-per-passenger head tax on cruise visitors has made matters worse, Samuels said, along with the threat of applying unrealistic high, and costly, environmental requirements on the ships.

This year the state Legislature gave the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation authority until 2015 to waive application of the most stringent standards, but cruise ships in Alaska have met some of the initial requirements of the 2006 citizen initiative.

The $50 tax is added to the passenger's ticket, but the cruise companies eat the cost in the end because they have to keep the overall price low enough to compete with cruises to other destinations.

"This isn't about taking a stand (on the tax). It's about the economics. It's simply a business decision," the cruise companies have to make, Samuels said.

Much of the money collected from the head tax is still sitting in the state treasury because of legal uncertainties as to what the money can be spent on. The tax income has to be spent on things that benefit the cruise ships or its passengers, or it runs the risk of being unconstitutional under the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, which bars states from imposing taxes on trade with other states except under certain circumstances.

Of $115 million collected in fiscal years 2007 and 2008, some $45 million is still unappropriated. Legislators have struggled to find appropriate cruise-related projects to spend the money on, and some of the $70 million actually appropriated to date may be on projects that may not pass muster if there is a lawsuit. If that happens, the state will have to refund the taxes to the cruise passengers.

The tax is also creating a lot of bad publicity for Alaska in the international travel press.

In his presentation, Samuels cited independent and influential travel publications like Cruise News Daily, Cruiseblogger and Travel News.

On April 9, Cruise Daily headlined an article with, "What's wrong with Alaska's thinking?" and went on to say "wrong thinking in Alaska is threatening to destroy the entire tourism industry as they know it."

Cruiseblogger wrote, "Prices are down and the state has added tremendously to the cost side of the equation in the Alaska market. As a result there are other markets where it's more profitable to operate cruises than Alaska, and there are more opening all the time."

Similarly, Johanna Jainchill, a writer for Travel News, wrote, "Recent decisions by cruise lines to redeploy ships from Alaska because of high costs imposed by a 2006 citizen referendum reflect the confluence of the recession, which has cut into Alaska cruise prices, and the provisions of the measure, which add to the cruise companies' costs of operating in Alaska."

The Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act of 2009 were introduced to keep Americans aware and safe on cruise ships. Ship safety has been a concern for years, but with recent media coverage on mysterious deaths, sicknesses and accidents aboard cruise ships has made consumers more aware of possible problems at sea.

The legislation would mandate that: guard rails would reach 54 inches in height, passenger stateroom and crew cabins entry doors have peep holes, security latches and time sensitive key technology. Technology would also be added to detect when a passenger falls overboard. It would also limit the number of crew members who have access to staterooms.

A reporting structure which is based on a current voluntary agreement would be established between the cruise industry, the FBI and the Coast Guard. The FBI, Coast Guard and local law enforcement would also have availability to ship log books which would document all deaths, accidents, thefts, assaults, harassments, and missing individuals.

To improve crime scene response each ship would be required to provide anti-retroviral medications and medications that prevent sexually transmitted diseases after a sexual assault as well as other equipment to determine sexual assault. A United States licensed medical practitioner would also be aboard each ship.

Each cruise ship would have a crew member who would be trained in crime scene investigation. This crew member would be trained trough a program which would be designed by the US Coast Guard and the FBI. This training program certified by Administrator of the Maritime Administration.

To enforce safety and environment standards the Coast Guard would be authorized to dispatch personnel to monitor discharge of waste. They also would act as a public safety officer who would collect and secure evidence in alleged crime scenes. This bill would also establish fair and equal remedies for people injured in boating disasters and would amend the Death on the High Seas Act for persons who die from negligence.

PORT CANAVERAL - Emmanouil Kasselas, captain of Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas, called the ship his “little puppy” hours after docking at Port Canaveral on Monday.

“Big dog” is more appropriate.

And more dogs are coming.

Freedom of the Seas is the world’s largest cruise ship, running more than 1,100 feet long and holding up to 4,375 passengers. It’s the first of four huge cruise ships that will begin sailing from Port Canaveral between now and 2012, and tourism and port officials said their presence here will generate millions in additional tourism spending and solidify the area’s reputation as a major player in the cruise business.

They’re banking on cruise passengers coming to Brevard County a day or two prior to their cruise to stay in local hotels, eat at restaurants and visit some of the area’s tourist attractions.

“Today is a defining moment in the history of the port,” J. Stanley Payne, chief executive officer of Port Canaveral, said Monday following a brief tour and ceremony on board the Freedom of the Seas, noting the heated competition from ports worldwide to secure deals with the massive ships.

Payne added: “We feel this is the right size, and certainly the right size for the market we have.”

The 154,000-ton Freedom of the Seas, which looked capable of gobbling Royal Caribbean’s smaller Monarch of the Seas, docked nearby, soon will have some big company.

This fall, Carnival Cruise Lines bring its largest ship to date at Port Canaveral, the 130,000-ton Carnival Dream. The Dream accommodates 3,652 passengers.

Then Disney Cruise Line plans to base its two new big ships, the Dream and the Fantasy, at Port Canaveral in 2011 and 2012. The new Disney ships will weigh 122,000 tons each with a double-occupancy capacity of 2,500 passengers.

While there has been growth lately in the popularity of shorter, three- tofour-day cruise excursions, industry experts generally agree the big ships and the longer cruise offerings should mix nicely with what’s already being offered at Port Canaveral.

“They are very popular with cruise enthusiasts, who don’t want to take shorter cruises,” Paul Motter, president of CruiseMates, an Internet cruise guidebook, said of the longer outings.

“I think you should think of them as an additive cruise product that actually will not compete with the three- and four-day product. Royal Caribbean’s Freedom-class ships are immensely popular with a large number of regular cruisers, and Port Canaveral is very lucky to have them,” Motter said.

Oivind Mathisen, editor of Cruise Industry News, said during tough economic times, shorter cruises tend to pick up but that during the past few years, the trend has been more seven-day trips.

“I think the cruise industry has been very flexible — adjusting to market needs and conditions, offering different lengths of cruises, moving ships to different ports, enhancing the onboard product, in addition to pricing strategies to fill the ships,” Mathisen said.

The Freedom of the Seas left Monday afternoon with 3,900 passengers for a six-day cruise to the western Caribbean. Upon its return, the ship will be offering seven-day cruises from Port Canaveral to both the eastern and western Caribbean.

Passengers began boarding Monday morning, just a few hours after the ship’s 6 a.m. docking at Port Canaveral’s Terminal 10. Guests were greeted with glasses of champagne, and many of them wasted little time before checking out the ship’s amenities.

“I thought it was a city,” said Issie Bell-Yovich, a West Melbourne resident who was taking a honeymoon cruise with her husband, George.

Bell-Yovich said she has been on short cruises but prefers the longer ones because you can unpack and become more thoroughly adjusted to your living quarters.

“It allows you to unwind,” she said.

Local Brevard officials who toured the ship and met with the crew during a special noon ceremony said the out-of-town visitors should charge up the local tourism base and bring in millions in additional revenues.

“We’ll have 7,000 to 8,000 new visitors to the city,” said Rocky Randels, mayor of Cape Canaveral. “Many of them will be staying at our hotels. They’ll be asking: ‘Where do I eat? Where do I go to the drug store?'”

Several cruise operators who this week suspended calls to Mexican ports over the swine flu scare will divert ships to the Port of San Diego, giving the region an unexpected economic boost.

At least 12 unscheduled cruise ships will stop for the day, and in at least one case overnight, during the next two weeks. That could generate as much as $12 million for San Diego restaurants, retail stores and attractions, as well as companies that service and provide supplies to the cruise ships, according to a study by the Cruise Lines International Association.

The first two of the diverted cruise ships are expected to arrive today, carrying a collective 5,000 passengers. Princess Cruises' Sapphire Princess, which was diverted from Ensenada, will arrive about 7 a.m. and leave at 6 p.m., while Royal Caribbean's Serenade of the Seas, which skipped its Acapulco port call, arrives at noon and departs around midnight.

Another two diverted cruise ships, carrying a total of 2,300 passengers, will dock tomorrow. Cruise operators have arranged to have other ships dock through May 14.

“It's going to be bustling here,” said Marguerite Elicone, a spokeswoman for the port. “Economically, it's an added blessing that, unfortunately, came out of a bad situation. But we hope the passengers will get off the ships and try the shops and attractions along the waterfront.”

Major cruise-ship operators such as Carnival, Royal Caribbean International and Norwegian Cruise Line on Tuesday abruptly canceled port calls to Mexico, both for ships that were already sailing and for future voyages.

The temporary suspension of port calls in Mexico – most cruise operators have been vague about when the ban will be lifted – came after a recommendation by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to avoid nonessential travel to Mexico.

Among the cruise ships disrupted was the Elation, a Carnival ship that is berthed in San Diego. The ship makes twice-weekly cruises to Ensenada.

Because the Elation begins and ends its voyages in San Diego, rather than making a daylong or overnight port stop here, its economic impact is not as great for local businesses because passengers tend not to take local tours or wander around and browse, local retailers say.

Which is why some businesses in Seaport Village were feeling a little festive yesterday. It's as if Christmas – a bleak retail season last year as the economy tanked – is arriving now, with steamer trunks in tow.

“This will absolutely bring a huge increase in sales, without a doubt,” said Lindsay Martin, owner of California Original Sunglasses, a Seaport Village vendor. “Spring break is over and summer hasn't yet begun, so this will keep us a little busier.”

Terry Hall, general manager of Seaport Village, said her management team scrambled yesterday to hire a professional greeter to welcome passengers dockside, and a shuttle to ferry them to Seaport Village's 17 restaurants and 48 retailers.

“Believe me, shuttles are hard to find on short notice, but we'll have one running back and forth all day long,” Hall said. “We had to reroute a few things in the budget, but we figured the expense will be worth it.”

Jimmy Parker, a spokesman for the Gaslamp Quarter Association, said downtown retailers and restaurants are also looking forward to the temporary flood of cruise passengers.

Typically, cruise ships that dock in San Diego arrive early in the morning and depart before downtown shops and nightclubs get into full swing, Parker said. This time it appears the Gaslamp will get a crack at some of that business, he said.

“Based on the timing and the longer stays, it could be quite lucrative,” Parker said. “It certainly can't hurt, and it gives us another opportunity to showcase San Diego, so it is good for everybody.”

Whether the port gets additional cruise ships that make port calls in San Diego after May 14 is uncertain, because the course of the swine flu outbreak is unpredictable and the traditional cruise season winds down at the end of May, port officials said.

It was four years ago this month when a retired couple from Westminster disappeared off a cruise ship in the Caribbean. The family may never know what happened, but they are using that tragedy to try and change the law and make cruising safer.

The cruise was a Mother’s Day gift for his parents Hue Pham and Hue Tran of Westminster.

Son Michael Pham said “Mom and Dad deserve that. They worked very hard since we came her 30 years ago, retired and lived happily in Southern California.”

Then, Son Michael Pham got a call from his sister who was on the cruise with their parents.

“They told me They can’t find mom and dad and ship is in the middle of ocean...that’s the very beginning of our nightmare.” Son Michael Pham told us.

His parents were on a 7-day cruise from Puerto Rico on Carnival’s Destiny ship in May of 2005 when they disappeared. He says as the ship headed to Aruba—all that was found on deck was…

“Both my parents sandals my mom’s purse, and the book she was reading” said Son Michael Pham.

After a Coast Guard search and an FBI investigation, the authorities determined there was “ no evidence of...foul play” and closed the investigation. The cause of death “at sea” …“unknown”.

Reporter Ana Garcia asks, “Have you ever been told officially what happened to your family?”

Michael Pham: there was absolutely no effort by the cruise line whatsoever

Carnival cruises it has “provided its full support and cooperation to US authorities in their investigation”

Kendal carver knows Son Michael’s pain his daughter disappeared off a cruise ship. “We’re not looking for a piece of luggage, we’re looking for our daughter.”

Kendall Carver says his daughter Merrian of Cambridge Massachusetts went on a 7-day Celebrity cruise to Alaska on board the Mercury in August of 2004 and she disappeared. Carver claims Celebrity never notified the family she was missing. In fact it was the Boston Police that figured it out Merrian disappeared at sea after the family filed a missing persons report weeks after the cruise ended..

Kendall Carver says, “We later found out they took her items and gave them away to charity.”

Carver sued Royal Caribbean and settled for an undisclosed amount. Royal Caribbean contends it did not know Merrian was missing until the family notified them. The company says they then notified the FBI. They say they have since changed their policy to require all passengers to “swipe their computerized ID cards to confirm all guests have disembarked.”

“I can’t change them...Son Michael Pham’s family can’t change them but maybe if we got together as a group maybe we would have a chance of taking on this industry.” Explained Kendall Carver.

Carver’s family tragedy outraged some on Capitol Hill including Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. Carver was called to testify at Washington hearings.

Kendall Carver testifying in DC, “For us to figure out what happened on that cruise ship I had to hire an international detective agency.”

Son Michael Pham also testified about his tragedy...he and Carver have now become activists through the International Cruise Victims Association. And they have a friend in California Congresswoman Doris Matsui.

“Everybody believes that the cruise ship is the safest place to be. It’s not.” Says Congresswoman Doris Matsui.

Congresswoman Matsui and Senator Kerry are pushing Congress to pass the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act; a bill supporters say would make vacations at sea a lot safer

“Just a peephole would be very helpful” says Congresswoman Doris Matsui.

So I took a cruise from LA on Royal Caribbean’s Monarch of the Seas.

On the Monarch of seas ship Reporter Ana Garcia says “The cruise ship safety bill in Washington would require all cabins to have peepholes and safety latches. My cabin doesn’t have either of them.”

That was last October. My cabin did have a deadbolt, but no additional latches. The cruise bill also proposes raising guardrail height on ships to “54 inches” or 4 and half feet to reduce the number of people falling overboard. We measured the Monarch’s railing, it was a about foot shorter than that.

Ana says, “42 inches” About the same as Carnival’s which are 44 inches according to the company. The bill would also require new technology to detect when a passenger falls overboard.

Vicki Freed senior VP of Royal Caribbean says, “people should feel very safe aboard our ship” Vicki Freed says, “All of our new ships are being built with peepholes" Royal Caribbean told us since our investigation, they have installed peepholes on “all guest staterooms” and the installation of peepholes on the Monarch was completed in February. Royal Caribbean says its “ships meet or exceed safety and security requirements. “ Guest staterooms have deadbolts locks which cannot be overridden by an electronic key card.

Carnival Cruises says, “all passenger stateroom doors throughout Carnival’s 22-ship feet have peepholes”

Congresswoman Matsui says, “Senator Kerry and I are absolutely committed to this.” Son Michael Pham, “every mother’s day now is different for us because it’s not mother’s day anymore. On mother’s day we get together and it’s a memory day for our mom and dad.” Kendall carver visibly upset says, “It’s taken a long time to get to this point.

Ana asks Kendall, “Have you even had a funeral?”

Kendall says, “No.”

Royal Caribbean and Carnival cruises say they follow the safety standards required by an international treaty know as “Safety of Life at Sea” or SOLAS which sets standards for things like guardrail heights and number of lifeboats. It was established after the Titanic disaster. The proposed bill we just outlined would go beyond those guidelines for ships sailing in the US.

Five of the world's largest cruise lines suspended all stops in Mexico on Tuesday because of the swine flu outbreak, dealing another blow to that country's battered tourism industry.

The situation could mean additional cruise ship business at two Southern California ports of call, San Diego and Santa Catalina Island.

"We hate to benefit from some else's misery, but it's great if we get cruise ships every day for seven days straight," said Donna Harris, marketing director for the visitors bureau on Catalina, where cruise ships ferry passengers to shore in small boats.

"We are happy to welcome the cruise passengers who come," said Kate Buska, a spokeswoman for the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau. "It's a great place for cruisers to visit."

Carnival Corp. and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., the world's two largest cruise lines, made the announcement in response to recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to avoid nonessential travel to the country. Princess Cruises, which is owned by Carnival Corp., along with Holland America Line Inc., one of the oldest cruise lines in the world, and Norwegian Cruise Line Corp. Ltd. also suspended all stops to Mexico.

To avoid docking in Mexico, the cruise lines either will route ships to alternative ports, such as San Diego or Santa Catalina Island, or will spend additional time at sea. Passengers already on the ships are unlikely to get a refund because of the change in itineraries, but travelers who are scheduled to take a cruise to a Mexican port may be offered a chance to switch to a ship with a different route, such as cruises to Alaska. No cases of swine flu have been reported on any cruise ships that have docked in Mexico.

"We hope people will understand that this is beyond our control," said Karen Candy, a spokeswoman for Princess Cruises. "We understand there will be some disappointment."

The Mexican cruise business has exploded, with the number of passengers more than doubling since 2000. Although destinations like the Caribbean and the Mediterranean draw many more passengers, Mexico is one of the world's top 10 destinations for cruise lines, with nearly 6.5 million passengers in 2008, according to the Cruise Lines International Assn.

A spokesman at Ensenada's party hot spot, Papas & Beer, said business has not dropped significantly in the last few weeks. But he wondered if the decision by the cruise ship lines could sink many ports of call businesses.

"We are very worried," said the spokesman, who declined to give his name.

The announcements are another blow to Mexico's economy, which has been reeling from the fallout of the swine flu outbreak that began in Mexico and is popping up across the globe.

Cruise line representatives said the ships that were already out at sea Tuesday have been rerouted to avoid Mexican ports. Decisions about whether to cancel, reschedule or reroute future ships destined for Mexico are on hold, pending meetings with health officials, the cruise lines said.

For example, the Sapphire Princess, a luxury boat that holds 2,600 passengers in 750 cabins, left from San Pedro on Saturday for a seven-day cruise, with a stop scheduled for Tuesday in Puerto Vallarta, followed by ports of call in Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas later in the week.

Instead, the ship remained off the coast of Mexico on Tuesday and was rerouted to San Diego and Santa Catalina Island, said Candy of Princess Cruises.

"Now, they have two ports to stop at instead of three, so there will be extra time at sea," she said.

So far, cruise line passengers seem to be taking the news in stride.

Mike Driscoll, editor of Cruise Week, an industry newsletter based in Brookfield, Ill., said he has heard of no widespread cancellations.

"Everyone is taking a wait-and-see approach," he said.

The reaction from cruise passengers who were sending online messages to blogs and other websites from the ships echoed those sentiments.

Laura Sterling, community manager for CruiseCritic.com, an online cruise line review site, sent the following message from the Carnival Spendor on Tuesday, off the Mexican coast:

"We just received word that we'll be making an unscheduled 'technical' stop in Cabo this afternoon at 2:45 pm. No one will be debarking. Speculation among the hosts and myself is that we'll be heading north soon afterward, and maybe porting in San Diego and/or Catalina?. . .

"Mood on board seems fine at this point. I suspect people really aren't paying that close attention to what the captain is saying. . . . I'm pretty sure our [Mexican Riviera] ports are history. Fine w/me actually, we're enjoying these sea days. There's a pretty great daytime atmosphere on board," Sterling wrote.

But Lucy R., a retiree from Los Angeles, posted Sunday on CruiseCritic.com, saying she planned to cancel a cruise to Mexico for fear of contracting swine flu.

"I am a 'Nervous Nellie' because I am an old lady who can't afford to get seriously ill with the swine flu. I will miss cruising on the Carnival Splendor but I can cruise later when things improve," she wrote.

As the swine flu outbreak worsened, some cruise lines began cancelling stops in Mexican ports while tourists mulling trips to Mexico quickly changed plans.

Three Carnival cruise ships scheduled to make port calls today were called off and Princess Cruises diverted two more. Both companies said in statements that they were deliberating what to do with upcoming cruises.

"We hope that our passengers will understand that these changes were beyond our control and that we have provided them with an attractive, alternative itinerary," Princess Cruises said in a statement on its Website.

Holland America Line announced it was also cancelling all port calls to Mexico for the rest of April and May, affecting five cruises.

Concerned that cruise ship passengers and staff could spread swine flu locally, Palm Beach County commissioners called this morning for cruise companies to allow penalty-free cancellations as airlines are doing.

Commissioner Shelley Vana suggested stopping cruises altogether.

"As a South Florida area, can we have some sort of action that says 'Stop the cruises for a while?'" Vana asked. "I don't want to overreact, but we are all responsible for our districts."

Seven million vacationers a year travel through Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale and the Port of Miami, said Commission Chairman Jeff Koons. But decisions on travel are up to federal authorities.

Peter Shah, an agent at Legend Travel and Tours in West Palm Beach, said he contacted clients who were thinking about going to Mexico, and they're changing their plans, heading for The Bahamas or the Caribbean instead.

The Palm Beach County Health Department's assistant director, Dr. Alina Alonso, told commissioners that her agency is making sure that arriving travelers are being told to report to a physician if they feel unwell.

Those who appear sick are being reported to the health department so they can be tracked by an epidemiologist, she said.

"There will be no forced isolation or quarantine at this point. It is all going to be voluntary," Alonso said. "This is a marathon. This is not a hurricane that will be over in a week. This will be ongoing for a long time, so we have to pace ourselves."

HOUSTON – A member of the crew on the U.S.-flagged ship hijacked by African pirates sued the owner and another company Monday, accusing them of knowingly putting sailors in danger. Richard E. Hicks alleges in the suit that owner Maersk Line Limited and Waterman Steamship Corp., which provided the crew, ignored requests to improve safety measures for vessels sailing along the Somali coast.

Hicks was chief cook on the Maersk Alabama. Pirates held the ship's captain hostage for five days until the U.S. Navy rescued him.

Hicks' lawsuit seeks at least $75,000 in damages and improved safety.

Officials for Norfolk, Va.-based Maersk Line and Mobile, Ala.-based Waterman said their companies don't comment on pending litigation.

Hicks asked that the two companies improve safety for ships by providing armed security or allowing crew members to carry weapons, sending ships through safer routes, and placing such safety measures on ships as barbed wire that would prevent pirates from being able to board vessels.

"We've had safety meetings every month for the last three years and made suggestions of what should be done and they have been ignored," Hicks said. "I'm just trying to make sure this is a lot better for other seamen."

Hicks also asked the two companies pay at least $75,000 in damages, saying he doesn't know if he will ever work on a ship again.

"My family is not looking forward to me going back out to sea. But I'm not sure if I'm going back. I'm still nervous, leery. I might find something else to do, said Hicks, who has worked 32 years as a merchant seaman.

"We think (the companies) should be more concerned about the personnel on their ships than the profits the companies make," said Terry Bryant, Hicks' attorney.

Both companies do business in Texas, which is why the suit was filed in Houston, he said.

Pirates took over the Alabama on April 8 before Capt. Richard Phillips surrendered himself in exchange for the safety of his 19-member crew. The captain was taken on a lifeboat and held hostage for five days before U.S. Navy SEAL snipers on the destroyer USS Bainbridge killed three of his captors and freed him.

Hicks said crew members have been trained on what to do if pirates or others threaten the ship.

"We need more than training," said the 53-year-old who lives in Royal Palm Beach, Fla., and has two grown sons. "I never thought nothing like this would ever happen."

An exploding carbon dioxide canister injured a cruise ship passenger at Port Everglades on Sunday, the Broward Sheriff's Office said.

The accident happened at about 10 a.m. in the 2000 block of Eller Drive when a worker threw a fire extinguisher into the back of a truck. The extinguisher exploded, shot out the truck's window and hit a passenger getting off a cruise ship, knocking him to the ground, BSO said.

Paramedics took the passenger to Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale with non-life-threatening injuries.

A second container exploded about a half hour later when a crew member aboard a ship was unloading a carbon dioxide canister. The nozzle was jostled and the canister exploded out of his arms. No one was hurt in that incident, BSO said.

The 1,064-passenger MSC Melody is changing course to steer clear of pirates off the coast of Somalia.

In a statement issued early Friday, the Italy-based line said recent events in the region has prompted it to order the vessel -- currently on a three-week cruise from Durban, South Africa to Genoa, Italy -- further out to sea as it passes around the pirate-plagued Horn of Africa.

The new routing will add 400 miles to the ship's travels and force it to skip a port call in Safaga, Egypt -- gateway to Luxor and other Egyptian ruins and a highlight of voyages through the region.

The ship will go ahead with calls at Aqaba, Jordan (gateway to the ruins of Petra) and Sokhnan, Egypt (a jumping off point for daytrips to the pyramids of Giza). The new itinerary also will offer more time in the Seychelles with an overnight stop at Port Victoria.

"MSC Cruises always places the safety and comfort of its guests before all other considerations," the line said in the statement.

MSC says the new itinerary adheres to the navigation recommendations of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the Maritime Security Centre for the Horn of Africa, a coordination center run by the EU Naval Force to safeguard shipping in the region.

The ScanEagle entered service with the U.S. Navy in 2005. In addition to the United States military, the Australian Army also operates the ScanEagle UAV. As well the Canadian Government announced in August 2008 that they would lease the ScanEagle for use of their military operations in Afghanistan.

On 18 March 2008 Boeing, with ImSAR and Insitu successfully flight-tested a ScanEagle with a Nano-SAR radar mounted aboard. The Nano-SAR is the world’s smallest Synthetic Aperture Radar, weighs two pounds and is roughly the size of a shoe box. It is designed to provide high quality real-time ground imaging through adverse weather conditions or other battlefield obsurants.

On 10 April 2009 a ScanEagle launched by the US Navy observed an escape attempt by Capt. Richard Phillips.

Phillips, Captain of the MV Maersk Alabama, was held captive by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean after a failed hijack attempt.

Mearsk information release

Norfolk, Va., April 12, 2009: Maersk Line, Limited was informed by the U.S. government at 1330 EDT today that Captain Richard Phillips has been rescued. John Reinhart, President and Chief Executive Officer of Maersk Line, Limited, called Captain Phillips’ wife, Andrea, to tell her the good news. The crew of the Maersk Alabama was jubilant when they received word Mr. Reinhart said, “We are all absolutely thrilled to learn that Richard is safe and will be re-united with his family.

Maersk Line, Limited is deeply grateful to the Navy, the F.B.I. and so many others for their tireless efforts to secure Richard’s freedom. We join Richard’s family, his crew and his colleagues ashore in celebrating this wonderful news. We look forward to welcoming him home in the coming days.”

Mr. Reinhart will hold a media briefing in Norfolk, Va., later on Sunday. Details will follow.

The primary contact for information at Maersk Line, Limited is Kevin Speers at +1 (757) 531-7873. Please note this new telephone number.

Maersk Line Limited has established an email address
where concerned persons from around the world may send messages of support for the
captain, crew and families of the Maersk Alabama. The address is: maerskalabamasupport@maerskline-usa.com

Reports of the death of pro bono work in Florida have been greatly exaggerated, at least according to attorneys recently interviewed by the Central Florida Law Journal.

“We find that our pro bono initiative helps us retain high quality attorneys,” said Orlando-based Ed Baxa, chairman of the National Pro Bono Committee for Foley & Lardner LLP. “Lawyers are not used to being idle. We work hard to match the skill sets of lawyers to pro bono projects.”

Foley & Lardner has made great strides over the years in its pro bono initiave. The firm says the increase in the number of attorneys putting in pro bono work has enabled the firm to from 23,000 hours in 2006 to more than 40,000 in 2008.

The goal is 50,000, Baxa said.

But while Foley & Lardner’s success in its pro bono initiative continues to grow, that rate of achievement is not typical in law today. A recent survey commissioned by the Florida Bar, called Pro Bono: Looking Back, Moving Forward, shows a 30 percent decline in lawyers doing free work.

The Rules of Professional Conduct for Florida include that attorneys have a goal to each year to provide 20 hours of pro bono legal services for the poor or contribute $350 to a legal aid organization in lieu of service. A variety of reasons undermine the ability to reach the goals.

According to the study, from 2000-2006 the percentage of attorneys reporting pro bono legal services was stagnant at 52 percent. During the same time period, the Florida pro bono programs for the poor reported a 30 percent decline in the number of attorneys who provided pro bono legal services through the programs.

But the study indicates there are varying reasons for the decline. Those interviewing with Central Florida Law Journal cited mainly time constraints.

“There is no shortage of altruism among our attorneys,” Baxa said. “And we are aware that there is an increasing need for pro bono work, for instance in the area of foreclosures. But we also know that the increase in foreclosure work won’t last forever.”

Lonnie Groot, of counsel with Stenstrom, McIntosh, Colbert, Whigham & Partlow PA, reckons his management of pro bono work to a popular athletic slogan.

“I don’t want to sound trite, but you ‘Just do it,’” he said. “Especially in the area of family law, if you have a widow or someone in need, you have to help. Also, I participate in Florida Law-Related Education, where you teach school students about the legal system. I feel that, basically, everyone has time constraints, but you just get it done. You don’t take your foot off the gas.”

The Florida bar recently honored 22 lawyers for their pro bono work.

Peter knows travel inside out. Besides producing TV segments and writing books and articles about travel for decades, he put himself through college running a fleet of charter yachts, and he has a pilot's license. When Peter does a story for NBC about any travel subject, he isn't just learning the business on the spot; he already knows the background and he is there to get the nitty-gritty details.

In producing a CNBC documentary about the cruise industry, Peter was determined to deliver the first public disclosure of the industry's internal business model. The show is revealing in ways that even surprised a veteran industry reporter like myself. He not only explains the business of cruising, but in using NCL as his test subject he was able to disclose its revenue model down to the last penny.

I spoke with Peter to find out how he did it. "This show was not just done in two weeks," he told me. "It took two years of research and preparation. Our goal was to reveal the nuts and bolts of this business and we had to be prepared to do that within the short seven-day period we had aboard the ship.

"We had to know where to go, what to see, and especially whom to ask the tough questions. When we finally got onboard we had unfettered access to all parts of the ship to get as much information as we could. But we only had one week."

Peter said he also interviewed CEOs from a number of cruise lines as well as many Wall Street cruise industry analysts during those two years of preparation. "But we needed a cruise line to agree to work with us, and it took us six months just to hammer out an agreement with NCL saying they would disclose all of the information we needed. You have to give NCL a lot of credit for agreeing to that level of visibility."

Indeed, that willingness by NCL to be so open about its business model is what makes this a great documentary.

The Making of Cruise Inc.

"During the seven-day cruise we had on Norwegian Pearl, we used six different camera crews running nearly 24 hours per day. We had them onboard, onshore and in helicopters and in boats," Peter explained. "The agreement I had with NCL clearly said we were allowed to go anywhere on or around the ship. The only restriction we had was if they said we were jeopardizing the safety of the passengers or crew."

The show goes to many places non-crew memebrs, even cruise industry reporters, never see -- e.g.,down into the crew decks to see a crew fire drill. Cameras go behind the scenes to the ship's surveillance center, where 1,100 video cameras are live and recording. The only public areas of the ship that do not have cameras are the restrooms. This is the first time a cruise line has ever revealed the scope of its surveillance systems.

Peter told me the level of security aboard Norwegian Pearl surprised him. "I was surprised, even though you know all of the cruise lines have security and surveillance apparatus,"he said; but no other cruise line has ever disclosed the level of this surveillance. We agreed that the sheer number of cameras is a reassuring surprise, since many cruise industry detractors claim the lines are not sufficiently safety-conscious.

Addressing People's Cruise Misconceptions

I asked Peter about the common misconceptions of cruising, and whether he thought his documentary dispelled many of them. He reiterated that the program's focus was to examine the economics of cruising, but he did list his impressions of the general public's most common misconceptions about cruising.

"A lot of the misconceptions go back to Love Boat," he said. (A personal note: It was the Love Boat that convinced me to pursue a job with Royal Viking Line back in 1982, on the same ship as Peter's first cruise.)

"The first misconception people have is that a cruise is all-inclusive," he said, noting that many people believe most cruises include alcohol and shore tours in the price. The only things included in most mainstream cruises are meals, entertainment and your stateroom. You pay for liquor, shore tours and staff gratuities, which are charged to your account at about $11 per person per day. There are all-inclusive luxury cruise lines, however.

"The next misconception is that all the staterooms are like the Presidential Suite," he said. This too is from Love Boat and many cruise-based movies, where the cabins -- like the movies' and TV shows' versions of New York City apartments -- are always bigger than they are in real life.

"The next misconception, which NCL has done a lot to dispel, is that cruising is regimented," he said. I have laughed about this one many times. It seems many non-cruisers envision every guest wearing some kind of uniform and the cruise director using a bullhorn to announce the next mandatory activity.

"And another more recent one is this crazy notion of people falling off of cruise ships," he added. We chalked this up to the media having no idea of what it takes to "fall" from a cruise ship. In fact, the reason why someone falls is hardly ever an accident and rarely (if ever) the fault of cruise ship design. You have to bypass the safety barriers to "fall" from a cruise ship.

"Norovirus is the next misconception," says Peter, "and my show does a lot to address the issue." In the program, we see NCL vice president Andy Stuart explaining how Norovirus is the second most common virus in the U.S. It was unjustifiably dubbed the "cruise ship virus" by unknowing media who did not understand why cruise ships are the only entity required to report outbreaks of Norovirus. The CDC does this because ships are the only self-contained environments where they can study an outbreak of Norovirus and learn something about it.

Cruise Industry Revelations from Cruise Inc.

Did Peter himself come away with any enlightening revelations about the cruise industry? "My revelations are probably the same as the television audience. We got NCL to disclose almost exactly how much money they make, including their cut of all of the various enterprises they have their toes in. Especially revealing are the on-shore ones like shopping programs and tours, but also the onboard revenue from the art auctions."

All these numbers are in the show. It is not that we didn't already know how these things worked, but it is the exact details that make the show so ground-breaking.

Finally, I asked what he thought of the cruise business today, within the current economic stretch and in the better times that hopefully lie ahead.

"Personally, I think there is too much capacity out there," he said. "There are too many cabins to fill and it leads to price erosion." I am not sure if he was just talking about current conditions, but this is one area where I disagree. This is certainly true right now, but in the long run the cruise industry has always shown us that it can absorb new capacity and sell those cabins. Almost every ship, even today, sails close to full. Every time a rash of new ships is introduced, someone says, "It's too much" -- but nearly all the cruises still get sold.

As the show points out, most of the revenue from any given sailing is generated by the cruise fare, but it is the onboard revenue that gives the cruise line its profit. I believe the newer ships are far more profitable on a per passenger basis - there is greater cost efficiency, since one ship now carries twice as many guests. Also, there are more ways for passengers to spend money on the newer, larger ships.

Finally, the cruise industry has something a lot of other businesses don't have - an easy way to get rid of excess inventory. An older ship can be sold or re-deployed to another cruise line in the same parent corporation.

Peter said he believes consolidation in the industry is inevitable. That may be true, but the two largest companies, Carnival Corp. and Royal Caribbean International, are already so big they both face anti-trust issues, especially in Europe. The Carnival takeover of Princess only won the European Union's final approval after they agreed to make it one of the world's first dual listed companies, on the New York Stock Exchange and the London exchange. There has been consolidation among the smaller lines -- rolling up Oceania Cruises with Regent Seven Seas, for example -- but that represents only a tiny part of the overall cruise industry.

As for the current economic situation, Peter said, "I didn't talk to one CEO who is thrilled about their numbers." That is true of almost any company these days other than McDonalds and Wal-Mart, but he does have a point. In the current economic downturn, "Breaking even is the new black," is how he put it, referring to the color of ink bookkeepers use to signify a profit (black) or a loss (red).

But as NCL's Andy Stuart says in the program, "Once we come out on the other side of this economic collapse, we will be that much stronger. We are very optimistic about our future."

"Cruise, Inc.: Big Money on the High Seas" makes the point that cruise lines are currently struggling. But I don't get the same feeling from this show as I got from Peter's "American Airlines - a Week in the Life," that the cruise industry's problems are anywhere near as systemic as the airlines' woes.

The airlines are burdened with barely negotiable union pension plans and other entitlements that have stifled the growth of that industry for years. Plus, the airlines have almost fully saturated the vacation market - there is no untapped market for them to grow into. Cruise lines have the advantage of legal, non-union foreign workers, and their share of the entire vacation market is still small. Only 17 percent of the American public has ever taken a cruise - so there is still plenty of market share to capture. And cruises usually garner the highest satisfaction ratings of any vacation experience. Every year, some 60 percent of the 13 milloion Americans who cruise are repeat cruisers - they know what they are buying and are willing to pay for it again. The majority of first-time cruisers choose to cruise again.

It is a simple concept: The cruise industry is still growing, and so far the usual signs of topping out, such as commoditazation or pricing pressure - not from an economic downturn but from market saturation - have not materialized. You cannot judge the industry based on the current environment - there are industries losing billions of dollars this quarter that will stay in business. If breaking even is the new black ink, then the cruise lines are doing just fine. There is still plenty of room to grow when this economy finally turns around.

Good times are what the cruise industry is all about, but top cruise executives were hard pressed Tuesday to put a happy face on an industry that's coping with a gloomy global economy and a ton of new capacity.

At the annual Seatrade cruise shipping convention at the Miami Beach Convention Center, Richard E. Sasso, president and chief executive of MSC Cruises (USA), told a packed house: "The cruise industry is poised to get through these hard times and will come out stronger in the end."

Still, the picture in the meantime isn't pretty. Consumers, buffeted by rising unemployment, foreclosures and a steep decline in stock portfolios and home values, have clamped down on discretionary spending. That has forced the cruise lines to resort to big discounts, cabin upgrades, vouchers for onboard spending and free shore excursions to keep ships sailing full.

For 2008, even as the economy plummeted, the cruise lines attracted a record 13 million passengers, compared with 12.6 million in 2007, according to the Cruise Lines International Association, the industry's trade and lobbying arm. But yields, or the revenue generated per available berth per day, have slumped.

Meanwhile, CLIA member lines will introduce 14 new ships during 2009, at a total cost of $4.8 billion, adding 5 percent to overall ship capacity. Amid the hard times, a key theme the cruise lines are pushing in marketing to consumers and travel agents is value: Cruises typically are far less expensive than comparable land-based vacations, and they include most basics in the price.

SEARCH FOR VALUE

"Everybody is looking for value and we've got a great value message," said Gerald E. Cahill, president and chief executive officer of Miami-based Carnival Cruise Lines. "This is a great time to get people who've never taken a cruise before."

Among the new ships debuting this year is Miami-based Royal Caribbean International's 220,000-ton Oasis of the Seas, which will be the world's largest cruise ship when it begins sailing from Fort Lauderdale in December. The 16-deck Oasis will carry 5,400 passengers and 2,165 crew and offer seven distinct "neighborhoods," including a Central Park, or open-air area in the ship's center with tropical landscaping.

While the innovative vessel is creating a lot of buzz among cruise buffs, the deepening global recession is hardly a fortuitous time to be unveiling it.

Cruise lines like to boast of being nimble because they can move ships and switch itineraries to match demand, but the widespread downturn offers few safe harbors. Europe has taken a deep turn down, too. And Latin American economies are getting increasingly dicey.

On Tuesday, Adam M. Goldstein, president and chief executive officer of Royal Caribbean International, told the audience no country is "immune from the recessionary forces."

Each of the cruise lines has its own strategy for coping. Cahill, for instance, said Carnival, which caters to younger people and families, is well positioned for the stormy seas. It retreated on plans to have two ships stationed in Europe this summer, a time when that market is expected to be under pressure. In addition, Carnival offers a lot of shorter, less expensive cruises that appeal to the budget-minded. And the line has positioned its ships in a variety of U.S. ports, making it accessible for more consumers to drive instead of paying for air travel to reach a port. Carnival's largest ship yet, the 3,646-passenger Carnival Dream, will debut in September.

One particularly tough challenge is worried consumers are booking cruises closer to departure dates than in the past.

A NEW BALLGAME

Cruise ships make money by sailing full, or nearly so. But the change in consumer behavior makes "revenue management" harder for the lines, as they figure how much inventory to offer at what price and when and how much to discount to ensure a ship sails full.

Cruise lines differ on how and where to cut prices. Daniel J. Hanrahan, who is president and chief executive of both Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Cruises, units of Royal Caribbean Cruises, said cutting prices too sharply "to top off a ship" can erode a brand's image.

But Carnival's Cahill said, "We've found if you bring your prices down, you fill your ship." Not cutting prices also means losing onboard revenue and tips for crew, Cahill said.

Still, once they get onboard, passengers are spending less on casinos, shopping and other extras than in the past. That has trimmed another major revenue source for the lines.

MSC's Sasso, a veteran of the industry, reminded his colleagues that the cruise business has sailed through challenging times before.

"It's a great business. It's weathered all the storms," added Celebrity's Hanrahan. "I don't see why it won't weather this one."

MYFOX NATIONAL - Sex assault cases are the most common crimes aboard cruise ships, but they are rarely prosecuted.

But not in one recent case. The Coral Princess cruise ship had departed Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and was near the end of it's 14-day Panama Canal cruise when sometime Saturday, a female passenger went to the ship's staff and said a crew member had sexually assaulted her.

On Monday the employee was identified as Jorge Manuel Teixeira, a Portuguese citizen. He was arrested and is scheduled to appear in federal court Tuesday.

Princess Cruises, a subsidiary of Carnival Cruise corporation, didn't want to talk about the woman's claim, but in a statement following the allegation, the company said, "We also put into place our crime response protocol including sealing off the area of the alleged assault, restricting the crew member to his quarters with a security posting and providing medical and other assistance to the passenger."

When the ship docked in San Pedro, Calif., FBI agents boarded and questioned, not just the suspect but several passengers.

Within hours Teixeira was charged with one count of sexual assault.

In recent years, passengers have joined forces and testified before Congress to raise awareness about cruise ship assaults and about passengers who board ships, but never return.

Maritime lawyers say all too often, criminal suspects are not prosecuted, partly because cruise ships are registered in foreign countries, flying what are called "flags of convenience."

Charles Lipcon, a maritime law expert, says, "These countries compete with each other to get business and one way they compete is to leave the owners alone so there's very little oversight."

But in this case, the cruise line and law enforcement seem to be on the same page.

PalmBeachPost.com

MIAMI — In a sign of the times, Norwegian Cruise Lines is offering an insurance option that allows passengers to get a full refund if they lose their jobs and decide to cancel their trips.

A company official says the cruise line wanted to offer a "safety net" for people who want to book a cruise but are uncertain about the future.

The Miami-based company announced the new travel protection plan on Wednesday. It's available for trips departing May 1 or later, and starts at $29 per person. Its protection is limited to people who have been at the same company for at least a year. It also covers medical emergencies and lost or delayed luggage.

TALLAHASSEE, FL – Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that his office has reached a resolution with two cruise lines over the imposition of a retroactively-imposed fuel surcharge on cruise passengers. Oceania Cruises and Classic Cruises Holdings, which does business as Regent Seven Seas Cruises, have separately agreed to refund approximately $3 million to consumers nationwide who were charged the fuel surcharge after they had booked their cruises.

“Our guests and our residents deserve the most accurate information about the costs of their vacations,” said Attorney General McCollum. “I appreciate this resolution, which will not only return funds to the affected consumers, but will also uphold Florida’s reputation as an attractive vacation destination.”

The agreements were reached after the Attorney General’s Economic Crimes Division received several hundred complaints from around the country about the entire cruise line industry because cruise lines were retroactively charging a fuel supplement charge after cruises had been booked and deposits had been made by consumers. Under the agreements signed today, all consumers who were retroactively charged a fuel supplement will be refunded the full cost of the surcharge. In the future, the cruise lines must also ensure clear and conspicuous disclosure of any fuel supplement charges at the time the reservations are made, as well as in their advertisements.

Oceania will pay over $2.1 million in restitution and Classic Cruise Holdings will pay more than $1 million in restitution, a small portion of which may be in the form of onboard credits for consumers who have not yet sailed. The two companies – both of which fully cooperated with the investigation – will contact consumers eligible for refunds and must report to the Attorney General’s Office on the status of refunds within 30 days. Consumers who believe they have been improperly charged surcharges may file complaints with the Attorney General’s Office by calling the fraud hotline at 1-866-966-7226 or by visiting the Attorney General’s website at http://myfloridalegal.com.

Similar settlements were reached last year with Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises, and Carnival and its subsidiary cruise lines, resulting in another $61 million in consumer reimbursement.

A copy of the agreement with Oceania is available here.

A copy of the agreement with Classic Cruise Holdings is available here.

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., the world’s second-largest cruise operator, projected 2009 profit will fall more than analysts estimated as it slashed ticket prices to stimulate demand. The shares dropped 13 percent.

The operator of 38 cruise ships today forecast 2009 earnings will drop to $1.40 a share, trailing the $1.77 average estimate of 29 analysts and below the $2.68 it earned last year.

“We’re terribly disappointed at the kind of pricing levels that we have to offer in this market,” Chief Executive Officer Richard Fain said today on a conference call. “Until a few months ago, we were doing substantially better.”

Royal Caribbean cut prices to boost sales as consumers made vacation decisions later than usual. Ticket prices and onboard spending are “way down” from last year, but the number of bookings is “stabilizing,” executives said on the call.

“Bookings may have begun to stabilize, but pricing remains extremely challenging as new bookings slowed considerably year- on-year since September,” Tim Conder, an analyst at Wachovia Corp. in St. Louis, wrote today in a note to clients.

Royal Caribbean fell $1.21 to $7.85 by 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, the biggest one-day decline since Nov. 19.

Quarterly Drop

Fourth-quarter net income plunged 98 percent to $1.48 million, or 1 cent a share, and revenue fell 2.3 percent to $1.46 billion, the Miami-based company said in the statement. Twenty- three analysts surveyed by Bloomberg estimated profit of 7 cents.

Revenue after operating costs per available passenger cruise days, a measure known as net yield, fell 5.9 percent, more than the company projected, because of a “substantial” decline in bookings, higher-than-anticipated fuel costs and unfavorable currency changes, Royal Caribbean said.

The Celebrity Cruises operator forecast a net yield drop of at least 14 percent in the first quarter and 9 percent this year.

Royal Caribbean is tackling “truly dramatic levels of volatility” in fuel prices and currency, said Fain, 61.

The company expects to spend $580 million on fuel in 2009. Royal Caribbean bought contracts that locked in prices for 47 percent of its anticipated fuel expenses in 2009.

This month, the dollar has gained against 13 of 16 major currencies, according to Bloomberg data.

Passenger Forecast

The forecast is predicated on no economic recovery in 2009 and on “slightly lower” passenger levels to avoid “extreme” discounts and maximize yields this year, Fain said.

Royal Caribbean and bigger rival Carnival Corp. are trying to woo cash-strapped travelers by marketing cruising as an all- inclusive vacation that usually costs 30 percent less than comparable land and hotel trips.

Both cruise operators in November said they would suspend dividend payments to conserve cash. Royal Caribbean said in July it would cut 400 jobs to trim $125 million in annual spending.

Barclays Plc cut its recommendation on Royal Caribbean’s stock, saying the company “could come precariously close to facing liquidity issues.”

‘Very Comfortable’

Royal Caribbean is “very comfortable” with its cash on hand, Chief Financial Officer Brian Rice said today on the call. It may extend maturities on some debt and sell interest-rate swaps that are “in the money,” he said. The company had $1 billion in liquidity as of Dec. 31, executives said on the call.

The operator of the Pullmantur Cruises and Azamara Cruises lines last year changed some itineraries to lower fuel consumption and imposed passenger surcharges that have since been scrapped. Fuel expenses increased 11 percent in the quarter and 30 percent for the year, it said.

Full-year 2008 profit of $2.68 a share missed $2.71 estimated by 29 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. In the year- earlier quarter, it earned $70.8 million, or 33 cents.

Royal Caribbean will build another six vessels and doesn’t plan to postpone deliveries because new ships generate “tremendous cash” and are cheaper to run, said Rice, 50.

BY JAY CLARKE
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

You're off on a long-dreamed-of vacation, a cruise to the sunny Caribbean. You're on a big cruise liner with a couple thousand other passengers. There are doctors and nurses on board, locks on your stateroom door, lots of public spaces, and ship personnel at your beck and call.

Safety isn't something to worry about.

Not so, says Miami maritime lawyer Charles R. Lipcon in a new book, "Unsafe on the High Seas" (I. Adels, $14.95).

Most important, he says, don't leave common sense behind. "Getting on a cruise ship is like traveling to a strange city. Take some precautions," Lipcon said.

You wouldn't walk alone at night in a strange city; don't do it on a cruise ship. You wouldn't go to a stranger's room ashore; don't go to a crew member's room on board.

"That's the reason I wrote the book -- to tell passengers how to avoid problems," said the Miami attorney, who has filed lawsuits on behalf of clients who experienced problems aboard ship.

"When you get on a cruise ship, you're not in the United States anymore," he warned. The laws of the ship's country of registry aren't the same as those in America, and you may not get the same protections. Medical care is limited and may not be up to U.S. standards.

Passengers having too good a time at a ship bar also may be at risk, Lipcon writes. "Fueled by firewater, people do crazy things." Young women in particular can fall prey to the date rape drug. His advice: Only drink beverages you have witnessed being prepared, and ask that bottled drinks come unopened. "That's a must."

That said, the vast majority of passengers never experience any problems aboard, except perhaps for spending more than they intended.

Michael Crye, executive vice president of the Cruise Line Industry Association, said that of the 4.4 million passengers who sailed from April to Aug. 24 in 2007, only .01% were involved in reported incidents.

In great news for cows but another blow for vacationers, the cruise vacation giant Royal Caribbean has elected to charge $14.95 to anyone who orders New York strip steak in the main dining room. Eat all you want, the line says. Just not that.

Much of the fun of taking a cruise has been that everything's included in your fare. You can swim, pig out on the buffet, dance, splurge on lobster, and get somewhere interesting all for the same price, which on the major lines pans out to be between $100 and $200 a day. Here we have a cruise line deciding that your $150 doesn't include steak. So much for feeling like you can indulge.

If serving steak is such trouble, you have to wonder why Royal Caribbean doesn't just raise the price up the cruise by $10 or so. (Or better yet, ease up on the mountains of uneaten food at the afternoon buffets.) Then everyone can have their steak and eat it, too. The cruise line collects money from people who would never order a cruise line steak, and customers will come away with the illusion of value rather than with the bitter taste of nickeling-and-diming in their mouths.

The trend toward paying more for "better" food is nothing new to the majors, although this is a new foray into the main dining room. The only free drinks choices on most cruises nowadays are water or horrible juices from boxed concentrates. Anything fancier is charged, although Disney Cruise Line grants free soda only on the pool deck.

Most of the big cruise lines also offer reservations-only, added-fee (at least $25 per meal) restaurants to serve as alternatives to the hubbub of the main dining room that everyone automatically eats in. From a marketing standpoint, I have always been a little suspicious of this concept in general.

The addition of an exclusive dining room implies that the main dining room's food isn't acceptable and is something you'll want to escape. In essence, it acknowledges that the fare that you paid for with your ticket isn't all it could be, a nuance that seems to have escaped the Princesses and the Royal Caribbeans of the world. To its credit, Cunard has two added dining rooms (on the Queen Mary 2 and the Queen Victoria) that are curated by celeb chef Todd English, so you do feel like your added expense is buying something special that can't be done for the masses.

These added fees are also bad for your wallet. When you pay another $25 for that dinner at the niche kitchen, the money you laid out for the main dinner you're skipping goes straight to the coffers; you are paying twice for the same meal. And vacations are supposed to be no-stress, aren't they?

Between the added food charges and the already notoriously outrageous fees for shore excursions that could be done for much less independently, it's getting to where customers now have to school themselves in ways to protect themselves from the major cruise lines' price tricks. One recent vacationer bemoaned the new flurry of opportunistic charges, such as paying $20 if you misplace your towel on the pool deck. That's no fun.

Then again, the major lines may get more savage at this game. Facing piles of debt payments after years of crazed shipbuilding, managers may only be able to seek resolution by turning their vessels into seagoing motels that are propelled by extra fees. Already, a slowdown is in the cards; for the first time in years, Princess doesn't have a new ship currently under construction, and Carnival is taking it easy, too.

During a recession, entertainment is a great industry to be in, but don't count on lots of people booking ships when the perception is that they don't buy as much as they used to. And woe to the vacation seller whose product is seen as more stressful than it needs to be.

Update: A Royal Caribbean press rep wrote to tell us that only its New York Strip Steak will be charged at $14.95, a fee that is currently being tested on two of its biggest ships. Black Angus beef remains available as part of the standard fare. If the charge is rolled out fleet-wide, it will serve as a way for passengers to access food from the exclusive, added-fee restaurants without having to leave the main dining room. That still makes it an optional extra fee, and it still makes you wonder what's so wrong with the main menu that passengers would want an out, but the nuance is duly noted.

Company expected to leave Port Everglades after 21 years

By Jaclyn Giovis and Scott Wyman
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Day cruise operator SeaEscape says its 21-year run at Port Everglades is over.

A company spokesman told the Broward CountyCommission today that Sunday will be the ship's last sail from the port.

"The bottom line is SeaEscape really wants out of Port Everglades," Josephus Eggelletion, Broward County commissioner and liaison to Port Everglades, said late Monday.

"They can no longer compete with the Seminole Hard Rock [Hotel & Casino] and other gambling establishments here in Broward County, Eggelletion said. "More than likely, you'll see the SeaEscape re-emerge in one of two places, either the Port of Palm Beach or Port Canaveral."

SeaEscape spokesman Mark Lipof declined to comment on cruise operations Monday. He plans to address the commission today.

In the wake of higher fuel prices and a slow economy, the cruise operator has been struggling to board as many passengers as it has in the past. From January to June, SeaEscape passengers have declined 11.7 percent, county records show.

But the cruise operator's troubles have worsened since the Seminole Tribe won a state compact with Gov. Charlie Crist to offer blackjack and other table games at their Hollywood casino, Eggelletion said.

"They have been having problems for some time now," the commissioner said. "We sort of expected this."

According to Broward County records, the Fort Lauderdale-based SeaEscape Entertainment Inc. was delinquent in tariff payments to the port in late May. The company owed $51,100 plus an additional $4,734 for services and security.

SeaEscape's tardiness prompted the port's director to terminate its wharf agreement in mid-June, records show. The county then struck a deal with SeaEscape to allow for the ship to operate on a pay-in-advance of sailing status.

SeaEscape is currently in good standing with the port, but the operator recently scaled back on its twice-daily sailings, Port Everglades spokeswoman Ellen Kennedy said. It no longer offers morning cruises two days a week.

Commissioners are slated to vote on SeaEscape's contract termination today.

"I don't think the impact on Port Everglades is going to be a great one because we can always utilize that space for other ships," Eggelletion said. SeaEscape generated about $1.8 million in annual revenue, including parking.

SeaEscape passengers boarding the ship last week seemed to see the writing on the wall.

"They cannot survive," said Gregg Kotch, a SeaEscape patron who drives to Fort Lauderdale from Boca Raton to gamble.

Kotch said he's noticed thin crowds this summer. One Sunday this month, the casino ship only attracted a single blackjack player and seven craps players, he recalled. "I'm not a high-roller and I was the guy spending the most money."

SeaEscape is the only operator of day cruises to nowhere out of Port Everglades. If it moved to the Port of Palm Beach, it would compete with the Palm Beach Casino Line. But the Port of Palm Beach is not negotiating with any additional day cruise operators, port senior director of business development Jarra Kaczwara said Monday. Officials from Port Canaveral could not be reached for comment.

A 637-ft. cruise ship detained by the U.S. Coast Guard has moved to the Brooklyn Cruise Ship Terminal from Pier 92 in New York City and will continue repairs to fix hull damage and numerous discrepancies found during a recent routine inspection.

The Clipper Pacific, a cruise ship home ported in the Bahamas, will submit a complete repair proposal for the hull damage and 66 violations found during the inspection. The proposal includes sufficient temporary repairs that will allow the vessel to safely travel to their next port of call, where it will make permanent repairs.

The Coast Guard and the vessel's classification society have reviewed plans for repair from the ship's master and will conduct a final exam tomorrow morning to determine if the Captain of the Port Order to detain the Clipper Pacific will be lifted and the vessel deemed safe to sail.

A six-person examination team from Coast Guard Sector New York boarded the Clipper Pacific at 8 a.m. Sunday to conduct a routine safety inspection. Upon entering New York Harbor the ship's master reported a gash about one inch in length on the left side of the vessel sustained prior to coming to port.

Further investigation by the Coast Guard team identified the other 66 discrepancies such as fire safety, lifeboat damages and life jacket issues on the vessel. This inspection lasted from Sunday morning to Tuesday evening.

The Clipper Pacific is carrying approximately 1,200 passengers and crew members.

The cruise ship was inbound from Greenland when it was stopped by the Coast Guard.

SAN FERNANDO, Philippines - A coast guard diver searching for survivors Tuesday inside a ferry that capsized in a typhoon found bodies and a bit of comfort — a plastic rosary floating in the water.

Lt. Cmdr. Inocencio Rosario slipped on the string of light blue beads for luck, and hoped that it was an omen that a miracle was still possible, that survivors would be found inside the hulking vessel.

Typhoon Fengshen toppled the seven-story ferry Saturday as it cut a deadly swath through the central Philippines. Only four dozen survivors have been found; more than 800 passengers and crew are missing.

With each passing day, the hope of finding them dimmed.

"I felt sad when I saw the bodies," Rosario said, still wearing the beads. "I can imagine what they went through."

Rosario, whose name translates as "rosary," didn't think there would be any survivors, but "I believe in miracles."

"I hope somebody there is alive," he said. "We have only probed about 15 percent of the ship."

About 30 divers were on hand, including some U.S. Navy frogmen who were expected to take turns searching the vessel Wednesday and help map the seabed. The ferry, about 500 yards off Sibuyan island, is lying on unstable coral.

Nearby villagers said a deep trench may be nearby, so there are concerns the vessel could slip and plunge deeper.

The storm's toll on shore includes 227 dead and 275 missing in the worst-hit region, with dozens reported killed elsewhere by floods and landslides. It caused an estimated $74.2 million in crop damage.

The roiling seas left in the storm's wake had kept rescue workers away from the ferry until calm, sunny conditions Tuesday allowed the divers to slip inside. Only the tip of the bow juts from the water.

The conditions were treacherous. Coast guard chief Vice Adm. Wilfredo Tamayo said the divers broke windows and used every other gap they could find to get inside the 23,824-ton Princess of the Stars.

Once inside, they found bodies in air pockets along with chairs, baggage, shoes and shards of broken glass. Iron bars, twisted by the sudden capsizing, jutted out here and there.

One body was dressed in a ship's officer uniform and was clutching a two-way radio, officials said.

Passengers could have survived initially — life jackets were on some bodies — and some may have suffocated as they waited for rescuers delayed by the storm, Philippine navy spokesman Lt. Col. Edgard Arevalo said.

"It seems the passengers hesitated from jumping in turbulent waters" because "it happened too sudden," Arevalo told dzBB radio, referring to survivors' accounts of the ship quickly listing and going down in a half-hour or less.

"(With the life vests) you will survive for a few hours, but in time, the air will run out," he added.

Arevalo said the priority is how to extricate the bodies, either by attaching weights to them and pulling them out or cutting through the hull — a prospect complicated by a cargo of bunker oil that could leak.

Only three bodies were pulled out Tuesday.

While some relatives tearfully waited for news, others angrily questioned why the ship was allowed to leave Manila late Friday for a 20-hour trip to Cebu with a typhoon approaching.

Sulpicio Lines said it sailed with coast guard approval. The company's services have been suspended pending an investigation and a check of its other ships' seaworthiness.

Fengshen was expected to hit Taiwan and southeast China — an area already coping with flooding — on Wednesday.

By JIM GOMEZ
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Testimony of Ross A. Klein, PhD, Before the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

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Five years after the deadliest cruise industry accident in more than a decade, Norwegian Cruise Line has agreed to plead guilty to criminal negligence in the SS Norway explosion.

Federal prosecutors on Friday charged Norwegian Cruise Line with gross negligence almost five years after a boiler explosion on the historic SS Norway killed eight crew members and seriously injured 10 others in the Port of Miami.

The U.S. attorney's office said Norwegian agreed to plead guilty to the criminal charge, which alleges the cruise line operated the vessel in a ``grossly negligent manner that endangered the lives, limbs and property of the persons on board.''

Norwegian is liable for at least $500,000 in criminal penalties for the deadliest accident on a U.S.-based ocean liner in more than a decade. The cruise line also has agreed to carry out safety inspections of its vessels with an independent consultant.

Coast Guard Rear Admiral Robert Branham called the May 25, 2003, explosion a ``preventable tragedy.''

''Hopefully, this case will send a message to the maritime industry that marine safety should be the paramount consideration in maintaining their vessels,'' he said in a statement.

The cruise line said Friday evening that it has cooperated with federal authorities since the explosion and will continue to do so. ''The safety and security of our passengers and crew has been and always will be of the utmost importance,'' Norwegian's statement said.

A National Transportation Safety Board report on the accident, quietly completed in November, showed NCL engineers had expressed concerns since the late 1990s about the condition of the four boilers that powered the elegant ship. The massive high-pressure boilers, each holding 20 tons of 528-degree water, had a history of cracks, leaks, corrosion and repairs.

''We must realize that we have reached a point where the operation of the vessel is not safe,'' one unnamed NCL port engineer wrote in a 1998 e-mail to the company's vice president of ship operations, the NTSB report said. The engineer cited ''numerous boiler tube failures'' that were subsequently repaired.

PATCH JOBS

The NTSB found the primary cause of the explosion was the fracture of a weld on a seam of a high-pressure drum. The scalding water flashed into steam, swept through the engine spaces and some adjacent crew berthing areas and killed eight crew members while injuring nearly a dozen others. No passengers were hurt.

Investigators also found questionable welds and crack-repair efforts; inconsistent water chemistry that led to corrosion; inadequate inspections from both NCL and Bureau Veritas, an international inspection agency, and an operating schedule that exposed the aging boilers to extreme thermal stresses.

In January and July 2002, a year before the boiler burst, NCL port engineers e-mailed NCL management with concerns that the ship's routes and busy schedules forced crew to fire up and cool down the boilers more rapidly than the operating manual called for.

The report was also critical of NCL's handling of persistent cracks in the boilers, which first appeared in original welds in the 1970s. Cracks were ground down until boiler walls reached a minimum allowable thickness then built back up with weld repairs. The length and width of the welds, the NTSB found, probably accelerated pitting and cracking.

At some point, copper -- an unacceptable metal for repairs -- also appeared to have been deliberately applied to cracks on the boiler that exploded.

''The only explanation for the presence of the copper is that it was introduced to mask the crack, impede inspection and avoid necessary repairs,'' the report said.

Investigators also found a lengthy gap in formal inspections, ``even though it was known that they were susceptible to cracking and were in fact cracked in 1996.''

The report found that the header, the part of boiler No. 23 that failed, had not had a material test or appropriate visual inspection since 1990.

The cruise line was charged in an ''information,'' not a criminal complaint or indictment. That means Norwegian executives and prosecutors negotiated the misdemeanor charge.

''Charges such as those today are necessary to show that companies operating and managing ships have a duty to take reasonable measures to assure the safety of all onboard -- passengers and crew,'' said U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta.

In addition, the NTSB noted that NCL had agreed to improve its fleet emergency response, safety measures and maintenance records. Though few ships, aside from Naval vessels, still rely on large high-pressure boilers for primary power, smaller low-pressure ones are routinely used to heat water or for other shipboard systems.

FAMILIES CAN'T SUE

Miami attorney Charles Lipcon, who represented many of the victims and is the author of the new book, Unsafe on the High Seas, praised the criminal charge.

''I'm pleased to see that the U.S. attorney stepped up to the plate and got involved,'' he said. But he called it ''unfortunate'' that the crew members and their families were not able to press civil lawsuits against Norwegian in federal court in Miami.

The dead and injured seamen were mostly Filipino. Their contracts with Norwegian called for settling claims in arbitration, so their lawsuits were dismissed from federal court in Miami. The cruise line negotiated settlements afterward.

A cruise industry representative called the criminal case a strong signal.

''We take safety very seriously as an industry, and we hope this gets resolved and look forward to a resolution,'' said Michael Crye, executive vice president of the Cruise Lines International Association, a trade group.

The SS Norway had a storied past. It was launched as the SS France in 1960. At 1,035 feet, it was the longest passenger ship afloat and could carry more than 2,000. It was too long and too wide for the Panama Canal.

Deemed unprofitable in 1974, the ocean-liner was mothballed in France. In 1979, Norwegian Cruise Line bought it for $18 million -- its value in scrap metal -- and revamped it at a cost of $120 million. After a ''farewell cruise'' to Europe in 2001, the SS Norway returned to Miami for seven-day cruises in the eastern Caribbean. It was among the last ocean-liners powered by high-pressure steam boilers.

It has been out of commission since the boiler explosion five years ago. The company has since sold it for scrap.

The Miami Herald
By JAY WEAVER AND CURTIS MORGAN

Cruise-industry giant Carnival Corp. is challenging state Attorney General Bill McCollum's investigation into its controversial fuel surcharge by claiming the extra passenger fee already was approved when Gov. Charlie Crist was attorney general.

Records reviewed by the Orlando Sentinel show representatives for Carnival approached then-Attorney General Crist's office in October 2006 seeking approval to charge a new fee that would help Carnival absorb skyrocketing fuel costs. At least one internal meeting on the issue was scheduled by lawyers in the Attorney General's Office on Oct. 5 that year.

McCollum's office said it has been deluged with complaints about the surcharge, which has turned out to be as much as $70 per passenger. But the Attorney General's Office "expressly approved" the fee nearly 18 months ago, Carnival lawyer Curtis J. Mase wrote in a letter to investigators leading the current probe by McCollum's office.

Mase also wrote that Carnival was told "that the approval came from the highest level" of Crist's office.

Five days after that Oct. 5, 2006, meeting, the Republican Party of Florida reported receiving checks totaling $250,000 from two Carnival subsidiaries: Holland America Line and Princess Tours.

Businesses across all industries were at the time pouring record amounts of money into the Republican Party, which was paying for television advertisements, campaign staff and more to help Crist get elected governor.

The twin $125,000 checks are the largest donations that Miami-based Carnival or any of its subsidiaries have made to the Florida GOP since 1996, the earliest year for which electronic records are available.

Carnival said Tuesday that the donations were unrelated to the conversations with Crist's office about the fuel surcharge. "Any contribution by any of our brands to the Republican Party of Florida has no correlation whatsoever to interactions with the AG's office," Carnival spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz said in an e-mail.

Paul Huck, a former deputy attorney general under Crist who was involved in the 2006 discussions, said Tuesday in an e-mail that any suggestion of a quid pro quo from Carnival was "offensive" to the lawyers involved in the issue. "I am confident that if such a bargain had been even hinted at during their communications with Carnival, Carnival would have been literally and figuratively shown the door," he said.

Surcharge conditions

Carnival representatives approached the Attorney General's Office about the fuel surcharge to make sure the fee would comply with a 1997 agreement between the state and major cruise lines regarding what they can charge on top of their advertised fares.

Huck said that, after meeting with Carnival, lawyers in the Attorney General's Office recommended to him that the cruise company be allowed to levy a fuel surcharge under three conditions: It had to be temporary; it had to be based on actual fuel-cost increases; and it had to be conspicuously disclosed to consumers before they purchased a ticket.

"The notion was to take into account the reality of increasing fuel prices but at the same time to ensure that the full and conspicuous disclosure of the surcharge was being made to the consumer before he or she made a decision to go ahead and buy a ticket," Huck said in his Tuesday e-mail. Huck eventually became Crist's general counsel in the governor's office but left to join a private law firm in February.

Huck said he authorized the decision and that, to his knowledge, Crist's approval was not sought. Crist said Tuesday that he did not recall any discussions with or about Carnival.

Retroactively applied

A spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office, where McCollum succeeded Crist in January 2007, said this week that Carnival's surcharge went beyond the agreement reached with Crist's office in 2006.

That's because when Carnival ultimately announced the surcharge in November 2007 -- a $5 a day charge up to $70 per person or $140 per stateroom on all cruises departing as of Feb. 1 -- it required even customers who had already booked their trips to pay the new charge, though they were also given the option to cancel their reservations without penalty.

The Attorney General's Office says that violates even the conditions set in October 2006 because it wasn't adequately disclosed ahead of time to consumers. "We never agreed nor acquiesced in any way to a retroactive application to previously ticketed passengers," Robert Julian, a lawyer in the office's economic-crimes division, wrote in a Jan. 16 letter to Carnival.

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., which followed Carnival in adopting a retroactive surcharge, has already settled with McCollum's office and agreed to refund $21 million in surcharges to customers charged even after they booked.

But Carnival has so far refused to back down. Carnival's lawyers say the company has met all the criteria outlined under Crist's administration.

The company has, for instance, pointed out in correspondence with the state that its brochures warned customers of the possibility of fuel surcharges. It has also told the Attorney General's Office that it intends to eliminate the surcharge once the price of crude oil drops below $70 a barrel.

Carnival spokeswoman de la Cruz said the cruise operator intends to eliminate the charge once fuel has spent 30 days trading below $70 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Light, sweet crude oil closed at $101.22 a barrel Tuesday.

Carnival has already suggested to McCollum's office that it could send refunds to passengers who had already paid in full for their trips when the surcharge was announced, according to the state. But McCollum's office has insisted that any refunds must also apply to customers who had paid deposits only.

Carnival says it would forfeit $40 million if it has to refund the surcharge to all previously booked passengers.

Orlando Sentinel
By Jason Garcia, Sentinel Staff Writer
March 26, 2008

A CRUISE BRUISE EXCLUSIVE

I had a neighbor decades ago, who was scared to death of her husband. She had good reason to be scared, he had beaten her to a bloody pulp more than once, and threatened her with death more times than I can count. I lived next door and could hear the wild accusations that he would make and the resulting beatings. He watched her every move. She couldn't go to the store without him, couldn't talk on the phone or write letters without him screening them.

She was a frail little thing, with two tiny kids, and he could have snapped her like a twig anytime the mood would strike. I stayed out of her affairs, as she requested, until one day I could no longer take the screaming, pleading and begging for help. She was up against the kitchen wall, a butcher knife to her throat, screaming for somebody to call the police because he was going to kill her. So, I did.

When the police arrived they could see the scene through the window, drew their guns and kicked in the door, screaming at him repeatedly to "drop it". Long story short, she refused to press charges, he stayed in the house that night and I was the villain. I have never been able to understand that.

I understand her decision to not have him locked up, it is a pattern of partner abuse mirrored millions of times in this country. I just don't understand how calling the police when begged to do so, made me the bad guy.

I will say, with two small children at her feet, lacking a high school education, no car of her own, and no income of her own, it is easy to see how she would feel trapped after many years of systematic abuse.

I am telling you that story, because it mirrors, in many respects the latest letter I have received from a Carnival Cruise Line crew member. The letter is so sincere, so filled with emotion, pleading for help, that I have once again made an exception for posting a story on this site. I am using my rules for posting sexual abuses cases, in this case, equally as appauling and disgusting. Abuse by any name is still abuse.

There is enough personal identifying information in this letter, that there is good reason for the crew member to be fearful that I might post it all and the crew member would be doomed. I feel so strongly that this crew member is at risk, I will not even post whether the person is female or male.

This is the fifth crew member to come forward in the past few days, all of them saying they are working for Carnival Cruise Lines. Some, seem more complaining than pleading for help. But, all are inspired by the case of Lady Africa and her bravery to make public her dire situation.

From what I can see, they have every reason to complain. But, complaining and pleading for help while out lining human rights violations are two very different things.

Crew Member #5 Contacts Cruise Bruise

Crew member #5 says that the ship has refused to give back their passport too as with Lady Africa as they call her and say they have been trapped on the ship for many months. Contracts are suppose to be for only a few months. What is going on here?

In addition, though crew member #5 gives a full name, the ship name, length of employment on the ship, country of origin, and a complete history of their family, they are terrified to give an email address.

The letter reads, ". . . some people tell me even my guest tell me get lawyers here to take action. . ."

Crew member #5 says in addition to holding the passport and refusing to let the person off the ship, they also have the email addresses crew members use, and monitor their activity. So, this person has asked to have a response posted here.

The final question posed in the email asks, "Is there some way to get justice if I have no money for lawyer in this country [America], also no B2 visa?

To that I answer, "Yes". The conditions, wages, hours worked and intimidation the crew members are saying they suffer under, are not only illegal in this country, they have resulted in employers getting jail time.

It is a crime in the U.S. to work people in double shifts without breaks, seven days a week, to not pay them overtime, to force them to work in job positions they did not agree to, to hold them hostage in the employer's place of business, and forbid them to leave. Without their passports these crew members might as well be shackled to their employer's sweat shop work tables.

Now, let me come back again to another story recently posted. The towns in this country that beg for cruise industry ports-of-call, and refuse to join together to force the industry to fly the American flag and employ people under American labor law standards are assisting in the slave labor trade of some cruise lines. Shame, shame, shame on them.

It is high time the citizens living in these American ports, find a backbone, stand up for human rights and demand their elected officials refuse deals with any ship not flagged in the U.S. This industry can not afford to leave our seas, and sail away from the millions of passengers who live in the U.S. and would be lost if they left our ports.

We can bomb foreign countries to end abuse of those who can not defend themselves, while spending billions of American tax payer dollars to do so. But, we can't write legislation to force passengers ships in our ports to fly the American flag and offer basic labor protections? I'm absolutely disgusted.

I am appealing to all cruise ship passengers, boarding from American ports to refuse to sail on these ships, write your legislators and insist on laws to better protect crew members, and to find it in your heart to take action for crew member #5 and the others, so they might enjoy the same human standards in the work place that you and I enjoy.

Say "no" to cheap cruises and say "yes" to a better standard of living for those who work as slave labor on those cheap cruises. Embark on your own personal crusade for these victims, and create such a fuss, these victims voices will not remain muffled in the belly of ships.

At minimum, I give permission to every webmaster, around the world, to post this case, word for word, so we can let EVERYONE know these people need our help. Enough is enough. It is time to speak out.

Two crew members ( 1 2 ) have gone missing at sea this month alone. One from the same ship "Lady Africa" says she was enslaved on. We can only imagine why. Was it desperation after an inability to continue to endure these substandard employment practices? We will never know.

Crew member #5, you know this story is about you, though I do not call you by your name or nickname.

I urge you to contact me with your email address, so I can begin to help you. I promise you that your email address will be kept in complete confidence by the legal professional I contact on your behalf. You asked me to give you hope, and I am reaching out to you, offering it now. I am giving you one chance, in this single, one time, posting to change work conditions for yourself and all the crew members also suffering.

If you can not give your email for fear of retribution, at least contact me again and give me permission to send a copy of your complete letter to a specialized attorney who will work for you without charge unless the attorney can get your back wages for you and help you out of your dire situation.

I assure you that you will not pay the attorney if their team can not help you, and IF they can get you paid back wages and compensation, they will deduct their fees from the money you collect. Don't worry, you can get help without any money up front.

UPDATE: February 27, 2008 : 0100 hours

Cruise Bruise has received contact from a maritime attorney. The attorney says they can investigate Crew Member #5 claims, and other crew member claims by depositioning all the crew members within the same department, without revealing who made the original complaint. You will be protected.

A female crew member working on a Port Canaveral-based cruise ship filed a lawsuit today in federal court against Carnival Cruise Lines, accusing the Miami-based cruise line of forced labor, slavery and human trafficking.

In court papers filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District in Florida, attorneys for Reshma Harilal, a 33-year-old resident of South Africa, ask that she is removed from the Carnival Glory cruise ship, where she is currently working. The suit also asks that her passport is returned to her, and that she be paid wages that she agreed to work under.

“Based on what our client has told us, there are other crew members who are also working in lower positions and at a lower pay than they agreed when they boarded the vessel,” said Tonya Meister, an associate at the Miami-based law firm Lipcon Margulies & Alsina. “This case stands for more than money. Human beings should not be treated this way. They should not be forced to work under conditions they did not agree upon, and that’s what this case is about.”

Carnival officials could not immediately be reached for comment today.

With Harilal aboard, the Carnival Glory left Port Canaveral on Saturday.

Court documents claim that Harilal traveled from South Africa to take a position as a cabin steward on the Glory, after signing a contract indicating that would be her position. While already aboard the ship, Harilal was told to work as an assistant cabin steward instead, the suit claims. The cabin steward job pays $1,500 every two weeks, and the assistant job pays $250 to $300 every two weeks, the suit claims.

The Glory was in Belize on Tuesday, was expected to dock in Bahamas on Friday, and was scheduled to return to Port Canaveral on Saturday.

Attorneys have faxed the complaint to the ship, and are hopeful that Harilal will be removed from the ship Thursday or Friday, when the ship is in the Bahamas, and then will be brought back to Miami.

Harilal holds a tourist visa, and would stay with her daughter, who lives in Florida, attorney Meister said.

Read a copy of the lawsuit (PDF).

BY DONNA BALANCIA
FLORIDA TODAY

The cruise lines always say that the chance of rape is less on a ship than on land. This article reflects a different result.

From the International Cruise Victims message board:
Your risk of being sexually assaulted is much higher on a cruise ship than in the average American city.

Thats the message that Ross Klein, professor at a Canadian university, brought to Congress last week. One has a 50% greater chance of sexual assault on a Royal Caribbean International ship as compared to the US generally, Klein told a House of Representatives subcommittee on March 27. He explained that the figures for Royal Caribbean are comparable to those for the industry as a whole and were used for the sake of clarity.

Klein, professor of social work at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, has written numerous books, articles, and reports on the cruise industry and maintains two blogs concerned with the industry.

Dr. Foxs, hired by the cruise lines to develop crime rates for March 7, 2006 Congressional Hearings, had asserted that the rate of sexual assault on cruise ships is 17.6 per 100,000. Dr. Klein testimony, however, indicated that on the most conservative basis, the actual crime rate is almost three times greater, 48.065 per 100,000. As a result of his testimony, the reliability of any judgments based on those industry figures must be called into question.

A summary of his findings our shown in the following chart:

Rate of Sex Related Shipboard Incidents
(Based upon data released as a result of a Court Order and published in the LA Times on January 20, 2007)

Annual rate of all sex-related shipboard incidents (per 100,000): 161.996
Annual rate of sexual assaults (per 100,000): 48.065
US rate for sexual assaults (per 100,000): 32.200

The numbers indicate that the cruise industry has a problem and they appear either unwilling or unable to deal with it, Klein added. His testimony added further evidence to support the belief of ICV that cruise ship passengers are ill-served, sometimes fatally so, by the current security efforts of cruise lines.

Kendall Carver, President of ICV, indicated, the testimony of Professor Klein is a valuable addition to the growing store of data that point to major problems in the cruise industry. Through advertising, the industry has created the sense that cruise ships offer a carefree, no-risk vacation. Far too many people have learned at their own cost that this is untrue. ICV exists to promote the safety of passengers and crew and to prevent more victims.

The written testimony of Dr. Klein and of other witnesses from the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee hearing (entitled Crimes Against Americans on Cruise Ships) is posted on the Committees website: http://transportation.house.gov/hearings/hearingdetail.aspx?NewsID=112

For more information about the International Cruise Victims Association, please visit www.internationalcruisevictims.org or write to info@internationalcruisevictims.org, phone 425-753-7711, fax 206-374-2944.

Cruise lines and their passengers spent $17.6 billion in the United States in 2006, and New York and Hawaii were among the fastest growing embarkation points for cruise travelers, according to a study released Wednesday.

Direct spending related to the cruise industry increased 9 percent in 2006 - down slightly from 10 percent growth the year before because of a slower rate of capacity growth and a drop in consumer spending, according to a report from the Cruise Lines International Association and Exton, Pa.-based Business Research and Economic Advisors.

The report showed that 12 million passengers took cruise vacations worldwide in 2006, with U.S. passengers making up 78 percent of those travelers. Seven ships were added last year, and about 30 more are slated to be built by the end of 2011 as cruise lines anticipate there will be enough demand to fill some 80,000 new berths.

Over the past few years, the cruise industry has had to answer questions about safety aboard ships stemming from several incidents, including passengers' bouts with stomach illness, a ship fire and traveler disappearances. It also must deal with the yearly hurricane season and higher fuel costs.

Demand has slowed in the key Caribbean market, but the industry has seen potential for growth in the Europe and Asia markets. Cruise association President Terry Dale noted that industry surveys show only about 17 percent of Americans have taken a cruise, meaning there should be enough demand to meet the increased supply of berths.

"As an industry, we've barely scratched the surface," Dale said. "There's such potential for us to continue to grow."

Florida - home base for Carnival Corp. and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. - led with nearly 56 percent of all embarkations and the top three cruise ports in 2006. The Port of Miami, Port Canaveral and Port Everglades accounted for more than 4.4 million passenger embarkations, the study showed.

The Port of Galveston in Texas ranked fourth with 617,000 embarkations, an increase of 16 percent from the year before.

New York ranked sixth with 536,000 embarkations in 2006, up 45 percent, with the opening of the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.

The port in Honolulu also showed substantial growth, with passenger departures reaching 318,000, a jump of 34 percent.

"We've literally brought cruising to the backyards of millions of Americans," Dale said. "It makes it much more accessible for folks, and as a result, you don't have additional costs to fly.

It just makes the experience that much more affordable."

The success in New York and Hawaii were in contrast to a nearly 77 percent drop in passenger embarkations in New Orleans, whose port was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. About 72,000 cruise passengers began their trip in New Orleans in 2006, down from 308,000 the year before, the report showed.

Other ports that saw a drop in embarkations were Boston, down 22 percent with 62,000, and San Diego, down 23 percent with 180,000.

The study was done by Business Research and Economic Advisors, which gathered and analyzed data for the Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based cruise association.

By ADRIAN SAINZ, AP

As a Florida couple makes funeral arrangements for a their teenage daughter who died in parasail accident off Pompano Beach over the weekend, investigators are trying to piece together just what happened and how it could have been prevented.

A week shy of her 16th birthday, Amber White and her 17-year old sister Crystal, were visiting with South Florida with friends when they decided to go parasailing.

The teens, from Summerfield which is near Ocala, booked a ride with Island Waves Parasailing, also known as Pompano Beach Watersports Saturday.

As the boat was heading north near Pompano Beach, the winds increased from 15 mph to 25 mph and seas became choppy. When the driver of the boat tried to pull the girls back in, the tow line to their parachute rig snapped against the force of the wind and sent the girls flying towards the buildings on shore. Both girls crashed into a second story hotel balcony. Amber suffered critical neck and head wounds along with internal injuries. Crystal suffered a head injury along with numerous cuts and bruises.

CBS4 reporter Art Barron spoke with the girls step father who confirmed that Amber was pronounced brain dead Sunday evening and doctors had kept her body on life support machines until Amber's organs could be donated.

Monday Crystal was released from the hospital in good condition.

Shannon Kraus, Amber and Crystal White mother, released this statement Tuesday;

"The family of Amber and Crystal White would like to extend their gratitude for everyone's support and well wishes during this difficult time.

Currently, Crystal White, Amber's sister, is recovering from her injuries and is trying to cope with the loss of her younger sister. Her older brother Logan Taylor is now with the family, after receiving a special leave from the U.S. Marine Corps where he is stationed at Camp Pendleton.

The family has decided to donate Amber's organs in the hope of saving more lives.

A fund has been created to help with the funeral expenses. Donations can be made to the Amber Crystal White Fund at any Bank of America."

Meanwhile, Broward Sheriff’s investigators have yet to rule what may have caused the accident. Equipment failure, bad weather and possibly careless boating, or any combination of these factors, are all being considered.

CBS4

Our maritime firm is experienced in handling small boating accidents or accidents involving small boats. This type of accident would come under Federal Maritime Law.

By Terry Tomalin
St. Petersburg Times

The marine industry supports an effort to require classes that reduce water crashes.

Florida once again leads the nation in boating accident fatalities, but a new effort to expand safety education requirements to all boaters may, for the first time, have the support of the state's $17-billion marine industry.

National statistics show that boaters who receive formal water safety education are 25 percent less likely to be involved in an on-the-water collision than those who do not.

Florida law requires that only boaters 21 and younger attend formal boater safety training. But if that age requirement were expanded, as many as 20 lives could be saved each year, according to the state's chief boating law administrator.

A review of state accident records for 2006 shows that 86 percent of all fatal accidents involved boaters older than 21 who were not required to have formal boating safety education.

"We are clearly not reaching everybody that we need to," said Capt. Richard Moore of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "Nationally, the statistics show that when older boaters are included in education programs, fatalities drop up to 25 percent."

Federal and state officials agree that Florida could improve its boating safety record if the state Legislature required more boaters to undergo formal training.

"We have lobbied for that for years," said Moore, the state's chief boating law administrator. "So far, we haven't been able to get the legislators to support it."

Last year, 69 people died on the state's waterways, marking the 15th time in the last 20 years that Florida led the nation in the number of boating deaths (down from 1987's historic high of 106). Florida also leads the nation in the number of registered boats -- 1,024,375 -- and is the only state with a year-round boating season. The state's rate of fatalities per 100,000 registered boats is just slightly above the national average.

In the past, efforts to expand the state's mandatory boating education requirements have met with opposition on many fronts. But as the FWC prepares legislation to increase the minimum age requirement for education in five-year increments over the next 10 years, Florida's marine industry appears ready to supply its backing.

"I think mandatory education should apply to everyone," said Bill McGill, president and chief executive officer for Marine Max, the nation's largest boat dealer. "The state just needs to make sure that the information boaters receive is practical and can be put to use on the waterways."

McGill, whose Clearwater company sells 10,000 boats a year, long ago instituted an in-house program to train new boaters.

"We don't just sell somebody a boat and turn them loose," he said. "We have a staff of trained captains who will spend anywhere from a couple of hours to a few days making sure our customers know how to operate their boat, and more importantly, understand the rules of the road."

John Sprague, chairman of the governmental affairs for the Marine Industries Association of Florida, said his organization will also back state efforts to expand its programs.

"That has always been one of our No. 1 priorities ... to educate the public," Sprague said. "We would support (an age increase) if it was done incrementally and it did not overwhelm the system."

Moore, a career law enforcement officer who is passionate about boating safety, appeared pleasantly surprised.

"We were a little nervous moving ahead with this," he said. "We figured we would receive some opposition. But it is good to know that we have the industry's backing."

A national trend

Jeff Hoedt, with the U.S. Coast Guard's Office of Boating Safety in Washington, D.C., said a review of national boating accident statistics show a common trend. "Most people involved in boating accidents are in their later 30s or early 40s," he said. "Those are the very people who are not getting any formal boating education."

Boating education laws vary from state to state. Alaska, for example, has no boating education requirement and the worst safety record - 37.8 fatalities per 100,000 registered boats.

Iowa has the best safety record with 1.15 deaths per 100,000 registered boats. "I credit that to an exemplary boater education program," said Randy Edwards, the state's boating law administrator.

Florida's fatality rate is 6.41 percent, slightly above the national average of 5.39 percent, ranking it 30th among the 50 states.

Minnesota, a state with more than 4,500 lakes and 700,000 powerboats, is the second-safest state for boaters.

"Our boater education law has been in effect since 1975," said Kim Elverum, Minnesota's top boating safety officer. "Since the program started, we have educated more than 175,000 people. I think that has made a huge difference."

When it comes to mandatory boater education, the jury is in, said Ruth Wood, president of the BoatU.S. Foundation, which represents more than 650,000 recreational boaters nationwide.

"Education is our mission," she said. "An educated boater is more confident and as a result, more competent. We support mandatory education for all boaters."

Ed Cates, a lieutenant with the FWC's Tallahassee office, personally reviewed all 671 boating accident reports from 2006 and said his review supports the Coast Guard's claim.

"It you have been through a safe boating class, you are less likely to be involved in a boating accident," he said.

Cates also noticed that most victims in fatal accidents were not wearing personal flotation devices, PFDs. "If you want to stay alive, wear your PFD," he said.

A real lifesaver

Florida law requires that only children younger than 6 years old, personal watercraft operators and those towed behind boats (i.e., water skiers) must wear a life jacket.

But Dwayne Somers of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office's Marine Unit said that most boaters wish they were wearing a life jacket after it is too late.

"We have seen that most deaths don't occur during the accident itself, but after the fact," he said. "People suddenly find themselves thrown from the boat, in the water, an unfamiliar environment, and panic."

State records show that in 88 percent of the 2006 boating fatalities, the victims were not wearing life jackets.

"What happens is somebody hits their head and gets knocked out," Somers said. "Afterward we usually hear the same thing from the family. ... They were a strong swimmer."

The Pinellas Sheriff's Office feels so strongly about flotation devices that on weekends deputies patrol local boat ramps ready to loan life jackets to boaters with children who may not have the proper equipment. "Our Operation Kid Float program has been a big success," Somers said. "The kids love it. We give them a sticker and a T-shirt. They think it is cool to wear a life jacket."

Moore, who is nothing short of a zealot when it comes to preaching life jacket use, said national efforts to pass mandatory life jacket laws for adult boaters have met with strong resistance.

"The greatest opposition has come from the boaters themselves," he said.

In Florida, many boaters complain that life jackets are too hot for everyday wear. But Moore scoffs at that idea, pointing to a new generation of belt and suspender-style devices that are less cumbersome than traditional life jackets.

"I will wear mine all day on the water and forget that I have it on," Moore said.

The new versions are expensive -- Boaters World in South St. Petersburg sells the basic suspender model for $99 -- but Moore believes they are well worth the investment.

"They're a bit of an investment," he said. "But how much is your life worth?"

Fast Facts:

Young captains need to know

Since October 1996, Florida law has required that anyone 21 years of age or younger take a National Association of State Boating Law Administrators, or NASBLA, approved boating education course and carry boating education and photo identification cards in order to operate a vessel with a motor of 10 horsepower or more. Identification cards are good for life.

To get a boating license

To get a boater education card, prospective students can either take an approved, on-site class (see below) or contact the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission at www.myfwc.com to learn more about a $20 online "How to Boat Smart" course. The FWC also offers a free correspondence course that may be obtained by calling (850) 488-5600 or writing to the FWC, Division of Law Enforcement Boating Safety Section, 620 South Meridian Street, Tallahassee, FL 32399-1600.

Florida law also requires mandatory education for those who have had a criminal violation of state boating laws, a noncriminal violation of state boating laws if it involved a boating accident or two noncriminal boating safety infractions occurring within a 12-month period. Violators may only take on-site boating safety courses.

To find a boating safety course near you, call:

Boat US: Toll-free 1-800-336-2628, or go to www.boatus.com

United States Power Squadron: Toll-free 1-888-367-8777, or go to www.usps.org

Online resources

The U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary offers regular boating safety classes throughout the Tampa Bay region. Go to http://cgaux7.org/pub_classes.asp.

Boat-Ed Online: www.boat-ed.com

Boater 101: www.boater101.com

Nautical Know-how: www.boatsafe.com

PWC Safety School: www.pwcsafetyschool.com

American Safety Council: www.floridaboatingcourse.com

If you or someone you know has been injured in a boating accident, contact our boating accident lawyers now for a free consultation.

When a Royal Palm Beach man, 27, died Sunday in a personal watercraft collision on Lake Osborne, he became the latest casualty of the fast-moving vessels flooding the area's waterways.

Palm Beach County last year had more personal watercraft accidents than any other Florida county. One reason for the 20 accidents: the county's lakes, canals and Intracoastal Waterway increasingly are becoming congested with vessels from Broward and Miami-Dade counties, where lakes and canals are more restrictive to personal watercraft vessels, officials say.

As a result, Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials Monday announced a crackdown to stop vessel speeding, require proper registration and reduce a rise in vessel theft. Police will educate riders on safety.

Personal watercraft vessels "are misunderstood when they are purchased," Sheriff's Office Sgt. Larry Gamage said. Many riders assume "they don't require the skill needed to operate them."

Like operators of other recreational motorized water vessels, owners of personal watercraft vessels don't need to take safety education classes in Florida if they are older than 21.

It wasn't clear if the two men involved in Sunday's collision at John Prince Memorial Park west of Lake Worth took classes.

Paulo Regis was on his 2006 Bombardier, following his brother-in-law's 2006 Bombardier, according to a preliminary Fish and Wildlife report. They were westbound on the lake when the other watercraft struck Regis around 4 p.m.

He died an hour later at JFK Medical Center in Atlantis.

Both men were drinking alcohol earlier in the day, Fish and Wildlife officials said. What impact, if any, alcohol had on the collision is under investigation. Blood was drawn from Regis' brother-in-law, whose name was not released, for alcohol-level testing.

Regis was the first person to die in a watercraft vessel accident in Palm Beach County since 2005, according to Fish and Wildlife data. Last year, 21 people were injured in accidents, up from 11 in 2005.

Many accidents occur because of operator inattention and lack of experience, officials said. Collisions mostly happened in lakes and ponds, Sheriff's Office officials said.

"These vessels are getting faster, and vessel traffic is increasing," said Fish and Wildlife Lt. Ed Cates, an assistant boating safety coordinator. "Operators are just not paying attention. It takes just a second for something to go wrong."

The beefed-up law enforcement of personal watercraft vessels will continue through the busy summer boating months and pick up on major holidays, officials said.

Deputies and officers will target Lake Ida, Lake Osborne, Pine Lake and the Intracoastal Waterway's speed-restricted zones.

By Leon Fooksman
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

By IANS

Shanghai - At least 23 tourists, including 11 foreigners, were injured after their ship collided with a cargo ship here, hospital sources said.

The accident occurred around 6.40 p.m. Saturday at a section of the Huangpu River near downtown Shanghai, when the Shikumen passenger ship with 216 tourists aboard crashed with a cargo vessel sailing in the opposite direction.

Twenty-three injured tourists, including eight from Japan and three from Spain, were rushed to a hospital here.

The passenger ship managed to anchor at a nearby pier while police seized the cargo vessel police.

When the Empress of the North ran aground, the band played on - as everyone disembarked in a safe and orderly fashion.

Passengers jolted awake by the ship hitting a charted reef 50 miles southwest of Juneau early Monday were ordered to don lifejackets and gather in the ballroom, where a singer and piano player entertained them with songs including "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" as they waited for rescue.

Passengers praised the ship's crew for taking charge.

"They just seemed to know what they were doing. They were caring, courteous, the whole thing, and I think that's what kept everybody calm," said Mary Crosby, 83, of Seattle.

The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the grounding of the riverboat-style cruise ship, which had 206 passengers and 75 crew members on board. One person was taken to a hospital for observation, a Juneau city official said.

When Coast Guard helicopters reached the area, the vessel was listing at the southern end of Icy Strait and had begun taking on water, the Coast Guard said.

As the ship's pumps worked to remove the water, the passengers were transferred safely to other boats in the area and then to an Alaska state ferry to be taken to Juneau.

The Empress of the North floated free of the rock during the evacuation, and the crew was able to stabilize the ship, said the Coast Guard.

The ship arrived in Juneau with a Coast Guard escort about nine hours after the grounding. The ferry Columbia arrived shortly after.

State officials said the hull sustained significant damage and an empty fuel tank was breached during the grounding. A light oil sheen was seen in the area but officials were uncertain if the ship was the source.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Barry Lane said Coast Guard inspectors did an initial survey of the ship as it was moored in Juneau's Auke Bay and will pass the information on to the NTSB.

It wasn't immediately clear why the cruise ship ran aground, said Coast Guard officials. It was drizzling in Juneau but the seas were calm.

Good Samaritans were first on the scene of the grounding and passengers were initially evacuated onto lifeboats, a charter fishing boat, a tugboat, another small cruise ship and a coast guard cutter before the Columbia arrived.

"The morning was incredible. You had anybody and everybody that could get there and they all got there as quick as they could and all were willing to help out," said Coast Guard Capt. Mark Guillory, federal on-scene coordinator.

Passengers left the ship with only their personal identification and medications. They were to be reunited with their belongings later in Juneau. All had been flown to Seattle by evening, said company officials.

"It couldn't have been better orchestrated the way things fell into place," said Chief Petty Officer Barry Lane.

The Empress of the North is operated by Majestic America Line of Seattle. The ship has 112 staterooms, a three-story paddlewheel and galleries featuring Native American masks and Russian artwork, including Faberge eggs, according to its Web site.

The 360-foot ship is less than half the size of the average cruise ship in the Caribbean, and is also dwarfed by most cruise other ships off the Alaska coast.

The grounding occurred on the second day of a seven-day cruise, said Dan Miller, a spokesman for Majestic America.

The American-built ship is billed by the company as the only overnight paddlewheel vessel in use on Alaska cruises. It also is used on cruises on the Columbia River between Washington state and Oregon.

The Empress of the North has had other problems since it began operating in mid-2003. In October of that year, it hit a navigation lock on the Snake River in Washington. It has also run aground at least twice before - once after developing steering problems on the Columbia River, and once on a sandbar near Washougal, Wash., as it tried to avoid a barge.

By ANNE SUTTON, AP

The data recording device from a cruise ship that sunk off the island of Santorini earlier this month was sent to the US yesterday under heavy security.

It is hoped that data from the device – often referred to as a black box – will facilitate the investigation into the sinking of the Sea Diamond on April 5.

A prosecutor and coast guard officials took the box to a military airport under heavy security to prevent any possibility of anyone tampering with the device.

Investigators hope the data will help clear up confusion about why the vessel hit a well-marked reef, whether the sinking of the vessel could have been prevented and who decided the location to which the ship was towed before eventually sinking.

The device will be sent to New York and from there to Florida, where the data will be analyzed.

Kathimerini, Greece's International English Language Newspaper

SANTORINI, Greece - Greece's merchant marine minister said Tuesday that human error contributed to the sinking of a cruise ship off a resort island in the Aegean Sea last week, forcing the evacuation of nearly 1,600 people.

Two French tourists are feared drowned after the Sea Diamond hit submerged rocks just off Santorini island on Thursday, causing the ship to take on water and eventually sink.

Six crew members of the Greek-flagged ship, including the captain and chief mate, have been charged with negligence. The captain has told investigators he was caught unawares by a sea current that swept his vessel onto the well-marked and charted rocks, minutes before it was due to dock.

The Greek crew members have been released from police custody, but are still on Santorini, officials said. If upheld in court, the charges carry a maximum five-year sentence.

On Tuesday, Merchant Marine Minister Manolis Kefaloyiannis said that "most definitely there was human error" involved in the accident, without elaborating.

He also praised the rescue effort, saying it worked "perfectly," despite some passengers complaining of an insufficient supply of life vests, little guidance from crew members and being forced into a steep climb down rope-ladders to safety.

"Our attention is now focused on the question of the environment ... and, of course, to find the missing two," Kefaloyiannis said.

A robot submarine began filming the wreck Tuesday in an attempt to locate the missing tourists and the vessel's data recorder, while workers tried to clean up fuel that seeped into the sea from the ship's tanks.

The submarine was to take footage of the position of the vessel -- which lies an estimated 230-430 feet beneath the surface on a steep incline -- and determine its stability before divers are allowed to enter the wreck.

The missing pair -- Frenchman Jean-Christophe Allain, 45, and his 16-year-old daughter Maud -- are thought to have been trapped in their flooded cabin. Allain's wife narrowly escaped.

More than 50 tons of the ship's fuel leaked after the sinking, some of which has washed ashore.

An estimated 430 tons of oil are still inside the ship, threatening an environmental disaster at the onset of the busy summer season on Santorini _ a volcanic island with spectacular cliffs that is one of Greece's most popular tourist destinations.

Workers collected oil from a pebble beach near the port on Tuesday, while trucks were siphoning oil from the island's harbor. Ships were also facilitating the cleanup, while floating booms were deployed to contain the spillage.

Kefaloyiannis said the oil spill "is under control."

A total of 1,156 passengers and 391 crew were traveling on the four-day Aegean Sea cruise, and included groups from the U.S., Canada, Britain, Spain, France, Australia and the Dominican Republic.

By Thanassis Stavrakis
Associated Press

CORFU, Greece – A Filipino sailor was killed and four other sailors injured Thursday in an accident on a cruise ship anchored in port on the Greek island of Corfu, port police said.

It occurred during a routine rescue drill when the ropes attaching a lifeboat to the cruise ship 'Astoria' broke, they said.

A 47-year-old Filipino in the lifeboat died immediately while another Filipino and three Ukrainians were hurt. Two have been hospitalized in Corfu.

Most of the 257 crew on board the Astoria, flying under a Bahamas flag, came from the Philippines and Ukraine, while the majority of the 374 passengers on board were German.

An inquiry is underway.

Agence France-Presse
Inquirer.net

If you or someone you know was a passenger aboard the Sea Diamond, contact us now for immediate assistance and to protect your legal rights.

A Senate budget subcommittee has decided to heed the voters and restore part of the cruise ship initiative the House stripped out.

It's good to see them play by the rules.

The senators approved $2.5 million to the ocean rangers program, which would put state pollution monitors aboard cruise ships while they're under way. They approved a two-person staff to get started, and adopted rules to provide just one ranger per ship -- in the cheapest available berths.

The rules make sense, and comply with the spirit as well as the letter of last August's voter-approved initiative, which called for onboard pollution monitors to make sure cruise ship crews abide by discharge limits. The initiative imposed a new $4-per-passenger tax to pay for the program, estimated to raise close to $4 million a year.

The subcommittee's action is a far cry from some in the House who say the onboard monitoring program is redundant, expensive and too difficult to implement. The latest proposal, backed by Rep. Jay Ramras, R-Fairbanks, calls for using $1 million of the $4 million to pay for port checks by monitors, limited random checks on the water, and then using the remaining $3 million to fund annual grants to nonprofit marine groups for research, education, youth programs, wildlife protection and environmental cleanup.

Using any leftover funds from the new tax for grants to nonprofits makes some sense, especially if the option is spending more than necessary on too much bureaucracy. But the first order of business should be to set up a comprehensive and adequately funded pollution monitor program. That's what the initiative requires.

The Department of Environmental Conservation says it's working to get ocean rangers aboard ships for the early May start of the cruise season. Lawmakers should be helping that effort, not looking to create escape clauses.

Alaska law blocks legislators from repealing a voter initiative until two years after passage. Until then, they can amend an initiative's provisions -- with the courts likely to decide how far lawmakers can go in "amending" before it becomes "repealing."

Legislators should appropriate the money and approve any laws necessary for a pollution monitors program. Then, and only then, see if any leftover money from the new passenger tax can go to worthwhile marine programs.

BOTTOM LINE: Senators show the way to heed voters' decision on cruise ship ocean rangers.

The Associated Press

PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - A phony bomb threat forced nearly 3,000 passengers and crew members to evacuate a Carnival Cruise Lines ship shortly before it was scheduled to leave Florida for the Bahamas.

Coast Guard and Brevard County sheriff's officers spent two hours searching the ship Thursday before determining the threat was a hoax.

``We did a sweep in accordance with security procedure,'' said Coast Guard Lt. Carol Swinson.

The call about the cruise ship Sensation reached the Coast Guard Thursday afternoon. After the search, the passengers reboarded, and the ship left port shortly after 8 p.m.

Carnival's Web site shows Sensation has a passenger capacity of 2,052 and a total crew of 920.

The company released a statement about the incident saying, ``Carnival Cruise Lines takes any security threat very seriously and is working with law enforcement officials as the investigation continues.''

By Kimi Yoshino
Times Staff Writer

The cruise industry — facing rough seas amid heightened public scrutiny of shipboard safety — is being called in front of Congress again to answer whether cruise operators downplayed crimes on cruise ships.

In addition, some lawmakers are looking to crack down on the $32-billion cruise business because of increasing reports of crime, illness and shipboard disappearances.

"I am hearing more and more stories about victims where crimes have been either unreported or not prosecuted," said Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento), who requested the March 27 hearing before a House transportation subcommittee. "We really do need to shine a light on this industry. We trust these cruise companies and I don't know whether we should."

Among Matsui's concerns are whether the industry accurately depicted the number of sex crimes on ships and how it chose to define the crimes. Industry executives testified last year that 178 passengers on North American cruises reported being sexually assaulted from 2003 to 2005. More than 12 million people worldwide took cruises last year.

The hearing — the third on cruise crimes but the first in the transportation subcommittee — follows a January report in the Los Angeles Times that said companies might have downplayed the numbers.

The article cited internal Royal Caribbean records that were turned over as part of a civil lawsuit. The company's spreadsheets revealed that at least 273 people had reported being the victims of sexual assault, battery, harassment or inappropriate touching during a nearly three-year period. The cruise line reported 66 cases to Congress.

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. executives maintain that they provided accurate statistics based on legal definitions of sexual assault. Spokesman Michael Sheehan said Monday that the company was happy to continue discussions with lawmakers "regarding the exemplary safety and security record of the cruise industry."

Gary Bald, Royal Caribbean's senior vice president of global security and a former top FBI official, has been asked to appear before the subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Representatives from the FBI, the Coast Guard and International Cruise Victims, a support and advocacy group, are likely to testify. The witness list hasn't been finalized.

"Cruising is one of the most popular vacation options in large part because of its excellent safety record," said Christine Fischer, spokeswoman for the Cruise Lines International Assn., the industry's primary lobbying and marketing organization.

Lawmakers, though, have expressed concern about regulatory loopholes that allow ships to operate under "flags of convenience" issued by countries such as Liberia, Panama and the Bahamas. The foreign registries allow the operators to pay little in U.S. corporate income taxes and to avoid U.S. labor laws. In addition, jurisdiction for investigating crimes is muddied by international waters.

Lawmakers are working on redrafting and reintroducing legislation proposed last year by Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) that would require cruise operators to report crimes involving U.S. citizens to the Department of Homeland Security within four hours. The crime reports would then be posted on the Internet for public review.

Ken Carver, co-founder of International Cruise Victims, said he would like to see independent security forces on the ships. "You've got a cruise ship out there, people are drinking while stuff's going on and nobody is responsible," Carver said. "It's like a town of 3,000 people with no independent police force."

Matsui became aware of the issues facing the cruise industry after she was contacted by a constituent, Laurie Dishman, who alleged that she was raped while on a Royal Caribbean cruise to Mexico.

The FBI and the U.S. attorney's office decided not to arrest the suspect — a member of the crew acting as a security guard — citing a lack of evidence.

"I want to see the criminals prosecuted," said Dishman, who will testify at the hearing. "I want justice to be served."

Our maritime lawyers handled this case that resulted in the ruling that was favorable to passengers. It is anticipated that application will be made to the United States Supreme Court to review the decision.

View the initial favorible ruling, The Carlise Decision.

Court Rules Cruise Line not Responsible for Misdiagnosis by Ship's Doctor
By Tom Stieghorst
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

In a big setback for people injured on cruise ships, the Florida Supreme Court decided Thursday that cruise lines aren't responsible for the negligent acts of ship physicians who harm passengers during treatment.

The ruling means only the doctors can be sued. The company is protected unless it knowingly hired an incompetent or unqualified doctor.

That leaves injured passengers without recourse, plaintiff attorneys say. They argue that most doctors on cruise ships are foreign residents, putting them beyond the reach of U.S. courts for all practical purposes.

A spokeswoman for Carnival Cruise Lines, the company that was sued in the case decided by the Supreme Court, referred calls to its outside counsel Jeffrey Maltzman. Efforts to reach Maltzman were unsuccessful.

Florida law is especially significant because the major cruise lines, such as Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian, are based in Florida. Their ticket contracts say suits must be brought in South Florida courts.

The ruling overturns a 3rd District Court of Appeal decision in favor of Elizabeth Carlisle, a Michigan teen whose ruptured appendix was misdiagnosed on a Carnival ship in 1997. On a family cruise to Mexico, Carlisle had stomach pains and was told by the ship's doctor she had the flu. When she flew home, the true problem was discovered.

Carlisle, who was 14 years old, was rendered sterile by the rupture and subsequent infection, the court said.

In its 20-page opinion, the Supreme Court said there was merit in Carlisle's case. The lower court had sided with her, saying that the doctor appeared to be an employee of the cruise line. Carnival argued he was an independent contractor.

The Florida Supreme Court agreed, saying that federal maritime law was settled in favor of the cruise lines, despite a lone federal case that disagreed. Since ships move through different state and international jurisdictions, it said, they must face uniform laws.

Tracking down foreign doctors and compelling them to appear in U.S. courts is extremely difficult, attorneys say. In previous court filings, Carlisle's attorneys said they were unable to serve papers on the English doctor who treated Elizabeth.

The ruling only applies to cruise customers. Under a U.S. labor law, the same doctor who is considered a contractor when treating passengers is deemed an employee when treating crew, giving the cruise line shared liability for any mistakes.

"It's a perfect decision to be taken to the U.S. Supreme Court and I think it will be," he said.

Another cruise ship passenger was reported missing today. A 73 year old British passenger was on a Celebrity Cruise ship off of Portugal and did not disembark in the Medeira, Portugal port.

A crew member reported the cruise passenger disappearance when the man had not used his cabin. He was travelling alone.

Celebrity said that the captain immediately reversed the course and began an search as well as notified British, Portuguese and Bahamian officials, as well as the FBI. The ship continued its 14 night trans-Atlantic cruise from Barcelona, Spain to Miami.

Missing persons at sea require a search and rescue. Once a person is reported missing the shipping company has a duty to do a reasonable search and rescue. If the person is not quickly found on board the vessel, then the vessel should return to the last location at sea when the person was seen. The failure to perform a reasonable search and rescue can render the shipping company liable for the disappearance of the person.

We have extensive experience handling cruise ship passenger disappearance cases. We recommend that anyone about to go on a cruise take the Cruise S.O.S. Card with them. The Cruise S.O.S. Card includes important information including emergency steps to take incase of accident, crime or disappearance of you or your family members when you are on a cruise.

Cruise ship are srambling to update their fire prevention methods. With cruise ship deaths in the media spotlight, the industry is at least taking some steps to make cruise ship vacations safer.

Read the article from The Wall Street Journal:

Cruise lines scramble to replace fire hazard
By Stephanie Chen
The Wall Street Journal

Shortly after 3 A.M. on March 23, a loud alarm jolted passengers and crew on the Star Princess cruise ship as it was heading to Jamaica from Grand Cayman. The emergency: a raging fire that took 1 1/2 hours to extinguish, spread to five decks and damaged or destroyed 283 cabins. Richard Liffridge of Locust Grove, Ga., on a getaway to celebrate his 72nd birthday, was killed by smoke inhalation, and 13 other people were injured, according to the Marine Accident Investigation Branch, a British agency investigating the fire.

While a cigarette is believed to be the likeliest cause of the fire, it spread because the partitions used for balconies on the ship were made of plastic that burns easily and produces thick, black smoke. Before the blaze, cruise lines liked the material because it is durable and lightweight, helping them satisfy growing demand from passengers for cabins with a balcony view.

Since the Star Princess fire, though, cruise companies have begun scrambling to replace as many as 80,000 plastic balcony dividers, which industry officials now acknowledge poses greater risks than previously thought. "It fell under our radar screen and the experts throughout the world," says Ted Thompson, executive vice president of the International Council of Cruise Lines, a trade group that is encouraging its members to make the changes.

The affected cruise lines include large operators such as Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., Carnival Corp.'s Carnival Cruise Lines, Princess Cruises and Holland America Line units, and Walt Disney Co.'s Disney Cruise Line, with a total of 36 ships being fixed. The 2,600-passenger Star Princess, for example, returned to service in May with aluminum balcony partitions. Most of the replacement work is expected to be done by next year. "Our goal is to make sure we have the highest level of fire protection on board our ships," says Julie Benson, a spokeswoman for Princess Cruises.

The overhauls, likely to cost cruise lines tens of millions of dollars, deepen the woes facing the cruise industry, which is having its most challenging season since 2003, when Iraq war fears and post-9/11 jitters hurt bookings. Recently, the industry has been hit by a series of bizarre incidents -- including virus outbreaks, mysterious disappearances and even a pirate attack -- that have spooked some passengers. This year, worries about hurricanes have pushed prices on Carnival and Royal Caribbean cruises lasting less than a week down by at least 10 percent, Timothy Conder, an analyst at A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc., calculated in a report last month. For 2006, cruise-ship passenger volume in North America is expected to rise 5 percent, the smallest increase since 2001, according to Cruise Lines International Association.

Travel agents and cruise lines insist the Star Princess fire and industrywide balcony problems haven't caused passengers to cancel or postpone trips. Cabins with balconies still are highly popular and often sell out far in advance, says Anita LaScala, vice president of CruiseBrokers.com, a Tampa, Fla., travel agency specializing in cruises. The Star Princess incident is the only balcony-related fire so far, according to the ICCL.

"We are more concerned about hurricanes," says Sheli Friedman, 39, of Oak Park, Calif., whose family took a weeklong cruise last month in the Bahamas on Royal Caribbean's Navigator of the Seas ship. They stayed in a balcony room.

Still, it's obvious to passengers that life aboard a cruise ship isn't as carefree as it used to be. Because balconies usually can't be reached by sprinklers that are required for ship interiors, Princess now is stationing two crew members on each side of its ships for a 24-hour-a-day "fire safety watch" of balconies. Some cruise lines have replaced plastic balcony furniture with items made of aluminum.

Carnival has told housekeepers to remove any clothing and towels from balconies so they can't be accidentally set on fire by cigarettes, says spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz. The cruise line also banned candles and mug warmers.

Oceania Cruises, with three 684-passenger ships, imposed a zero-tolerance policy on smoking in balconies and cabins the day after the Star Princess fire, says Tim Rubacky, a company spokesman. Before boarding, passengers are told that anyone caught smoking away from a section of the pool deck or corner of the observation lounge will be dropped off at the next port of call. No one has been expelled yet, he says.

Stephen Prisco, 45, of Wilton, Conn., who took his 65th cruise in June, says he now is more conscious of where he smokes while onboard, making sure his cigarette is out completely before throwing away the butt and never tossing it overboard.

The plastic used in the balconies, called polycarbonate, is highly flammable because, like most plastics, it's derived from crude oil, says Tom Chapin, general manager for the North American fire and safety sector at Underwriters Laboratories Inc., a product-safety testing-and-certification organization. The composition causes the material to melt quickly into liquid form and accelerate the burning process, he says.

The balcony-replacement push under way isn't required, so not every cruise-ship operator is ripping out its old balcony dividers. The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, a maritime treaty, includes no provisions regulating fire safety on the external areas of ships. Mandatory sprinklers and alarms and restrictions on using combustible materials apply only to ship interiors.

In April, the U.S. Coast Guard issued a statement criticizing the treaty as failing to adequately address external fire protection. The federal agency also encouraged cruise lines to replace their balcony partitions made of polycarbonate plastic.

Royal Caribbean is spending $1.5 million on three ships to replace plastic balcony dividers with glass and aluminum. The work will be finished by the end of the year, says company spokesman Michael Sheehan. Holland America Line has finished retrofitting balconies on its Maasdam and Ryndam ships, according to Rose Abello, a Holland America spokeswoman.

In May, the maritime-safety committee of the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency, approved draft treaty changes that would extend fire-safety rules on ship interiors to balconies and other exterior areas. Final approval is expected in November. The changes likely would include mandatory replacement of all plastic balcony partitions.

But relatives of Mr. Liffridge, the passenger killed in the March fire, say more needs to be done. "We're campaigning to have smoking banned on all cruise ships," says daughter Lynnette Hudson, who has formed a cruise-ship fire-safety awareness group. The family is also planning to file a wrongful death lawsuit. Says Ms. Hudson: "This should have never happened."

Both the 5th Circuit and 11th Circuit Court of Appeals have applied the international arbitration convention to seaman's contracts. As a result, seaman are being compelled to arbitrate their claims in foreign countries.

The issue has not been accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court so far. It is anticipated that the Supreme Court will have an opportunity to review this issue in the next several years. Unfortunately, most seaman do not have the financial ability to arbitrate their cases which will result in the ship owners avoiding any responsibility for seaman's injuries.

A new cruise ship law taxing Alaskan cruises and cruise passengers is passed. This new law may add hundreds of dollars to vacationers bills. The text from the ballot is inserted below and summarizes what the new cruise ship tax means.

CRUISE SHIP TAXATION, REGULATION and DISCLOSURE

This initiative would impose a $46 per person per voyage tax on large cruise ships to pay for vessel services. It would provide for the proceeds from the tax to be deposited in the state general fund and, subject to appropriation by the legislature, distributed to municipalities. It would levy a tax on cruise ship gambling activities in state waters. It would change the way cruise ship corporate income tax is calculated. It would require cruise ship operators to gather and report more information, and get a new type of permit for sewage, graywater or other wastewater before discharging in state marine waters. It would assess a $4 per passenger berth fee and require large cruise ships to have state-employed marine engineers (Ocean Rangers) licensed by the Coast Guard to observe health, safety and wastewater treatment and discharge operations. It would authorize citizen lawsuits against an owner or operator of a large cruise ship, or against the Department of Environmental Conservation, for an alleged violation of any permit condition, provision of environmental statutes or performance of duties. It would also enable a person who provides information leading to enforcement of the law to receive 25 to 50 percent of fines imposed. It would impose additional requirements on disclosures about on-ship promotions of shore-side businesses.

The catastrophe last week with Pricess Cruises newest ship, the Crown Princess, was caused by human error. Pricess Cruises has admitted responsilbility for the accident and personnel changes have been made, but the captain remains and Princess states they have the utmost confidence in him.

In a similar accident last February, also on a Princess cruise ship, the final investigator report concluded human error as well.

As far as the final count for injuries, there was a total of 240 passengers injured, 20 or more of them seriously. One passenger still remains hospitalized with critical injuries. You can read the latest story by CBS here.

Our maritime lawyers have been contacted by many injured Crown Princess passengers. We have over 30 years experience in handling cruise ship injury claims. If there is something we can do to assist please contact us.

Dozens were injured on the Crown Princess yesterday when the cruise ship tilted up to 30 degrees according to some reports. According to local TV news reports last night, up to 90 cruise passengers were transported to the hospital, 2 in critical condition and 9 or 10 in serious condition. This was only the fourth voyage for Princess Cruises new ship, the Crown Princess.

Crown Princess cruise passengers reported that the "list" (tilting of the ship) was so severe that the water in the pool was completely emptied. Passengers were being thrown against the glass railings and parents feared their children going overboard. One passenger said it was the scariest thing she had ever experienced in her life.

Cruise ships are required to be tested extensively before going to sea with passengers, and this testing was supposedly done but early reports show that what could be a stabilizer defect was just not detected. Interestingly enough, this is not the first time that Princess Cruises has had injuries caused by defective stabilizers.

Princess Cruises is a subsidiary of Carnival Cruise Lines.

If you or someone you love was injured on the Crown Princess they should consult an experienced maritime attorney as soon as possible.

Carnival Cruise Lines President Robert Dickinson called the disappearance at sea of honeymooning cruise passenger George Smith IV "a non-event." The article published today in Florida Today discusses how cruise executives feel the concerns regarding crimes on cruise ships are overblown.

We are frankly shocked to hear the disappearance of a cruise passenger referred to as a "non-event"!

The cruise ship crime article discusses the opinion of one of firm's our maritime attorneys.

Continue reading "Carnival Cruise Lines President calls disappearance of honeymooner George Smith a "non-event"!" »

Crimes on cruise ships is the topic of a recent New York Times article. The article starts off with news of a passenger having over $32,000 in jewels stolen, and she can't get an answer from the cruise line what happened to them. The questions is asked if cruise ships are as safe as being on land or not? The statistics released in the article vary from ICCL statistics, to FBI statistics to statistics that our law firm is aware of through deposition during some cruise ship crime cases we have handled.

Continue reading "Cruise Ship Crimes- Statistics Vary" »

An Egyptian cruise ship sank off the coast of Egypt yesterday evening. The passenger ship was carrying over 1,300 people, mostly Egyptians. It's yet not known what caused the passenger ship to sink, but speculation causes it to be due to bad weather including a sandstorm that blew through shortly after the ship departed. So far 15 bodies & 12 survivors have been pulled from the Red Sea. It is not known yet whether there are other survivors or not.

If a lawsuit is brought because the ship went down, it possibly could be brought in Egypt or Panama, and the laws of both countries should be explored. Most likely the owners of the vessel will file for a limitation of liabiility, which is successful would greatly limit their liability.

Read the story on AOL.