Cruise Ship

Pool decks on a cruise ship are expected to be warm. But what happens if they’re hot enough to burn passengers? Cruise lines often use resin or synthetic-teak decking because it is durable, attractive, customizable, and lower maintenance than traditional teak. However, these benefits may come at a cost to passengers as the decks can…

Reports of hantavirus on a cruise ship recently captured headlines worldwide. The MV Hondius is a Dutch-flagged expedition cruise ship, and the outbreak of the potentially deadly virus is raising questions about passenger safety at sea and about what cruise lines owe their passengers. According to the CDC, the outbreak involved the Andes virus. The…

Almost three decades have passed since Amy Lynn Bradley, then 23, disappeared from a Royal Caribbean International cruise. Now, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is offering a $100,000 reward for information that leads to her discovery. This development comes after a Netflix docuseries covered the still unsolved mystery. While the disturbing disappearance continues to…

News outlets are reporting about another cruise-ship related tragedy – a 35-year-old father who was served an unreasonable amount of alcohol before tragically dying aboard Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas. The fatal incident occurred in December 2024, when Michael Virgil was on a cruise with his fiancée and the couple’s son. This shocking incident…

A Florida teen died this week while traveling on board the Carnival Horizon ship. Now, reports indicate that the FBI’s Miami office is investigating the death. At the Hickey Law Firm, our Miami-based, nationally recognized attorneys handle cruise ship injury and wrongful-death cases when tragedies take place at sea. Cruise lines have responsibilities toward passengers.…

Two Carnival Cruise passengers, both Americans in their 70s, drowned on August 15, 2025, in separate incidents. The deaths raise serious questions about the safety and security of the cruise line and its new Celebration Key in Grand Bahama. What happened? These two tragic cases involved passengers of separate ships who were both at Carnival’s…

A dramatic video showed footage of the harrowing scene on Quark Expeditions’ Ocean Explorer that took place in March 2025. Rough seas sent passengers flying into walls and sliding across the floor as 30 to 40-foot-tall waves battered the ship for around 48 hours. The Drake Passage is notoriously a rough part of the sea,…

In early March, Tropical Cyclone Alfred, a powerful storm that formed in the Coral Sea, headed straight for Queensland’s coast. With wind speeds reaching nearly 100 miles per hour, the storm brought heavy rains, high winds, and dangerous waves to the entire region. Because of these hazardous conditions, the Port of Brisbane was closed for…

Cunard, a UK-based cruise line owned by Carnival Corporation, has announced that it is refurbishing the Queen Elizabeth ship before it moves to Miami for a full season. From a Press Release of Cunard: The luxurious 2,000 guest ship will undergo a significant refit from February 25 to March 13, 2025, in Seatrium’s Admiralty Yard…

Cruise ship worker Arvin Joseph Mirasol received a 30-year sentence this week after pleading guilty to producing child pornography. From December 2023 until his arrest in March 2024, the 34-year-old citizen of the Philippines installed hidden cameras in guests’ bathrooms aboard the Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas. It’s possible that Mirasol filmed hundreds of…

Each year, people flock to cruise ships to get away, relax and embark on an adventure. In fact, in 2023, more than 30 million people boarded cruise ships to enjoy their vacations. Sadly, for some unlucky travelers, these trips leave them injured or worse because of negligent cruise operators and faulty equipment. According to recent…

Ntando Sogoni, 35, of South Africa, was arrested on May 7 in Juneau, Alaska after allegedly stabbing three individuals with a pair of medical scissors the day before. According to reports, personnel aboard the Norwegian Encore saw Sogoni trying to deploy a lifeboat and took him to the medical center for evaluation. At that point,…

OVER $1M FINAL JUDGMENT ENTERED AGAINST NORWEGIAN CRUISE LINE FOR TENDER OPERATOR’S NEGLIGENCE On October 25, 2019, a Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) tender was ferrying over 200 NCL passengers from the pier at Cannes, France to the NCL Epic cruise ship.  The tender was the last one transporting passengers that day and was over 30…

While cruises seem to be more popular than ever, we know what kinds of dangers they can pose. We handle cruise ship cases. Not everyone can do this, because cruise ships fall under Maritime law. This is a complicated area of law. We are specialists in Maritime law so we understand the risks. It is…

In all cruise line claims by passengers, if the itinerary of the cruise does not include a U.S. port, the Athens Convention applies. That is because the U.S. is not a signatory to the Athens Convention. Thus, if the itinerary does include a U.S. port, the Athens Convention – including its cap on damages – does not…

Cruise passengers often are injured on cruise excursions. These are the side trips for which the cruise lines’ contract with local companies. The excursions are part and parcel of the cruise itself. The excursions are why many people take one particular cruise over another. The cruise lines market the excursions on the cruise lines’ websites.…

This is a question I get all the time not just from cruise passengers but also from other lawyers. Why? Because most lawyers do not know how to sue a cruise line. All of the lawyers at Hickey Law Firm handle and specialize in these claims – claims of cruise passengers against cruise lines. The answer to the…

People take cruises to relax and have fun. Sometimes, however, passengers pass away. But you expect that the cruise ship would treat their bodies with dignity and respect. Celebrity Cruises is facing a lawsuit from Marilyn Jones, the widow of Robert Jones. Mr. Jones had a fatal heart attack while traveling on the Celebrity Equinox…

Almost every modern day cruise ship has a spa. Sometimes they are run as a franchise of a well- known name like Canyon Ranch. But most of the time, the spas are run by one company which in one form or another has operated spas on cruise ships for over 40 years. The related companies…

Virgin Voyages recently reported a passenger died after falling from a balcony shortly after departure on April 2nd. The ship, Valiant Lady, was on its way to Roatan, Honduras when the incident occurred and was immediately redirected back to Miami. Per USA Today, “This passenger went over their balcony onto a lower deck, and despite…