Cruise Injury Blog

Working on a cruise ship sounds glamorous in theory—you get to travel the world on a luxurious ocean liner, visiting exotic destinations that you might not otherwise have seen. However, as anyone who has ever worked as a crew member on a cruise ship can attest, it’s not as glamorous as it seems. Crew members typically work long hours for low pay and live in cramped quarters at or below sea level in the ship’s berth. In some cases, those who work below deck barely see the light of day.

 

Specific work conditions will depend on the job (for example, staff members such as the entertainment director will receive higher pay and typically experience better work conditions than below deck crew members), but all cruise ship employees have basic rights that their cruise line employer needs to honor. If you’re a current or

If you are assaulted due to negligent security or injured due to lax safety and emergency protocols on a cruise ship, it seems obvious that the cruise line should be held liable and that you should receive compensation. Unfortunately, far too many injured cruise ship passengers face an uphill battle when filing a lawsuit against a cruise line, in large part due to a lack of government regulations over the cruise industry and fine print in ticket contracts that allow cruise lines to sidestep liability issues.

 

All that may change if the Cruise Passenger Protection Act passes. The bill, which Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) has been hoping to pass for over a year, seeks to tighten government regulation over the cruise industry and require cruise lines to be more transparent in those small-print ticket contracts. Some of the key things the bill

If you start asking people who have been on cruises whether or not it’s a good idea to purchase travel insurance, you’ll most likely encounter two lines of thought. While some people believe that travel insurance is a must, others will tell you that it’s a scam cooked up by the cruise industry in order to get more money out of passengers. So who should you believe?

 

When you’re going on an expensive cruise vacation, you should take a “better safe than sorry” approach. While you may not want to imagine that any worst-case scenarios could happen to you or your family, it’s important to recognize that accidents can happen, and it’s best to be covered if they do. And if you purchase travel insurance but don’t experience any accidents on your cruise, you can at least enjoy having peace of mind on

 

 

The first time you book a cruise vacation, it can be tempting to go overboard and pack everything but the kitchen sink “just in case”—or to go in the opposite direction and leave out some of the essentials in an attempt to pack light. So how do you find that middle ground and bring the important stuff without packing an enormous suitcase that you’ll regret once you start going up the gangway?

 

Below is a list of a few essential cruise vacation items. You shouldn’t treat it as a definitive list, but it will hopefully help you start packing and remind you about some items that you might have forgotten otherwise.

 

Cruise Vacation Must-Haves

 

Dress code appropriate clothes. You probably already know that you should pack a couple swimsuits and T-shirts or cover-ups for the pool deck, but you’ll

While injuries at sea may be most commonly associated with higher-risk industries like offshore drilling and deep-sea fishing, injuries can occur on any type of vessel, to people working in any capacity. Cruise ship crew members, whether they’re responsible for the movement of the ship or for managing onboard activities, may experience an injury in the workplace and need to understand how they can be compensated.

 

If you’re a cruise ship employee, take the time to familiarize yourself with the Jones Act—under maritime law, your cruise line employer is legally obligated to compensate you if you were injured in the line of work due to their negligence.

 

What You Need to Know about the Jones Act

 

As you may already know, accidents that occur due to negligence at sea fall under maritime law, which is completely distinct from state and federal

Hurricane season runs from June 1st through November 30th, and—since that’s also prime vacation season for many people—major cruise lines continue offering vacations along the East Coast, Caribbean, and the Mediterranean during this time. But just because ocean liners are headed out to sea during hurricane season, does that mean you and your family should do the same?

 

There are actually some great advantages to cruising during hurricane season. For a lot of people, especially families with kids, late summer is the time when it’s most convenient to schedule a vacation. Regarding pricing, many cruise lines offer some great discounts that can make your vacation much more affordable than at any other time of year. And considering that the chances of being caught in the middle of a hurricane are relatively slim (since cruise ships can travel faster than these storms), there’s absolutely

It might appear unbelievable that fires are a problem for vessels surrounded by water from all sides, yet several incidences of boiler room fires on cruise ships in recent years have raised questions about just how common ocean liner fires really are.

 

Just last month, the Holland America ship Westerdam was forced to cut short her voyage from Seattle to Alaska when a fire broke out in one of the boiler rooms. The ship, which was carrying 2,086 passengers and 798 crew members, returned to port in Seattle for a safety inspection after the fire was extinguished. Fortunately, no one was injured, and representatives from Holland America said the ship would depart again as soon as assessments were complete.

 

More famously, an engine room fire on the Carnival Cruise ship Triumph disabled the ship’s propulsion, air conditioning, and sewage systems, leaving passengers