"Disney Cruise"

Published on: October 14, 2013

Child drowns in swimming pool of Carnival Cruise Ship Victory

Over the weekend, a 6-year-old child, who was on a 4-day cruise with his family, drowned in the swimming pool of the Carnival Cruise ship. The young child was playing with his 10-year-old brother when the incident happened at approximately 4:45 pm while the pool was open to passengers.

The Victory returned to Miami on Monday morning, and the pool was closed off to passengers with police crime scene tape. Very limited information has been made available to members of the public other than Miami-Dade Police, which is investigating the matter, has released the name of the child, Qwentyn Hunter.

According to witnesses, a person yelled over a microphone to rescue a child from the pool who was seen submerged underwater. As soon as he was taken out of the pool, chest compressions and CPR was performed, but unfortunately the boy never regained consciousness.

Published on: May 21, 2013

Disney crewmember evades justice after sexually molesting 11-year-old child on cruise ship

By Leesfield & Partners

According to the following report filed by Orlando local station WKMG-Channel 6 last night, Disney Cruise Line knowingly delayed to report a sexual molestation crime to local police last summer. Rather than possibly be sitting in jail awaiting trial right now, the crewmember was allowed to fly back to his home country of India with a clean criminal record. Below is the chilling story reported by WKMG reporter Tony Pipitone.

This report would be only chilling if it was not customary for crimes in general and sexual crimes in particular to be unreported or widely under-reported. Since the passage in 2010 of a mandatory reporting law of crimes occurring on cruise ships, the number of crimes has inexplicably decreased. One could leap to the conclusion that cruise ships are becoming safer and safer with time, but that would be the wrong assumption. In reality, when a crime occurs on a cruise ship, the cruise line has sole discretion to categorize an incident as criminal in nature. No one doubts that crimes aboard cruise ships is not the best publicity. Especially sexual molestations on minor children aboard a Disney cruise! So the cruise line must find a way to minimize and lessen the number of crimes it reports to the competent authorities. So a cruise line will categorize a crime as a non-criminal event and bypass the reporting laws.

The other way cruise lines have hidden the true frequency of crimes on their ship is by threatening victims. We have reported on several occasions that alcohol consumption aboard cruise ships is on the rise. Invariably, more alcohol being consumed translates in more fights and physical assaults. When the victim of an assault comes forward, the security officers will offer the victim to report the incident to the local authorities and press charges against the assailant at the next port. But the caveat is that, in order to do so, the victim must disembark the ship (sometimes with their entire party) and return home without further assistance from the cruise line. Faced with additional aggravations and a very deterring option, most victims choose to remain on the ship, and the crime goes unreported.

Published on: June 18, 2012

Hypocrisy continues to plague Cruise Industry

By Leesfield & Partners

While cruise lines continue to say the right thing in press releases and the national media destined for public consumption, the attorneys for cruise lines continuously and systematically fight to deny cruise passengers’ claims, and fight to deny the existence of any cruise lines’ duties in court.

This morning, Royal Caribbean’s cruise ship, Enchantment of the Seas, rescued a dehydrated sailor who needed emergent medical attention. This is the latest rescue at sea, and the second rescue in as many months, that is receiving national attention in the media. This is also the latest rescue since Leesfield & Partners sued Princess Cruises for its failure to rescue Fernando Osorio, who died five days after his drifting boat came in close contact with the Star Princess, a ship Princess Cruises owned and operated.

Days after that story broke in the media, Princess Cruises’ public relations department took control of the narrative and made a step in the right direction when it issued the following public statement on April 19, 2012:

“Princess Cruises is dedicated to the highest standards of seamanship wherever our ships sail, and it is our duty to assist any vessel in distress. We have come to the aid of many people at sea, and we will continue to do so.”

After the above statement was released, Adrian Vasquez, who was a companion of Fernando Osorio on that same drifting vessel that Princess Cruises made no attempt to rescue, filed a lawsuit against Princess Cruises for failure to rescue the distressed vessel and for failure to provide him and his dying friends any assistance.

In response to Vasquez’s complaint, Princess Cruises filed a Motion to Dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that it should be thrown out for the following reasons:

– Vasquez did not radio the cruise ship – Vasquez did not fire distress rockets – Vasquez did not deploy distress flares – Vasquez did not deploy distress smoke signals – Vasquez did not utilize any intentionally recognized equipment to signal distress at sea – Vasquez did not attempt to signal with a burning torch – Princess Cruises is uncertain whether Vasquez’s vessel ever sailed within sight of the Cruise Ship ‘Allure of the Seas’
– The law does not impose a duty on ships to investigate whether every passing vessel may need assistance
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Published on: May 30, 2012

Princess Cruise’s failure to render assistance magnified by latest rescue

By Leesfield & Partners

As we previously reported, on March 10, 2012, a Princess Cruise ship, the Star Princess, failed to render aid to a drifting vessel. The multiple witness accounts, which have been documented in the media for the past two months, have shown that the cruise ship’s captain either deliberately ignored the call for help or was never made aware of the situation. Neither one of those scenarios is a valid excuse.

This week, a very similar set of circumstances occurred, but thankfully for the occupants of the raft in distress, they were rescued by a cruise ship that was sailing near by. The Disney Fantasy, a cruise ship owned and operated by Disney Cruise, was sailing from Port Canaveral (Florida) to the Cayman Islands on May 26, 2012, when crew-members spotted a small raft near Key West, Florida, with four men aboard.

The ship quickly responded to its duties and rescued the men. “The men were brought aboard the ship and provided with medical attention along with food and water. We are proud of our Disney Fantasy crew members, who skillfully demonstrated their training and commitment to maritime protocols around saving lives at sea,” Disney Cruise Line said in a statement.

These developments are in stark contrast with what occurred last March when the Star Princess failed to rescue a drifting vessel, occupied by three men, including a minor, which eventually resulted in two deaths.

The Star Princess failed to follow Article 98 of the UNCLOS (The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982) which provides that a ship must render assistance to any person found at sea in danger of being lost.

The Star Princess crew was made aware of the drifting vessel by three cruise passengers, who, at the time. were bird-watching, when they spotted the vessel and its three occupants attempting to flag down the large cruise ship by waiving their white t-shirts. The witnesses showed the drifting vessel to a crew-member, they even let him use their bird-watching equipment to confirm the nature of the distress. The crew-member then advised the crew on the bridge of the ship in distress.

Despite the grave concern felt by those who saw the vessel adrift, for some inexplicable reason, the Star Princess did not render any assistance. It never deviated from its course. It never called the Coast Guard for help. It simply continued on with the cruise, to the next Port.
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