Articles Tagged with Eric Shane

Published on:

By

The horrors of a February 2013 Carnival Cruise are being revisited in a new Netflix documentary that dropped this week, and the story is nothing short of a total shipshow.

What was meant to be a four-day roundtrip from Galveston, Texas, to Cozumel, Mexico, turned into at least 4,000 passengers and crew being stranded in the Gulf of Mexico for almost a week after a fire damaged cables powering the Carnival Triumph. The toilets began overflowing and there was sewage dripping down the walls, witnesses can be seen explaining in the documentary, which was released Tuesday.

‘It Got Bad Fast’

Continue reading
Published on:

By

A man, 71, faces criminal charges after police say he grabbed a teenager while aboard a cruise ship off the Australian coast.

Jeffrey Mark Spiro, of New Zealand, was charged with deprivation of liberty and two counts of common assault.

The alleged incident happened on June 19 at around 11 p.m. aboard the ship where a 14-year-old girl was waiting near the elevators. Spiro allegedly grabbed the child and took her to the ship’s security office because he claimed she was running with a “small toiletry item,” according to reporting from cruise news sites. The item was later identified as a pair of tweezers.

Continue reading
Published on:

By

While a cruise ship was docked in Santorini, Greece, a 31-year-old engine department worker fell, prompting an emergency evacuation.

The incident happened on Sunday, June 15, 2025, while the worker was heading down the stairs to the engine room. During the fall, he injured his left leg. He was transported to an emergency clinic, according to Cruise News Today, before being taken to a medical center on shore in Athens, Greece.

In nearly five decades of personal injury practice and representing countless passengers and crew hurt on cruise ships, Leesfield & Partners attorneys are familiar with the many ways in which injuries can occur on these ships. From terrible falls, excursion injuries, inadequate medical care and crimes aboard ships, our attorneys have seen it all — and all the ways in which cruise lines will attempt to skirt liability.

Continue reading
Published on:

By

Cruise passengers are sure to get a thrill out of “robotron,” a robotic arm ride, on the top deck of the MSC Seascape this November.

Robotron will be the first of its kind at sea, suspended about 175 feet above the water. Passengers will be offered panoramic views of the sparkling water and white-tipped waves while on the ride, flipping and spinning as they go. Riders may even be dangled over the side of the ship’s deck, according to media.

While this ride is sure to get adrenaline junkies’ hearts racing, Leesfield & Partners has seen numerous times how ships’ onboard adventures have meant injuries for passengers.

Continue reading
Published on:

By

Several passengers have been permanently banned from sailing with Carnival Cruise Line for fighting on board and throwing chairs.

A fight broke out on the Carnival Sunrise over the weekend as the ship sailed from the Bahamas, cruise media reported Tuesday. A video that surfaced online shows multiple passengers in what appears to be a sunroom throwing chairs and brawling while other passengers observed the chaos.

Security was quick to break up the fight. The cruise line has since announced that the passengers involved in the incident have been permanently banned from sailing with the company.

Continue reading
Published on:

By

Larger cruise lines are leaving Grand Cayman, an island in the Cayman Islands, off of their itineraries, causing a 25-year low in monthly cruise visitors, according to cruise news sites.

The latest data alleges that the Grand Cayman — the largest of the three islands making up the British territory — is experiencing a 27% dip in visits from April 2024 to April 2025. This is the lowest number in monthly cruise visitors seen by the island since 2000. This excludes numbers recorded during the pandemic, when the cruise industry saw a shutdown of operations to mitigate the transfer of COVID-19.

Cruise lines are choosing to skip this tropical oasis because it favors tender ports, meaning cruise passengers are brought to shore in tender boats. As cruise lines continue rapid expansions, it is unfeasible for larger ships carrying thousands of passengers to disembark using this method.

Continue reading
Published on:

By

Heavy winds over the weekend caused chaos for multiple cruise lines over the weekend and multiple injuries to passengers.

At least three ships were affected by the winds, with one incident being caught on camera by a passenger who was filming from his cabin balcony.

The first incident was caused by 69 mph gusts that caused the ropes of an Alaskan cruise to snap, knocking a gangway into the water. The ship, which was later guided back by tugboats, began to slowly drift away from the pier. The gangway fell into the water and was retrieved by a crane.

Continue reading
Published on:

By

A 12-year-old girl died after falling from a third-story window at a Massachusetts apartment during a sleepover with friends, news outlets reported.

Arya Lebeau died a day after the incident on May 24, according to reporting from The Miami Herald.

“I cannot express the amount of grief I feel at the loss of my only baby,” the child’s mother, Charlene Cabrera, said in a statement on a public GoFundMe page.

Continue reading
Published on:

By

A couple who told reporters with ABC News that they dreamed of traveling the world on their catamaran tell the shocking story of how they were saved by a cruise ship along their journey.

Helena Franczak and Dustin Leonard, two crew members and their three dogs were on the catamaran when it was damaged at sea in the South Pacific. The couple was heading to Fiji when the weather took a turn for the worst, taking the vessel’s mast and leaving them stranded over 170 nautical miles from New Caledonia, a French territory made up of dozens of islands in the South Pacific.

While stranded, they noticed a cruise ship in the distance and shot off a flare to get the attention of the ship’s crew. The daring rescue took extreme caution and skill as “it takes a little mistake … and you may sink them,”  the ship’s captain told reporters.

Continue reading
Published on:

By

Cruise ships leaving the U.S. have reached a two-year high, according to data from the Department of Transportation.

Allegations of at least 48 crimes were reported from Jan. 1, 2025, to March 30, 2025, according to numbers reported to authorities and published regularly by the Department of Transportation. Under the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act (CVSSA) of 2010, cruise lines are required to report crimes like physical assaults, rape, and sexual assaults to the FBI. Of these incidents, seven were assaults with serious bodily injury, 10 were sexual assaults and 23 were rapes.

Robert McDonald, a criminal justice lecturer at the University of New Haven and former agent with the secret service, told reporters with Fox News that having a number of people drinking alcohol in confined quarters, “whether that’s at a resort, whether it’s on a cruise ship” there is a potential increase for these incidents to occur.

Continue reading
Badges
Contact Information
Miami Office
2350 S Dixie Hwy
Miami, FL 33133
Phone: (305) 854-4900
Fax: (305) 854-8266
Toll Free: (800) 836-6400
Key West Office
615-1/2 Whitehead St
Key West, FL 33040
Toll Free: (800) 836-6400
E-Mail: info@leesfield.com
Orlando / Central Florida Office
By appointments only
Toll Free: (800) 836-6400
E-Mail: info@leesfield.com

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Please do not include any confidential or sensitive information in a contact form, text message, or voicemail. The contact form sends information by non-encrypted email, which is not secure. Submitting a contact form, sending a text message, making a phone call, or leaving a voicemail does not create an attorney-client relationship.

Copyright © 2016 – 2025, Leesfield & Partners
JUSTIA Law Firm Blog Design