Cruise Ship Lawyers Blog
Royal Caribbean has shut down slides on multiple ships in its fleet in a bid to improve safety months after a passenger was injured in an incident that caught national attention.
The incident happened in August when a slide’s acrylic panel shattered, injuring a passenger. The slide was closed and then repaired. Videos showing the aftermath went viral and caught nationwide attention.
Since then, company’s safety initiative has closed slides on at least three ships, according to reporting from The Miami Herald. No official word has been released on whether more slides will face closure or the duration of the alleged shutdown.
While the company has not made a public statement regarding the closures or possible repairs, a captain with the cruise line did comment during a Captain’s Corner talk — an informal Q&A event where captains and other senior officers share information about the ship.
In it, Navigator of the Seas’ captain discussed the project and said that the first install on the ship’s two slides is slated for Dec. 1 followed by another on Dec. 22, which would make the closures “all said and done.”
“It’s taking time because every section is like a custom section,” he said. “There were other ships that had problems with theirs, but it’s just, in that whole fabrication process, there were actually spare parts lying around. Ours had to be, kind of, done from new with the molds and everything.”
Leesfield & Partners
Vacationers boarding cruise ships across the country are understandably more focused on onboard amenities and planned excursions than they are on the possibility of suffering a life-altering injury. These preventable incidents, however, do occur aboard these ships. This irrefutable fact is one with which the attorneys at Leesfield & Partners — and the injured clients and grieving families they represent — are well acquainted.
In 49 years, the firm has handled a wide array of cruise ship injury cases, from medical negligence to severe falls on cruise ship decks. This is why the firm warns passengers to be wary of the latent dangers aboard these “floating cities.”
The firm previously reported on the “robotron,” an electronic arm ride that has been boasted to dangle riders 175 feet in the air above the water. The potential dangers of such a ride become all too clear should the unthinkable occur — though this fear aspect appears to be all a part of the appeal. Passengers should be aware that many of these amenities are often poorly maintained. This fact is consistently demonstrated by decades of injury cases handled by Leesfield & Partners attorneys.
“There is, sadly, ample opportunity for unsuspected injury by highly technical and often computer-driven rides and equipment that keep raising the ‘thrill stakes,’” said Leesfield and Partners’ Founder and Managing Partner, Ira Leesfield, in a previous cruise ship blog. “Remember, even the world’s most well-regarded theme parks now report incidents of abduction and sexual abuse, and numerous injuries and deaths related to their park equipment.”
Previous Onboard Injury Cases
Leesfield & Partners previously represented a Canadian woman who was traveling on a cruise ship when she was horrifically raped. The woman was in her cabin alone when a member of the ship’s crew abused his employee status and used a keycard to access the woman’s room where he attacked her.
The firm secured a multi-million-dollar amount for the woman in that case.
The firm recovered $2.5 million for a 9-year-old who collided with an unpadded steel grommet while diving for an out-of-bounds ball as he played on a ship’s basketball court. The child in that case suffered a catastrophic brain injury as a result on the traumatic incident.
Similarly, the firm represented a man, 62, who was injured while playing pickleball aboard his cruise ship. The firm settled the case for $500,000.
The firm obtained a confidential settlement for a family devastated by the tragic loss of their young daughter. In that case, the child was separated from her family aboard a ship when she leaned over a poorly designed cruise ship railing and fell five stories to her death.
Bernardo Pimentel II, a Trial Attorney at the firm, is representing a woman who suffers extreme trauma and emotional turmoil after it was revealed she was one among numerous passengers, including children, whose privacy was violated when a crew member planted hidden cameras in their cabins.
That crew member was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for producing child sex abuse material.
That case is ongoing.
