Usually, cruise vacations are enjoyable and memorable. However, many passengers are surprised to find unsafe practices on cruise ships. The Consumerist website featured a passenger on a Disney cruise who temporarily lost his three-year-old son from an on-ship child care center when the child’s electronic tracking wristband malfunctioned. Though the child was eventually found, Disney refused to refund the cost of the cruise, offering instead as “compensation” a two-day Disney World park pass.
Cruise Industry Lobbying of Congress
Your cruise terms and conditions, printed on your cruise tickets, are heavily weighted in favor of the cruise lines. In 2011 alone, the cruise industry spent over $6 million lobbying Congress, and years of heavy lobbying have paid off for cruise lines, with short statutes of limitations following cruise accidents, and other conditions that protect the cruise industry, often at the expense of passengers.
Problems Aboard Cruise Ships Rarely Receive Media Attention
Only the most astonishing cruise ship problems, like the Costa Concordia disaster and the Carnival Triumph power failure receive mainstream media coverage. But problems with cruise ships happen much more frequently. Engine fires, disease outbreaks, and crimes onboard cruises happen regularly, but receive little attention. Learn what you can about your ship’s safety record before your cruise, and write down contact information for an experienced
cruise injury lawyer beforehand.
If You’re Hurt, Take Steps to Protect Your Rights
If you are injured while on a cruise vacation, document the incident as thoroughly as possible. If you return home only to find that your injuries were more extensive than you thought, you need as much information about the injury as possible to successfully pursue a claim against the cruise company. Contact a cruise ship accident attorney as soon as you can.
Cruise Lines Have Extensive Legal Resources
Only work with a cruise ship accident attorney with experience. Any experienced cruise injury lawyer will tell you that cruise injury cases are more complicated than other injury cases, and that cruises have extensive legal resources. Fighting for your rights to compensation against a cruise line is challenging, but success is possible with aggressive, experienced legal counsel like the attorneys at Joseph M. Maus & Associates.