More Heart Warming Stories from the Cruise Ship Industry … Cruise Ship Charged $30,000 in Medical Fees on Passengers Credit Card

Here is an amazing, touching, caring and heart felt storing coming from the Cruise ship and credit card industry. Your compassion is overwhelming. However, in this case the cruise industry may have been trumped by an even bigger bunch of corporate pirates.

A woman became severely sick, went into a coma while on a cruise. The cruise ship charged her $30,000 in medical fees and put it on her credit card account. One can only imagine the care she was provided by “Doc” from the Love Boat provided; however, the woman’s medical bills were covered by her insurance carrier. Did we also mention that the woman that was billed $30K also died?

Question: My mother got severely sick and went into a coma on a cruise and then died. The cruise ship charged her $30,000 in medical fees and put it on her credit card account. However, her insurance paid the $30,000 and the credit card bill for the medical expense only, but it took a few months and the credit card company hit her account, although they knew she was in a coma and subsequently died, with over-limit fees, finance charges, etc. She has no estate that needed to go through probate. Am I, as her daughter, liable or not?
- NINA (The Daily Breeze)

Enter the credit card industry and wanting to get blood from a stone. Trying to get over limit fees and finance charges from the dead. That’s about right for the credit card industry these days. Wait until they call you threatening that your mother will have bad mark on her credit report and it will affect future purchases.

By the way, the answer is no as long as one was not a joint card holder.

Richard Mulloy III Falls 40 ft to Death on Norwegian Majesty cruise ship

Another day, another cruise ship death as a family reunion turns to tragedy. 22 year old Richard Mulloy from Malden, MA fell 40 feet from the upper deck of the Norwegian Majesty cruise ship around 1:15 AM Wednesday. According to reports, Richard Mulloy fell from the fifth deck to the first while waiting for an elevator trying to get to a disco on the ship. According to the Bermuda police the incident is under investigation; however, they believe it was just a terrible accident. Accidents seem to be occurring far too often these days.

The cruise was a family reunion trip that had been planned for years. 
 
“The whole family organized it, figured it out and saved the time to put it aside,” said Richard Mulloy Jr., father of the young man who had returned from a night out on St. George’s Island when he fell from the fifth deck to the first deck of the Norwegian Majesty cruise ship

They were waiting for an elevator trying to get to a disco on the ship. He fell over the banister between the sets of stairs and fell on the (lower) deck,” Richard Mulloy Jr. said. (Boston Herald)

Bahamas: Increase in Crime in Water Front Cruise Ship Area … Its all About the Safe Tourist, or Not

The Bahamas is witnessing a rather troubling trend of crime in of all places the water front area where the cruise ships are located. One really has to wonder about many of these island getaways and Caribbean vacation locations where tourism is supposed to be their greatest asset, yet there seems to be little concern to the future of said asset. How does it get to be that the very area where tourists is supposed to congregate becomes the very area where crime does instead? Talk about supply and demand.

(Click on pic to enlarge)

If tourists spots and Caribbean islands actually want tourists to frequent them, would not one think that maybe protecting tourists would be a primary concern? It would almost seem that so many Caribbean tourist locations became complacent and could not be bothered with the risk that they put those in who are their main livelihood. When will locations like the Bahamas understand that is all about the security stupid. Aruba has witnesses that same lesson with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, even though they disavow that it is the reason why their tourism numbers have fallen drastically.

Earth to the Caribbean … why would anyone want to visit if one does not feel safe! The end result is that people will go where they do feel safe.

The Ministry also reported that cruise arrivals to Nassau have been decreasing from a 2004 high of almost two million and will likely continue to decline with cruise companies having scheduled five fewer regular calls to the Nassau port.

Cruise companies have opted to sail elsewhere, presumably for the same reasons their negotiators have been citing for years: crime, dirt and conditions of the port.

Carinval Cruise Lines Ltd., the world’s largest cruise company, recently designed and built its own cruise terminal at Grand Turk in Turks and Caicos, which cruisecritic.com described as “a destination in its own right, with retail shops, a recreation area right on the beach and a huge pool.”

While construction was ongoing in the small island chain that begins just 30 miles from southwestern Bahamas, the company was still griping about conditions at the Prince George Dock in Nassau, according to a shore excursion operator whose company works closely with cruise lines. (The Nassau Guardian)

Heightened efforts to fight drug and migrant trafficking in the Bahamas

Particularly, the parties discussed ways to counter the increased flow of illegal narcotics through The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands from Hispaniola.

According to OPBAT statistics for the year, authorities have so far seized 427,481 pounds of marijuana, including 193,000 plants, 189.5 kilos of cocaine and arrested 32 alleged drug traffickers.

Caribbean ‘terrorism’? Implications for US-regional relations

Finally, Caribbean hoteliers must take a realistic perspective on the security benefits of the CARICOM Single Domestic Space. If fear of the Caribbean is allowed to lodge in the minds of American travellers, hoteliers will suffer. Ease and convenience of travel are ideal, but porous borders are insecure borders and travellers need to know that they will be safe and secure wherever they go. (Jamaica Gleaner)

Travel Columnist Says No to Cruises … Potential of disease, accident & crime, No Cruise for You

Its one thing for Scared Monkeys or another cruise line watch-guard group rails on the cruise industry for its putting profits ahead of safety and sanitary conditions. or the fact that so many missing persons cases and crimes aboard cruise ships have gone unsolved and unreported. However, when travel columnist Joel Widster writes a story like this it should really make the cruise industry stand up and take notice: Take a cruise? No thanks, not me. ‘Potential of disease, accident, crime enough to keep columnist off high seas’. This is hardly a glowing commentary for the cruise line industry. In fact, it is a endorsement to never step foot on a cruise ship.

But after the recent rash of stories about such cruise-industry problems as noroviruses, missing passengers, pirates and sinkings, I think my chances of taking a cruise are now slim to none.

Am I being too hard on the cruise industry? Are the stories all overblown? I don’t think so. In fact, I think my landlubber resolve is well warranted. I am concerned about both health and safety aboard ship. I also think cruising is costly, inconvenient and environmentally unfriendly. (MSNBC)

Joel Widster refers to cruise ships as bacterial filled tubs as the noroviruses appear to to popping up too frequently and the conditions on cruise ships make it that much more commonplace. Check on the web site that tracks illnesses aboard cruise ships.

… cruise ships are frequently affected by outbreaks of norovirus because they dock in countries where sanitation can be poor and because the tight quarters aboard ship facilitate transmission of the virus. Further, the boarding of “new and susceptible passengers every 1 or 2 weeks” creates a condition where the disease can be sustained over successive cruises; in fact, the CDC says that outbreaks extending beyond 12 successive cruises have been reported.

George Smith, the missing honeymooner, aboard a Royal Caribbean Cruise in 2005 also gets a mention in this article. The number of missing persons and crimes aboard cruise ships is staggering.

Another pressing but often unreported problem is the rising incidence of sexual assault on board cruise ships. During a March 2007 Congressional hearing, Professor Ross Klein of Memorial University of Newfoundland, who monitors the cruise industry, used the industry’s own numbers to demonstrate that cruise passengers may have a 50 percent greater chance of being sexually assaulted aboard ship than on land. According to the International Cruise Victims Organization, many incidents of shipboard sexual assault go unreported because passengers “often feel alone and frustrated by the jurisdictional uncertainties and poor treatment by cruise companies.”

Update: Isn’t this priceless … Royal Caribbean is blaming their passengers for norovirus. So much for the customer always being right. In Royal Caribbean’s case … the customer is always to blame. There’s a nice PR slogan.

Royal Caribbean’s new Liberty of the Seas will dock at the Port of Miami Saturday with sick passengers on board.

Since the ship set sail on its Caribbean vacation last Saturday, 172 of the ship’s 3,846 guests and 10 of its 1,425 crew members have experienced the illness, thought to be a Norovirus brought onboard by a guest previously exposed to it.

A spokesperson from Royal Caribbean said those “affected by the short-lived illness responded well to over-the-counter medication administered onboard the ship.” (Local 10)

(Hat tip: RR)
 

Mike Mankamyer Fell 60 Feet From Carnival Cruise Ship … Lives, Rescued … Then Arrested on Sex Charges

The story initially was reported that a man fell 60 feet off a Carnival cruise ship; however, there was much secrecy regarding the event. Mike Mankamyer was eventually rescued, but the story does not end there.

Mankamyer was on Carnival Glory for a cruise to the Bahamas. Early Friday morning, he reportedly jumped 60 feet off a balcony into the Atlantic Ocean.

The Coast Guard finally spotted him 30 miles off Ft. Lauderdale’s coast. He had treaded water for eight hours. Mankamyer – an average swimmer, overweight, with a collapsed lung -had mild hypothermia, but was otherwise fine. (CBS News)

It is being reported at Fox News that 8 hours after Mike Mankamyer was rescued by the Coast Guard he was arrested and charged on sex charges. Of all the people that have gone missing off cruise ships, this one actually was saved.

Michael Mankamyer, 35, of Orlando was charged with sexual battery not likely to cause injury and lewd or lascivious molestation on a victim older than 12, said Liz Malavet, of the Orange County jail’s inmate records. Mankamyer was being held without bond and his first court appearance is Wednesday, she said.

The charges stem from an FBI investigation into Mankamyer’s fall about 70 feet (21 meters) after jumping from the balcony of his room aboard the Carnival Glory in March, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

The FBI reviewed cruise ship records that revealed Mankamyer had escorted at least four teenage boys on separate cruises, Sgt. Rich Mankewich of the sheriff’s sex crimes unit told the newspaper.