cruises from hell

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

The Two-Way

'cruise from hell' was a mix of 'survivor' and 'lord of the flies'.

Mark Memmott

As they finally came off the Carnival cruise ship Triumph late Thursday and early Friday in Mobile, Ala., passengers from the ill-fated cruise told stories that call to mind TV's Survivor and literature's classic Lord of the Flies , the Los Angeles Times writes .

According to the Times , "Debbie Moyes, 32, of Phoenix said she was awakened Sunday by a fellow passenger banging on her door, warning people to escape." An engine fire had left the ship stranded off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula.

"Soon after, she said some passengers panicked. 'People were hoarding food — boxes and boxes of cereal, grabbing cake with both hands,' she said. "Toilets stopped working and the 3,143 passengers and 1,086 crew had to urinate in sinks, she said, and eventually red plastic bags. She saw sewage dripping down walls. Sometimes people slipped on it, she said. Soon, the ship began to smell. " 'It was like a hot port-o-potty,' Moyes said, and when the ship tilted, 'it would spill.' "

CNN writes that "the frustration that many felt was typified by Janie Esparza, one of the first passengers to get back on land. 'It was horrible. Horrible,' Esparza told a scrum of reporters. 'The bathroom facilities were horrible and we could not flush toilets. No electricity and our rooms were in total darkness. Honestly, I think that this ship should have [never] sailed out.' "

The Associated Press says that passenger Deborah Knight of Houston, "had no interest in boarding one of about 100 buses assembled to carry passengers to hotels in New Orleans or Texas. Her husband Seth drove in from Houston and they checked into a downtown Mobile hotel. 'I want a hot shower and a daggum Whataburger,' said Knight, who was wearing a bathrobe over her clothes as her bags were unloaded from her husband's pickup truck. She said she was afraid to eat the food on board and had gotten sick while on the ship."

After finally getting off the Carnival cruise ship Triumph, this passenger waited for a ride early Friday in Mobile, Ala. Mark Wallheiser/EPA /LANDOV hide caption

After finally getting off the Carnival cruise ship Triumph, this passenger waited for a ride early Friday in Mobile, Ala.

The wire service adds that another passenger, Maria Hernandez of Angleton, Texas, had "tears welling in her eyes as she talked about waking up to smoke in her lower-level room Sunday and the days of heat and stench to follow. She was on a 'girls trip' with friends."

" 'It was horrible, just horrible' said Hernandez. ... She said the group hauled mattresses to upper-level decks to escape the heat. As she pulled her luggage into the hotel, a flashlight around her neck, she managed a smile and even a giggle when asked to show her red 'poo-poo bag' — distributed by the cruise line for collecting human waste."

NBC News says that "passenger Janie Baker told MSNBC's Ed Schultz that people managed the situation well and that the crew was 'fantastic,' but on the final night, 'people's tempers started flying.' She described one incident where another passenger tried to disrupt a movie, and was taken away by the crew. 'If we had gone any longer, it could have been much, much worse,' she said."

On Morning Edition , NPR's Greg Allen reported about the $80 million the debacle is expected to cost Carnival and the blow suffered to the cruise industry's image. As for the passengers, he said, they're now getting "a full refund, credit for a future cruise plus $500 in cash."

Reuters add that "for all the passengers' grievances, they will likely find it difficult to sue the cruise operator for any damages, legal analysts said. Over the years, the cruise industry has put in place a legal structure that shields operators from big-money lawsuits."

Update at 9:45 a.m. ET. And On The Ride To New Orleans, At Least One Bus Broke Down:

CBS News reports that among the "caravan of buses" that Carnival chartered to take passengers to New Orleans, "at least one ... became stranded on the way."

• Carnival cruise ship
• cruise from hell

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Carnival Triumph and six more cruises from hell

A s the cruise ship Carnival Triumph approached the dock in Alabama this morning, passengers chanted "Let me off! Let me off!" Four days earlier, an engine fire had knocked out the ship's power and transformed their pleasure cruise into a nightmare. Drains and toilets overflowed, sewage coated cabin floors, and many passengers moved their bedding out into corridors or on to the decks in a bid to escape the stench.

It is hardly the first bad cruise story, nor is it likely to be the last, yet the cruise has never been more popular. According to the Passenger Shipping Association , UK passenger numbers for cruises are running at an all-time high, with an estimated 1.72 million of us taking to the seas for our holidays in 2012, and no sign of those numbers slowing. It's even (perhaps) becoming cool: California music festival Coachella has taken to the seas , while Barge to Hell is the cruise for heavy metal lovers less keen on slumming it on a festival campsite.

And that is despite the horror stories. Any holiday, of course, has the potential to turn sour, but few can do so quite as spectacularly as the cruise. Here are six of the worst cruises of the past 10 years:

Pirates attack the Seabourn Spirit

In 2005, passengers on luxury cruise liner the Seabourn Spirit got a taste of old-fashioned adventure on the high seas when pirates attacked the ship off the coast of Somalia. No passengers were injured and the pirates never boarded, but the ship came under machine-gun fire and was struck by rocket-propelled grenades.

Another messy Carnival

In an incident strikingly similar to the chaos on the Carnival Triumph, an engine fire on the Carnival Splendor in November 2010 left it stranded in the Pacific with overflowing toilets and more than 4,000 hungry and angry passengers.

The chilly end of the Explorer

Around 100 holidaymakers were forced into lifeboats in rough and icy water when the MV Explorer took on water and sank 75 miles north of the Antarctic Peninsula in November, 2007. Fortunately, a Norwegian rescue ship was able to bring all on board back alive.

Illness on the Mercury

An outbreak of norovirus brought a Caribbean dream to an unpleasant end when over 400 passengers were struck with stomach aches, vomiting and diarrhoea in February 2010, aboard cruise ship Celebrity Mercury.

Tragedy on the Costa Concordia

Thirty-two people died and many more were injured when Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia ran aground and capsized off the coast of Tuscany in January last year. More than 4,000 other passengers and crew members were safely evacuated.

Tables and chairs run riot on the Sun

When a heavy storm off the coast of New Zealand hit the P&O ship Pacific Sun, 42 people were injured as unsecured furniture careered back and forth across the floor. When, two years later, CCTV footage of the chaos turned up on the internet, it amassed well over a million views.

Have you been on a cruise that ended in a disaster – or disappointment? Share your experiences with us below.

• Water transport

Comments (…)

Most viewed.

• Cast & crew

Episode list

Cruises, trains, holidays & flights from hell, cruises from hell: caught on camera, flights from hell: caught on camera, holidays from hell: caught on camera, trains from hell: caught on camera, contribute to this page.

• IMDb Answers: Help fill gaps in our data
• Learn more about contributing

More from this title

More to explore.

Recently viewed

Woman describes 'cruise from hell' after operator cancels sailings for 'COVID-19 related circumstances' and holds passengers at sea for days

• A cruise passenger who was stuck aboard Norwegian Gem for days recounted her experience. 
• Aimee Focaraccio told USA Today that she experienced a "cruise from hell." 
• She said she felt extremely unsettled after the operator canceled sailings and held guests at sea.

A woman has recounted her recent experience on a Norwegian Gem cruise ship after being stuck on board for days, due to COVID-19-related issues. 

Speaking to USA Today , Aimee Focaraccio said she was due to celebrate her birthday on the 10-day cruise departing from New York. But her celebrations were cut short on Friday when Norwegian canceled sailings mid-trip. 

Focaraccio described the "extremely unsettling" feelings that came over her when cruise officials announced they would not be returning to New York early but instead be spending four more days at sea. 

Related stories

Norwegian canceled the cruise due to "COVID-19 related circumstances" but Focaraccio was not aware of any announcements made about cases on the ship. 

She told the outlet that the trip was "turning into a nightmare" because there would only be "one nice day to enjoy the outdoors and after that we will be stuck inside."

"This was kinda the cruise from hell," Focaraccio said. 

And even though passengers aboard the Norwegian Gem were given a full refund, plus additional cruise credit, Focaraccio said the "uncertainty was frustrating" after being stuck at sea with no plans for an early return. 

Norwegian did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.  In a statement to USA Today, the operator said there were no updates on the ship's estimated return. 

Passengers on other trips have recently shared how disruption caused by COVID-19 have impacted them. Some quarantined guests told The Washington Post  they'd endured  rotten food, hours without water, and loneliness . People travelling on Cunard Line's Queen Mary 2 cruise ship said they felt "like lepers" while being forced to isolate in their rooms. 

And one passenger, who was booked to perform on an unspecified cruise ship, recently described the "panic and anxiety" she felt while isolating in her windowless cabin for six days. 

• Main content

'Hell of a Cruise': Highlighting the panic, failures of the COVID early days

About halfway through "Hell of a Cruise," a new documentary streaming on Peacock, a traveler films herself on a Costa Luminosa cruise just as COVID-19 was beginning to spread around the world – and passengers can be heard coughing in the background.

The seconds-long clip is enough to evoke the panic of the pandemic's early days, a key theme of the film, which centers on the early outbreak on Princess Cruises' Diamond Princess ship along with other impacted cruise ships.

The ship was quarantined off Yokohama, Japan in February 2020, and the outbreak resulted in over 700 cases and more than a dozen deaths.

"... We were fascinated because the Diamond Princess was the first superspreader event outside of China that we had any type of knowledge of," director and executive producer Nick Quested said. "And, you know, it's interesting, the doctors that went on the boat said, 'We knew everything we needed to know about COVID at the end of the Diamond Princess.' "

Cruise lines change COVID rules: Azamara and Silversea Cruises drop vaccine requirements following major lines

Expedition cruising in Alaska: How to see the wilder, less visited side of the 49th state

Quested spoke with USA TODAY about telling a story using passenger footage, filming with pandemic restrictions in place, and the lessons we can take away from the movie, which premieres Sept. 14. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

I was so interested to see all the footage from passengers. How did you go about finding that and selecting it?

Quested:  Well, my partners came to me with the original footage from Spencer ( Fehrenbacher, a Diamond Princess passenger and consulting producer). ... So, we were fascinated initially by just this first superspreader event, but then we were looking at, and it was like, "Well hold on, what else could Princess really have done on the Diamond Princess?" The response from Princess wasn't perfect, but it was perfectly understandable given the novelty of what was going on and the distance it was away. I can't hold Princess at fault for that, but what I think we do need to look at is, once they knew what happened when COVID was on their cruise ships, why would they continue to send boats out?

How did you think about the look and feel that you wanted the documentary to have and what role did the footage from passengers play in that?

Quested:  Well, obviously we weren't able to get on the boat because we weren't even aware of the story until after it had happened, so we're weaving (together) the passengers' footage. And what's interesting about passengers' footage is that they generally shoot their experiences in the way that you shoot your holiday snaps. A lot of what human empathy comes from is seeing people's faces and the small facial gestures that we have. You know, you could see someone dying (on) the road, but you don't feel the grief until you see the person who's experienced that loss next to them crying. That's what drives your empathy and sympathy there.

So, it's hard. You have to carefully craft moments to use the footage effectively because you don't have the same type of coverage that you would have if a professional had gone in and shot it. So, to create this emotional bond, you've got to find nexus points where other people are shooting in the same moments, and you have to use the interviews as reflective moments (of) what was going on in the footage.

Story continues below.

Many of the passengers that you spoke with said they were ready and willing to go on another cruise. Were you surprised by that?

Quested:  Well, I was because I'm not really a cruiser. So, I'm not really drawn to it, but people love it as a getaway. ... It gives them a little bit of the exotic, but it gives them enough comfort that they are happy. I mean, I think the world divides into those that cruise and then those that don't, and I don't think this film is going to convince very many people who are cruisers that they shouldn't do it. And I think it's going to confirm to people that aren't cruisers that's the reason that they never want to get on a cruise ship.

We tried to give as fair and balanced an account of what we thought happened from the cruise ships' response at the beginning of the pandemic, as well as the executive branch because you can't divorce the executive branch of the government and the CDC from this. And the cruise ships were just following the example of the lack of a coherent response.

The industry is bouncing back and as cruise lines have dropped COVID restrictions, they've posted, in some cases, huge booking numbers. What was it like working on this project and looking at those early days from our vantage point now?

Quested: Well, it was very difficult to make the film because we made this film (at) the height of COVID. So, we were hiring people locally because we couldn't travel. I mean, we shot in Japan, in Australia, in Canada, all over America.

What to know as cruise lines drop COVID rules: 'Demand is definitely going to go up'

Cruise ship crime:: What to know if you're sexually assaulted on a cruise

So that was very difficult. And then to look at the film now, I think the film does sort of typify ... that there was a panic. And the panic came from this disparate response, because there was cross-messaging, there (were) masks on, masks off, and it was able to be transferred through touch and all this different messaging. Like there wasn't anything clear at that point. ... I think the lesson to be learned is – I think what I found disturbing is that, as the doctor said, we knew everything we needed to know about COVID after the Diamond Princess, and this could have been an opportunity for America to come together and in the end, the politics of it forced the issue into a wedge issue that made America weaker and polarized it again.

I was curious if you think that we can take lessons away about cruising specifically or about travel in general from watching this film?

Quested:  I'd like the lessons not to be specifically about cruising, but about, you know, government response. It's like, you need to have a coherent response to this and people need to get away from politicizing it. Remember when everyone was a COVID expert and knew exactly how long the pandemic was going to last and exactly what you should do and the only information they really had was, you know, their Facebook feed? Maybe we need to be much more aware of how social media is influencing our culture and really take some steps.

How did you decide on the title?

Quested:  Well, we played with, like, we went full-on maritime metaphors a lot of the time. Like we were gonna go "Cabin Fever," or, you know, "The Coming Wave." ... And a title has to be pithy. It has to explain the film, but it has to sort of have a double entendre to it in this sense. So, that's where we came with "Hell of a Cruise."

• Mobile Apps
• Stream on discovery+
• Program Guide
• Ghost Adventures
• Ghost Hunters
• Ghost Brothers
• Conjuring Kesha
• The Dead Files
• Destination Fear
• Eli Roth Presents: A Ghost Ruined My Life
• Expedition Bigfoot
• Ghost Nation
• The Holzer Files
• Kindred Spirits
• Mountain Monsters

Paranormal Caught on Camera

• Portals to Hell
• Amy Bruni and Adam Berry
• Destination Fear Team
• Don Wildman
• Ghost Adventures Crew
• The Holzer Files Team
• Jack Osbourne and Katrina Weidman
• Steve Dischiavi
• Watch Live TV
• Tips for Solo Travelers
• 4 Gorgeous Waterfalls
• 5 Extreme Swings
• World's 10 Best Swimming Holes
• Best BBQ in America
• Tilt! at 360 Chicago

Digital Exclusives

• Big City, Little Budget: New York
• Big City, Little Budget: San Francisco
• Bizarre Foods in the Kitchen
• One Bag and You're Out

From Our Shows

• Bizarre Foods
• Bizarre Foods: Delicious Destinations
• Booze Traveler
• Expedition Unknown
• Hotel Impossible

Mysteries at the Museum

Top domestic.

• New Orleans
• New York City
• Washington, DC

Top International

• Myrtle Beach
• Niagara Falls
• San Antonio

Explore By Region

• Asia Pacific
• Middle East & Africa
• North America
• South & Central America

Top Interests

• Amusement Parks
• Arts and Culture
• Food and Wine
• National Parks
• Health and Wellness
• Long Weekends
• Outdoor Adventure

By Traveler

• Family Travel
• Girls' Getaways
• LGBT Travel
• Solo Travel

Travel Tips

• Budget Tips
• Gear and Gadgets
• Hotels and Lodging
• Plan Your Bucket List
• Savvy Traveler
• Travel's Best

Doomsday Caught On Camera

The cruise from hell and more, upcoming airings, what's new from trvl.

Jack Osbourne's Most Shocking Adventures 9 Photos

The Spirits in the Conjuring House Were Quick to Show Themselves Apr 7, 2023

Haunted History: A Shuttered Pennsylvania Nursing Home Is Home to Dozens of Trapped Souls Mar 30, 2023

Cult Leader Charles Manson Controlled People from Behind Bars Mar 24, 2023

7 Best Pieces of Evidence Recovered By the Expedition Bigfoot Team Mar 14, 2023

6 Things Witnesses Said About the Roswell Incident Mar 10, 2023

Creepy Urban Legends From Each State Nov 16, 2022

Unraveling The Mysterious Death of Marilyn Monroe Feb 24, 2023

Top 5 States For UFO Sightings Feb 8, 2023

Creepy urban legends from each state 50 photos.

A Massachusetts Family Fled Their Home After Chilling Door-Camera Footage Nov 22, 2022

6 Museums That Are Home To Creepy And Mysterious Artifacts Oct 31, 2022

Settle In For A Boo Binge With The New Season Of 'Ghost Brothers: Lights Out' Oct 11, 2022

Ghost Brothers: Lights Out Returns for Season 2 on discovery+! Sep 22, 2022

Fact Or Fiction? Modern Vampire Lore May Be A Planned Misinformation Campaign Aug 22, 2022

Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping: Was The Famous Pilot Responsible For His Missing Son? Aug 22, 2022

Top 6 States With The Most Alien Encounters Aug 22, 2022

5 Unforgettable Spirits From Ghost Adventures Season 25 Sep 14, 2022

5 Craziest Moments From Fright Club Season 2 Sep 1, 2022

Four Terrifying Moments From 'Ghosts Of Devil's Perch' Aug 31, 2022

Shock Docs: The Visitors Reveals the Horrors of Alien Abduction from Best-Selling Author Whitley Strieber in Terrifying New Doc Sep 3, 2022

7 Of Russell Acord’s Most Heart-Pounding Moments On 'Expedition Bigfoot' Aug 12, 2022

Jack Osbourne Teams up with Jason Mewes and Jamie Kennedy in the New discovery+ Special, Jack Osbourne's Night of Terror: UFOs Aug 2, 2022

Who Are The Odd Fellows? Jul 29, 2022

Boy Records Selfie With Grandma’s Ghost Jul 27, 2022

The Haunted History of San Francisco’s Westerfeld House Jul 19, 2022

An Elite Team of Paranormal Investigators Race to Help a Petrified Western Town in the New Series Ghosts of Devil's Perch Jul 19, 2022

13 Terrifying Pieces of Evidence from Ghost Hunters: TAPS Returns Jul 14, 2022

National Dive Bar Day: Is There a Portal To Hell In Memphis? Jul 7, 2022

7 Scary Homes From 'Ghost Adventures: House Calls' Season 1 Jun 30, 2022

Mysteries at the monument.

Stream discovery+

Your favorite shows, personalities and exclusive originals. All in one place.

Follow Us Everywhere

Join the party! Don't miss Travel Channel in your favorite social media feeds.

More From Travel

• Sweepstakes
• Stream Travel Channel
• Ways to Watch Travel Channel

• Privacy Policy
• Visitor Agreement
• Online Closed Captioning
• Accessibility
• Discovery, Inc.
• Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
• Food Network
• Travel Channel
• Cooking Channel
• Discovery.com
• © 2024 Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. or its subsidiaries and affiliates. All rights reserved.

Family of 23 Turns Carnival Legend into ‘Cruise From Hell’

In case the memory of the poop cruise has faded for you, a brawl aboard a Carnival ship in the South Pacific is providing a whole new reason to think twice before you book that dream vacation.

On Friday, 23 people (all related to each other) disembarked from the Carnival Legend after they were accused of committing “disruptive and violent acts”. Six men and three teenage boys were removed from the ship at an unplanned stop at Twofold Bay in Eden, New South Wales. Another 14 passengers left the ship voluntarily.

Fellow passengers described three days of terror leading up to the family’s removal. One woman described people “walking around with cut heads and hands and bandages everywhere” in an interview with the radio station 3AW . She added that she and her husband had tried to get their kids out of the pool whenever the group was around.

Carnival (CUK) is now investigating the security response to these violent incidents, which climaxed early Friday morning when a brawl broke out at a bar on board. Video of the incident shows a large group of people fighting as security guards try to intervene, sometimes kicking people who are already on the floor as onlookers scream. One guard tries to knock the cellphone out of the hand of the person filming. Carnival has said “The actions seen on the video by our security team are not in line with our values and policies.”

The people who left the ship early, identified as the Barkho family by news.com.au , have returned to their home in Melbourne and now say they’re the ones who need protection. They have reportedly refused to leave their house and asked police for help when media tried to interview them.

All passengers are now safely on land in Melbourne. They have been offered a 25% credit for future travel.

Carnival did not immediately respond to Fortune ‘s request for comment.

Joe Biden offers most direct recognition to U.S. students about campus protests over Gaza, telling Morehouse graduates ‘your voices should be heard’

America’s first Black astronaut candidate gets to space on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket and beats William Shatner as oldest person in the final frontier

Disneyland character and parade performers vote to unionize by wide margin, setting up Actors’ Equity to represent 1,700 workers

Helicopter carrying Iran’s president has ‘hard landing’ in dense fog, with rescue teams still trying to locate the site, state TV says

Why you should care about—and fear—America’s aging energy grid

How one company justified a million-dollar logo redesign inspired by the Mona Lisa—and moved just two wavy lines: ‘Surely this is satire’

Most popular.

Amazon raised warehouse wages to $15 an hour 5 years ago. Today, half of workers surveyed told researchers they struggle to afford  food or rent

France admits it’s lost control of parts of New Caledonia, the world’s third-largest producer of critical EV metal nickel

Thousands of North Koreans stole Americans’ identities and took remote-work tech jobs at Fortune 500 companies, DOJ says

Young adults are getting cold feet about their highly anticipated $84 trillion wealth transfer

Wealthy travelers seeking sun, sand, and luxury are flocking to the Caribbean paradise next to Haiti, where armed gangs dominate

‘Single greatest talent acquisition opportunity’: Elon Musk firing Tesla’s Supercharger team proves an unprecedented gift for the EV industry

• Travel Updates

Class action launched over cruise that steered into category 5 cyclone

The P&O cruise set sail from Brisbane and headed straight into a category 5 cyclone, with claims passengers weren’t given the option to cancel.

ADF on standby to help stranded Aussies

Iconic Aussie island now a ‘ghost town’

It was supposed to be a relaxing seven-day cruise sailing from Brisbane to the tropical South Pacific Ocean islands of New Caledonia and Vanuatu.

Instead, the P&O Pacific Aria headed straight into the path of a category 5 cyclone in what a class-action lawsuit against the cruise operators have dubbed the “cruise from hell”.

Firm Carter Capner Law has lodged the case against P&O’s parent company Carnival PLC for damages and a refund of fares.

Carter Capner Law director Peter Carter said despite cyclone warnings issued prior to departure, passengers weren’t given the option to cancel.

“Before departure a cyclone warning had been issued for Vanuatu as had a forecast that the category 3 cyclone was heading in the direction of Noumea,” Mr Carter said.

The cruise, from Brisbane to Noumea and then on to Vanuatu, set sail on May 5, 2017, with the storm intensifying to category 5 on May 8.

“On arrival at Noumea the ship was required to dock in the industrial port due to the high winds rather than at the cruise ship terminal,” Mr Carter said.

“Nothing was open in the city as Noumea was in lockdown for the arrival of the cyclone, and several passengers left the ship in Noumea because of the terrible sea conditions they had experienced and flew back to Brisbane.”

The ship departed Noumea the following day, with water coming over both sides of the vessel, forcing an entire deck to be closed.

“This was truly a cruise from hell, with many passengers so scared they confined themselves to their cabin,” Mr Carter said.

Passengers reported crockery thrown across the galley, meals tossed off tables, tables and chairs being overturned, bottles of wine and spirits falling off shelves and sliding across the deck, seawater running down corridors and into some cabins, and the ship listing for about an hour.

Video captured aboard the cruise also shows water in the on-board pool violently sloshing about during rough sea conditions,

More Coverage

The storm also forced the vessel to miss its next two intended stops.

The claim seeks to recover damages from P&O for “disappointment, frustration, discomfort and distress and a refund of the cruise fare paid by each passenger” reads a release from Carter Capner Law.

Carnival Australia declined to comment while the matter was before the courts.

Australia’s Foreign Minister says the Australian Defence Force is “ready” to help Australians stranded on New Caledonia amid the exploding political unrest.

A sad video has revealed just how much a once thriving Aussie island tourist destination has changed.

clock This article was published more than  11 years ago

Carnival Triumph disaster: A drama of discomfort

On Friday morning we finally saw them, those wretched refugees of the Carnival Triumph, after five days stranded at sea. They disembarked the floating Port-a-John on which they had been imprisoned, some wearing white cruise line bathrobes to protect themselves against the unexpected chill, kneeling to kiss the ground as they came ashore.

“United States,” a woman in a floppy hat breathed ecstatically to a television reporter. “Ain’t nothing better.”

A cruise represents not only a vacation, but a very specific kind of vacation. One books it when one does not want to have to decide, or plan, or worry, or change money, or get tetanus shots. The people who would take a cruise have considered hiking through Nepal, cycling through Norway, staying at quaint little flophouses in Eastern Europe — it's not like they don't know those travel options exist — and thought, "No." They do not believe that getting your wallet stolen in Mexico City is "a good story."

I have cruised, and I loved it, and so I say fondly: A cruise ship’s passenger log is comprised entirely of the exact demographic that is least prepared for a cruise to go to pot. A cruise is a giant boat full of your mother-in-law. Your mother-in-law does not belong in the wild.

What happened: Midway through a four-day Mexican cruise, the Triumph's engine room caught fire, the ship lost power, and then suddenly it was just drifting, somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. A four-day trip became an eight-day one. A 102,000-ton boat , the length of three football fields and containing 4,000 passengers, was reduced to Huck Finn's raft. It took three days for some gallant little tugboats to tow it into port in Mobile, Ala. There was nothing for watchers at home to do but imagine the hellscape aboard the doomed vessel.

But now the survivors are back, ready to share what really happened. On the "Today" show, Matt Lauer encouraged two female passengers to tell him everything . But everything, edited. "Not too graphic," he warned them. This was, after all, a morning show. The women appeared briefly flummoxed, trying to figure out how to tell a G-rated version of the story.

“It was, like, post-natural disaster,” Julie Billings said finally. “But stuck on a boat.”

Excuse us, Matt Lauer, but how could the story not be graphic? The filth, the waste, the rapid decline, is precisely what made the saga so horrifying for viewers and readers at home. We hung onto every bleated-out text message of despair, every description of what they were eating, and where they were sleeping, and where their waste went. (In red plastic bags. Marked with hazardous-waste symbols. Left outside state rooms. In ice buckets. We saw pictures.)

It was a drama, but not of danger. It was a drama of discomfort.

The smell. Just think of the smell. Skip this paragraph if you don't want to think of the smell. The unrefrigerated food and the unrefreshed bodies, the uncirculated dankness of the cabins, so filthy that passengers began sleeping on deck chairs instead, lugging their pillows to some high-thread-count open-air slumber party.

“I’m just happy to be alive,” a woman told “Good Morning America.”

Hell is other people. Hell is other people on a boat. What will it take before we accept this? After David Foster Wallace writes about it in an erudite essay ? After a Concordia captain abandons his sinking ship? After a New York Times reporter mentions that his journey on the classy Cunard was delayed for several hours so workers could scrub the ship down after a norovirus outbreak?

It’s over now, all over.

Carnival put the passengers on buses, heading either to New Orleans or to their origin point of Galveston, Tex. The company had promised to cover all travel expenses home. And to give each passenger $500 in compensation.

As well as a credit. A credit for another cruise.

• Cruise News Now
• Sexual Assaults
• Missing Persons
• Overboard Incidents
• Injuries/Illnesses/Bodily Assaults
• Accidents & Other Crimes
• Are You A Victim?
• Get Involved
• Don’t Snooze Before You Cruise
• Travel Tips
• Legislative Actions that Protect You
• ICV Powerpoint Presentations
• Congressional Press Release
• ICV Press Releases
• Books by or about ICV Members
• Cruise Law News Blog
• Cruise Junkie – Dr. Ross Klein
• Global Cruise Activists Network (GCAN)
• Congressional Testimonies and Hearings
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• US House of Representatives

Username or email address  *

Password  *

Lost your password? Remember me

Cruise from Hell

What better way to celebrate a birthday than to go on a cruise? Being avid cruisers we chose to do just that. When friends suggested we join them on a 14 day Southern Caribbean aboard Celebrity Constellation we just couldn’t say no. Great itinerary, great price and a new cruise line for us to try. My feelings on Celebrity will be shared at another time. That’s not what this post is about.

My birthday happened to be on our third formal night. Doesn’t get much better than that. We started the day as usual, sleeping in, breakfast, check the e-mail, wander around the ship making a plan for the day. There happened to be an ice carving demonstration on board that we always enjoy so we went to see that. It was followed by a pool volleyball game between ship staff and passengers. Great fun! Wouldn’t you know it, one of our favourite martini bartenders was working the pool bar that day, so we just had to sit at the bar as I had my birthday Mudslide. Dangerous drinks by the way, taste just like a chocolate milkshake but with a big kick. After happy hour on deck weheaded to the room to prepare for dinner at 6. We always like to go for a drink before dinner, so we wanted to be ready by 5. We got ready and headed for our usual pre-dinner spot in the Rendevous Lounge. Our usual table was waiting and so was the waiter to take our order. “Our usual” we said and off he went. We met up with the DJ there who came by to wish me a Happy Birthday asking if we would be up in Reflections later that night. “Of course we will be” was our response.

Dinner was it’s usual not so good, but what followed was a nice little birthday cake and the staff singing Happy Birthday to me. They cut this tiny little cake into 8 pieces toserve the table. I got the “Happy” and Ed got the “Birthday” It was about the size of two mouth fulls…perfect. We then headed to the martini bar where Gede made me my “special” birthday martini. It was a coffee, chocolate type covered with whipped cream and swirls of chocolate. Yummy! They even managed to get a candle to stand up in it. Just a few calories there. Oh well, you only turn 52 once in life so what the hell. To that they sang Happy Birthday to me…another great surprise. We had great fun there at the martini bar. Our new friend Ailsa took some pictures and we had a few toasts together there. We then took our drinks and headed up to Reflections Lounge to be there for the band at 10:30.

We got to Reflections about 10:15 to the end of the trivia game. We would have won that one too, but alas another pen was not to be won. When the band started we were up dancing right away. They all smiled and nodded. Did I mention we had become regulars in Reflections and most nights were the only people on the dance floor? After a song or two, the band acknowledged my birthday, what another nice surprise. We danced and danced and danced some more while the band played. We even danced to the canned music between their sets. It was a great evening, calm seas (making it easier to dance on a ship) good music and great fun.

The band was done for the evening at 12:15 when the DJ took over. There were still quite a few people in the lounge. I was on my way to the washroom when Angelo started playing Happy Birthday and called out my name. I stopped, hid behind the pole from embarrassment, then came out and waived to the crowd of other passengers wondering who on earth Arlene was. I waived to Angelo and gave a quick bow. We both had a good giggle over that. Another one of the bar waiters, Kevin, came by to wish me a Happy Birthday and said that the last drinks were on him. He was heading out as the party was winding down and there wasn’t need for so many waiters. I thanked him and off he went.

Then the worst thing ever happened to me although I wasn’t going to realize it for about 30 minutes or so. I ordered another drink for Ed and I along with 2 glasses of water. Ed was up dancing with Katie Jo, an amazing dancer from North Carolina. No she wasn’t a professional, she was just another passenger like us. According to the time stamp on our bill, the drinks were ordered at 1:36 am. The waiter brought the drinks, I signed for them and up on the dance floor I went. We were getting a bit tired by that point, so we weren’t dancing quite as often. When we were up dancing I was watching our table closely. There was no one around the table or that side of the lounge. There was only a group from UK sitting on the other side of the lounge. I’m still not sure why I was watching our table so intently, the only thing there was my purse, with nothing in it, and our water and drinks. We were sitting enjoying the music and having our water and our drink. For some unknown reason I decided it was time to leave and it needed to be NOW. We left our unfinished drinks and water and off we went. The rest is a bit of a blur so bear with me.

As we were walking towards the elevator Ed noticed that I was staggering a bit. He thought that a bit unusual as I was fine a few minutes before, up dancing with no problems at all. On a moving ship that’s not always the case. When we got out of the elevator 4 decks below my staggering got a lot worse. I still didn’t notice anything wrong at all and Ed didn’t mention it. We got into our room, got ready for bed and that’s when everything changed.

I was having a bit of a hard time breathing. Thinking it was caused by my position I rolled slightly onto my back. Then I noticed that I couldn’t feel or move my legs! Then I couldn’t feel my arms, nor could I move them. I saw a big ball of blue flame and wondered what was happening. Then I felt the sensation that was already in my limbs come into my head. My face started going numb. The last words I was able to say were “Oh my God, I’ve been drugged!” Then my breathing got worse and I started to hyperventilate. Thank God Ed was there or I don’t know what would have happened to me. He called for medical assistance right away and then got a paper bag for me to breathe into. It helped with the breathing a bit, but I was still completely paralyzed. Not a good feeling at all.

It seemed like forever for help to arrive. When they did, it was someone from housekeeping with a wheelchair. I was completely useless to help Ed and the staff member get me into the chair. At this point I couldn’t see anything either, I was now blind! Thankfully Ed was well trained in getting unconscious people onto stretchers and out of difficult spaces and knew what to do. The staff were completely useless. What can you expect from housekeeping staff. They aren’t trained for this!! Ed covered me with a beach towel, (the only thing in the room) and off we went. I recall the trip because they had to slow with each bump on the way, the rest of the trip to sick-bay is a blur.

When we arrived in sick bay I’m told that Ed assisted the nurse in getting me onto a bed. I don’t recall any of this and I was still blind and paralyzed. I do recall the sensation of heat as they covered me with blankets. The doctor came in and the first thing he did was complain about not being awake because he was awakened from a deep sleep. Wrong thing to say to retired emergency personnel. No sympathy there. I recall trying to speak and telling him that I had been drugged and I believed it to be the “date rape drug”. He asked some bizarre questions which I don’t totally recall, but I do remember them being bizarre in nature at the time. I do remember him asking if I knew who did it. Of course not! He then tried to tell me I was hyperventilating and that was causing my symptoms and that I needed to calm down. I told him while convulsing that I was calm. My jaw was chattering and I had absolutely no control over it at all. Not a good feeling. I recall them taking my blood pressure, apparently normal, temperature, normal. Then they decided to take a blood sample. The nurse took my arm and asked me to make a fist. I couldn’t. I still had no feeling or control in any of my limbs at all.

My speech was back, but almost unreadable at this point. I remember feeling I was going to die. I managed to turn my head to Ed and said “Help”. He recognized the look in my eyes and knew I was in serious trouble. I felt like the staff didn’t have a clue what to do to help me and thought I was going to die on that table then and there! The doctor kept popping in and out asking questions telling us that he was consulting with colleagues. Not sure what colleagues he was referring to, but there didn’t seem to be any answers coming any time soon. About 3 am they gave me some Valium to calm me down. Not sure that was the best thing for me at the time mixing drugs like that. The nurse brought in a specimen cup and asked me to provide a urine sample. I told her that I might be able to but I would need help walking. She said not to worry about it and to just do it when I got back to my room and bring it in the next day. I was released from sick bay about 5 am and was taken back to our room. I then filled the cup and left it on the counter for Ed to deliver the next day.

The next morning about 10 am Ed took the sample to sick bay. I stayed in the room, in bed. Partly because I was still exhausted, partly because I was terrified to leave the room. When Ed took the sample the doctor called him into his office and closed the door. From what Ed told me the doctor now believed that my problem wasn’t just hyperventilating, but agreed that I had been drugged. He said that he was calling security and they would be calling us about 11 am in our room. Security called about 11:15 and we went down to give our statements to them then. We then went back to sick bay. I was still having tremors from the drugs in my system and was extremely nauseous. The doctor asked me another series of questions about what I ate, what type of medications I have ever been on and so forth.

The next step was a bit embarrassing but understandably necessary. I had to provide another urine sample, this time a supervised one. Hopefully taken within the time frame to allow testing. There was the nurse and a female security officer present in the bathroom with me. They were very good about just idly chit-chatting to make it seem not so uncomfortable for me. Then they took the sample and did the usual toxicology drug test on it. Guess what showed up…the Valium of course, and nothing else. Unfortunately these type of tests don’t test for any “date rape drugs” namely GHB (Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid), that has to be done in a lab. As there are no labs on board a cruise ship the testing of any of the samples would have to wait until we were at port in Fort Lauderdale on the 11th. Then they gave me a shot to help with the nauseous which was becoming extreme. And back to the room again to rest.

Ed called the doctor about 6 pm to give him an update on my condition as requested. Ed told him how I was doing. He said that security were having local authorities come on board in the morning and we would be paged to speak to them. He also said that he was sending the samples taken from me forward for GHB testing. That was a relief, someone was actually listening and doing something about it. Or so we thought.

When we arrived in Fort Lauderdale at the end of the cruise we had to wait on the ship for the local authorities to arrive. That would be the Port Everglades Sheriff’s department. We spoke to a female officer and told her what had happened. She already had the statements that we provided to ship security. She told me there was nothing she could do and gave me a file number. When we told her that we were both in emergency services she asked if we were active. I think it may have made a difference. Too bad we are already retired. We then left the ship and headed for our hotel to wait until the next day to fly home.

The kids had done some research for us on GHB, some of which they e-mailed to us. No surprise to me, I experienced every single affect of the drug when mixed with alcohol, or course to the extreme which is what my body does with any type of drug. (You should see what happens when I take a Robaxacet.) Now the hard part, proving it.

• Temporary amnesia
• Interference with mobility and verbal coherence
• Semi-consciousness
• Decreased heart rate
• Sleep-walking

When we got home I went to my own doctor. I told him what had happened and my symptoms; there was no doubt in his mind nor mine that I had been drugged. I told him that the samples were going for testing and I would try to get the results to him. He then filled out the paperwork for “hair testing for GHB”. I went to our usual BC lab only to find that they don’t do that kind of testing there. The technician referred me to Cantest and gave me the number. I called them and they don’t do that kind of test either. They referred me to BC Center for Disease Control and gave me the number. I called them and they don’t do that kind of test either. Who does?!? No one that I can find. There are a couple of places on the internet in the US that would do the test, but it would cost me at least $400 per test, and that’s presuming that they will do a test on a Canadian.

Then I heard from an investigator from Royal Caribbean Cruises who own Celebrity. He was very nice, concerned and apologetic. Unfortunately cruise lines are not law enforcement and therefore do not have the authorities or abilities that regular police do. That’s when I got a great shock. The samples taken on the ship that were supposed to be forwarded to a lab were presented to the police officer on board for testing and she declined to do it. The samples are still on the ship! About now they are in port in St. Marten and won’t be back in Fort Lauderdale until the 25th. The samples will be useless by that point! I have requested a copy of the medical report from the ship, will see where that goes.

So here we sit wondering what to do. There is no doubt in my mind at all that I was drugged and I am very confident that it was GHB. How does one prove it when the samples are spoiled and there is no other way to get a test done? That’s not the scariest part.

As an avid cruiser I was shocked to find out that this kind of thing happens all to often. I have been on 19 cruises over 20 years, and this is the first time anything like this has happened to me. It’s also the first time I’ve heard of anything like this happening on a ship. While doing some research I came across case after case of assaults, sexual assaults, robberies and worse. It still sickens me. I know that cruise lines are required by law to report anything that happens on board which hotels, motels and resorts are not. This happens everywhere, just some are known and some are not. Be careful when youtravel, whether it’s an all-inclusive resort, camping or a cruise, 5 or 2 star, be careful. If you suspect that you have been drugged with anything, seek emergency medical attention right away. And be aware that some of these nasty perpetrators are using such simple things are Benadryl and Sleeping pills to drugs drinks.

If you are the victim of a crime on board a ship, good luck proving it and getting any form of justice. There are websites out there with tons of information on what to do. I found this one the most helpful. International Cruise Victims Association. There are lots of very useful links on there as well. Be warned though, most of it is for Americans, Canadians seem to be left out of this one. Almost all cruise line companies have headquarters in the US so are American companies. It is difficult to get any legal assistance for Canadians. You can also “Google” Cruise Line Lawyers and may find some help there.

And another word of caution. You don’t have to be on vacation to be the victim of GHB or any of the other “Date Rape Drugs”. It happens all the time locally as well. I was shocked to read that our own lovely city of Vancouver has it’s issues with these drugs.

Unfortunately emergency personnel are lax in their response to such claims. You can imagine how difficult it was for us to hear that. I was the one to send help, now to find out that the help you are sending aren’t willing to do anything about it. Have a read of their information on the website Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter.

I’m sure you’ll be as shocked as I was.

Connect With Us

Icv mailing address.

• P.0 Box 364 Simi Valley, CA 93062

CONTACT DETAILS

• (818) 355-6462
• (562) 889-7778
• 1-916-769-3444

SEND US AN EMAIL

© 2021 - International Cruise Victims - All Rights Reserved.

• Action/Adventure
• Children's/Family
• Documentary/Reality
• Amazon Prime Video

More From Decider

New Shows & Movies To Watch This Weekend: 'Bridgerton' Season 3 on...

Jax Taylor Admits His "Delivery Is Awful" In 'The Valley': "That's One Of...

What Happened to Regé-Jean Page? Did the Duke Bomb His Movie Star Career...

'9-1-1's Malcolm-Jamal Warner On Amir And Bobby, Working With Peter...

'Unfrosted' Has Everyone Wondering "What's The Deal With Jerry Seinfeld?"

Chrissy Teigen Stuns John Legend On 'The Drew Barrymore Show' With Reveal...

Brooke Shields Flashed Her ‘Mother of the Bride’ Co-Star Benjamin...

Andy Cohen Reveals Sarah Jessica Parker's Reaction When He Suggested Rosie...

Share this:.

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
• Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
• Click to copy URL

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Hell of a Cruise’ on Peacock, a Damning Documentary About Carnival Cruises’ Covid Malfeasance

Where to stream:.

• Hell of a Cruise

• documentaries

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Power’ on Netflix, Yance Ford's Strong, Salient Documentary Argument for Police Reform

Netflix’s police documentary ‘power’ feels more relevant than ever following the mass arrests of student protestors, stream it or skip it: ‘the guardian of the monarchs’ on netflix, a documentary chronicling the highly suspicious death of mexican environmentalist homero gómez gonzález, stream it or skip it: 'the final: attack on wembley' on netflix, a documentary look at the ugly events surrounding england’s euro 2020 final appearance.

Peacock documentary Hell of a Cruise puts us on board cruise ships in early 2020, which – well, you’ve no doubt assumed it wasn’t a relaxing vacation-type atmosphere, and you’d be right AND wrong. The film chronicles how the ships became floating petri dishes for Covid-19 , and asserts that the Carnival Corporation, which kept its cruises going despite surely knowing better, is partly to blame for the virus’ global spread. Now let’s see if it’s a convincing argument.

HELL OF A CRUISE : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: A man’s on board a Princess cruise, shooting a selfie video. “I’m making it” – he pauses – “just in case.” He’s worried. Passengers are infected with Covid. Everyone on board is under quarantine – and we’ll soon see that healthy people are stuck in their cabins just like sick people and the ship’s crew is going door to door with food and amenities. We see some promotional fodder for Princess Cruises, and overtop we hear voices say, “It was a guaranteed dumpster fire” and that the ships were “singularly effective at propagating Covid.”

We meet four men, college students, who got a great deal on tickets for the Diamond Princess, a 15-day excursion through South Asia that included multiple stops and a Chinese New Year celebration. It was the final hurrah before graduation. The ship left Jan. 20, 2020. News broke that China was enforcing a national lockdown in order to contain Covid outbreaks; the Diamond Princess made its scheduled Hong Kong stop and there, a passenger disembarked and later tested positive. The New Year celebration happened inside the ship instead of on land. The cruise continued to Vietnam, where passengers disembarked for a cave tour, and we see throngs of people crowded together inside the gorgeous natural setting. Maybe the guys shouldn’t have gone on the excursion, but information was sparse and sketchy.

Of course, the cruise line makes money on its excursions, and thus begins a classic narrative: the corporation sacrificing the well-being of its passengers and crew for the sake of the bottom line. We likely already know what happened to the Diamond Princess – it was stuck in a dock in Yokohama, Japan for weeks as Covid cases ticked up and up and up. Meanwhile, even as the Diamond became a floating hell, Princess’ parent company, Carnival, went full speed ahead with other cruises, assuring concerned customers of their safety, and not allowing refunds, of course.

We meet people who took Princess cruises in January and February of 2020, among them serial cruisers; some of whom would go several times a year. As their vacations became debacles, they used their phones to document some of the stuff that was going on: On the Diamond, we see eerily quiet spaces that would normally be bustling with partying passengers, and masked crew members delivering food through empty hallways. On others, group events were canceled, but bars and casinos remained operational – you know, the stuff that costs money, one commentator says. Meanwhile, higher-ups in the U.S. government argue about what to do about the Americans on these cruises, while Carnival management almost certainly knows many things it could and should do, and hardly does any of it.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Eighteen months ago, HBO released The Last Cruise , a more tightly focused documentary on this very subject. It documents some of the exact same incidents and even interviews some of the exact same cruise passengers (possibly because they had lots of good personal footage of their experiences).

Performance Worth Watching: Infectious disease specialist Dr. Michael Callahan shares his voice of reason with a weary tone and demeanor that is all too relatable when it comes to discussion of any pandemic-related topic.

Memorable Dialogue: Dr. Kentaro Iwata of Kobe University assesses Carnival’s strategy for handling Covid outbreaks: “I don’t think there was any strategy.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: The Last Cruise is only 40 minutes long, but its concision is a boon – it focuses solely on the people aboard the Diamond Princess, and illustrates a clear frontline worker/privileged class dichotomy between crew and passengers on board. Hell of a Cruise takes a bigger, broader approach to the topic, roping corporate and political bungling and malfeasance into the narrative, reaching a conclusion that’s harshly critical of decisions made at the top. And to name names, that includes an especially pointy finger pointing at Carnival CEO Arnold Donald – who, per a postscript title card, made $10 and $13 million in 2020 and 2021 respectively – as well as criticism of mixed messaging from President Trump and Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Hell of a Cruise director Nick Quested’s attempt to cover multiple components of a complex scenario results in a scattered narrative. In one moment, he touches on the sketchy business practices of cruise lines who set up base outside the U.S. so they can avoid taxes, hire grossly underpaid laborers as crew and, crucial to this story, not have to follow the government’s health guidelines. In the next moment, he’s in a tiny windowless cabin with a family of four who’s stuck inside for weeks. He frequently broadens and narrows his focus, and it can be a herky-jerky experience even when the content is revelatory.

But the overall picture is wholly damning of the Carnival Corporation. Especially egregious: The company concocting a hashtag, #HangInThereDiamondPrincess, to boost morale aboard the quarantined ship. We even see crew on another cruise, the Ruby Princess, cheer while holding up banners of encouragement bearing that hashtag, even though their ship is on the cusp of the very same Covid crisis. Carnival saw a public-relations problem more than a health problem; cue a commentator pointing out how the White House treated it exactly the same way. The doc concludes with statistics showing how the company’s obfuscation, denial and outright greed ultimately contributed significantly to the spread of Covid on a global scale. When the movie’s over, you can’t help but ponder all the what-ifs.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Hell of a Cruise could use a little more focused, detailed approach. But as a wide-ranging look at a key moment in the Covid pandemic, it’s compelling and informative.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com .

• Stream It Or Skip It

'The Resident's Malcolm-Jamal Warner Says Cast Would Be Open To Returning For A Season 7: "I Think We Would All Jump At The Opportunity"

'Live's Kelly Ripa And Mark Consuelos Learn Why Ankle Socks Are "Canceled" From Gen Z Members Of Their Studio Audience

'Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire' Comes To Digital, But When Will 'Godzilla x Kong' Stream on Max?

PBS's ‘MaryLand’ Introduces ‘Masterpiece’ Fans to the Magical Isle of Man

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Monster’ on Netflix, a Dialogue-Free Indonesian Horror-Thriller

Is ‘The Iron Claw’ Based on a True Story? Why the Real Von Erich Family Is Even More Tragic Than the Movie

Local news:

Get your 7NEWS newsletters: Sign up here

Class action launched against p&o cruises over ship steering into cyclone: ‘cruise from hell’.

Class action launched against P&O Cruises over cyclone 'cruise from hell'

A class action has been launched against major cruise operator Carnival after a “cruise from hell” headed directly into a Category 5 cyclone .

The action, lodged by Carter Capner Law, claims passengers were not given the option to cancel their tickets for the cruise from Brisbane to New Caledonia and Vanuatu.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Class action launched against P&O Cruises over cyclone ‘cruise from hell’.

The P&O Pacific Aria set off from Brisbane on May 5, 2017.

A cyclone warning had been issued for Vanuatu and New Caledonia before the vessel’s departure from Brisbane, Carter Capner Law director Peter Carter said.

It warned of a Category 3 cyclone, which intensified to Category 4 a day after departure. On May 8, it was upgraded to a Category 5 cyclone.

Carter said most passengers were confined to their cabin for the majority of the cruise while the ship navigated the cyclone and heavy seas.

A pool on board was unable to be used due to the rough sea conditions, with large waves shown on camera.

Passengers reported large items being thrown around the ship by the force of the waves, including tables and chairs.

Meals were reportedly tossed off the restaurant tables, tables and chairs were overturned, bottles of wine and spirits fell off the shelves and flew across the deck, seawater sloshed down corridors and into some cabins, amid claims that the ship listed for about an hour.

The vessel encountered progressively worse and rougher sea conditions as the cruise progressed towards New Caledonia, Carter said.

“On arrival at Nouméa the ship was required to dock in the industrial port due to the high winds rather than at the cruise ship terminal,” he said.

“Nothing was open in the city as Nouméa was in lockdown for the arrival of the cyclone, and several passengers left the ship in Nouméa because of the terrible sea conditions they had experienced and flew back to Brisbane.”

The cruise then missed its next two stops due to the storm, and a deck was completely closed due to the rough conditions.

Lifts on board were affected, and several activities were cancelled.

“This was truly a cruise from hell, with many passengers so scared they confined themselves to their cabin,” Carter said.

The claim seeks to recover damages from P&O for “disappointment, frustration, discomfort and distress and a refund of the cruise fare paid by each passenger”.

A spokesperson for Carnival said they are unable to comment on pending litigation.

38-year old woman emerges from the bush after going missing for 7 days

• Favorites & Watchlist Find a Cruise Cruise Deals Cruise Ships Destinations Manage My Cruise​ FAQ Perfect Day at CocoCay Weekend Cruises Crown & Anchor Society Cruising Guides Gift Cards Contact Us Royal Caribbean Group
• Back to Main Menu
• Search Cruises " id="rciHeaderSideNavSubmenu-2-1" class="headerSidenav__link" href="/cruises" target="_self"> Search Cruises
• Cruise Deals
• Weekend Cruises
• Last Minute Cruises
• Family Cruises​
• 2024-2025 Cruises
• All Cruise Ships " id="rciHeaderSideNavSubmenu-4-1" class="headerSidenav__link" href="/cruise-ships" target="_self"> All Cruise Ships
• Cruise Dining
• Onboard Activities
• Cruise Rooms
• The Cruise Experience
• All Cruise Destinations " id="rciHeaderSideNavSubmenu-5-1" class="headerSidenav__link" href="/cruise-destinations" target="_self"> All Cruise Destinations
• Cruise Ports
• Shore Excursions
• Perfect Day at CocoCay
• Caribbean Cruises
• Bahamas Cruises​
• Alaska Cruises
• European Cruises​
• Mediterranean Cruises​
• Royal Destinations
• Cruise Planner
• Make a Payment
• Check-In for My Cruise
• Beverage Packages​
• Shore Excursions​
• Update Guest Information
• Book a Flight
• Dining Packages​
• Royal Gifts
• Required Travel Documents
• Transportation
• Book a Hotel
• Redeem Cruise Credit
• All FAQs " id="rciHeaderSideNavSubmenu-7-1" class="headerSidenav__link" href="/faq" target="_self"> All FAQs
• Boarding Requirements
• Future Cruise Credit​
• Travel Documents​
• Check-in​ & Boarding Pass
• Transportation​
• Perfect Day at CocoCay​
• Post-Cruise Inquiries
• Royal Caribbean
• Celebrity Cruises

GO BACK TO GUIDES 

How To Choose Between Florida Cruise Ports

Have you been wondering "where are the cruise ship ports in florida" and "how do i pick one" if so, we've got answers..

By Robert Schrader | Published on April 10, 2024

From the neon lights and Art Deco architecture of Miami to the nonstop family fun of Orlando's theme parks, Florida cruise ports have a lot to offer travelers of all ages. And, today, nearly 60% of all cruises in the United States sail from the Sunshine State — most of them headed to The Bahamas or the Caribbean for plenty of sunshine, palm trees and fun in the sand. Read on for everything you need to know to make the right selection among the Florida cruise ports for your next sailing, whether that's a short weekend escape with a friend or a week-long vacation with the extended family.

Miami Cruise Port

Miami is easily worth extending your vacation for. If you've never been before, it would be a shame to head straight to the ship from the airport on arrival and then go right back on departure day without enjoying the Magic City. Whether you chow down on Cuban sandwiches in Little Havana before an evening of dancing or follow a lunch of ceviche with a dip in the tranquil waters of North Beach, Miami tends to exceed expectations. If you're coming for relaxation, you'll find spas and outdoor spots designed for sipping memorably good cocktails, as well as great people-watching. If you're looking for South Beach's famous nightlife, plan your stay so that you have weekend nights in the city. Depending on which day of the week you set sail, you might choose to explore the city of Miami before or after your sailing. For those traveling with children, look beyond the beaches to the zoo, botanical gardens or one of the city's kid-friendly museums.

There are also plenty of great places to stay at just about any price point: Whether you choose one of the famous Art Deco hotels that line Collins Avenue, an Airbnb condo in Brickell or a charming boutique hotel near Coral Gables or Coconut Grove, Miami is full of comfortable and affordable digs.

Renting a car? If you won't get back to this part of the country anytime soon, consider capping off your cruise with a drive to the Florida Keys for quiet beaches, fishing, boating or snorkeling — as well as that famously laid-back atmosphere and creamy key lime pie.

What You Need to Know:  The Miami cruise port is busy almost every day of the year, so when you depart from here, you should build in plenty of extra time. The port is around a 15-minute drive from Miami International Airport and between 15 and 30 minutes from the beaches, depending on where you're staying. As a general rule, plan to arrive at least an hour before your cruise's boarding time. Arriving back in Miami, you'll have to clear customs. This can take minutes or hours, depending on the number of ships arriving simultaneously.

Fort Lauderdale Cruise Port (Port Everglades)

The good news: In spite of what you might think when you hear about departing from Port Everglades, the terminal is not in the middle of Florida's famous swamp. While you can make an excursion to the Everglades before or after your sailing, the advantages of choosing Fort Lauderdale as your departure point have nothing to do with gators. Instead, it's a gateway to Fort Lauderdale, which is a fantastic family destination. Small kids will love the sugar-white sand and gentle waves of Las Olas Beach; older ones may want to jet ski, kayak or paddleboard.

Plus, retail therapy is never far away — The Galleria shopping mall near the beach is a great spot for last-minute cruise-packing necessities for kids  and grown-ups, from sundresses to sunscreen. Restaurant highlights nearby include seafood spots and Latin-influenced eateries, and while the area is known for the spring break party scene, there is plenty of nightlife in Fort Lauderdale year-round.

What You Need to Know:  The Fort Lauderdale cruise port is extremely busy, which is why you should leave plenty of time — at least 90 minutes — on your day of departure. In addition to reaching the port, which is less than 10 minutes by car from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, you'll need to find your terminal — each cruise line departs from its own unique terminal here. Popular Fort Lauderdale beaches such as Las Olas can be as far as 30 minutes away with traffic, so if you stay in town before your cruise, be mindful of the fact that you might need some extra travel time.

Tampa Cruise Port

Port Tampa Bay sits on the east side of downtown Tampa , close to the retail- and restaurant-filled Channelside Drive and the Florida Aquarium, which wows visitors of all ages. However, these are only two of a large number of attractions you can enjoy before or after your cruise. Party-minded cruisers can head to the nightclubs of Ybor City, while the foodie crowd will find the South Tampa restaurant scene as eclectic as it is convenient to access. (Award-winning steakhouses? Check! Cuisine from around the world? Check!)

If you plan to rent a car in Tampa, there are even more options for exploration. Drive across the Courtney Campbell Causeway to Clearwater, where the white shores of Sand Key Beach invite sun lovers of all ages to stretch out and enjoy the views. Or head south to St. Petersburg, where you can check out the Salvador Dalí Museum or collect seashells on Treasure Island.

What You Need to Know: Among all the Florida cruise ports, the Tampa cruise port is one of the most convenient. It's within walking distance of many downtown Tampa hotels and a short drive from South Tampa and Davis Islands. Like Port Everglades, Port Tampa Bay has multiple departure terminals, so make sure to verify yours before you get there. It's advisable to arrive at the Tampa cruise port at least 90 minutes prior to your boarding time; be prepared to wait an hour or longer when you return.

Orlando (Port Canaveral Cruise Port)

While the Port Canaveral cruise port is obviously not in landlocked Orlando, it's close enough to Florida's theme park capital that you can spend a few days here before you depart or after you return. If you're traveling with children, this is an opportunity to explore the theme parks of the Walt Disney World Resort, Universal Studios Florida, SeaWorld Orlando or Legoland Florida.

And there's more to the region than just roller coasters, thrilling rides and character encounters. The beaches of the "Space Coast" offer a less-crowded alternative to ones further south in Florida. Cocoa Beach is not far from where cruises set sail, and options further down the barrier island include beautiful Indian Harbour Beach. Nature-loving families and couples should also consider visiting wildlife refuges like Sebastian Inlet and Pelican Island, which offer opportunities to spot indigenous bird species and simply find a place in the sun that you don't have to share.

Port Canaveral is also famous as the home of the Kennedy Space Center, a favorite among those interested in learning more about space exploration and a great vantage point for watching a rocket launch, if you happen to be in the area when one takes place. Our advice? It may not be worth timing your cruise around a launch, as delays do happen.

What You Need to Know:  Whether you're arriving or departing from the Port Canaveral cruise port , keep in mind that the drive is around 45 minutes from Orlando International Airport and over an hour from Disney World's theme parks. While it's a much shorter ride from Cocoa Beach and other spots on the Space Coast, you should still leave 60 to 90 minutes to board, as the drop-off and pick-up areas at the cruise ship terminal can be crowded. Arrival customs procedures here might be quicker than at busier Florida cruise ports in the south and west of the state, but it's still a good idea to build some slack into your schedule.

Written By ROBERT SCHRADER

Robert Schrader is a writer, photographer and one of the web's original travel bloggers. In 2009 he launched his blog Leave Your Daily Hell, which has taken him to nearly 100 countries, and has since spun off niche sites focused on Japan, Thailand, Taiwan and Italy. Robert seeks to inform, inspire, entertain and empower travelers through his work, which has been featured in in-flight magazines and digital media outlets around the world. He's excited about travel's post-pandemic rebirth, and in particular the cruise industry's comeback! 

Get Royal Deals, Sign Up Today

Sign up to receive information about our special offers and deals. You can unsubscribe at any time. For more details about how we use your information, view our Privacy Policy .

Related Articles

What to Know About Cruising from the Four Florida Cruise Ports | Royal Caribbean Cruises

How to get from Brightline trains to port? | Royal Caribbean Cruises

The Best Cruise Ship Nightlife On Icon of the Seas [Infographic] | Royal Caribbean Cruises

Everything You Need to Plan a Perfect Day at Cococay

EXPLORE MORE

Previewing: Promo Dashboard Campaigns

My Personas

Code: ∅.

Expedition From Hell: The Lost Tapes Sneak Peek [Exclusive]

• Get ready for your next off-the-rails obsession with Discovery's docuseries Expedition From Hell: The Lost Tapes .
• Experience the harrowing journey as conman Mickey Grosman leads inexperienced adventurers into danger.
• Exclusive footage and interviews reveal the full scope of Grosman's insanity in the Amazon jungle.

For those who have enjoyed watching absolute disasters unfold in documentaries like Hulu’s Fyre Fraud , Netflix’s Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare , and David Farrier ’s Mister Organ , Discovery’s docuseries, Expedition From Hell: The Lost Tapes will be your next off-the-rails obsession. The limited production, which arrives at Max and on the Discovery Channel on May 12 with a two-hour premiere, follows a flim-flam man named Mickey Grosman , as he leads a group of greenhorn adventurers into the Amazon jungle in South America. Sold to the eager group of thrillseekers as a fundraiser for cancer, the trip is anything but, with Grosman throwing those following his lead into every danger imaginable. In an exclusive to Collider sneak peek, audiences can get a better grip on the conman’s insane plan that could have cost the newbie explorers their lives.

If you have a healthy fear of heights , this isn’t an expedition you’d want to be on as our exclusive teaser details just one of the many harrowing feats that Grosman led the crew on. Following him with blind faith , the folks along for the journey — who haven’t taken any sort of training — find themselves rappelling down a steep waterfall. One by one, each person steps up to their position and begins to work their way down the cliff face, hoping to land in one piece. “Take it easy” are the only words Grosman gives to one of the brave souls as he has a very rough launching and landing. Laughing maniacally at the fear of those under his tutelage, Grosman isn’t the person anyone would want steering them around the jungles of the rainforest.

The Story Behind Expedition From Hell: The Lost Tapes

The waterfall rappel is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the pure insanity awaiting audiences in Expedition From Hell: The Lost Tapes . Featuring interviews from those who experienced the madness of Grosman firsthand, the miniseries also uses more than 700 hours of archival footage that was filmed along the chaotic trail through the Amazon. Just when you think it couldn’t get any crazier, it does, as Grosman’s name is tied to a kidnapping, a prison escape, and even a missing persons case. In fact, the ex-special forces demolitions expert had so many secrets, many of those on his South American adventure didn't learn the full scope until they were sitting in front of the camera for their interviews. Essentially, if there was a mix of Bear Grylls and Joe Exotic , it would be Grosman.

Check out our exclusive sneak peek for Expedition From Hell: The Lost Tapes above and tune into Max and Discovery Channel for the two-hour premiere on May 12.

Stream on Max

NEWS... BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

From shaking beds to gender-neutral toilets, we’re flying the flag for these inclusive cruises

Share this with

A holiday isn’t a holiday if it makes life more difficult, right? And for many, a cruising trip abroad can feel like a bridge too far.

If you’ve ever gone away and been tutted at or gawked at while enjoying a moment at the bar, you’d probably rather stay home instead.

Well, a number of cruise operators have been thinking about how to make their trips more inclusive and accessible to a wider variety of guests, and their efforts have not gone unnoticed.

Whether it’s gender-neutral toilets or sign language interpreters, we’ve plucked the boats that boast a better experience for everyone from the Sailawaze Excellence Awards .

Virgin Voyages

After a day of sightseeing, what can be more entertaining than a night of drag performance? It’s par for the course at Virgin Voyages, where all staff are encouraged to express their gender identity freely.

The company prides itself on being a welcoming space for LGBTQ+ passengers with its gender-neutral toilets and hospitable atmosphere.

Founder Richard Branson has a long history of supporting gay rights, beginning with legendary Heaven nightclub in London, and the celebrations on his ships ramp up in June as themed parties are thrown and guests are presented with pride-inspired cocktails and on-deck DJs.

Celebrity Cruises

If you thought cruises were only for the silver-haired, you’d be wrong. Celebrity Cruises are a riot of colour, flying every hue of the LGBTQ+ flag – especially in June, Pride Month.

The operation, which travels to every continent, even hosted the first legal same-sex marriage at sea in 2018 and regularly holds gay weddings.

Celebrity Cruises says it promotes diversity among both staff and guests and throws regular LGBTQ+ welcome events to get the party started.

Disney Cruise Line

Family-friendly operators Disney Cruise Line prides itself on making trips accessible to those with additional needs. Guests with disabilities have access to comfortable staterooms and suites, along with a full range of services, facilities, and amenities, including auxiliary aids.

Its liners are also home to specially designed communication staterooms for guests with hearing disabilities, including a vibrating bed shaker under the mattress and an indicating panel with light signals for the doorbell, telephone calls, general alarm and fire alarm.

The ships also provide sign language interpreters for shows and entertainment.

Saga Cruises

If a loud party isn’t for you, over 50s can enjoy a more sedate voyage, with Saga Cruises providing a number of options for guests with mobility issues. A chauffeur service to and from ports is provided as standard on all trips, rooms are equipped with hearing loop systems and hoists are available to help guests in and out of the pools.

Assistance is also provided to those who need help with baggage and large print is provided in the cinema guide and daily paper, alongside Braille playing cards.

A-Rosa Cruises

Meanwhile, A-Rosa Cruises are designed with families and multi-generational groups in mind. Under-15s travel for free and family rooms have been provided so up to five can share a room while they meander along Europe’s rivers, waking up in a different city each day.

Hosts are available to take care of youngsters in the kids club, where children can choose from a variety of activities, including crafting, T-shirt design and face painting while adults can enjoy a relaxing treatment at the spa.

The rest of the nominations

Food & beverage.

Aqua Expeditions

TUI River Cruises

Windstar Cruises

Explora Journeys

Regent Seven Seas Cruises

P&O Cruises

Riverside Luxury Cruises

Emerald Cruises

Amawaterways

Swan Hellenic

Princess Cruises

MSC Cruises

Royal Caribbean

Sustainability.

AE Expeditions

The Majestic Line

Portsmouth International Port

Hurtigruten

ENTERTAINMENT

Carnival Cruise Line

Marella Cruises

COLLABORATIONS

Ambassador Cruise Line

Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines

Oceania Cruises

Havila Voyages

Pandaw Expeditions

Holland America Line

CroisiEurope

VIVA Cruises

This year, European river specialist VIVA Cruises launched its inaugural LGBT voyage, which took travellers to Antwerp, Rotterdam and Amsterdam where they could visit the world’s largest archive of LGBTQ+ history by day and party at the city’s vibrant gay and lesbian bars by night.

VIVA is a member of the International LGBTQ+ Travel Association, an organisation built to promote equality and safety within LGBTQ+ tourism.

Autistic travellers, those with Down syndrome and other additional needs can benefit from a specially designed holiday with Royal Caribbean. Priority check-in, boarding and departure are available to those who need it and the Autism on the Seas programme offers ‘staffed cruises’ with specialised respite sessions and private activities and sessions.

Your Daily Horoscope

What does the week have in store? Your tarot horoscope reading for May 20 to May 26

Guests can choose from Autism-friendly dietary menus and scooters, wheelchairs and walkers are provided for on shore excursions and service animals are welcome on board.

MORE : Are you a top or a bottom? How to navigate sexual identities in the bedroom

MORE : This is how Eloise Bridgerton should escape the fate she was given in the books

MORE : The UK was once the most LGBTQ-friendly place in Europe – now we’re far from it

Get need-to-know travel news, inspiration and advice from Metro every week.

Sign up here....

Privacy Policy

You were sitting down, wearing a blue top and with sunglasses on top of…

To Issy/Izzy, the kind, intelligent and chatty girl, originally from…

Enter your birthday for your free daily horoscope sent straight to your inbox!

Get us in your feed

Adria Arjona, Edgar Ramirez to Co-Star in Jayro Bustamante’s Dystopian Thriller ‘El Sombreron’

By Leo Barraclough

Leo Barraclough

International Features Editor

• Films Boutique Sells Mohammad Rasoulof’s ‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ to Multiple Territories (EXCLUSIVE) 8 hours ago
• Parallax Studio, Saga Film Studios Form Joint Venture to Distribute Films in the Philippines Starting With Kevin Costner’s ‘Horizon’ (EXCLUSIVE) 11 hours ago
• MK2 Films Acquires Worldwide Rights to Claude Lanzmann’s Films, Including ‘Shoah’ (EXCLUSIVE) 23 hours ago

Adria Arjona (“Andor,” “Hit Man”) and Edgar Ramirez , the Golden Globe-nominated actor of “American Crime Story” and “Carlos,” have been tapped to star in “El Sombreron,” a dystopian thriller from Jayro Bustamante, the acclaimed director of “La Llorona” (2019) and “Ixcanul” (2015).

The feature is to be launched at Cannes by the Match Factory, which will represent worldwide sales outside of North America. CAA Media Finance will represent North American rights.

Bustamante’s La Casa de Produccion, Alejandro De Leon and Brian Clark, and Sergio Lira and Lynette Coll for Luz Films will serve as producers.

Popular on Variety

Desperate for liberation, she seizes the opportunity presented by a mysterious stranger named Ramón, who promises to smuggle her north to Paradise.

However, as Lila journeys with him, she discovers the harrowing truth about her companion and finds herself thrust into a surreal odyssey through the depths of hell.

Bustamente’s previous crime horror “La Llorona” granted him the best director and best film awards in Venice Days.

“In ‘El Sombreron,’ Jayro fuses magical realism, folklore, and horror to vividly evoke the hell that borders create,” said the producers. “We could not have asked for two better guides through the inferno than the immensely talented Adria Arjona and Edgar Ramirez.”

Arjona will next be seen starring in Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man” opposite Glen Powell, which will be released in theaters on May 24 and on Netflix June 7. She will also be seen in Zoe Kravitz’s directorial debut film, “Blink Twice,” which will be released in theaters on Aug. 23.Arjona was most recently seen starring in Disney+’s series, “Andor,” in which she stars opposite Diego Luna.

Ramirez will next be seen in Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Perez” opposite Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez premiering in Competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival . Upcoming projects for Ramirez include Eli Roth directed “Borderlands,” co-starring Cate Blanchett, and the independent film “Arenas,” directed by Camille Perton. Ramirez’s other credits include TV series “Dr. Death,” “The Undoing” and “American Crime Story” and the films “Jungle Cruise,” “Hands of Stone” and “Joy & Carlos.”

More From Our Brands

Rep. crockett says mtg was ‘absolutely’ racist during confrontation in house hearing, patek philippe leads geneva’s spring watch auctions to a frothy $125 million, crypto’s rebounding crawley town a win away from league one, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, snl video: colin jost and michael che swap jokes about kendrick lamar, scarlett johansson and more, verify it's you, please log in.

Inside Israel: Emails on the war between former PD Cavs writer Mary Schmitt Boyer and an avid Israeli fan

• Updated: May. 19, 2024, 7:17 a.m. |
• Published: May. 19, 2024, 5:38 a.m.

Israeli soldiers drive tanks on the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024. The war weighs heavily on people on both sides of the conflict. An interesting perspective comes from an avid fan of the Cleveland Cavaliers inside Israel, who has corresponded for more than decade with Mary Schmit Boyer, the former Cavs writer for cleveland.com and The Plan Dealer. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) AP

• Mary Schmitt Boyer, The Plain Dealer

When I was the Cavaliers beat writer back in 2011, I started getting thoughtful, intelligent emails from a Cavs fan in Israel. He’d been a Cavs fan since he read about them in a book when he was 12. The emails didn’t come often, but they were full of great observations and questions. They came in especially helpful when the Cavs were pursuing Coach David Blatt, an American Israeli who was coaching in Tel Aviv at the time. After I left the paper in 2014, the fan and I remained in touch, and I even helped arrange a trip to a Cavs game for him when he visited the United States in 2018 (after I retired and moved home to Wisconsin). He has a Ph.D. in Linguistics and works as a Fintech consultant, and lives on a former Kibbutz in central Israel. He is 48 years old and has an 8-year-old son. He and I have never met in person.

After Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing close to 1,200 people, injuring many more and taking others hostage, I feared for my friend and reached out in an email. In our resulting email conversation over the next few months, his thoughts were so personal and striking that I wondered if he would give me permission to publish them on my old platforms, The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com . He graciously agreed. To protect him, we are withholding his name. The correspondence has been edited to remove some personal information and expand on some thoughts to add needed perspective.

The first exchange

Here’s my email from Dec. 16:

Oh, my friend. I am reaching out just to check on you. I should have done so long before this. I really have no excuse. Even now I’m afraid to hear what you will tell me — if you even get this email. I’m praying every day for peace — is that crazy? I pray for those impacted by this conflict. I pray that you will reply and tell me how you are. To think that the last time we were in touch was when you went to a Cavs game. Seems so meaningless now. So I’ll ask again: How are you?

Here is his response:

Hi, Dear Mary. So good to hear from you!

Me and mine are as OK as we can be under these frankly unreal circumstances. Trying to work with what we can control and not drown in the constant media-flow of bad news. In my area there are no missiles, but there are some skirmishes in the Palestinian Authority (which we are neighboring). Security is super-heightened around here since Oct 7, so we are relatively confident that all this action won’t reach our Kibbutz (unlike those poor souls in the South, who were totally caught off-guard.) My mum, in Tel-Aviv, is in the bomb-shelter in their building a few times per evening (now a bit less.) It’s amazing what you can get used to. You hear a siren, go into a bomb shelter, you hear huge bangs (in Hebrew we use ‘booms’), you wait 10 minutes, you go out and you get on with your life. But it does take its toll. Yes it’s been a hellish experience... the atrocities of that Oct 7 Shabbat were something that we didn’t and couldn’t imagine even in our worst worst dreams. And we still haven’t really received all the info / understood the full extent: Rape, beheading, burning, torture, sexual and general mutilation, forcing children to see live or recorded footage of their parents tortured or killed, involving men, women, small children and babies and sadly much more. I strongly urge you NOT to watch the footage (the vast majority of which was captured by Hamas militants’ body-cams). Israel compiled 45-minutes, and members of Knesset could choose to watch. They were advised to take a sedative before and some indeed chose to do so. Since then, every day our young men and women are getting killed in battle. Ours is not a professional army in its core, it’s a mandatory one. Everyone’s 18-21 year olds are out there and of course adults as well (army career/reserve call-ups/voluntary etc). And all this totally doesn’t negate the fact that I feel terrible for innocent civilians of all ages in Gaza. Their lives are absolute hell and for probably most it has been so for a long time. Some Gazans hate Hamas no less than we do and suffer badly at their hands or as a result of their actions. Hamas’ treatment of opposing Palestinian factions is no better than the way they treat Israelis. This rage of local Gazans towards Hamas is now starting to show. There are some anti-Hamas demonstrations within Gaza, although coverage of this has been sparse.

Another thing that is really hard to cope with is that we Israelis are feeling strongly hated basically by millions of people around the globe, in a way we feel is completely unjust. Our representatives in world events and Jews on campuses and elsewhere are being bullied and threatened.

As Hillary Clinton said about calls for ceasefire, there was a ceasefire before October 7th. What some people are refusing to get is that Israel (before October 7th) had no presence in the Gaza strip since 2005, at which time Israel withdrew unilaterally and removed its settlements there. . After Hamas took over from the Palestinian Authority in 2007 and declared its hostile intentions, Israel started controlling the borders (except the Egyptian one), especially goods import, in a (now it seems failed) attempt to prevent arms import. Still nothing prevented Hamas from using the generous international funding for good, but they chose to buy arms and create army installations/missile launchers inside kindergartens, schools and hospitals etc. Hamas committed heinous atrocities, brutally murdered, kidnapped and are still torturing our civilians, and have been firing missiles at our civilian population for more than 20 years. They do not recognize Israelis/Jews right to live as part of their official education system. What’s a normal/liberal/moderate/Western-style response to this? Hamas kidnapped a 10-month old baby; as a UK newspaper frontpage headline stated “the tiniest human shield.” Our enemy, the Hamas, is cynical, psychological-warfare savvy and, its leaders are psychotic and sadistic, acting as proxies of Iran and its cohorts as part of a much bigger war, in which Israel and the Palestinians are mere pawns. .

I always despised the over-usage of the term anti-Semitism. Absolutely despised it. But I’m afraid that some of the current hatred of Jews and Israel we are witnessing now is deep-rooted and millenniums-old, constantly searching for (false) justification. What I CAN understand is the average world citizen siding with the underdog (Palestinians) vs. the more powerful entity (Israel) - that I totally get. But if someone who is not part of this conflict, intends to hold a strong and active (=violent) opinion on something, the minimal requirement is that you do your research and look in the mirror. What makes things much worse, is that unlike previous wars, where we trusted that our leaders set aside their personal and political agendas for the good of the people of Israel, even if we don’t agree with them, here it’s different. Some of us, including myself, believe that this is easily the worst government/leadership we’ve had in the history of Israel (perhaps of the Jewish people). The so-called judicial reform that they started (-democracy -free speech -pluralism +corruption +autocracy +religious/messianic republic) and which provoked mass protests, is only on hiatus for the war.

I can only join your prayers for peace. To me the conclusion is not that peace efforts are doomed to fail in this conflict, or that these latest events prove past attempts were a mistake. Quite the opposite, you fight murderous fanatics and hate/lies purveyors, but reach out to people who want to live. This region is TNT-laden… we need all sides to handle their match-bearing pyromaniacs.

Didn’t mean to “take the podium on you” :) and I really, really appreciate you reaching out. Let me know how you and yours are doing as well! Thank you and all the very best

The second exchange

After Iran fired more than 300 missiles at Israel in April 2024, I wrote back to check on my friend. Here’s my April 17 email:

Just checking in. Still praying for you and your family every day, but things just seem to be getting worse, not better. How are you doing????

Here’s his response:

So good to hear from you and thank you for your prayers. I hope you and your family and friends are all well.

Yes, it’s been from bad to worse here for quite a while now. And no doubt this Iranian episode is the most dangerous and uniquely bizarre yet.

The missiles from Gaza and Lebanon we are used to. You have a few seconds, you get to your bomb-shelter/safe room, wait for the bang, 10 minutes and you move on.

This time, in addition to the days of anxiety preceding, you are notified in the late evening that 300 odd ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and weaponized drones are on the way from Iran and will start arriving at 2 a.m. It belongs in a movie, not in reality. Two of the interception explosions we heard that night here were scary. You actually felt like you were getting bombed (for some of my compatriots in the North and South this isn’t a novelty, but for me personally yes). I woke up my 8-year old kid at 1am in order for us to move to somewhere with a built-in safe room. We do have a bomb-shelter near, but that night we thought it wise to actually sleep inside a safe room. He isn’t going to forget that night any time soon, or that huge explosion we all heard, and he has since expressed his fears and anxiety.

Sorry – I’m in speech mode again. But lastly I would like, totally seriously, to thank you and all your fellow compatriots for straight up saving our lives over here. Without the US allies in this neighborhood and without these superior air defenses which we could never have developed without the US and without all the rest y’all are doing for us, we would be having, or not having, a totally different conversation at this point.

So, how about them Cavs?

Thanks again for checking in and all the very best.

An update in May

This month, my friend reached out again to let me know how things were going:

Thank you for checking-in. I have to admit that funnily enough, I’m even more emotionally invested in the Cavs than before. I guess a result of these challenging times; it’s a good source of off-topic solace. The game 2 win over the Celtics the other day was exhilarating. I didn’t think we could “steal” ANY games from them without Jarrett, and in the TD too. I hope the Cavs avoid elimination tonight (here game 5 is at 2am, we’ll see if I wake up for this). Other than that, my friends and family and myself are in total despair. We just had the saddest Independence day ever. I personally think that the war must end i-m-m-e-d-i-a-t-e-l-y. Whatever hostages we can get back, let’s have them back please. The Israeli ethos, built and maintained throughout its existence is that we do NOT ever leave our people behind. Not even bodies. Israel has always acted this way (and paid a price for it), but this is the agreement that has always been in place between the people and the leadership. Now this ethos is in danger. Granted, Hamas probably wouldn’t have given us all our hostages back at any point, because they were their human shields, and this was their only bargaining chip. This much is obvious. However I’m NOT sure that our government really exhausted all its efforts to get the hostages released at all points in time, and for motives which I’m not convinced of. Those that are still alive went through and are still going through inhumane atrocities. Let the International court in the Hague and the UN mull over these facts in a serious manner. What I AM convinced about is that no military gain against Hamas is worth anything that is happening now. Gaza is in a deep humanitarian crisis of unspeakable proportions, with innocents suffering, and Israel has become in the eyes of many a pariah state. Our youth are getting killed every day and by now, for nothing. Our government’s promise of a “complete Hamas defeat” is a lie as far as I can see, and in addition Hamas has gained much/all of its lost prestige locally in Gaza by now. As long as the “day after” in Gaza isn’t discussed / the horizon set for a Palestinian state with responsible leadership and REAL international security guarantees all around, you have achieved very little I’m afraid. Yes, Hamas needed to be struck down with strong force, but now this war is shooting everyone involved in the foot, or worse. As for criticism of President Biden for his stance on the Rafah-operation, I condemn it unequivocally; It is the most unfair and ingrateful thing I have ever heard of. The Israeli government in my eyes has completely lost its legitimacy internally too long ago. It is pulled by the nose by messianic extremists and led by a criminal, pure and simple who has done more damage to the state of Israel than any other leader before him - and it’s not even close. The government members who are decent, are mostly pathetic weaklings who have been put in their position because this is what they are. I, for one, will start breathing again only after this government is toppled. I wish I could end on a positive note, but frankly that’s not easy to come by nowadays. Again thank you Mary for your continued friendship and interest and I hope maybe someday I’ll get to host you here and show you all the wonderful things and people we have in our part of the world, including BTW Arabs and Jews living in peace and real friendship (Hamas’ attempts to break this fragile bond thank heavens failed miserably). All the best.

Mary Schmitt Boyer was the Cavs beat writer and a sportswriter at The Plain Dealer from 1996 until her retirement from journalism in 2014.

Have something to say about this topic?

* Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication.

* Email general questions about our editorial board or comments or corrections on this editorial to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at [email protected]

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

• Hell Gate X (formerly Twitter)
• Hell Gate Instagram
• Hell Gate Facebook

This Dead Endangered Whale Would Have Loved Your Ironic Cruise Ship Essay

A 44-foot long, adult female Sei whale was found dead on the bow of a cruise ship docked at the Port of Brooklyn in Red Hook.

9:26 AM EDT on May 9, 2024

• Share on Facebook
• Share on X (formerly Twitter)
• Share on Email

A cruise ship docked in Brooklyn belches toxic fumes (Hell Gate)

Join us for two voter registration events before the June 25 primary!

It's hard to think of a business more detrimental to life on Earth than the cruise ship industry. It kills the human spirit by repackaging the experience of being locked in a dingy Florida motel as a "voyage," and it spews out two times more greenhouse gas emissions than air travel; in 2022, 218 cruise ships emitted more carbon than all of Europe's automobiles, combined . There's also the eight gallons of sewage that cruise ships discharge into the ocean per guest, per day, and the fun bouts of pooping and puking that seize people unlucky enough to board the wrong ships. 

Cruise liners have been a comically awful cliche for decades, and yet, we can't get enough— Creed and other shitty butt rock bands have packed onto a cruise ship ? Sure, sign me up. Literally, the biggest and best cruise ship ever made is famous for hitting a fucking iceberg and killing 1,500 people!

This week, New Yorkers got yet another reminder of how terrible these boats are, when a 44-foot long, adult female Sei whale was found dead on the bow of a cruise ship docked at the Port of Brooklyn in Red Hook on Saturday morning. The whale, which is endangered, was towed to Sandy Hook, New Jersey, for a necropsy to determine when and how it died, but experts told the New York Post that the 214-foot tall MSC Meraviglia is the likely culprit.

Rob DiGiovanni, the founder and chief scientist of the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, however, told The Post it was more than likely that the "interaction with the vessel contributed to her death."

"It looks like she was eating," DiGiovanni said, indicating she was a healthy whale with relatively fresh food in her stomach.

How often do ships kill whales? Thousands of times a year, but that's likely an undercount, because experts estimate that only five percent of these struck whales ever wash ashore.

"We are deeply saddened by the loss of any marine life," MSC said in a statement . 

In March, the City Council passed the Our Air Our Water Act , which requires cruise ships to plug into the electrical grid when docked at New York City ports (New York City's Economic Development Corporation opposed the legislation, because of all the money the cruise passengers bring to the city, you see). The law took effect immediately , but it obviously doesn't do anything to protect the whales that are becoming more common in New York's waters. Maybe there ought to be another law.

Don't cruise for links—we have some here for you:

• The New York Knicks defeated the Indiana Pacers to take a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals playoff series AND Josh Hart said a cuss word to Reggie Miller on live TV .
• The Adams administration keeps pushing back crucial repair work on the BQE's triple cantilever. What could go wrong?
• NYC Schools Chancellor David Banks testified before Congress with the assistance of… Mayor Eric Adams ?
• " Winnie Greco, Top Eric Adams Aide, Back at Work After Being Sidelined by FBI Raid "
• A man who was shot in the back by an NYPD cop guarding Mayor Adams's house in Brooklyn in 2022 is suing the City in federal court .
• Roughly 40 NYPD officers are facing potential CCRB charges related to encounters that happened during protests across the city in recent months. Some of those arrested at the protests were credentialed journalists .
• A real estate developer related to the founder of a pro-Israel terrorist group was charged with felony assault for driving his car into a group of pro-Palestinian protesters on the Upper East Side on Tuesday morning, and hitting one woman, who suffered minor injuries. "What does my being a distant cousin of someone who passed away 35 years ago have anything to do with this?" he told the AP .
• Oh yeah? You were just "taking a little nap" with your date in the back of your BMW at 3 a.m. when you were carjacked?
• There might be fewer spicy tweets from the NYPD now that the City Council has asked the Department of Investigation to look into their social media posts (and cited a Hell Gate story in their letter to the DOI). The mayor, however, is still fully supportive of his boys in blue .
• Rents are at record highs , again, and rents are also rising seven times faster than wages .
• Start saving your pennies for that massive e-bike you've always wanted but never wanted to lug up your stairs: NYC has a goal of installing 500 on-street bike storage units across the five boroughs.
• And finally, Brooklyn State Senator Zellnor Myrie has released his first campaign video in his quest to challenge Mayor Adams in next year's Democratic primary

Thanks for reading!

Give us your email address to keep reading two more articles for free, stay in touch.

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Hell Gate

‘he’s open to any ideas we have’: mayor adams crushed columbia’s protests after attending a secret meeting with billionaires.

Chat logs leaked to the Washington Post raise a host of questions about how the raids on student protesters came about

‘Betrayal, Shock, Confusion’: Despite Promises from Eric Adams, Parents Denied 3-K Seats for Their Kids

"To not get a seat anywhere is just so unconscionable. We don't know what to do."

The NYPD Is Increasing Their Ability to Steal Your Face

Drone first responders, real-time Harlem surveillance, and more links for your weekend.

Tabletop Gaming Union Negotiations Sidetracked By Lawyer Allegedly Calling Workers ‘Fucking Disgusting’ and That They Should ‘Burn in Hell’

The tenor of union negotiations can really be a roll of the dice.

How Much Does It Suck to Be the President of the New York City Transit Authority?

Richard Davey, who oversees the MTA's subways and buses, looks to be heading for the exit right as congestion pricing goes online.

The best dressed guests at Gucci Cruise 2025

The italian designer label showcased its cruise collection at london's tate modern last night, here are the best celebrity looks from the front row….

On Monday night, the concrete basement of London's Tate Modern was given a verdant revamp, sprouting with lush greenery to welcome a Gucci takeover.

The luxury Italian heritage label, with Sabato de Sarno at the helm, presented its highly anticipated cruise collection, to a star-studded front row.

Models graced the runway, wholly aligned with the holiday mood, clad in see-through boxy shirts, insouciant pussybows, suede tailoring and bold, brief-like shorts.  

Don't Miss

The showcase drew an impressive line-up of celebrity guests, spanning from supermodel royalty Kate Moss and global hitmaker Dua Lipa to Hollywood star Demi Moore and Normal People 's Daisy Edgar-Jones.

Hello! Fashion  shares the best dressed guests at Gucci Cruise 2025:

Runway icon Kate Moss was giving major 'Office Siren' vibes in a grey lingerie-style mini dress, and an elegant sheer tights-slingbacks combo.

Training Season singer Dua Lipa opted for a black textured leather jacket and vertiginous heeled loafers.

• Alexa Chung

Noughties It-girl and TV presenter Alexa Chung wore a green knitted skirt co-ord and glitzy flats.

Actress Demi Moore wore a lace cut-out midaxi with glossy boots and her adorable companion Pilaf.

MORE:  How to nail 'regencycore' in 2024 and look like the diamond of the season

READ:  Going hell for leather: We decode Anya Taylor-Joy's Mad Max press tour looks

Daisy Edgar-Jones

Where The Crawdads Sing star Daisy Edgar-Jones sported a tan utilitarian leather mini dress and wine-hued loafer platforms.

Paul Mescal

Normal People actor Paul Mescal looked dapper in black from head to toe.

Salma Hayek

Actress Salma Hayek looked elegant in a black asymmetric dress with silver accessories and a statement lip.

Sabrina Elba

Sabrina Elba wore a sequin-infused knitted midaxi dress with beige slingback kitten heels.

Debbie Harry

Blondie lead vocalist Debbie Harry looked sharp in a double-breasted suit layered over a classic white tee.

• A-list style
• Fashion news
• Celebrity fashion

More Fashion

Emily Blunt brings 70s glam to IF premiere in kaleidoscopic gown

Victoria Beckham's genius jeans styling hack is so easy to copy

Bella Hadid is living out her office siren summer – and we're in awe

Alexa Chung's 'moving house outfit' is actually seriously chic

Sydney Sweeney's tropical bikini is giving major out-of-office vibes

Alexa Chung's sheer holiday dress is giving major sultry siren vibes

Anya Taylor-Joy's sheer gloves are 2024's most unexpectedly chic accessory

Jennifer Lopez's chunky boots + designer bag is the cool-girl combo she wears on repeat

Victoria beckham tweaks her signature slinky dress, and it's seriously chic, the best dressed stars at the emmys 2024, nicola peltz's academy museum gala look was a grace kelly cosplay, anne hathaway's double denim and diamond outfit reminded us of this iconic y2k britney moment.