CARNIVAL CORP (owner of the Costa Concordia) has a history of management problems regarding their ships and many lines…
Carnival Corp (owners of the Costa Concordia) have had a history of unsupervised near tragedies. A fire began with an unsupervised cutting and welding operation in a laundry room on board the Carnival Ecstasy on July 20, 1998, while the ship was sailing off Miami Beach, Florida with 2567 passengers aboard, where crew were welding a laundry folding machine called a Mangle. Should this happen on a 4 or 5 thousand passenger ship, in rough seas, there would be more loss of life than the Titanic. These large ships are considered by some as floating death traps and the US Congress (paid off by cruise line lobbyist) refuse to do anything about this.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause of fire aboard the Ecstasy was the unauthorized welding by crewmembers in the main laundry that ignited a large accumulation of lint in the ventilation system and the failure of Carnival Cruise Lines to maintain the laundry exhaust ducts in a fire-safe condition. Contributing to the extensive fire damage on the ship was the lack of an automatic fire suppression system on the aft mooring deck and the lack of an automatic means of mitigating the spread of smoke and fire through the ventilation ducts.Passengers received a full refund and were offered a complimentary cruise for the inconvenience.
Cruise and Liner History: Costa Concordia owners (Israeli-American Mickey Arison’s Carnival Corp) have come under scrutiny after reports of delays in giving the order to evacuate the stricken ship.
(Left: RMS TITANIC passage contract.)
It’s all fun and margaritas when you first book a cruise. But that “ticket” is actually a contract that can run more than a dozen pages, and gives away more rights to the cruise ship company than you may realize.
“People will buy the ticket without knowing this, and they won’t even look at it before they step on the cruise ship,” said Joseph Goldberg, a Harrisburg, Pa.-based consumer attorney who reviewed the ticket contract posted on the Carnival Cruise Lines website for Reuters.
Carnival dominates about half of the cruise market, and its contract, which runs almost 8,000 words and mentions “liability” 20 times, could be considered typical for the industry.
“It’s not until something does happen that you find out how stuck you are,” Goldberg said.
(Left: Costa Concordia’s owner (Carnival Corp) Micky Arison has been hiding out in Miami).
Carnival Corp Costa Concordia’s passenger contract gives “cruise guests” on the doomed ship very little rights.
Something did happen, of course. The Costa Concordia, operated by a company owned by Miami-based Carnival, ran aground in Italian waters on Friday, leaving at least 11 passengers dead and some 24 more missing. That was an extreme and unusual event, likely to have lawyers fighting for years over the various and sometimes contradictory laws, agreements and contracts that may come into play, according to Lewis “Mike” Eidson, a Miami trial lawyer who specializes in representing cruise passengers.
