Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines
Blacklists Infants In Latest Blow To Passengers
May 23, 2008
In the past two months, two families have come forward to tell how Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines blacklisted them, in the latest wave of ' Get Tough' policy.
The new policy, directed at passengers who might sue them, or have become disruptive to other passengers aboard, who might sue them for doing too little to protect victims aboard has reached beyond what one might think was an incident worthy of blacklisted.
Complainers and witnesses to the cruise line employee policy violations or crimes in the making have been targeted in recent months.
Some of those who have sued the line, were slapped with counter suits, which the line has won in court, when the courts decided that the passenger 'victim' had no case.
Now, in the next wave of blacklisted passengers are the tiniest passengers of all, infants. The line has announced that infants will no longer be allowed to sail on RCCI ships.
Reports say that infants must at least six months old in order to sail on shorter cruises, and longer cruises (the time period seems to be about two weeks) they must be a full 12 months old.
This new policy has come as a backlash against bad publicity the line got when they evicted a family with an infant off their ship, while it was in the Caribbean, because the infant was ill.
Reports say that the reason given for the new blacklist addition was because it believed the needs of sick infants can sometimes be met only by a hospital on shore.
The same could be true of anyone suffering with extreme symptoms of Norovirus. This is an obvious point, as there is a growing list of elderly passengers who have died aboard cruise ships, due to complications of the Norovirus, as well as other medical problems.
While a great number of those who died aboard from Norovirus were seniors, Cruise Bruise is wondering how long it will take before the line blacklists passengers over 60, who comprise the largest number of passengers who died after bleeding to death or becoming dehydrated to the point of causing organ failure, including fatal heart attacks.
Those elderly passengers who have caused problems aboard cruise ship because they became critically ill as a result of Norovirus, comprise a much larger percentage to the potential liability to the line, than infants have, historically.
It would seem this is all about image. While you may let an elderly passenger die aboard your ship, when you fail to meet their medical needs, and you might remove them from the ship at the next port so they can get better medical care, doing either with an elderly passenger gets little attention.
But, when you strand a family with an infant, in a foreign land, at 11pm at night, the public becomes enraged and the cruise line looks like a heartless monster, whether they are or not.
This is what has surely precipitated the new policy on infants. The new policy goes into effect in October 2008.
The cruise line says if a passenger shows up with an infant, they can not prove is the proper age, they will deny the infant and perhaps one parent boarding, and will not reimburse the ticket for either.
It is interesting to note, that according to Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines' Gary Bald, the line blacklists 1 out of every 20,000 passengers. Given the number of ships they have sailing every day, they must be blacklisting at least one passenger every day.
The fact that one business, has so many problems, they find the need to blacklist hundreds of customers each year, this in itself tells us the type and volume of problems that are plaguing the industry and passengers sailing the high seas.
Norovirus Deaths On Cruise Bruise
