Dangers at Sea

Dangers at Sea

 I must admit (recent headlines aside) it has crossed my mind that a Ship Cruise to the high seas could be relaxing, and the ultimate fun.  In all honesty the only thing that has kept me in past years form booking a cruise is my wife’s dislike for them, and basically been stuck out to sea with minimal controls for getting out if you wanted to.  More information is now coming out by experts for why my wife may have been right all along:

• Summer break – no better time for a refreshing and relaxing cruise. Let the kids enjoy rock climbing, surfing, zip lining, ice skating and swimming while you savor crisp blue skies, warm sea mists and wine coolers on your balcony as you cuddle together and scan the whitecaps for a glimpse of an acrobatic whale. A lush buffet dinner awaits you all in a couple of hours; until then, there are many options for fun on your personal vacation menu. Unfortunately, although a cruise ship may seem like a getaway from daily life and its stressors, potential dangers lurk in every passageway and on every promenade. -- By Linda Reid for MSN Healthy Living

Think about it, even if you only fill a conference room with 50 people, you are bound to get a large mix of personalities, attitudes, and behaviors. Not everyone is “an open book.”  You don’t know what people’s backgrounds are, or even if they have a criminal background:

• Dangerous fellow passengers “People assume that a cruise ship is a safe cocoon and get a sense of overconfidence,” says Charles Lipcon, a cruise-line maritime attorney in Miami and author of “Unsafe on the High Seas.” “Their ‘antennas’ get turned off. But a cruise ship is like a big city. Would you let your 15-year-old run around New York City alone at 2 a.m.?”  Lipcon’s cases have included gang rapes of young girls and date-rape drug use. Reported sexual assaults on ships number in the dozens each year, and poorly trained or unqualified cruise-line security guards are often the only investigators after a crime has occurred.
• “Passengers think they’re in the United States, but they’re in the country of the vessel’s flag and under that country’s laws,” Lipcon adds. The FBI does have jurisdiction over crimes upon American citizens “on the high seas,” but it often has no evidence to work with. Cruise-line personnel, Lipcon says, typically “make no effort to preserve the crime scene. They vacuum the room and steam-clean the sheets.” The result: Many perpetrators remain unidentified – and unprosecuted.

The very last thing on my mind would be to try to direct your thinking or ideas of the ideal vacation, I do want to make sure that you are aware of some of the things that are going on in the industry.  Keep a look out for more posts on this subject coming your way.  The best is yet to come…