Cruise Ship Disasters & Disappearances

Grab your towel animal, your bottomless daiquiri, and your basic human rights waiver, because today we’re getting a broader understanding of cruise ship horror stories.

From the infamous “poop cruise” where passengers slept in sewage, to the final ship before COVID where people were locked in cabins while the virus spread like a nightmare… to the women who boarded and were never seen again- we’re setting sail into the absurd, the disgusting, and the unsolved.

And don’t worry, I saw Titanic 13 times in theaters, so if the idea of this episode emotionally nauseates you? Just know- I’ve been preparing for this since 1997.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/broads-next-door--5803223/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Going cra Netflix is diving into the disaster of Carnival
Triumph after the toilets stopped working. On February seven, twenty thirteen,
the Carnival Triumph set off from Galveston, Texas for what
was supposed to be a four day pleasure cruise to Cosmel, Mexico.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
And back, but instead the voyage turned into an eight
day nightmare for four two hundred and twenty nine passengers
and crew members after a fire took out the boat's power,
meaning no hot meals, no air conditioning, and most terrifically,
almost no functioning toilets.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Netflix's train Wreck Poop Cruise revisited that stunning moment in time,
with passengers and staffers who lived through it, recounting just
how gross it was.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
The toilets went working, well, we could do a number
one in the shower and then.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
I'm telling you got bad fast.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
I would never expect having a poop and a red bag.

Speaker 5 (00:57):
Oh no, oh no.

Speaker 6 (01:00):
Hello, neighbors, lovers, friends, and anyone who's let their landlock
blues get the.

Speaker 5 (01:06):
Best of them.

Speaker 6 (01:07):
I'm Danieliscrema, and this is Broad's next door. Grab your towel, animal,
your bottom, Miss Jackory and your basic human rights waiver,
because today we're getting a broader understanding of cruise ship disasters.
From the infamous Poop Cruise where passengers literally slept in sewaged,

(01:29):
the final ship before COVID, where people were locked in
cabins while the river spread like a nightmare to the
women who boarded a cruise, and we're never seen again.
We're setting sale into the absurd, the disgusting.

Speaker 5 (01:42):
And the unsulved. And don't worry.

Speaker 6 (01:44):
I am absolutely an expert in this because though I
don't go on cruises, I did see Titanic thirteen times
in the theater. So if this emotionally devastates you, just
know I've been ready since nineteen ninety seven.

Speaker 7 (02:01):
Check Jack, Jack, there's a boat. Check Jack, there's a boat.

Speaker 6 (02:21):
Hi, Hello, how is everyone? I hope you are doing well.
I hope you are not stranded at sea. Are you
a cruise person? Do you grow on cruises? Have you
been on a cruise? I am someone who loves fairies,
like the boat kind to get places, but taking a

(02:42):
pleasure cruise has never sounded.

Speaker 5 (02:45):
Great to me.

Speaker 6 (02:46):
I don't know if this is because, like I mentioned,
the amount of times I saw Titanic in the theater,
or if it's just because it sounds honestly horrifying to
be in a giant ship in the middle of the ocean.
But I have had absolutely no desire to go on
any kind of cruise. I don't even like the local
like dinner time cruises. It just seems has always to

(03:09):
me seemed like a bad idea. But I feel like
I'm kind of in the minority with this because I
have a lot of friends who love cruises, they love
going to the different ports and stuff.

Speaker 5 (03:19):
I'd rather take a train.

Speaker 6 (03:20):
The only cruise I would go on is that one
to Antarctica, which is like insanely dangerous and has those
giant waves. But then you like get to go to Antarctica.
Maybe an Alaskan cruise too, But I truly, truly don't
know being just out at sea though, it just seems terrifying,
And with doing research for this episode, I feel like.

Speaker 5 (03:43):
I'm in the right here.

Speaker 6 (03:44):
I feel like I'm on the right side of just
staying on dry land. So we're gonna start with the absurd,
and then we're gonna go darker and darker as the
episode goes on. On a Friday night, I was looking
for a really good movie to watch, and I did
that thing where you just watch like hundreds of trailers
and scroll through everything available, and I truly couldn't decide.

Speaker 5 (04:06):
So I decided to watch the.

Speaker 6 (04:08):
Netflix train Wreck Poop Cruise documentary. It's only about an
hour long. I think it gave Carnival a really good edit. Honestly,
I won because some of my research showed like way
more horrible things happened that were in the documentary, which
was pretty lighthearted and kind of funny. It left out
like the passenger heart attacks and people running out of

(04:30):
baby formula.

Speaker 5 (04:31):
So let's hear the trailer for.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
That good after was the beautiful Trying.

Speaker 8 (04:41):
We just love going on crazy, the food, the water slide,
I mean.

Speaker 7 (04:47):
This was absolutely.

Speaker 5 (04:50):
We were like, this is awesome, and then the lights
go on.

Speaker 9 (05:03):
More than four thousand people are still on a cruise
ship that is dead in the water.

Speaker 10 (05:08):
That's when all of us were like, tought.

Speaker 7 (05:14):
It was immediately crisis mode.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
The toilets were working well, we could do a number
one in the shower.

Speaker 4 (05:21):
And then I'm telling you it got bad fast.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
I would never expect having a poop in a red bag.

Speaker 11 (05:27):
Oh no, oh no, Suddenly everyone's out for themselves.

Speaker 12 (05:32):
You could hear the panic.

Speaker 7 (05:33):
We were starting to smell durine.

Speaker 6 (05:35):
Oh my god, god, it was terrifying.

Speaker 7 (05:38):
It this terrifying hammer.

Speaker 6 (05:40):
People cruise on boats, a helicopter.

Speaker 13 (05:43):
Up in the air, bikes broke out of.

Speaker 6 (05:46):
The ship, is on fire, all those growing people like,
this is my nightmare without this twit blowing everywhere.

Speaker 14 (05:53):
See it's like shanty towel.

Speaker 15 (05:55):
It's like something that came out of a nightmare movie.

Speaker 14 (05:58):
This snowball has started to read and there's no stop.

Speaker 12 (06:02):
Oh my god, it's chaos.

Speaker 5 (06:07):
I do recommend watching it.

Speaker 6 (06:08):
It was a fun, hour long, disgusting documentary. It is
February seventh, twenty thirteen, and we are entering cruise ship
Hell with the Carnival Triumph, or as the world came
to know it, the Poop Cruise.

Speaker 5 (06:25):
So picture this.

Speaker 6 (06:26):
You're two days into a nice little carnival vacation. Maybe
you're on your third piniaclada, or maybe you're sober, but
you're still feeling superior to everyone on a Royal Caribbean
ship because there does seem to be some cruise ship
hierarchy that is far beyond me to understand. But then
in the middle of the night and the engine catches

(06:48):
on fire.

Speaker 5 (06:49):
The power goes out, which also.

Speaker 6 (06:50):
Takes out the air conditioning, which also takes out the
toilets because they need power to function. The food nothing
can be cooked. There's all these buffets, the Wi Fi
is nonexistent, and what followed were six days full of
hell at sea. Passengers slept on mattresses dragged onto the
deck under makeshift tents made of bed sheets and life jackets.

(07:13):
The hallways flooded with raw sewage. It literally nicknamed the
poop River. People lined up for food like it was
a very fire festival at sea, and the options were
basically like ketchup on bread, onion sandwiches, mayo on a bun,
which I guess. Cruise ships are known for their various
buffets and fine dining, so this was a big switch up.

(07:36):
The people in charge make an announcement telling you to
piss in your shower and if you have to go
number two, as they so eloquently call it, they will
be passing out red hazard bags that you can shit in.
There's one woman in the documentary that said she immediately
started downing amodium and that would have that would have
been me.

Speaker 5 (07:55):
Just just shut it down.

Speaker 6 (07:57):
And in the documentary this is it's kind of made
to seem like it was a fluke, like a one
off thing initially. But here's the thing, it wasn't. Carnival
knew that the ship had issues. This wasn't its first fire,
not just Carnival itself, but this particular ship.

Speaker 5 (08:14):
It was just the.

Speaker 6 (08:14):
First one that turned into a floating biohazard with four
thousand people trapped aboard. Initially, the toilets are just overflowing,
and they're going to take the ship back to Mexico
via tugboat because the boat is dead in the water.
It's drifted way too far from Mexico, so they decide
that tugboats need to take it to Mobile, Alabama, which

(08:35):
is going to add like three days onto the trip.
Once the tugboats start pulling the ship, the ship is
in an ankle, so the toilets and the showers that
everyone has been peeing in start to literally overflow and
fill the hallways.

Speaker 11 (08:50):
When Jen announces that it's going to be two or
three more days, it's.

Speaker 16 (08:53):
Like, I don't know if I can hold it.

Speaker 11 (08:55):
I am not going to make it without going to
the bathroom and having a number two. All right, bang
for more. So I start hunting for bathrooms because there
was a rumor that there were bathrooms and toils somewhere
that worked.

Speaker 17 (09:13):
Yous worked, open, I'll see my O.

Speaker 11 (09:17):
But every time I walk into a bathroom, you open
up the door.

Speaker 14 (09:20):
Nope, that one doesn't work.

Speaker 11 (09:21):
Going to the next one, Nope, that one's discussing that
one doesn't work.

Speaker 10 (09:24):
I really had to go number two, and I've found
this oblique restroom and I go inside and it was
It was the most nastiest thing I have ever seen
in my life. People were covering the hoop with the
toilet paper and then again pooping on top of it,
so it was a layer after layer after layer. It
was like a lasagna.

Speaker 6 (09:44):
He was my favorite from the documentary The Lasagna Guy.
They make the mistake of opening up the bar, so
people are getting wasted, having sex on balconies in public,
throwing bags of poop off the boat which is falling
into the.

Speaker 5 (09:59):
Lifeboat it's below. But they do make it back to shore.

Speaker 6 (10:03):
And this was a national news story if you were
sentient at this time. This aired on twenty twenty when
the passengers finally made it back to land.

Speaker 16 (10:12):
A family, so many couples just getting home tonight after
days trapped at sea on that Carnival cruise ship Triumph,
the real triumph, though, those passengers simply getting through it all,
the so called Cruise from Hell, finally docking in Alabama
five days after a terrifying engine fire knocked out power
and turned that ship into what some called a floating
Patriot Dish. There was suffering, fortunately not the casualties of

(10:34):
last year's Costa Concordia. But all of it does raise
serious questions, and so tonight here we put a microscope
on the industry as a whole. Why was an ultimate
rescue so late in coming? And were the apologies too little,
too late? Yeah, I've been on this from the start,
was on that dock getting answers.

Speaker 6 (10:50):
The cruise ship waiver that comes with your ticket is
literally insane. We will get to that if they don't
cover it.

Speaker 15 (10:56):
In this club, the thousands of stranded passengers knew their
ordeal was finally over, and this morning they came pouring out.

Speaker 8 (11:07):
Of the crippled chip.

Speaker 15 (11:08):
It was an untriumphant return.

Speaker 7 (11:10):
But you had to go home.

Speaker 15 (11:12):
Standing on in some cases kissing terra firma for the
first time in eight days.

Speaker 4 (11:17):
You can talk to us.

Speaker 6 (11:18):
Come on over, I'm see Lucy, just really great, frightly
back to America and on land.

Speaker 15 (11:26):
So I'm angry.

Speaker 7 (11:27):
The doctor on the step can excuse my friend.

Speaker 10 (11:29):
You can kiss my It was the worst experience I've
ever had.

Speaker 5 (11:33):
We thought we were going to die in.

Speaker 15 (11:34):
A little while.

Speaker 8 (11:35):
Others believed, I'm just.

Speaker 18 (11:36):
Happy to be I've it's quite an ordeal, but but
we're here.

Speaker 15 (11:42):
They ran, many wearing bathrobes against the cold, to plant
kisses on loved ones, holding.

Speaker 8 (11:49):
On to each other.

Speaker 15 (11:52):
By the hundreds, they were stuffed onto buses before they
could even shower or even change their gritty clothes. Among
the first out Stephanie Stevenson and Rob Mallom. Not just
your regular cruisers. They were headed for the tropics for
a reason, a romantic wedding at sea. He's in a time,

(12:15):
she's in white, but marital bliss will turned into maritime nightmare.
Early on Sunday morning, three days into the cruise, looked.

Speaker 13 (12:24):
Over the side rail and you can see the dispillows
and billows of smoke coming.

Speaker 7 (12:29):
Out at the top of the stack.

Speaker 15 (12:31):
You're scared.

Speaker 6 (12:32):
I was pretty freaked down.

Speaker 15 (12:33):
A fire had erupted in the engine room and some
passengers go into Titanic mode.

Speaker 5 (12:38):
I said, I would be attention.

Speaker 15 (12:42):
The engine room people take it upon themselves to strap
on life jackets and scramble towards the lifeboat.

Speaker 7 (12:48):
That was smart. That those were the smart people I
would have gotten on.

Speaker 5 (12:52):
A license boat.

Speaker 8 (12:53):
The fire had burned out.

Speaker 15 (12:54):
The show's main engine, with sparkling city on the seat,
not as the fun ship you see in these carl As, was.

Speaker 19 (13:00):
Now not much more than one hundred.

Speaker 15 (13:03):
Thousand ton cork bobbing on the Gulf of Mexico. The
electricity cuts out, everything goes dark. Carl Jackson and Jody
Adelhauser are Jazzer size instructors from the Paris, Texas.

Speaker 20 (13:14):
All the power shut off if once, and I was like,
oh my gosh, this is like Titanic.

Speaker 15 (13:20):
The lower decks filled with smoke, engulfing some of the cafeterias.
They even see it billowing from the stack.

Speaker 17 (13:26):
The smout has gotten work.

Speaker 15 (13:29):
Then the air conditioning goes out. Still the crew assures
the passengers, but everything is under control.

Speaker 21 (13:35):
Often to worry about the folks you can wait upon
the Lado.

Speaker 15 (13:37):
Tackets really lovely out that an automated system extinguishes the fire,
but the ship stays dead in the water.

Speaker 16 (13:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (13:44):
Blood.

Speaker 15 (13:46):
Four hours after the crisis began, Carnival decided to tow
the ship not to nearby Mexico, but to Mobile, Alabama,
because not everybody had passports with them that had a
nearly three hundred and fifty miles and an extra day
of heart for passengers.

Speaker 6 (14:01):
I'm not liking that in the documentary they don't say,
see don't. I definitely think that documentary was sponsored by
Carnival because they don't they say that it was closer.
It would be closer to Alabama because the ship was
dead in the water. But the passport reason is very interesting.

Speaker 5 (14:19):
But didn't this have like ports?

Speaker 6 (14:21):
Didn't they already stop in Mexico.

Speaker 15 (14:23):
By this time, two other Carnival cruise ships could diverted
to deliver food and water to the hobbled vessel. Helicopters
were also deployed, carrying generators and other supplies. On Wednesday,
they came in and dropped off water and stuff.

Speaker 5 (14:36):
But that didn't stop.

Speaker 7 (14:37):
Babies from going hungry.

Speaker 22 (14:38):
That didn't stop other people from forty.

Speaker 15 (14:39):
Two, but despite their efforts, conditions aboard the Triumph were
deteriorating fast. No electricity, not enough running water, and almost
no cell phone service. Even parents and loved ones on land.

Speaker 12 (14:52):
Frantic.

Speaker 7 (14:53):
I just need to know that she's okay.

Speaker 15 (14:56):
The ship, three hundred yards long, equipped with every amenity
at ALM more than four thousand of board, could only
communicate it snippets and text messages.

Speaker 21 (15:04):
We're in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.

Speaker 15 (15:07):
Thirty six hours into the crisis. No hot food, no
hot water, no AC and the ship was listing.

Speaker 21 (15:13):
When we were leaning one way.

Speaker 6 (15:15):
It was kind of a little nerve racking.

Speaker 15 (15:17):
Worst of all, backed up toilets. There was sewage everywhere.

Speaker 21 (15:21):
We got one flush, one five days, one five days,
one flush for toilets.

Speaker 15 (15:26):
The ship handed out these red bags.

Speaker 6 (15:28):
People were using the restaumant little red plastic bags and
throwing them.

Speaker 13 (15:32):
Onto a highway.

Speaker 5 (15:33):
We were in shock.

Speaker 6 (15:34):
We were like, I'm not using a red bag.

Speaker 5 (15:36):
That did not have to use the red bag control.

Speaker 19 (15:40):
And we met a couple that we were talking to
that said her husband was lying in bed.

Speaker 13 (15:47):
And just the ceiling fell down on a full of.

Speaker 9 (15:53):
All of that.

Speaker 15 (15:54):
Yeah, the stench and heat, driving people to camp out
on the decks. They built cities and have bitchs. You've
been ship brecked Brigus.

Speaker 19 (16:05):
Three days now.

Speaker 15 (16:07):
ABC News was the first to fly out over the
ship on Wednesday. Here we can tell how powerful the
wind is, gusting at twenty five miles an hour. Those
conditions bringing out the worst in some people.

Speaker 11 (16:19):
They opened the bar one or even make the way
and gave away free drinks.

Speaker 6 (16:22):
I mean, who would this bring like who does this
bring the best out of in this situation like not
having power and all of that's one thing you can
have camaraderie, but this is literally a bio hazard. Like
there's a shit river and it's like coming down the
walls and dripping down the stairs and ceilings are collapsing.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
And that was a really bad idea.

Speaker 18 (16:47):
There were people throwing things over the side of the ship.

Speaker 15 (16:50):
Acting unruly and during the voice passengers did receive updates
on the PA system as well as printed status updates.
But Rob Mallard thinks that was another decision.

Speaker 13 (17:01):
How they dif prints on how little letters that they
they sent to our room.

Speaker 9 (17:06):
Maybe they were using the emergency generator to supply printers
instead of toilets.

Speaker 15 (17:12):
Folks forty forcing others onto a diet of onion sandwiches.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
What was the food situation?

Speaker 7 (17:18):
Like you had to stand in the line for three hours,
you know.

Speaker 6 (17:22):
To get a meal, and the first couple of days
it was the onion sandwiches.

Speaker 15 (17:29):
But at least they were steadily, if slowly, being tugged
back to the US.

Speaker 6 (17:34):
I need to really research how tugboats work, because I
imagined there being like four of them, but in the
videos it literally looks like.

Speaker 5 (17:41):
Just one little tugboat.

Speaker 6 (17:43):
They do make it back to shore with no fatalities, thankfully,
but the excuses that are given by the cruise line
and the waiver that these people had to sign was
absolutely nuts. So they were offered a free cruise, a
five hundred dollars voucher and refunds, which like, I feel
like that's not enough at all. And the waiver that

(18:05):
they signed was like the cruise ship is not that
you signed when you get your ticket, is the cruise
ship is not responsible for a seaworthy vessel, safe passage,
or food and drink. So you're basically just it's like
really insane, insane waiver to have and The worst part
of all of this is is this isn't even close

(18:26):
to the most horrifying cruise ship disaster, especially for Carnival,
because before the crew, before the poop Cruise, there was
her cursed older sister, the Carnival Splendor. She walked so
the Triumph could sprint through sewage. In November twenty ten,
the Splendor was about a day into a Mexican Riviera

(18:48):
cruise went surprise. Another engine fed fire knocked out all
electrical power on board, no air conditioning, no hot food,
no working toilets. But this time the food situation hit
a new low. The US Navy had to send helicopters,
yes literally military helicopters, to airdrop palettes of spam and

(19:09):
pop tarts under the ship to keep people fed. This
had to be completely surreal. You're at sea, it's eighty
five degrees, the toilet stone flush, You've been eating mustard
packets and room temperature shrimp cocktail, and suddenly a helicopter
drops processed meat from the sky like it's Vietnam. But
for karens passenger just described the smell as death warmed over.

(19:31):
People started sleeping in the hallways to escape the heat.

Speaker 5 (19:34):
And stench.

Speaker 6 (19:35):
Carnival issued statements about the inconvenience, and by the time
they were finally towed back to port, passengers were far
too dehydrated to riot. The entire debacle was the result
of another mechanical failure that Carnival had allegedly been warned about,
because apparently engine room fires are just like a regular
occurrence on Carnival and shoot, cruise ships are the largest

(19:55):
piece of machinery in the world. Like, it's just a
bad idea, It's just a bad idea. The same thing happened.
They were offered a refund, a free cruise, and a
promise to do better that literally no one believed and
was not delivered on.

Speaker 5 (20:10):
What makes this.

Speaker 6 (20:11):
One particularly nauseating is that it was kind of a
trial run to see what Carnival could get away with,
and even though there wasn't shit spilling everywhere, it shows
that they just brush these fires aside and keep running
these ships like they're bowing seven two sevens Now. Let's

(20:33):
go back to a little over five years ago another
Carnival cruise ship, the Princess, and this is when.

Speaker 5 (20:41):
COVID starts breaking out.

Speaker 7 (20:43):
This is from ABC News, The Breaking.

Speaker 17 (20:45):
News about the coronavirus and the report of the.

Speaker 6 (20:47):
First coronavirus remember when we called it back.

Speaker 17 (20:51):
Cruise ship passenger diagnosed with the virus is speaking out
about her ordeal.

Speaker 11 (20:56):
ABC's Well Cars in Santa Monica with the latest Good morning.

Speaker 14 (20:59):
Well, there's still a lot that experts don't understand about
this virus, but we're seeing that it can spread quickly
and confined spaces like that cruise ship. We're also seeing
that that told jump every single day. This morning, more
than seven hundred people have died from the coronavirus, including
the first American. This morning, the first American has died
from the coronavirus since the outbreak began. The Usmbassy confirms

(21:21):
the sixty year old victim was being treated at a
hospital in Wuhan, China. Also this morning, for the first time,
we're hearing from an American infected with the virus. Rebecca
Frasier tells ABC News that she's among at least a
dozen others who have contracted coronavirus on board this cruise
ship off the coast of Japan. The ship remains quarantined.

Speaker 15 (21:40):
The only thing.

Speaker 23 (21:41):
That I was told yesterday when I found out I
was quote unquote diagnosed was that the hospital stay would
end up being fourteen days instead of the initial three.

Speaker 7 (21:55):
That's very concerning to me so.

Speaker 14 (21:57):
Far her husband has tested negative.

Speaker 23 (22:00):
Concerned because my husband is still on the ship, and
what is he supposed to do if he's released and.

Speaker 14 (22:06):
I'm not overnight. Another flight evacuating from the hot Soa
carrying Americans from Wuhan arriving in the US, this time
at a military base in Nebraska. All fifty seven passengers
will now be quarantined for at least two weeks. This
is Some evacue's have been split from their families. Frank
Wachinski and his three year old daughter are quarantined in California.

(22:28):
Frank's wife was forced to stay behind in China because
she's not a US citizen. He just found out she's
become infected with coronavirus.

Speaker 6 (22:36):
She had a fever.

Speaker 7 (22:37):
When did we start calling at covid.

Speaker 15 (22:39):
X ray which show a fluid building our firm breathing ship.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Since February twenty first, they are.

Speaker 17 (22:46):
Joining us live via FaceTime now Jasmine Tours, Chris Grady
and Ryan Ashbaker, thank you so much for being on
with us.

Speaker 21 (22:52):
We appreciate it, So tell.

Speaker 7 (22:54):
Me a bowla something.

Speaker 5 (22:56):
Everyone would be dad.

Speaker 15 (22:58):
They made an announcement early yesterday morning, was saying that
we were going to be skipping Mexico and headed straight
back to San Francisco due to the scare.

Speaker 5 (23:08):
What's the tone like there?

Speaker 17 (23:09):
Do people seem panicked or does it seem pretty organized
in calm right now?

Speaker 8 (23:13):
Not at all.

Speaker 6 (23:13):
It's not panic at all.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
It's much been going on just like normal.

Speaker 21 (23:19):
They've been a little bit more precautions, but not very much.

Speaker 5 (23:23):
That was probably a mistake.

Speaker 6 (23:25):
There was an HBO documentary that came out about this
one in twenty twenty one called The Last Cruise.

Speaker 15 (23:35):
We are in.

Speaker 5 (23:36):
The penthouse suite.

Speaker 13 (23:38):
Yeah, yeah, one of our big philosophies is live in
the present and not be a victims.

Speaker 18 (23:44):
Okay, they've got a bunch of people in white coats,
their white suits.

Speaker 6 (23:49):
This is scarier than the paved cruise to me, somehow,
I guess the whole dead thing.

Speaker 9 (23:56):
It was just all kind of hearsaying like olders of virus.

Speaker 6 (23:59):
There's always something Diamond, Princess Crew, Diamond different than Carnival,
I think it is.

Speaker 10 (24:04):
I'll wash my hands. Then the captain came on and
told us to go back into our rooms.

Speaker 15 (24:09):
The length of the quarantine would be at least fourteen days.

Speaker 9 (24:13):
Even though the passengers were quarantined, the crew had to
keep the ship going.

Speaker 7 (24:17):
Damn Miami.

Speaker 6 (24:21):
I felt only the rich would be taken care of.
That's how it goes.

Speaker 7 (24:25):
And people died from this.

Speaker 6 (24:28):
I mean not from just COVID, but from this ship specifically.

Speaker 15 (24:32):
The act control reasons for concerts.

Speaker 6 (24:38):
There were reasons for concern. I recommend that one as well,
much darker than.

Speaker 5 (24:43):
The poop Cruise.

Speaker 6 (24:44):
But do you remember the uncertainty during that period where
we just really had no idea what the coronavirus as
it was then being called would come to the year
before this, in twenty nineteen, there was also the Viking
sky Cruise disaster, which like hundreds and hundreds of people
had to be rescued by a helicopter because the ship

(25:04):
was going to like end up on rocks like Titanic
times ten. Not even icebergs, just straight on rocks off
the coast of Norway. The videos from this one are
just insane. It's you've probably seen them, because everything is
sliding across the floor, stuff is falling from the ceilingly.

Speaker 9 (25:25):
At the height of a ferocious Nulsa gale.

Speaker 7 (25:29):
This is seven News spotlight, a.

Speaker 9 (25:34):
Frantic distress cold from the captain of the massive cruise
Lighter Blacking Sky as it found is perilously close to shore.

Speaker 6 (25:44):
Guys, we have good eda.

Speaker 8 (25:48):
TH's likely had explosions like bombs going off, really lot bombs.

Speaker 6 (25:57):
And this cruise looks way nicer than those. Carnall and
Princess one was rough dyme, there.

Speaker 7 (26:04):
Was white water.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
I wouldn't have survived in them.

Speaker 7 (26:07):
In the water, no, you would have all frozen to
that type from.

Speaker 9 (26:11):
Australians above the strict Viking Sky.

Speaker 5 (26:13):
I love Australian news.

Speaker 6 (26:15):
These helicopter rescues are horrifying. They're like literally holding on
to one of those robes lived day cost.

Speaker 15 (26:23):
Them their lives.

Speaker 12 (26:24):
I is surprised at lies Mid lost, very very It.

Speaker 15 (26:28):
Was too close and this near tragedy has highlighted the
failure of basic safety procedures about these floating cities.

Speaker 6 (26:37):
They really are like floating Smittyes, it's likely a matter of.

Speaker 7 (26:40):
Time floating times square to a nightmare.

Speaker 4 (26:45):
One as dramatic and terrible as the sinking of the Titanic.

Speaker 5 (26:49):
No I mean, no one died.

Speaker 10 (26:52):
You could have ended up in the clouds dead for
Sunshine past couple Stephen and Judith Metcalf.

Speaker 12 (26:57):
It was supposed to be a trip to help them
heal even.

Speaker 11 (27:00):
Had lost his sister the previous month, and the cruise
to see the Northern Lights was on their bucket list.

Speaker 6 (27:04):
And the kind of shit I would fall for the
Northern Lights and it looks prettier than just like all
of this cruise.

Speaker 7 (27:13):
Ships took like a million pools on them.

Speaker 8 (27:16):
Where the great I saw them was great, and they switched.

Speaker 15 (27:19):
Right across the ar.

Speaker 6 (27:20):
I do like that all ships are female because they're
everyone reading about this. It's always she she suffered mechanical failure.
Every ship that I talked about, all these ladies are
still in service, even the Poop Cruise. They spent one
hundred and fifteen million dollars refurbishing that, and now it's
sails underneath another name.

Speaker 5 (27:40):
This next one, people did die. This is from the
Today Show.

Speaker 22 (27:44):
It was supposed to be a dream cruise sailing around
the Mediterranean Sea for a week in mid January, but
ten years ago this week, it turned into a nightmare
for the over four thousand passengers and crew on board
the liner crashing into the rocks after dark, seawater rushing in.
Janeside and Donoff were on their honeymoon. Do you still

(28:05):
think about that day.

Speaker 5 (28:07):
Ten years ago?

Speaker 13 (28:08):
I think it's the feeling of panic.

Speaker 9 (28:11):
This is what's carried through over the ten years, and
it's just as strong now.

Speaker 22 (28:16):
The captain had been performing a sail passed salute to
Italy's Giglio Island and went too close. The ship lost
all power and tilted. He abandoned it's sorrywood damagers disoriented
and struggling to escape in complete darkness.

Speaker 4 (28:33):
People were shoving and pushing, a.

Speaker 5 (28:36):
Feeling of helplessness.

Speaker 12 (28:37):
When I was on a ladder trying to get out,
a big man literally pushed in front of me and
trod on my foot. I literally fell off the ladder.

Speaker 22 (28:49):
Eventually they made it out, but because the ship was tilted,
the lifeboats wouldn't drop down. They and hundreds of others
were stranded perched on the side of the ship hours
in the cold while passengers clambered down a rope ladder.
The equivalent of eleven stories Eurie video taken by divers
from inside the ship revealing the damage the captain left

(29:13):
the liner before all of the passengers were off, the
Italian coastguards screaming at him to get back on board
and help with the rescue.

Speaker 5 (29:22):
He went to jail.

Speaker 22 (29:23):
Nadan carry Moves Alaska were on board with their four daughters,
trying desperately to keep the family together when.

Speaker 18 (29:29):
Everybody was rushing for the lifeboats that I felt like
they were going to get trampled, and putting my arms
around it and letting this see if people go by us.

Speaker 22 (29:38):
The rush to get to the lifeboats was chaotic.

Speaker 4 (29:41):
It's really a melee there.

Speaker 18 (29:43):
Just the best way to describe it is it's very
similar to the movie Titanic. People were jumping on to
the top of the life foot boats and pushing down
women and children to try to get to them.

Speaker 22 (29:53):
The accident forced the changes in the industry, like carrying
more life jackets and holding emergency drills before leaving port.
After a sixteen month salvage operation, the stricken ship was
refloated and towed away.

Speaker 5 (30:08):
To be scrapped.

Speaker 22 (30:09):
Today, survivors like Ana Jim stopped.

Speaker 7 (30:11):
They didn't maybe five I said that.

Speaker 6 (30:15):
Floating in and thirty two people died on that out
of the four, two hundred and twenty nine people aboard.
Francesco Chatino was convicted of manslaughter and abandoning the ship
during an evacuation. Piece of shit. Now let's get into
the disappearances. An average of two hundred people disappear from

(30:36):
cruise ships, whether that's from overboard instances, disappearing when they're
docked at their little locations, or just disappearing in international waters.
Some of these are accidental, some involve foul play, and
a ton of them are not reported by the cruise lines. Ever,
so the real numbers could even be much higher than that.

(30:58):
The numbers are really really all over the place. Some
say two hundred people a year, including overboards and all
the other stuff. Some say it's two hundred people all together.
But the number has to be much higher than that
when you include the overboard stuff and the international water
disappearance says. We're going to talk about a couple of
those disappearances, some that I have haunted me for years,

(31:21):
and some that I was not familiar with until researching
this episode.

Speaker 13 (31:25):
It's been twenty six years since a Virginia woman went
in this sight while on a Caribbean cruise. The FBI
says it is still investigating the mysterious disappearance of Amy
Limb Bradley. The twenty three year old was last seen
on the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Rhapsody of the Seas
March twenty fourth, nineteen ninety eight.

Speaker 22 (31:44):
So that evening, Amy was out at the disco with
her brother, other passengers and crew, socializing.

Speaker 5 (31:50):
And having a great time.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
In the morning, when her parents and her brother woke,
Jimmy was gone.

Speaker 13 (31:55):
The family reportedly said they started looking for Amy just
as the ship was docking in the island of Curasow,
and they don't know if she departed the ship or not.
The FBI released age progress photos of what Amy Len
Bradley might look like today. She also has tattoos, including
a Tasmanian devil on her shoulder, a son on her back,

(32:16):
and a get go on her navel. The agency is
asking anyone who may have been on the cruise that
day to contact your local office American Consulate for Inside
Edition digital.

Speaker 7 (32:27):
I'm mad on Montalbano, Amy Bradley.

Speaker 6 (32:29):
I heard about this one sometime in the early two thousands,
and this is another reason I never wanted to go
on a cruise. Also working on a Netflix documentary about this.
It hasn't come out yet, but I'm going to play
the trailer because I definitely want to see this when
it does come out. Amy Bradley, you.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Ever wanted to kill somebody, just take them on a cruise.

Speaker 22 (32:55):
Exactly what has happened to their daughter in this creek
does You'll never get caught.

Speaker 12 (33:00):
Welcome board the MS Rhapsody of the Seas.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
Amy Bradley was twenty three and she was on her
family vacation.

Speaker 8 (33:07):
The water was crystal clear, life is good, everything is great, daughter,
See you tomorrow.

Speaker 9 (33:12):
I went to that Amy around five thirty in the morning.

Speaker 5 (33:22):
Just as I.

Speaker 18 (33:23):
Woke up again, she wasn't there.

Speaker 21 (33:26):
He said, I've been looking for Amy and I can't
find her, and we.

Speaker 19 (33:29):
Check it every inch of the ship.

Speaker 10 (33:33):
Captain came in.

Speaker 12 (33:35):
He says, the FBN the search.

Speaker 23 (33:37):
Your daughter's not on this plane.

Speaker 7 (33:39):
That was after schooboarded a.

Speaker 11 (33:44):
Night I saw Amy and the sky that worked on
the blot.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
I got a mad viob.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Now years have passed and we've had so many sightings.

Speaker 7 (33:53):
The sightings are heart breathing.

Speaker 19 (33:55):
That's where I was standing Amy's life.

Speaker 8 (33:58):
Taxi driver said her daughter on this howl and she
could have been lured all the ship.

Speaker 6 (34:02):
It's hard and the rest you barbar Baders.

Speaker 21 (34:05):
And I said, what's your name?

Speaker 7 (34:06):
Amy was in one girls said my name is Amy Bradley.

Speaker 5 (34:11):
I need help.

Speaker 13 (34:12):
I saw that could be Amie.

Speaker 15 (34:16):
Somebody saw something.

Speaker 8 (34:17):
Please let her go.

Speaker 21 (34:18):
Somebody heard something.

Speaker 8 (34:22):
We they have answers.

Speaker 5 (34:23):
She's still out there somewhere.

Speaker 6 (34:25):
I really really hope that Amy Bradley is still alive,
because after her disappearance, which was handled horribly by the
cruise line, the captain was horrible to her parents, said
they searched the whole ship, encouraged her parents to deboard
in Carousel, which was the port that they were at,
and then they couldn't get back on the ship until
the FBI came, and then they flew to like Saint

(34:47):
Thomas or the next location. And then the FBI did
a search of the boat. Because the rooms weren't searched,
they wouldn't even pass out a picture of her. So
her parents were in total panic. So then all these
reports from bar Barbados start coming out. The people have
seen a woman who has a Tasmanian devil tattoo on
her back, and is being flanked by these men around her.

(35:09):
One guy goes to a place where you can see
sex workers, and when she realizes he's American, she's like,
my name is Amy. I'm missing. Then another woman sees
her in a bar. But this has been over the
course of twenty six years and they've never been able
to find her. Maybe it's twenty seven years now, nineteen
ninety eight, twenty seven, but Amy is not the only one,
not by any means. Her documentary series will be premiering

(35:33):
on Netflix on the sixteenth. If you want to check
it out, I will definitely check it out. And if
you would like more on that, just an Amy exclusive episode,
a real deep dive. Let me know. Most disappearances on
cruise ships like Amy's happen at night. The majority involved
passengers between the ages of twenty and forty, and many
of them are women. Only a fraction of these cases

(35:53):
are considered suspicious by cruise lines. Very few make headlines
and almost none are sold cruise ships o great under
what's called flags of convenience. That means most are registered
in countries like Panama, the Bahamas, or Liberia, even if
the company is based in the US. This lets them
dodge US labor and safety laws, avoid paying US taxes,

(36:15):
and here's the big one, avoid being investigated by US authorities.
When a crime or disappearance happens on board, the FBI
can only intervene if the ship is in US waters,
a US citizen is involved, or they're invited by the
cruise line, the third of which never happens, which means
a lot of these disappearances are written off as probably
fell overboard, we think they left the ship at a

(36:36):
port and didn't come back, or we have no further
information at this time. A lot of people are also
just told their loved one committed suicide, which freaking wild.
This next one, the honeymoon disappearance of George Smith, literally
sounds like it should be the plot of a Lifetime movie,
except it really happened. George Smith, the fourth was twenty six,

(36:58):
newly married on an on his honeymoon with his wife
Jennifer avoid Royal Caribbeans Brilliance of the Seas in July
two thousand and five. They were sailing through the Greek aisles,
very romantic until George disappeared. He was last seen alive
around four am on July fifth, after a long night
of drinking, gambling, and partying with a group of other

(37:19):
young men on board, including three passengers and one crew member.
Honestly sounds like Wolf of Wall Street at scene. None
of this sounds fun. That morning, passengers in a stateroom
below noticed something strange. A large blood. A large blood
stain on the awning of their balcony, not a smear,
not a drop, A full, pulled stain visible from the

(37:42):
decks above and below. The crew eventually went to investigate.
They found more blood in the hallway, but George, George
was gone. The ship's response classic cruise line protocol, no
crime scene secured, no lockdown. Passengers continued on with their day.
Of men George was last seen with were never detained.

(38:03):
The blood was cleaned up before a full and get investigation.
George's wife was past bound, passed out in a hallway
hours earlier, heavily intoxicated and alone. Some reports state she
was so drunk she couldn't remember. Other states she was drugged.
Others suggest she left the group early and George kept partying.
The FBI did open an investigation, but a dragged evidence vanished,

(38:26):
and so did any serious effort to hold someone accountable.
In two thousand and six, a video surfaced filled by
the same group of men George had been hanging out with,
where they joked, we told them he was going overboard.
Let that sink in. We told them he was going overboard.
Still no charges, no trial, just a mysterious death, a

(38:48):
multimillion dollar carib Royal Caribbean sediment settlement, which that's surprising
to me, and a grieving family that was stoned wall
at every turn. And yes, George's family does believe it
was so do a lot of journalists, lawyers, and former investigators.
But cruise lines they don't do justice. They do settlements
and buried stories. This is from CBS News, but it

(39:10):
is thirteen years old, so the new developments are not new.

Speaker 17 (39:14):
There are new developments this morning in the case of
George Smith, the Connecticut newlywed who disappeared in two thousand
and five. Until now it appeared he fell off a
cruise ship by accident.

Speaker 7 (39:23):
But as Fine leads all the Bloods reports.

Speaker 17 (39:26):
The FBI has evidence now raising the possibility of foul play.

Speaker 21 (39:31):
Nearly seven years after George Smith vanished from his honeymoon cruise,
and the GNC authorities finally may be close to solving
the mystery of his disappearance.

Speaker 9 (39:41):
This might be the piece of the puzzle that everyone's
been missing.

Speaker 21 (39:44):
The FBI is in possession of a video made by
the three men who were with Smith the night he disappeared,
video that is said to show them mocking him and
making incriminating statements.

Speaker 19 (39:55):
To me, it was amazing that people would actually film.

Speaker 7 (39:58):
Themselves on this bluff, so stupid.

Speaker 21 (40:02):
While much of what happened that night on the Royal
Caribbean ship is unclear, here is what we do know.
Early on the morning of July fifth, two thousand and five,
George Smith was partying and drinking heavily with his new bride, Jennifer.
The couple got into an argument and she stormed off.
She was found hours later passed out in a hallway

(40:25):
in another part of the ship. Around three point thirty am,
three vacationing Russian American students who'd been partying with Smith
helped him back to his cabin. The three later dubbed
in the press as the Russians always have.

Speaker 6 (40:39):
Maintained clever names, and then left.

Speaker 21 (40:43):
Shortly after four am. Other passengers reported hearing a commotion
in Smith's room, and then about thirty minutes later, around
four thirty, there was a loud thud and in the
morning there was this a large blood stain on the
metal Life Blood camping about twenty feet below Smith's cabin.

Speaker 12 (41:02):
I believe it was a botch strawberry that got out
of hand and my son was murdered on that cruise ship.

Speaker 21 (41:07):
In a videotape earlier obtained by CBS News, the Russians
insisted to Turkish police that Smith was still alive when
they left his room.

Speaker 15 (41:21):
But the new.

Speaker 21 (41:21):
Development Russians very American, and Smith's family is hoping finally
justice may be served. We want to see arrests, We
want to see indictments, We want to see convictions. For
CBS this morning, Susan Spencer Washington.

Speaker 6 (41:37):
And those arrests and indictments never came. Unfortunately, I feel
like the cruise ships should be held more responsible for
all of this. If Amulyn Bradley is the story of
someone taken and George Smith is the story of someone murdered,
Marion Carver is the story of someone who vanished and
the cruise line tried to pretend she'd never existed. She

(41:58):
was forty years old, poet, an equity analyst, and a mother.
In August two thousand and four, she boarded a Celebrity
Cruises ship, an upscale brand owned by Royal Caribbean, for
a seven day Alaskan cruise. Oh no, this is what
would get me too, She told no one, not her daughter,
not her parents, not her ex husband. She just needed
a break, a reset. She never disembarked, she never called home,

(42:22):
She never returned to her life. When her family tried
to track her down after not hearing from her for days, they.

Speaker 5 (42:27):
Hit a wall.

Speaker 6 (42:28):
Celebrity Cruises wouldn't cooperate, wouldn't admit she was ever there,
wouldn't provide her cabin records. But here's what we know
actually happened. Marian's room stored reported her missing on day two.
He told a supervisor he was instructed to keep quiet.
Her belongings were packed up and stored in a security locker.
No missing persons report was filed. The room was resold

(42:51):
mid cruise to another passenger. Her unused room key and
belongings were never logged as evidence. The only reason her
family found out anything was because they hired a series
of private investigators who uncovered the entire cover up, and
when Marian's father, Kendall Carver, a former insurance CEO, realized
what happened, he didn't just file a lawsuit. He started

(43:13):
a war. Good for him, he testified before Congress. He
helped expose the cruise industry had no mandatory reporting system
for disappearances. He founded International Cruise Victims, an advocacy group
for families like his, and he spent the rest of
his life trying to find to force the industry into transparency.
Celebrity Cruise's excuse, they said there was a breakdown in protocol,

(43:36):
which is pretty rich considering the protocol seemed to be
don't report it, box up her shit, act like nothing happened.

Speaker 5 (43:42):
Marion Carver vanished.

Speaker 6 (43:44):
But what's worse is the deliberate erasure, the fact that
a major cruise line tried to erase her presence the
way you erase a missed room service order. This wasn't
just negligence like in so many of this these scenarios.
It was a corporate decision, and in this case, a
decision to disappear her. And that might be the most
terrifying thing of all.

Speaker 8 (44:05):
Her love to write poetry originally an investment banker. At forty,
she was divorced and had not worked since before her marriage.
She lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her thirteen year old daughter
was staying with her father in England. No one is
sure why. In August of two thousand and four, Marion
decided to take a cruise, a seven day Royal Caribbean

(44:26):
Celebrity Alaskan cruise. She left word with no one, not even.

Speaker 13 (44:30):
Her felt that Bernard dadeae Marian's debts the.

Speaker 6 (44:34):
Matter, Bernadatte, What happened to Bernadatte?

Speaker 5 (44:36):
I can't remember. It's called the really liked it.

Speaker 2 (44:38):
I've been calling her and I haven't gotten her response.

Speaker 8 (44:40):
After a few more days of unreturned phone calls, Kendall
and Carol Carver filed a missing person's report. A couple
of weeks went by, and then police discovered that Marian
had purchased a cruise ticket. But when Carver called the
cruise line, he received some shocking news. Officials confirmed that
Marian got on the cruise. They just you weren't sure

(45:00):
if she had gotten off.

Speaker 24 (45:02):
Seemed like kind of a rather basic thing. If you
put two thousand people honish, if you ought to know
if two thousand people.

Speaker 19 (45:08):
Cut off the ship.

Speaker 23 (45:09):
They didn't know that they couldn't tell us that.

Speaker 8 (45:11):
Carver became more alarmed when they casually explained that Marian
stopped using her room after the second night. Caribbean documents
are evidence of a cover up. This shows the company
taking great pains to make sure that Domingo did not
speak with anybody room Stewart. In this memo, Royal Caribbean
checks with fourteen different employees to make sure Domingo hasn't

(45:32):
spoken to outside sources.

Speaker 9 (45:34):
What fot?

Speaker 8 (45:35):
We showed the document to Royal Caribbean's attorney, Jeffrey Maltzman.
He says, it's no big deal.

Speaker 24 (45:40):
If you look at that document, nowhere does it say
don't talk to someone if they call you. It simply says,
please find out from the people involved if they've talked
to anybody about this.

Speaker 8 (45:48):
Mister Maltzman, though you know this crawline care misinformation in
the family for months, and if you were representing the
family in this situation.

Speaker 15 (45:56):
You'd have a field day.

Speaker 8 (45:57):
With a document like this that shows a effort by
the cruise line to shut this guy up.

Speaker 24 (46:02):
I disagree completely. I don't think that's what the document says,
and I don't think that's what it was.

Speaker 8 (46:06):
I do I've done something that cruise when she was
missing daily we will know he Mari is on the ship,
off the ship or whatever.

Speaker 19 (46:14):
But I hear we've been led down a path.

Speaker 8 (46:17):
Royal Caribbean further infuriated the family when they issued this
press release stating that Mary appears to have committed suicide
on our ship.

Speaker 24 (46:29):
Well, I don't think it's the cruise line's position to
say what happened.

Speaker 6 (46:33):
There less expensive way, it's too off your side.

Speaker 5 (46:36):
Cruise didn't even get to.

Speaker 8 (46:39):
And you sit there and say, well, we don't know
enough to know what happened.

Speaker 24 (46:42):
There's really nothing that we're putting out as a conclusion.
This is coming from the Carver family telling us what
they believe happened to their daughter aboard the ship.

Speaker 15 (46:49):
Believe true.

Speaker 8 (46:51):
He concedes suicide is a possibility, but says Royal Caribbean's
bungling of the case will prevent him from ever knowing
the truth.

Speaker 6 (46:59):
And he died with that ever knowing what happened to
his daughter. And most of the cases I covered are
happened twenty some years ago. But when you search cruise
ship disappearances in the last year, a ton camp come up.
Here's one from ABC news.

Speaker 16 (47:12):
Search for a Cruis passenger vanished his dows before the
ship arrived back in Miami.

Speaker 24 (47:16):
But Johnson has the story Good Morning with.

Speaker 8 (47:18):
George, Good Morning.

Speaker 9 (47:19):
What happened to Kevin McGrath on that Carnival cruise ship
remains a mystery. After an extensive search, including hundreds of
square miles of open water, The Coastguard is suspending its
role in the case, and now police are asking for
the public's health. This morning, the search growing more desperate
for twenty six year old Kevin McGrath after he vanished
from a Carnival cruise ship more than three days ago.

Speaker 12 (47:41):
We have no answers.

Speaker 5 (47:42):
My family and I have no answers. No one just
vanishes into thin air.

Speaker 12 (47:46):
Where's my brother?

Speaker 5 (47:47):
This is Kevin McGrath.

Speaker 9 (47:49):
This video shows McGrath dancing on the Carnival Conquest this
Saturday before he went missing on a family trip celebrating
his father's sixtieth birthday. Miami Dave Police saying McGrath's brother
last saw him at his cabin around two am Monday.
McGrath was supposed to meet family members for breakfast before
disembarking in Miami, but he never showed up. I was like,

(48:09):
you know, maybe he's sleeping somewhere.

Speaker 19 (48:11):
As hours went by and I'm we here nothing, I'm like, oh,
this is serious.

Speaker 9 (48:16):
Carnival saying the guest was not located on board despite
an extensive search, and that the US Coast Guard was
contacted and completed a helicopter search of the water in
the general vicinity, the Coastguard telling ABC News overnight they
covered nearly thirty three hundred square nautical miles before suspending
their search Wednesday.

Speaker 6 (48:35):
And what's ridiculous is with the modern ones is now
they have heat censors to show if someone goes overboard.
They have cameras everywhere, So the excuses for this kind
of stuff, it's basically just like an abuse of maritime law.
This week, on a Disney cruise, a little girl fell overboard.
But this one actually has a happy ending, so we're

(48:56):
gonna end with this.

Speaker 17 (48:57):
A family is dream vacation, taking a terrified turn on board.

Speaker 4 (49:01):
At Disney cruise shop and the father leaping into the
ocean after his daughter suddenly goes overboard. And tonight we
are seeing the remarkable rescue and hearing from a passenger
who witnessed it all.

Speaker 14 (49:11):
Let's get right to local Tis.

Speaker 17 (49:12):
Roy Raymos live at Port Everglades where that ship returned
earlier today, Roy, and.

Speaker 19 (49:17):
That ship has just set sail again. But that witness
I spoke with said she watched as that little girl
fell overboard. Moments later, she watched as that father was
searching through the water for her, fearing the worst would happen,
but fortunately rescue crews were able to pull them both
out safe.

Speaker 7 (49:36):
Only people survived these overboard.

Speaker 19 (49:41):
Things Disney Dream Cruise ships.

Speaker 7 (49:42):
It's a big drop.

Speaker 20 (49:43):
Seemed like it was going to be something that was
just devastating, tragic.

Speaker 19 (49:47):
Passenger Monica Shannon told me she and her family were
taking pictures which she watched as the little girl fell
from the fourth floor.

Speaker 20 (49:54):
They were playing Shuffleborn, which is actually right, so it
was on the fourth floor and they I think like
maybe the parents were playing, and then the little girl
was climbing up on the.

Speaker 7 (50:06):
Both floods should be too high to climb over.

Speaker 6 (50:08):
Intense media you can see the race to rescue as
Cruise rushed to pull the two from the water and.

Speaker 19 (50:13):
Into a rescue boat. We learned the cruise was returning
to Port Evergldge and Fort Lauderdale following a four night
cruise to the Bahamas. Other passengers reported the child was
first to fall in. That's when they say the father
realized what happened, then jumped in after her.

Speaker 20 (50:26):
She did not a swim and the dad couldn't find
her at first.

Speaker 19 (50:31):
While that ship is now doctor and passengers have disembarked,
it's investigators now trying to determine just how that child
fell overboard. We reached out to Disney Cruise Lines, who
issued this statement that red and part the crew aboard
the Disney Dreams swiftly rescued two guests from the water.
We commend our crew members for their exceptional skills and
prompt actions which ensure the safe return of both guests

(50:52):
to the ship within minutes following the frightening incident. It
is this message Shennon had for other parents, especially when
aboard a Disney cruise ship with their children.

Speaker 20 (51:00):
You still are in the middle of the ocean and
there are still dangers, so just be so careful, keep
them close.

Speaker 6 (51:07):
Keep them close, or just don't go go to regular
Disney instead. It'll be like thousands of dollars cheaper without
maritime law. Cruise ships sell a fantasy. They promise freedom, luxury,
endless shrimp. They'll tell you it's all inclusive until it
isn't until the toilet stops flushing, until the virus spreads,
until the girl next door goes missing, and no one

(51:29):
calls it in. Because the truth is, cruise ships are
not little floating cities, their corporate legal loopholes drifting across
international waters. They're registered in countries with lack safety laws,
so the companies can dog regulations. Their employees often work
under exploitive contracts. Their security officers are hired by the

(51:50):
cruise line itself. And if something happens, if you get sick,
if you're assaulted, if your family member vanishes, you're not
in the United States.

Speaker 5 (51:59):
You're in the.

Speaker 6 (51:59):
Twilight zone of maritime law, where no one is required
to tell you the truth and no one's really in charge.
There are no federal standards for missing person investigations at sea.
There are no independent bodies collecting consistent data on death,
assaults or disappearances, which was why it was so hard
for me to figure out how many people have gone
missing from cruise ships. The morgues on board are real,

(52:23):
the accountability fiction, and yet people keep sailing because the
drinks are free, the rooms are cheap, because the idea
of escape in an overworked society is just that intoxicating.
But for the families of Amuln Bradley, George Smith, Marion Carver,
and so many others, there's no escape, just grief, just silence,

(52:45):
just empty cabins, an unanswered call.

Speaker 5 (52:47):
So the next time.

Speaker 6 (52:48):
Someone tells you cruises are safe that stuff's so rare,
tell them that the ocean doesn't keep secrets, but cruise
lines definitely do. Thank you so much for setting sail
with me, neighbors on this weird and slightly depressing episode
of Broad's next Door. I hope your summer travels are
going safe. I hope you're taking trains and buses and

(53:13):
not cruise ships.

Speaker 5 (53:14):
But if you are, stay safe, don't go overboard.

Speaker 6 (53:19):
Contact the FBI as soon as someone disappears. And if
you enjoyed this episode, please make to sure to like
great review, leave five stars, send it to a cruise
loving friend if you will. This episode was written, recorded,
edited by me with some help from your local news stations,
which are always much appreciated. I don't know what tomorrow's

(53:42):
episode is gonna be because everything I have lined up
is like too depressing for me, like I need something
a refresh.

Speaker 5 (53:49):
I just keep going all this super dark stuff.

Speaker 6 (53:52):
So we'll see, we'll see, and I'll talk to you
very soon.

Speaker 5 (53:56):
I'll love you very much. Bye,