photo: Jim Ferri
By Linda Stern
Reuters
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, Pennsylvania-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.
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.
He said he expects to represent Costa Concordia passengers and crew members, and that he will argue that the usual contractual limitations shouldn’t apply, because the particulars of this case were so extreme.
But anyone thinking of a nice mid-winter cruise should consider those limitations anyway. If you know what you’re signing away, you may be able to protect yourself in the event of lesser tragedies, like lost luggage or a minor injury.
Here are seven rights you sign away when you buy a cruise ship ticket.
* The right to privacy. When you sign the Carnival contract, you give the company the right “at all times with or without notice” to search your bags and personal effects. That’s so they can make sure you’re not smuggling any firearms, explosives or bourbon (that you didn’t buy at their bar) onto the ship.
Furthermore, that contract gives Carnival the right to use pictures and videos of you any way they want. You may not want your office buddies seeing pictures of you in a bathing suit, but that image could make its way into a commercial, without Carnival paying you or getting any additional release signed by you.
* The right to show off your pictures. Just because Carnival reserves the rights to your pictures doesn’t mean you can use them yourself, says Goldberg. While the company is unlikely to complain if you adorn your Facebook page with deck pics, passengers who use the tickets do agree that they “will not utilize any photographs … for non-private use without express written consent of Carnival.” So much for that travel blog you wanted to publish.
* The right to be repaid if your jewelry gets stolen or your luggage gets accidentally dropped in the Caribbean. The ticket contract limits the company’s liability for lost or damaged bags and their contents to $50 per guest or $100 per stateroom. If your items are worth much more than that, you can buy added coverage by declaring the value of what you are bringing onto the ship and paying 5 percent of its value.
