Two men have been accused in the rape of a 14-year-old boy in a sauna aboard a Royal Caribbean ship headed for PortMiami.
The men, Ricardo Daniel Mondragon Leal, 37, and Jose Juan Prudencio Diaz, 36, were charged on Friday, March 21.
Mondragon faces charges of sexual battery on a minor, lewd and lascivious molestation on a child aged 12 to 16 years old, lewd and lascivious exhibition on a child under 16 years old by a person over 18 years old.
A Wisconsin man was with his wife on a 35-day Holland America cruise when he suddenly collapsed amid a medical emergency, doctors said he suffered four strokes.
The incident happened on day 10 when Greg Tomensky, 72, was on his way to lunch and keeled over, he told reporters with ABC News. This was the start of an hours-long ordeal in which he would suffer four strokes while the ship was hundreds of miles off the coast of Hawaii. Thankfully Tomensky lived to tell the tale.
“I am very grateful that they got there and what they did,” he recounted.
A Royal Caribbean ship scored just one point above “unsatisfactory” in a recent health inspection conducted by the Centers for Disease Control; now ship officials are working to fix the issue.
In February, Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas had its regular health inspection in which inspectors found over 50 hygiene and safety protocol violations, according to media reports. The violations included improper food storage and crew members handling ice with open forearm wounds. Youth programs also failed to properly report children with GI symptoms, a cause for concern given news reports of a recent string of norovirus outbreaks on ships.
Typically, cruise lines must score above an 85 to pass evaluations. Symphony of the Seas narrowly passed the threshold with a score of 86, according to media reporting. To correct the issues, the cruise line alleges some of the steps taken included retraining employees and amending standard operating procedures related to food storage and reporting illnesses in youth centers.
A cruise passenger in Aruba attempted to board the ship with a firearm and could now faces criminal charges.
The incident happened on Feb. 26 when a Royal Caribbean passenger attempted to board Oasis of the Seas following a stop at the cruise port in Aruba. Security discovered the firearm during a routine security screening conducted when passengers return to the ship.
Local law enforcement took the passenger, whose name has not yet been released by authorities or cruise ship officials, in for questioning.
What was supposed to be a fun adventure aboard a Royal Caribbean voyage quickly turned into a disaster for one family after a tour guide violently crashed into a woman on a jet ski excursion.
Leesfield & Partners has recently filed suit in the case seeking damages for the severe injuries that Royal Caribbean’s tour guide caused to our client in the crash. The case is being handled by Partner Justin B. Shapiro.
What Happened?
A video showcasing a passenger testing out a new slide advertised as the “quickest way” to travel eight floors on a cruise ship has gone viral.
The video, which has over 460,000 likes, thousands of comments and has been shared nearly 60,000 times, shows a passenger getting inside a tube-like slide and securing himself in a sack. Once the passenger was loaded up, the tube door closed, and the floor vanished from underneath him.
The man can be heard yelling all the way down, his laughter echoing through the tube. The camera then pans to the side of the ship where the slide curves off the edge, suspended over the pool deck for a moment of adrenaline-spiking danger.
A norovirus outbreak on a cruise ship docked at Port Everglades on Friday left at least 169 people ill, according to reporting from local media.
Holland America Line’s Rotterdam ship was headed to the Caribbean, Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica over a 12-day voyage when it reported the outbreak of norovirus, which causes gastrointestinal illness, to the Centers for Disease Control. There were over 2,600 passengers on board with more than 900 crew. At least 152 passengers and 17 crew members reported being ill during the voyage. Common symptoms of norovirus are vomiting and diarrhea but can also include headaches, muscle pain, cramps and fever.
Holland America officials reported that their crew increased cleaning and disinfection procedures and isolated the infected to mitigate the spread.
A man working as a chef aboard a Sky Princess ship was sentenced to prison earlier this month for sexually assaulting a young girl during a voyage.
Vincent Lucas, 34, of Goa, India, was sentenced on Feb. 14, 2025, to a year in prison for one count of sexual assault following a four-day trial.
The incident happened inside a teen area, a space exclusively designed for teens to socialize with those in their same age group, when the ship was returning to Southampton, Hampshire.
Whether injuries take the form of slip and falls on the pool deck or refusal to evacuate amid a medical emergency, Leesfield & Partners is here to help you navigate the waters of cruise line personal injury cases.
Every year, thousands of cruise ship passengers are injured aboard ships for a wide array of reasons. And, every year, thousands of these passengers file personal injury claims against these cruise lines. Most of these claims fall under premises liability, where a cruise line fails to maintain a safe environment for passengers on its ship. However, Leesfield & Partners has extensive experience in this area of personal injury law and has encountered nearly every type of case imaginable. To date, the firm has secured over $40 million for cruise ship passengers injured due to that corporation’s negligence.
Shore Excursion
A new ship with the Cunard Line, a British shipping and cruise line owned by the Carnival Corp., docked in Miami last week, here’s a look inside the new ship on a line who will soon call South Florida home.
Queen Anne, which docked in PortMiami on Jan. 21, is Cunard’s first new ship in over a decade and precedes the South Florida move of Queen Elizabeth, its sister ship. That move is set to take place later this year, according to local media. The ship was docked in South Florida to give travel agents, tourism leaders and media a tour of the massive, 3,000-guest ship.
The ship is currently on a world tour, which began on Jan. 7, according to reporting from The Miami Herald. Locations already checked off the ship’s list include Hamburg, Germany, Mexico and Costa Rica. On Feb. 4, the ship will stop in San Francisco before continuing on to Honolulu.
