Cruise ship passenger dies after being served 33 drinks, never flagged

I think this is a slippery slope. What about people eating insane amounts of food and dying as a result? Examples: someone eating a food they are very allergic to, someone with a peanut allergy eating a nut mixture containing peanuts (knowingly or not), an obese person giving themself a heart attack by overeating, etc.?

If this was advertised as an "all you can drink" cruise, obviously a dumb idea but I guess it was legal, there's no legal case I can see against the cruise line.

And I'm not defending Royal Caribbean. I once went on one of their cruises and thought it was terrible. There were lots of things wrong with my room, and they kept the amenities down to a bare minimum. So I'm not surprised they were involved in something like this.
 

On Royal Caribbean cruises, you can pay extra to have an unlimited drink package. However, when you go to any bar, they scan your card that they give you. It would show how many drinks he had that day. I would think that any cruise line would have trained their employees to watch for excessive drinking.
 
As far as I'm aware, once the boat has passed the 12 mile limit off the shore they are into international waters, and maritime law is then the yardstick. I don't think maritime law concerns itself with the state of passengers who decide to drink themselves to death, although it is quite hard on Captains who get drunk while on duty.
 

robin416 said:
OK, we now know how this lawsuit ends without any doubt or very little.

https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/why-california-cruise-trip-prone-deaths-on-board-21235674.php

And a comment was made they are complaining he was kept in a morgue cooler. Duh! Where were the supposed to keep him? In their room?
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They would've complained if the medivac'd the body off the ship to port city morgue because they average $15K at least. Maybe they should've done that but the ship probably didn't want the passengers to see a body bag being loaded onto to a chopper.

In the end it was the drinkers fault for consuming too much.
 
I can't quite figure out how the coroner found this basically a murder. Ran a whole list of reasons the dude would/could die. What did he base asphyxia as being the cause of death?
 
RadishRose said:
In my State, it's against the law to serve a drunk person.
When inebriated, a person has lost the ability to decide for himself.
To keep serving that person for profit is illegal.
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That's the law in New York, too, I believe. There was a case in the past few years of a bar in my hometown of Syracuse being sued for overserving a clearly intoxicated patron who then went out and killed a pedestrian while driving home.

All the articles I found were on Syracuse.com, which has a paywall, so I can't access them or share them.
 
I'm no fan of cruise ships. You could not pay me to set foot on one. Well I'll take that back. Maybe if you offered me a lot of money. :) I'd do it for $10,000 a day. So for $70,000 I would go on a one week cruise. Provided payment was in cash, unmarked $100 bills, not reported to the IRS.

However, those Royal Carribean cruise ships are huge. They can carry 5,000 plus passengers. How are they expected to keep track of how many drinks one moron has?
 
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The coroner ruled the death a homicide. This part of the definition stood out to me.

"It simply describes the act of one person causing another's death, not necessarily a crime."

The article describes being constrained by full body weight. Considering the mans weight & health condition I can visualize that causing death. No way for the people restraining him to know that doing so would cause him to die.

My best guess is the cruise line will settle this for an undisclosed amount. And review drink policy.
 
I tend to believe people are responsible for their own behavior. This is sad, but who has 33 drinks?

Ironically, I purchased the drink package when I went on a cruise and had a very difficult time getting a few drinks over several hours. They also seemed watered down.

There are only so many bars available, so this really seems odd/unusual. Cruise ships have been getting really bad press lately....
 
Being in the military for 30 years, I have been with and around men that thought they could drink the bar dry. I had to search my brain, but I think the most drinks consumed I can remember is when I was in Norfolk and a few of us were going out for some food and drinks when one of the civilian welders working on a ship for the Navy invited himself along. When we got to the bar, we all ordered. The welder ordered 3 bottles of Yuengling dark.

I guess it’s not all that unusual, but it’s not all that common either. All 3 bottles were emptied in the first 20 minutes. I didn’t keep count of the drinks he put down, but another man in our group did. He said he counted 13 Yuengling’s and 4 shots. Compare that to my count of 2 Miller Lite and also 4 shots of Schnapps. (2 root beer and 2 apple.)
 
When it comes to drinking some just don't know when to stop or control their temper. Security was called to stop the chaos this passenger was causing.

Outcome probably will be a learning lesson for other cruise lines.
 
robin416 said:
I couldn't figure out if I should just like your post or grin at the antics of a drunk. Although the puking in the pool was rough first thing in the AM, sipping my first cup of coffee.
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I've seen it happen ... not pretty. Thankfully; I was not in the pool at the time but merely lounging close by :sick:
 
I know they keep track of how many drinks you order, otherwise one person in the group could get the all you can drink card and keep their companions in drinks all day without them having to pay.
 
Gardenlover said:
I know they keep track of how many drinks you order, otherwise one person in the group could get the all you can drink card and keep their companions in drinks all day without them having to pay.
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January said:
if yo u have a card and they scan that as you order, they could tell from any bar.
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OK, OK. I stand corrected. I'm still not used to this brave new world of technology where someone can track every move you make. :mad:
 
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