That Carnival Cruise ship finally made it to Mobile

Mr. Blue Sky said
not trying to be sarcastic-- but have you even read the thread?? i would seek an attorney in order to look into whether or not the company had red flags that the ship was in dire need of repairs before the incident took place... , and to find out exactly why there was no plan whatsoever in place to get passengers out of what one scientist called a 'floating petri dish' sooner in the event of something like this happening.. and after finding answers to those two main questions, i would then seek appropriate compensation.

based on what i've read that theyre offering: $500, a refund of the cruise and *most* (not all) expenses and a credit for a future cruise.. i would say that what they consider to be 'suitable compensation' is an insult to the people who had to go through that misery, and for insulting them like that, i would stick it to them even harder.

i've never filed a lawsuit against anyone in my life, nor have i ever collected disablity, workers comp, etc.. but the only way to get some of these big corporations to pay any sort of attention whatsoever and to change their culture of putting off repairs, jacking passengers around, etc. is to hit them in the only place they care about: their bottom line.

Not knocking you for wanting to talk to a lawyer. I was just asking. There has been no official reports of them failing to ensure the ship was up to its task of sailing so I am not sure why you would be so eager to get an attorney to look into if they were neglecting the ship. They own several ships that pretty much stay out to sea and from what I could find, issues as serious as this rarely happen. I think that speaks fairly well about their sea worthiness record.

As for not having a plan, I am on the side of there just not being much that could have been done. I know people always want a magical backup plan for every thing but sometimes, it just is what it is and you have to make the best of it. Even under the best maintenance practices, things happen. They could have tried transferring the passengers to another vessel but that is a very very risky operation.

With the compensation they have offered, I have mixed reviews. Is it enough? What is enough? Short of giving every person a million dollars and a vacation home for life, there will always be people that expect more. Yeah, I get that their vacation was ruined and conditions were bad but how do you put a value on fair compensation. It is kind of like a fair tax plan that everyone can agree on.

Is it fair that a passenger that booked a low interior room should receive the same as a passenger that paid top dollar for a balcony room? Is it fair that a young man receive the same compensation as the elderly couple that had to climb stairs all day to get around? Fair is a tough thing to agree on.

The ship did have a propulsion problem in January that was fixed and tested on February 2nd. It is not know if the two incidents are related. One thing for sure is that these are very large and complex machines. There will always be problems.

For the 4th quarter 2012, their profit margin was less than 4% so I not sure where you get that all these big corporations are just rolling in dough while screwing the world. After several years of a world wide recession, some of these cruise companies are barely staying afloat. If they actually had to pay US taxes, the cost of cruising would skyrocket.