Royal Caribbean Sued For Travel During Hurricane Harvey
Royal Caribbean Sued By Passengers Who Traveled During Hurricane Harvey
Royal Caribbean allegedly pressured passengers booked on a cruise, to travel into Houston, even though Hurricane Harvey was about to strike the area.
Passengers claimed they were told to travel to Houston, or risk losing the ability to get a refund on their tickets.
The cruise was scheduled to travel from Galveston, Texas, to Cozumel, Mexico, from August 27 through September 3.
The 20 page lawsuit was filed last week in federal court and claims, “Consequently, hundreds of passengers were subjected to days of danger, terror, and trauma as a result of being forced to travel into the path of a category four hurricane.”
It also says, “The company’s misconduct was predicated on a profit motive because, simply put, cruise lines …make no money when passengers don’t sail.”
Around the same time, a competitor of Royal Caribbean, Carnival Cruise Lines, had one of their ships stay in additional night in Cozumel because the National Hurricane Center declared that the entire Texas coast was in the hurricane’s cone of danger.
The suit also claims that on August 26, Royal Caribbean informed passengers that the hurricane would only delay the ship’s planned departure. The voyage was canceled the next day.
The suit additionally says, ““Simply put, had the cruise been canceled a day or two earlier, just like Carnival did, then these passengers would not have been trapped [in Houston] in the path of Hurricane Harvey and subjected to 5 to 6 days of terror, hardship and inconvenience in a place foreign to them.”
Royal Caribbean has declined to comment.
