Cruise Ship Horror Stories
There have been some pretty horrific things that have happened on cruise ships. If you don’t know, cruise ships are basically the wild west. They are sailing on international waters, which are waters more than 24 miles off the coast of a country. Once cruise ships are in international waters, the laws of the land they were docked in no longer apply.
Another thing about cruise ships is that even if they are a US company like Carnival or Disney, the ships are usually registered in Panama or the Bahamas where there are different laws, some stricter than the US and others more lax. It’s also easier for diseases to spread on cruises, pirates to attack, murders to go unsolved, etc.
Let’s get into some of the most tragic, scary, and sickening things that have ever happened on cruise ships. Some of these will be specific incidents, while others will be broader.
1. Poop Cruise
This is a pretty infamous story in the cruising community. In 2013, a fire broke out in one of the engine rooms of the Carnival Sunrise Cruise. After it was put out, and the generators kicked on, the crew realized that something had happened to their propulsion system, which made it so the toilets stopped working.
The passengers were forced to pee in their sinks and poop into biohazard bags that were given to them by the crew. People aboard the cruise said the bags began to pile up in the hallways, making the whole ship smell terrible.
The smell was so bad that people started vomiting, but there was nowhere to put the vomit except for the bags that were then left around the ship. In total, the passengers were trapped on the cruise for 5 days before finally being towed back to land.
2. Stranded at Sea
This is actually something that cruise ships do for the good of humanity. Every year, hundreds of people are rescued by cruises that just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
From fishermen whose boat broke down and drifted off to sea, to immigrants trying to sail their way to freedom, maritime law requires that anyone stranded at sea be brought aboard and back to land. Most of the people rescued by cruises had been stuck at sea for many days and could have easily died had it not been for the cruise ship.
3. Cruise Ship Employees Left Stranded in a War Zone
If you don’t know, cruise ship employees are not treated very well. In 2012, dancers on a Holland America gay cruise were kicked off the ship and left in Tunisia, which was currently experiencing religious conflicts and political unrest.
The reason they were kicked off was because the passengers of the cruise accused them of filming an erotic film while on the ship. They were kicked off the boat with little money, no Tunisian visas, and were unable to communicate in the language of the locals. The dancers sued RSVP Vacations and Holland America.
4. Covid Cruise
There have been lots of illnesses that have been passed around on cruise ships, but Covid is one of the worst ones. There have been hundreds of cases where someone onboard a cruise ship came down with Covid, but here’s the worst instance.
The Ruby Princess had about 4,000 passengers and crew on board as they were sailing from Australia to New Zealand. The ship never made it to New Zealand because Australia was about to enter lockdown and the ship had to get back to port fast. That’s when the outbreak happened. 852 people tested positive for Covid and 28 of these people ended up dying.
5. Drake Passage Death 2022
The Drake Passage went viral this last year when the TikTok famous 9-month cruise around the world sailed through its waters. If you’ve never heard of the Drake Passage, it’s a 600-mile stretch of sea between Chile and Antarctica that’s one of the most dangerous ocean passages in the world.
In 2022, a Viking Cruise was sailing to Antarctica when it hit rough waters. The waves got up to 50 feet tall and were rocking the ship violently. Everyone in the ship was hunkered down in their rooms when all of a sudden, the windows in some of the rooms started to burst. Shards of glass shot into one of the rooms so forcefully that it killed one of the passengers aboard the ship. This was the most recent cruise ship-related fatality to happen in the Drake Passage, but with climate change and the high demand of people wanting to go to Antarctica, this won’t be the last.
6. Cruise Ship Slavery
As I mentioned earlier, the crew aboard cruises are not treated well. They’re underpaid and forced to work long hours with the promise of tips being their main source of income. In most instances, this is not the case. Some of the workers are even indebted to the cruise ship.
The ship says it will pay for your visas and travel to and from the port, but in reality, they keep track of the amount of money they give you and make you work to pay it off. Some cruise lines even have crew pay for a “working contract” to work on the boat. Most of the crew end up taking these jobs because they are promised the “experience of a lifetime” and “generous tips” but in most cases, they work up to 16 hours a day with no overtime pay and live in squalor below deck.
7. “Cruise Ship Killers”
200 passengers have gone missing in the past 20 years from cruise ships. Some of these have been from suicide, some from murders, and some are unknown. The show “Cruise Ship Killers” goes into detail specifically about murders that have happened on cruise ships. That’s right, there have been enough murders on cruises to make an entire 40-episode true-crime series about it.
I’ll go into more detail of some of the murders and suspicious “accidents” that have happened on cruises in the following sections, but if you like true crime and cruise ships, then give this show a watch. It might change your mind about how “safe” cruises really are.
8. Cameron Robbins Death
Cameron was an 18-year-old high school graduate who went on the Blackbeard’s Revenge cruise in the Bahamas with some of his friends. He and his friends had been drinking and one of them dared Cameron to jump off the back of the boat. It was late at night and the water was black but Cameron, not wanting to disappoint his friends, gave in to the peer pressure and jumped in. This was the last time he was ever seen.
The reason that we have such a detailed account of this story is because one of his friends filmed the whole thing. It was later uploaded to TikTok and instantly went viral. After millions of people examined the clip of him jumping in the black water, many agreed that you could see him being attacked by sharks as soon as he hit the water. His body was never recovered.
9. Grandpa Kills Granddaughter
In 2019, a family boarded a cruise ship together, looking forward to the vacation of their lives. This would turn out not to be the case. After a few days at sea, the ship docked in Puerto Rico. It was there that the grandpa was put in charge of watching his granddaughter while the parents relaxed down at the pool.
The grandpa took the little girl eleven stories up to show her the view. He lifted her up to a window, thinking that it was closed, but before he could realize the window was open, it was too late. The little girl fell eleven stories and lost her life.
Now, this is the story from the grandpa’s perspective. The CCTV from the ship shows a different story. The grandpa brought the little girl up to the eleventh floor and can be seen poking his head out of the window, showing that he knew the window was open.
Then, when he “lifted her up to the window” it looks more like a toss than a lift. His motives for doing this are unknown, but the parents refused to press charges against him and instead blamed the cruise ship.
10. Cruise Ship Suicides
Many of the deaths that occur on a cruise ship are due to suicide, especially when it comes to crew deaths. The crew of a ship is overworked, underpaid, and trapped aboard for months without being able to leave. All of this combined makes this profession have one of the highest suicide rates.
Most crew members choose to throw themselves overboard while others hang themselves in their quarters. Either way, it’s devastating that these poor people cannot get the help they need and feel that this is the only way to escape. It’s estimated that about 25 people jump from cruise ships per year.
11. Falling Off a Cruise Ship
Cruises are known as floating hotels, but for many, they are floating parties. With many cruises serving unlimited alcohol onboard, people’s decision-making skills go out the window, and unfortunately, sometimes they do too. There have been incidents on cruise ships of when people accidentally fall off.
Whether it’s from their balcony as they are stumbling around and fall overboard, or they are out strolling around and get lost on the ship and take a wrong turn, or are dared by a friend to jump hundreds of feet to the water below, falling off cruises is, unfortunately, a fairly common occurrence.
About 1-2 people a month go overboard on cruises and with a survival rate of about 25%, most of them don’t make it. This is why it’s important to have your wits about you when you’re on a cruise and ensure you control yourself.
12. Seabourn Spirit Pirate Attack
Pirates usually leave cruise ships alone and choose to go after cargo ships, which are a much easier target and have more valuables on board. However, over the past decade, six reported incidents of pirates attempting to attack cruises have occurred. One of the most notorious of these attacks was on the Seabourn Spirit luxury cruise in 2005.
The ship was about 100 miles off the coast of Somalia when it was attacked. The pirates shot at the people on board and launched grenades onto the ship. Only one person on board was injured from the shrapnel, but no one died. The cruise was able to outrun the pirates and get to their next port safely. If you can, avoid the East Coast of Africa when cruising because this is where most pirate attacks occur.
13. Eastern Star Cruise, China
On June 1, 2015, the Dongfang zhi Xing (Eastern Star River Cruise) in China capsized during a thunderstorm. The entire capsizing of the boat happened in just 13 minutes. Out of the 454 people onboard, only 12 survived.
Most of the people on the ship were in their 60s and 70s, so they were not able to move quickly enough to save themselves from this horrible disaster. This became the deadliest maritime disaster in China’s history, with 442 deaths.
14. SS Eastland
The second most deadly cruise ship accident happened just two years after the Titanic. The SS Eastland was getting ready to leave Chicago and was tied to the docks when it started to roll onto its side. Before anything could be done, the ship was underwater, along with many of its passengers and crew members.
The ship rolled onto its side just 18 minutes after it reached full capacity. Out of the 2,572 people onboard, 844 people died. The ship was just 20 feet from the docks, and all of these people still ended up dying. So tragic.
15. Titanic
We all know the story of the Titanic. In 1912, the Titanic left the port of Southampton, England was on its way to New York City. It was the ship’s maiden voyage, meaning it was its first journey. Everything was going great onboard the ship until the third day when the ship struck an iceberg.
The ship broke in half and started to sink in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in freezing temperatures. Out of the 2,224 people onboard the ship, 1,496 died. This is the accident with the highest death toll out of all the cruises to sink (which is 22 ships in the last 100 plus years).
What Do You Think?
Did I miss any cruise ship horror stories? Can you think of any other tragedies that happened on a cruise ship? Let me know in the comments! Thanks so much for reading!
