Cruise passengers question their rights as hantavirus health scare sparks worry

As health concerns rise for those who enjoy cruising, passengers are taking a closer look at what protections they have if something goes wrong onboard their ship.

New concerns are mounting in light of a hantavirus outbreak on the ship MV Hondius and a separate norovirus outbreak on the Caribbean Princess last month. Yet cruise experts say there are several protections in place to safeguard travelers’ rights.

“The Passenger Bill of Rights is a voluntary set of standards that cruise lines adopted in 2013 that lays out what passengers can expect when things go wrong on a cruise,” Gene Sloan, cruise director at The Points Guy, told Fox News Digital.

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Sloan said he recommends that passengers look at the bill before their cruises. 

“It guarantees such things as access to emergency medical care, refunds for canceled voyages and timely communication during disruptions,” he added.

With outbreaks drawing scrutiny, travelers worry they could be stranded in a port, lose thousands of dollars in canceled vacations or face additional costs of finding their way home.

The Cruise Lines International Association, the industry’s largest trade group, adopted the Cruise Industry Passenger Bill of Rights in 2013 after several high-profile ship disasters — including the infamous Carnival Triumph “poop cruise,” during which passengers were left stranded for days without working toilets or reliable power after an engine-room fire, according to Cruise Critic.

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Under the Passenger Bill of Rights, cruise passengers are promised several core protections.

One is “the right to a full refund for a trip that is canceled due to mechanical failures, or a partial refund for voyages that are terminated early due to those failures.”

Passengers also have “the right to transportation to the ship’s scheduled port of disembarkation or the passenger’s home city in the event a cruise is terminated early due to mechanical failures.”

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“The right to lodging if disembarkation and an overnight stay in an unscheduled port are required” during emergencies is also noted.

Sloan said the protections were originally written with mechanical breakdowns in mind, not medical outbreaks.

In that sense, he said, the Passenger Bill of Rights didn’t anticipate a situation like the one on Oceanwide’s Hondius.

“The template for what happens in these [medical]] situations was shown during COVID. It was an absolute nightmare for passengers who were stuck on those ships when COVID first broke out,” Michael Winkleman, a partner at the Miami-based law firm Lipcon, Margulies & Winkleman, told Fox News Digital.

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“The passengers have rights, but when you are stuck on a ship during an outbreak, your individual rights are often outweighed by societal health and safety concerns,” said Winkelman, whose maritime law firm specializes in cruise ship injury, assault and passenger rights cases. 

‘Rest assured’

For many travelers, the concern is immediate: Could they be stranded far from home if a ship is quarantined or a voyage is abruptly cut short?

“Cruisers can rest assured that cruise lines will not leave them stranded in a situation like this,” Sloan said.

“All the major cruise lines have committed in writing … to get people home if a cruise is terminated early due to a mechanical failure, and they traditionally have followed this principle when cruises are terminated early due to a medical crisis,” he said.

“They’ll also provide refunds for canceled or shortened cruises,” he said. 

The specifics can vary widely, Sloan said. 

“Some lines will arrange all-new flights home while others will help you rebook your existing flights home and typically pay for any change fees,” Sloan said.

Passengers’ rights are often governed by the fine print in cruise ticket contracts, which can limit where and when travelers are allowed to file claims. 

Still, some maritime attorneys and consumer advocates caution the cruise industry’s Passenger Bill of Rights has limits. The policy is voluntary and focused largely on mechanical failures, not public health emergencies or large-scale quarantines, Sloan noted.

Fine print

Critics say the protections are not enforced the same way federal airline passenger rules are.

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In many cases, passengers’ rights are governed by the fine print in cruise ticket contracts, which can limit where and when travelers are allowed to file claims, according to Elliott Advocacy, an organization that provides mediation assistance for issues between travelers and cruise lines, airlines and hotels.

“In the real world, if it’s something like hantavirus, and the world is paying attention, the cruise lines go farther, offering full refunds, future cruise credit, covering flights home and profuse apologies,” said Christopher Elliott, who is based in Spokane, Washington. 

“But when no one’s looking, it’s far less.”