We went on Carnival splendor for Eastern Caribbean Cruise on a Thanksgiving week of 2008. My 11 yrs son was punched in the eye by an African American kid in the Arcade because my son simply asked him if he could take turn on a free play machine. He turned around and punched my son right in the right eye and fled.
No security guard or security camera was present in the Arcade area. My son was bought down by some nice kids to the Emergency. The doctor was helpful but the security guard, Walden, was very unprofessional. I thought that he wanted to help and locate the offender. But the first sentence he asked was "What do you want me to do?". I was thinking do what you are supposed to do if he was your son and do your duty. I told him what happened and requested that he allowed us to review his database of all kids in the age range resemble the offender since we are working with finite population but he refused.
Basically he wasn't about to locate the offender or do anything other than wrap up his report and led us go. My friend's daughter was with my son at the time of the incident so she was able to identify him from the photo gallery. And the girl saw the offender taking photo with his family on Deck 5 afterward and called the security guard back. Again, they took the offender and the mother aside for questioning and of course they denied and the security led them go without holding the boy aside for the witness to identify him.
I got the chief of the ship involved and more security guards were now involved but they were not attentive to the incident but just trying to de-esculate the problem. We were not treated nicely and the chief of the ship told us bluntly to go back and enjoy the rest of our vacation and they will handle it. We did not receive any follow up until last day that we leave the ship. The security guard came and asked if we want to press charges basically on our way out to prepare debarkation. He also told us basically it is complicated when things happen on the International water.
We felt that he messed up our case and did not allow more witnesses and my friend's daughter to formally identify him at the spot so the offender could not denied. There were more kids from the arcade came forward that night that they remembered the boy if only the security kept the boy for identification.
The police came to talk to my husband and told him that basically kids before age of 18 need to accompany with an adult on the cruise. And also it is hard to press charges when you are in International water. Basically, the police also was using intimidation tactics so we won't press charges or potentially sue Carnival for incident happen on the property because we the parent had neglected our kid.
So looks like kids are okay to be beat up if parent is not around and on the International water. But 90% of the kids in Arcade were by themselves. Again, the kid's program among Age 9-11 was not interesting and what choice do you leave kids to do but to hang out in Arcade. To be amazed, that we were told there is no security camera or security guard there. That was a machine allow free play without putting money in it contributed to this disaster. Led me wonder, what does the security guard do except checking people in and out of the ship. I took a photo of my son's black eye and the security guard stood besides him turned around right away to avoid picture taken that would involve them. How incredible?
It is a false sense of security on the cruise and allow the kid walk alone on the ship. The cruise allow age 9-11 to check themselves in and out of the kid's program if they have your blessing and not to mention about age 12 and up.
This would be my last cruise. I will never forget this Thanksgiving 2008. It happened right on Thanksgiving night. I hope someone would benefit from my experience.
I hope there would be improvement over the security issue on the cruise and better trained security guard. I would only imagine my kid may be beat up in area like Oakland but never in Million year that I dream that happen in the cruise - a supposed to be a luxury trip. I didn't spend thousands of dollar of a vacation so my kid just get beat up.
Crime is everywhere and unavoidable in life when other make bad choice and you get impacted. It is just cherry on top of the icing when the cruise security team and chief of ship were unhelpful, unprofessional and don't care! You are on your own when you are on International water. It made me thought of someone can easily throw my kids off the water and nothing I can persue when I am on the "International Water".
Damage Resulting = My son has a black eye swallen for couple days. He could open 1/3 of his eye when I first saw him in the ER and my son is visually impaired. How could kid nowaday so brutal and started attacking people at an young age.
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