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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.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer's satisfaction.
Carnival is a ghetto cruise line. I am not surprised that the niglet's parents didn't start throwing punches too. Stay away from this cruise line. The more you spend, the less hood rats you will have on board. Sort of like the more you pay for your house, the less ghetto scum you will have living near you.
Terrible cruise, high winds, rocky seas, events cancelled, decks closed, dangerous walking, seasick staff and guests, pools closed, food rolling off trays, sleepless nights, captain interrupting many times unable to make out what he was even saying, horribly scarey, afraid to ever cruise again!
Should have my money refunded!
If that would have been my son who had gotten hit I would have found that little coon and pitched his black [censor] over the side. When are white people going to learn? I can't believe some of the comments I'm reading concerning this matter. What a gang of lily white cowards.
Katie, I love how you berate the poster about their grammatical errors when there are at least 4 glaring grammatical errors in your own response.
Why was it important to point out that the other kid was African-American? That right there sent up a red flag for me. I'd have to agree with Cyri- unless Mike Tyson managed to sneak into the arcade looking like a little kid, your kid's sight shouldn't be permanently damaged. And the police officer that told you about the difficulty of pursuing a case that happened on international waters- he wasn't necessarily trying to dissuade you from it. He's simply informing you that it really IS difficult, because laws from different countries nearby are thrown together and debated... the process could go on until your kid's totally forgotten about the whole thing (unless, of course, you'd like to remind him of the horrible "disaster" every day for the rest of his life.)
dont blame tha cruise for your bad parenting, if i had a son i wouldnt leave him alone with black people u dumdum
My, what an absurd complaint! You obviously don't know how complex laws are in international waters! The "damage" your son received was that of regularity, but his vision is impaired? Was he hit by Mike Tyson? Don't get me wrong, I think it unnecessary that your son was hit, but almost every boy has been hit or at least in a fight, it seems to be a part of growing up. The first problem is that you left your son alone in the first place... why, with the hundreds of strangers would you do such a thing? No offense, but did you actually finish high school? Extreme grammatical errors, was this a result from the "damage"?
lol yeh stick with yer kid and things like that wont happen. yer on a cruise ship with thoudsands of domestic and foreign strangers for pete sake. Yer lucky he didnt get molested. If this had occured on U.S. soil you would still probably have a weak case was there were no adults present, the alleged perpatrator could easily have friends / witnesses willing to testify that the alleged victim had hit him first or threatened him ect...
look i'm not going to add to the criticisms yer blog has generated, I just have two suggestions
1.) would you let your 9-11 yo son wander the casinos in Vegas all alone? People used too, then there was the little girl lured into a casino bathroom and strangled. Especially a cruiseship arcade full of kids and possibly predators. I could go on on this for ever, just stik with the kids, go to the arcade too then have em do what u wanna do and if u were there THEN maybe you would have a case but... what's with all this "case" bull anyway?! Look, heres the real issue with the situation:
2.) why the hell would your instincts be to try and convince a lowly cruise ship security gaurd to acertain and question another child and his family?! The chief of the boat?! lol what is this, crimson tide? The chief of yer son is you and the chief of the other child must reside within his family/group unit SO, why don't the involved chiefs come together and resolve the issue at hand?! As mentioned by another comment, kids do stupid stuff, and it's the parents responsibilities to help them learn from experiences. You should have taken your son calmly over the the family of the other child and i urge CALMLY, kindly introduced yourself and your son bearing the black eye and just be down to earth with them . Be cognicent of the fact that they like you are also just parents trying to enjoy a vacation. If it is obvious that you are a genuine parent and not lookin for a law suit or drama then I am sure they would be glad to question there son on his actions, you can then question yours on the circumstances leading to him being punched and pasrents should be able to have the kids make-up. By faailing to do this simple thing you teach your child that altercatuions and disputes can not be managed without the assitance of others, that he/she is too weak or is unable to resolve a conflict without the assitance of others. Think about it, yer son got punched in the eye, a humiliating experience, your son should have been able to have an opportunity to confront the other boy and garner some type of resolve. By not approaching the alleged perpatrator it also has a double negative effect; The perpatrating child, the bully, may grow emboldened by you and your childs lack of response, it portrays a sense of fear which is why it was so important for you and your son t be able to introduce yourselves and in the least, even if the other boys family was totally in denial, the boy who punched your son would have still been subjected to that nervous feeling you get as a kid when you do something wrong and you are being approached by the parents of those you did wrong too! This would have also instilled confidence in your child that they not be afraid to confront unjust situations or people in a civil manner. Finally, it would have been n ice to see an example of how parents dealt with child indescretions back in the days and funny I'm only thirty, parent collaborated with other parents in an attempt to understand the full story and hand out punishments accordingly (If a child of mine puched your son in the eyeand it was obviously unprovoked I would have belted his ### right there in the deck). But these days its just easier i guess to go to court, never even face eachother, never collabortae to find the truth in kids matters but rather falsly defend their kids vehemently because thats what "cases" do, and all the while the perpatrator never really gets punished, his parents do, and the victim child never really gets justice (in your sons case an opportunity to show face) the parents do.
I say shame on you for not watching your child to begin with. In a day and age with an infinite amount of sickos hanging around I cannot even fathom how you can let your 11 year old hang out alone on a ship full of strangers is beyond me. Just consider yourself lucky that someone didn't throw him overboard or hurt him in other ways. When you point the finger at someone else just remember your pointing 3 back at yourself. Enough said!
I understand as a parent that you will be upset that your child was punched by another child. What I don't understand is what the childs race have to do with? It seen that his race bothered you more than what happened. One thing as adults we have to remember when it comes to children, is that they are children. They will not always use good judgement, no matter what race, color or where they live.
Darling, you should look into a thesaurus. You used such generic words! Staying on the topic of proper english, did you even take such a class? Every sentance that my eyes peered upon was painted with grammatically incorrect rubbish. It was an insult to readers across the web. Perhaps the cruise line would have taken more consideration to your campaign if you could put a few sentances togeather without sounding like a complete buffoon. Good day to you, and I hope that this criticism drives you to think more on the stories that you post, which happen to be open to sagacity by any and all web viewers on the internet.
It sounds like you had a bad experience, and I am sure there were some more words exchanged between your son and the kid that punched him. I find it curious that you mentioned the child responsible for the assault was African American, or as some people say, 'Black'. I guess I was wondering if you thought that the kids race had something to do with your kid being punched in the eye. ? By the way, I find it difficult to read some of your account of what happened to you on the cruise because of the numerous errors with your writing. FYI.
I do, however, sympathize with what happened to you and your family, and the ships crew and cheif sounded horrific. I am going on a cruise in 2009 on the Splendor was doing an Internet search when I saw your post. I hope your sharing this story has left you at peace with the incident. Don't let one incident like that ruin or dissuade you from taking another cruise. Good luck.