Cruise Crime Report Features Suspicious Deaths and Sexual Assault

Ted Bettinger* of the Board of Cruise Travel tried to convince us to all to make cruising our main mode of transportation — need a lift to band practice? The Carnival Celebration will get you there! Later! — but recent reports of crime on the high seas might make you question whether the midnight buffets is worth it.

The cruise lines have agreed to share data on alleged onboard crimes, and the categories cast a wide net of horrors. We’ve got missing U.S. citizens, kidnapping, tampering with or setting fire to a ship, rape, sexual assault, suspicious deaths, and more. In fact, since 2011, Norwegian Cruise Line Holding, Royal Caribbean, and Carnival have recorded 247 serious criminal allegations, according to the Miami Herald.

Here’s Carnival:

They disclosed eight alleged incidents of rape or sexual assault, with accusations made against six passengers and two crew members. The company also reported one alleged theft over $10,000 and a suspicious death of a passenger. Over the three months, Carnival notes, it carried nearly 6.7 million passengers and more than 48,000 crew on its four North American lines—an overall crime rate that would be the envy of even remarkably safe big cities like New York. “Very few crimes happen on board our ships, especially when you compare it to the crime rates on land,” spokesman Roger Frizzell wrote in an e-mail.

It’s just kinda sad that we live in a world where it’s a necessity to be all “Don’t look at us, land, the sea only had eight alleged rapes! OCEAN RULES!”