Legal Recourse for Cruise Passengers
BANFIELD: It is the cruise you never want to take. The Carnival "Triumph" dead in the water for days in the Gulf of Mexico, and finally now under tow to Alabama. More than 3,000 passengers and 1,000 crew or so enduring awful conditions, sleeping out on the decks, dealing with busted toilets. A little bit of food and a long wait. And the heat. And no A.C. All starting when a fire clocked out the engine and left them drift being. You can bet this can be one big lawsuit waiting to happen. A whole bunch. Oh, can I say, I don't know, 3,000 or so lawsuits.</s>HOSTIN: There's not much you can do, actually. I will say, I love cruises. I just came back from a Celebrity Reflection cruise. I had a great time. The bottom line, it's a contract when you get on these cruises and you sign up for it, if you look at your ticket on the back, it does say that. So you usually have to arbitrate, you have sort of a monetary amount. But I think they are trying to make it right, they will give them their money back, they will pay for their airfare and offer them a free cruise. If you are not a cruiser who doesn't want a free cruise, I think they are getting a decent deal.</s>BANFIELD: Make it quick, if you could, Judge Hatchett. If they offer you a free cruise after you have been through this, are you thinking --</s>HATCHETT: No. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. But I think they have a bigger P.R. problem, I think there's a legal problem but a bigger P.R. problem. There would be wise to do some settlement. Even if they can't prevail given the clause on the back of the ticket the publicity around clients' actions would be devastate being. They need to work this out.</s>BANFIELD: And some small teeny tiny language saying and you may never speak of this publicly again.