Port of New Orleans
Cruise Accident Attorney

Royal Caribbean also has used the Port of New Orleans frequently for its cruise ship “Enchantment of the Seas”. In addition to the mega cruise lines that cruise the Caribbean and the globe, it is also a major destination for riverboat cruises.

One of the reasons that the port of New Orleans is so popular with our cruise ship passenger injury clients, is they can simply drive to the port rather than having to fly to a faraway port. Driving to the port of New Orleans is advantageous for a variety of reasons, one of which is that you can bring as much luggage as you want, as opposed to having to check baggage on an airplane which can be costly. 

Undoubtedly, the best reason to use the port of New Orleans is that you can spend some time in the City of New Orleans and enjoy the world-famous jazz and jambalaya. Mardi Gras is also another very important and popular time to visit the port of New Orleans. Since the port is located in the heart of the city just a few minutes walk from the French Quarter. It is a very desirable place to start your next cruise, and if you love jazz you could always book a  jazz cruise. 

People who are injured on cruises coming out of the port of New Orleans on a Royal Caribbean, Carnival, or different ship are often surprised to learn that any claim against the cruise line has to be filed not in New Orleans but in the United States Federal District Courthouse for the Southern District of Florida which is located in Miami. This is true, even if the cruise never visited the Port of Miami.

Some of the most common types of injuries our lawyers who sue cruise lines see in cases involving passengers that have been injured on cruises leaving from New Orleans are fractured legs, broken arms, hip and spine injuries, neck injuries, and traumatic brain injuries.

Injuries like this frequently occur when people slip and fall on wet and slippery decks such as pool decks, the Lido deck, or even in the bathroom of their stateroom. The most common type of case that we have encountered is somebody, enjoying their very first day on a Carnival Cruise and on their way to the buffet for a free cup of coffee and the deck is still wet and slippery from the combination of humidity and being recently cleaned. Even though the crew has slip-resistant shoes, most passengers are simply wearing brand-new flip-flops that they bought for the cruise and slip and fall on the wet deck seriously injuring themselves.

Since most first days of a cruise are sea days, it may take a day or two before the passenger can be seen by a shoreside medical facility. So in the meantime, they will be treated and diagnosed by the doctors on board the cruise ship. We have seen many cases where the doctors on the cruise ship failed to properly diagnose a fracture, dislocation spinal injury, or traumatic brain injury. This is because the majority of doctors on cruise ships are inexperienced foreign trained, foreign licensed, physicians and also do not have all of the diagnostic tools that would be available otherwise in a shoreside medical facility.

Most modern cruise ships do have x-ray machines and the ability to test blood and urine and even have intensive care units. However, they don’t have diagnostic tools such as CT Scans or MRIs which are essentially needed to diagnose a serious brain injury and other types of life-threatening conditions.

This is why it is vitally important that the doctor onboard consults with a shoreside physician to get a second opinion as to what the best course of action would be for the next patient. Most cruise ships have relationships with shoreside facilities where the onboard doctor can speak immediately with a specialist in different areas of medicine such as neurology, cardiology, orthopedic surgery, pediatrics, and other areas that are beyond the scope of a cruise ship’s general emergency medical physician. Sadly, we have rarely seen cruise ship doctors actually take advantage of this life wavering service that is available to them.

If the physician on the ship decides that they need to “medically disembark“ the passenger to a shoreside facility it is vitally important that they consult with the receiving facility in advance to make sure that the facility has the personnel and equipment to properly take care of the patient. This can be extremely challenging, especially when touring smaller islands around the Caribbean or South America that may not have the ability to take on a critically ill patient.

This is also why we strongly recommend all of our clients purchase international emergency medical insurance before their cruise, which will pay for their care and treatment in a foreign country. This is because most foreign medical providers and hospitals will not accept US health insurance as payment and some will require payment upfront before they will even see you. Other facilities won’t let you leave the hospital unless you pay the bill upfront and in full.

If you have to be flown back to the United States on an air ambulance, those can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on your location. Some air ambulance companies will also request and require that the money be paid in advance. 

This is again another reason we strongly recommend that you purchase international emergency medical health insurance before your cruise.

Our cruise ship passenger injury law firm in Miami has represented hundreds of people who have been injured on cruises leaving the port of New Orleans from around the world. 

If you or a family member has been injured on your cruise from New Orleans we strongly suggest that you consult immediately with an experienced and capable maritime personal injury lawyer.

This is because the majority of cruise lines like Carnival, Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, and others will require the claim made against them for an injury to be filed within one year of the date of the incident. CCTV footage of your incident will also be destroyed unless the cruise line is specifically instructed to preserve it.

Most people think simply because they got injured on a cruise ship that the cruise line is automatically responsible to pay them money for their injuries. This is not the case. In fact, injured passengers and their lawyers have to prove that the fall, or accident was the result of the carelessness of the cruise line and not the passenger. 

This can be extremely difficult to prove especially in cases involving artificial surf machines like the flow rider, ice-skating rink accidents, elevator accidents, zipline accidents, spa and massage injuries, water slide accidents, or other types of cases where people get hurt on cruises.

This is also true of medical malpractice cases against cruise lines. Where expert witnesses are going to be required to opine as to whether or not the cruise ship doctors deviate from the prevailing standard of care and if that deviation actually caused any kind of medical injury.

Our law firm has also investigated hundreds of cases where children have been hurt on cruise lines in the care and custody of the “kids club “ or while participating in activities such as waterslides, water parks, spa accidents, ice-skating, surf machines, or even in the swimming pool or jacuzzis. 

Sadly, another type of case that we see on occasion is sexual assaults and rapes that occur between passengers and between crewmembers and passengers on the ships, in the ship terminals, and on shore excursions.

Cruise lines can also be responsible if they have failed to warn a passenger regarding the risks associated with participating in certain shore excursions. This is why we strongly recommend that all of our clients purchase any shore excursion directly from the cruise line. It’s important to do this because the cruise line will provide some degree of “due diligence“ to make sure that the shore excursion operator is performing their operations in a reasonably safe manner. 

Also, cruise lines require that any type of shore excursion that they sell have liability insurance that will cover excursion accidents.  

This makes it easier for an injured passenger to hold a shore excursion operator accountable if they are insured and if they had purchased it directly from the cruise line. 

Our personal injury law firm in Miami is available to provide you with a confidential and free consultation regarding your potential claim against a major cruise line by telephone, Zoom, Google meet, or FaceTime. We take each case on a contingency fee basis which means that we don’t get paid unless you get paid.

Not all accidents on cruise lines are viable personal injury cases. For over 31 years our firm has successfully represented thousands of people who have been injured from around the world but our experience and passion are what helps you get the compensation you deserve. You may be entitled to money for pain and suffering, loss of wages, medical expenses, loss of your cruise, and other expenses. Call us today, we’re ready to help.