Jacksonville Florida is home to one of the most popular cruise ship ports in the world, known as JAXPORT. Last year nearly 200,000 passengers sailed from the JAXPORT cruise terminal, and they reported a 95% consumer satisfaction rate. For example, Carnival’s Fascination (with 2056 passengers and a crew of 920) calls JAXPORT its homeport and routinely sells out every cruise, reporting 120% occupancy rates for four-to-five-day Bahamas cruises.
Starting in April 2015, Carnival will move the Carnival Elation (2050 passengers), which has been home ported in New Orleans, to JAXPORT and send the Fascination to San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Elation and Fascination are approximately the same size–855 feet long. The Elation is set to sail the same four-to-five-day cruises to Nassau and the Bahamas that the Fascination currently sails.
The Fascination should be one of Carnival’s most prized possessions, since it recently scored a 100 during an “unannounced” inspection by the United States Public Health (USPH) that took place while it was docked at Jacksonville. In order to score a 100, the ship must receive perfect marks on all 44 items in the USPH comprehensive criteria that are found in the Vessel Sanitation Program checklist. The inspections are performed twice a year on all ships that call on U.S. ports but sail internationally.
Those criteria include following strict practices for food handling, inspection, and storage, along with maintaining the ship’s potable water supplies used in the spas, pools, and other common areas.
According to Carnival, the Fascination is its sixth ship to earn a perfect score this year. However, what about the scores of the other 18 ships in its fleet as well as the scores of other ships in their subsidiary fleets, like Holland America, Cunard, Princess, and Costa? For example, the Carnival Valor was inspected in March 2015 and received an inspection score of only 87 after several vile violations were found, including a profusely sweating cook making eggs for the passengers’ breakfast:
Item No.: 12 |
Site: Galley-Hot Section |
Violation: While cooking for the breakfast service, the cook making eggs and omelets was sweating heavily to the point that sweat was dripping off his face to the deck. No food was seen being impacted. The area was extremely hot. The ventilation hood was working but did not seem effective. |
Recommendation: Ensure that food employees do not sweat heavily during food preparation and handling. |
While Jacksonville and Carnival continue to enjoy a prosperous relationship, it is very important for anyone who is injured while sailing out of Jacksonville on a Carnival cruise ship to understand that there is a very strict time limit to initiate a claim against the cruise line. Carnival, which is headquartered in Miami, requires all injury incident claims to be filed against it in Federal Court in Miami within one year of the date of the accident.
We recommend that you contact our office to discuss your potential claim. Not all accidents aboard a Carnival ship are necessarily viable claims. However, often people who have been injured do not realize that they actually have valuable claims that would entitle them to receive monetary compensation for pain and suffering, medical expenses, lost time from work, and loss of cruise.
Most of the time, the people we represent have never hired a lawyer before and ahve never been involved in a lawsuit. We understand this, and we work hard to do everything we can to make the claims process as painless and stress-free as possible. In the end, we work hard to investigate the cause of the incident and also to try to prevent it from ever happening to someone else.
We encourage you to call us today for a free initial consultation with an experienced maritime accident injury lawyer. Call us TOLL FREE at 1-866-597-4529. or contact us by email. We are passionate about holding cruise lines like Carnival accountable when they put their profits ahead of their passengers’ safety.
Miami-based Aronfeld Trial Lawyers was established by Board Certified Trial Lawyer, Spencer Aronfeld in 1991. The firm represents cases resulting in serious injuries in the areas of Defective Product Liability, Maritime Law, Automobile Accidents, Premises Liability, Cycling Accidents, Slip and Fall Incidents, Wrongful Death, Medical and Dental Malpractice, Civil Rights Claims, Workplace Injuries, Sexual Assault, and others. Every client receives the full benefit of our experience, our resources, and our commitment. The practice of personal injury law is our calling. We are a firm of high-profile, nationally recognized legal advocates who work for you, our client, never big business. All attorneys and staff members at the firm are bilingual speaking Spanish. To learn more, visit https://www.aronfeld.com/ or contact Aronfeld Trial Lawyers directly at (305) 441-0440.
Aronfeld Trial Lawyers is a firm of high-profile, nationally recognized legal advocates who work for you, our client, never big business. We represent cases resulting in serious injuries in the areas of Cruise Ship Injuries, Wrongful Death, Automobile Accidents, Cycling Accidents, Slip and Fall Incidents, Product Liability, Civil Rights Claims, Workplace Injuries, Maritime Law, Sexual Assault, Medical and Dental Malpractice, and others.
Quick Links
Contact Us
Let’s Us Help You