You’ve saved all year to take the vacation
of a lifetime on a cruise ship. After you set sail the fun begins, the band
starts playing, and soon you’ll be gorging on seemingly never-ending buffet items. After a few days, a few too many drinks and
a couple of extra pounds added to your body, you decide that evening to take part in the,
“Murder Mystery” party. You love that kind of thing, the “whodunnit”
caper…you remember the last time you played, and the killer was the servant, who committed
the murder with a lead pipe in the ballroom. Half way through your game, people start running
around covered in blood, and of course you think this is all part of the fun. It isn’t…someone has actually been murdered. What we just told you is a true story, and
now we will explain. 10. The Cruise Ship Murder
In 2017, the Emerald Princess set off from Seattle with 3,400 on board on a journey to
Southeast Alaska. One of those passengers would not survive
the trip. During the night of the murder mystery party
a couple on that ship were having a domestic dispute, one that would end with the man beating
his wife to death. Soon staff and medical officers were on the
scene, and what they saw before them was a woman covered in blood. A ship security officer subdued the man and
put him in handcuffs. Some passengers on the ship had heard screams
and some would later see staff with the woman’s blood on them. One passenger later told the media, “People
were running through the hall with blood all over them and trying to get security.” They actually thought this was some kind of
hoax, just part of the game, but of course they were wrong. It was later revealed that the woman had died
from blunt force trauma to her head and face. The man admitted to what he had done and is
now in jail. He could be facing a life sentence. Have stranger things happened on cruise ships? The answer is yes, and like always, we’ll
leave the best until last. Maybe “best” is the wrong word…we should
probably have said “worst.” 9. Poop Cruise
In 2013, some of the 4,000 people aboard the Carnival Triumph cruise ship woke up to the
smell of smoke and the sound of fire alarms. The ship was on fire. What happened shortly after was the ship lost
power and was left stranded in the Gulf of Mexico. Ok, so the fire was extinguished…surely
things could haven’t been that bad. Well... things were really bad. You see, those 4,000 people on that ship had
no air conditioning…Most of the time they were left without any lights, and some people
complained later that they had to go without water and food.. So, why was it called the “Poop Cruise.” That’s because the toilets weren’t functioning
and sewage was building up. 4,000 people created quite a lot of poop in
the four days that the ship was stranded. People later sued the company and described
in dramatic detail how people were huddled together on the ship’s decks not knowing
how things would turn out. They explained that the human sewage from
overflowing toilets made its way to the deck and there was a terrible stench. We guess this might sound quite amusing to
some of our viewers, but the experience was traumatic for those passengers. They had paid for what was supposed to be
the trip of a lifetime and instead spent days in darkness in a sea of poop. This is how one woman later described the
experience when she was testifying in court, “I did not get physically injured. I got mentally injured… I think about the smell, the stench and the
bad things. All the memories come flooding back, and I
can't stop them.” Another witness said she and others thought
they were going to die, and if not, then just get ill from the sewage. She said in court, “There was lots of urine
and feces all the way up to the rim of everyone.” The Poop Cruise was certainly a holiday in
hell. But as you’ll see, things could have been
worse. 8. Mass Sickness
On the poop cruise most of the injuries that were sustained were of a mental kind, but
on a cruise ship that left the U.S. for the Caribbean in 2010, a lot of people became
extremely ill all of a sudden. Imagine this. You're on a ship with over 1,800 guests and
suddenly hundreds of them just start throwing up and come down with a bad case of diarrhea. Passengers go out on the deck and then suddenly
something shifts in their stomach. They vomit all over the place…and right
across from them another person vomits. It becomes a kind of vomit-athon. It’s actually what you might call a viral
relay. What had happened is a stomach virus had been
passed from one person to another and in the end this virus affected more than 400 people
on the ship. To stop the spread, people were told to wash
their hands often or better still, isolate themselves in their cabins. That was not exactly what you’d call a colorful
vacation in the Caribbean…holed up in a cabin waiting for the mass pooping and vomiting
to die down. That’s the problem with cruise ships. If one person brings a virus on board it can
quickly spread. We think you all know a story of when this
recently happened, but that’s a tale for another day. 7. Bad Weather
You’ve all seen videos of cruise ships having a hard time in bad weather, and usually the
ships can handle it even though passengers might get thrown around a bit. But sometimes ships just get stranded and
they can’t sail out of the madness. This happened in 2019 off the coast of Norway. Massive 30-foot waves rocked the Viking Cruise
ship and that led to engine failure. The problem was, it was too dangerous to keep
the people on the ship but it was also too dangerous to send boats in to evacuate them. Before that happened some waves were so big
that they broke down doors of the cabins and threw people across their rooms. They were of course just a little concerned
that the ship might go down. The authorities were concerned, too, and so
soon helicopters started arriving to airlift people from the ship. No one died on this occasion. We’ll get around to death soon. 6. Spying
This one is just plain weird. It happened on the Caribbean-headed Carnival
Cruise ship in 2018. A couple on that ship one night were in their
cabin about to watch some TV. Suddenly the man noticed something weird,
something that looked like a small camera pointing at them. This camera was aimed at the bed. The man went over to investigate and he later
told a court that it was working and so someone was likely watching them. This company denied that the camera was turned
on, but it did admit that there was a camera. The couple said this was hogwash, and they
said they could see clearly that the camera was working. The guy said it was warm when he touched it. This one remains a bit of a mystery. The camera was turned over to the FBI and
we don’t know what happened after that. 5. It's A Stick Up
It wouldn’t surprise you if we told you that someone has stolen someone’s belongings
while on a cruise ship. Hey, there are just some folks in this world
that can’t resist themselves when they see a smartphone or a wallet lying around. But in 2012, 22 Carnival Cruise passengers
were robbed, which is quite out of the ordinary. They were on an excursion at the Mexico seaside
resort of Puerto Vallarta when it happened. The robbery wasn’t actually on the cruise
ship; it happened when the people were taking a bus back to the ship. Some guys in the middle of the street didn’t
get out of the way and the bus had no choice but to stop. After that, the men - what the media called
“bandits” - got on the bus holding guns in their hands. The shocked tourists were told to hand over
everything of value. That included their watches, jewelry, money,
cameras, passports, and anything else that was of any value. The Mexican authorities said this was a “rare”
event, but the cruise line later said that this particular tour would now be suspended. 4. Falling Off
So, you’ve probably heard that now and again people fall off cruise ships, but what you
might not know is that it happens quite often. In 2016, a young woman on the Carnival Liberty
had been in the bar and it turned out that she had had the grand total of 19 drinks,
which is a hell of a lot for someone who weighed just 120 pounds (54kg). The woman then went up to the deck at around
2 am and sat on a deckchair that was right next to the railing of the ship. She was never seen again. Now, you probably think this is a very rare
thing to happen, but do you know that from the year 2000 to the year 2018, 284 people
fell off cruise ships—and another 41 people fell from large ferries. That’s quite a lot. We found a few more recent cases of this happening,
too, and the outcome is not usually good, although sometimes people do get saved. There have also been a few cases when people
purposely jumped off a ship. 3. The Pirates of Somalia
In 2005, a cruise ship traveling off the coast of Somalia came under attack from pirates. This must have been pretty scary for the passengers
because when the pirates got close to the ship they fired automatic weapons and rocket-propelled
grenades. There were only 302 passengers on the ship
and most of them were from the U.S. and the UK. One American woman who was interviewed explained
to the media what she witnessed. She said, “My daughter saw the pirates out
our window. There were at least three RPGs that hit the
ship, one in a stateroom four doors down from our cabin.” Yep, can you imagine that! A British guy on the ship said he saw the
pirates firing and he said that one of the rockets from the rocket launchers went right
through the liner and into a suite where some people were staying. Thankfully, the ship managed to keep the pirates
away using a water hose and a long range acoustic device. None of the passengers were hurt during the
ordeal, although one of the crew members was injured. This was quite an unusual thing to happen
since cruise ships have so many people on them. Pirates tend to go for cargo ships where there
is a lot of loot to be had and only a few crew members. 2. A Modern Disaster
You all know about the sinking of the Titanic, but some of you might not have heard of the
2013 Costa Concordia disaster. That ship was sailing with 3,229 passengers
and 1,023 crew on January Friday the 13th when it hit a rock. A hole was torn in the hull and water started
to get into the ship, meanwhile the gigantic ship was turning on its side. 32 passengers and crew died during the event,
and after it happened the captain of the ship was imprisoned on a charge of manslaughter. He also abandoned ship to save his own life
and so he became known as “Captain Coward.” Some people say he was made a scapegoat for
the disaster, although the coast guard captain that shouted, “Get on board, dammit!”
didn’t think that was the case. Titanic 2
One of the worst disasters that ever happened on a passenger ship happened in 1914 and the
ship was called RMS Empress of Ireland. Those old passenger ships were not exactly
cruise ships, but back then they were about as close as you can get to a modern day cruise
ship. Passengers on board could float in the luxury
of a first class suite or they could get the much cheaper second and third class cabins. While sailing through thick fog on the Saint
Lawrence River in North America, the ship’s crew could barely see a thing…and then suddenly
BANG. It was hit by the Norwegian collier SS Storstad
in the early hours of the morning. This disaster happened around two years after
the Titanic went down and killed around 1,500 people, so the ship was equipped with ample
lifeboats and had watertight compartments. No one ever thought something like the Titanic
disaster could ever happen again. It actually took just 14 minutes for the ship
to fill with water and sink, so there wasn’t much time to get people into those lifeboats. Out of the 1,477 people on board the ship,
1,012 of them died. It was Titanic, the sequel. The disaster killed the rich and the poor
and it took the lives of quite a few notable people. The survivors were all picked up while floating
in the water, with only four children amongst them. 134 children in total died that fateful day. One of the reasons that so many people died
was because the impact was so sudden and just about everyone was fast asleep at the time
of the collison. In the aftermath the Norwegians said the Empress
of Ireland was at fault, but the captains and crew on that ship said it was the Norwegian
ship that had caused the crash. One of the survivors who was one of those
saved kids later said in interviews that she remembered how beautiful the ship was, calling
it a “floating hotel.” She said she remembered how wonderfully the
orchestra played. One night she went to bed and was woken up
by a bang. Before she knew it, she was floating in the
water holding on to some wreckage. She was eventually saved, but lost both her
parents. Now we think you just have to watch this amazing
video, “Where Did All The Bodies On Titanic Disappear?” Or watch, “50 Insane Facts About Titanic
You Didn't Know.”
