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1 person dies aboard Celebrity Cruises ship, 2 others evacuated from Royal Caribbean ship for medical reasons

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A person aboard the Celebrity Infinity cruise liner has passed away, Celebrity Cruises confirmed on Thursday.

The person’s cause of death was not specified in a statement provided to Fox News, although the ship, which is currently docked off the west coast of Florida, has been under lockdown since at least Saturday following confirmed cases of coronavirus among the remaining crew members onboard, the Miami Herald reports.

Royal Caribbean, which owns Celebrity Cruises, confirmed the death of a person aboard the Celebrity Infinity. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The deceased is also said to be a crew member, according to the outlet.

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A representative for Royal Caribbean, the parent company of Celebrity Cruises, further confirmed that two crew members aboard Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas ship — which currently sits off the coast of southeast Florida — were evacuated for medical reasons.

The company said all guests had already departed from both ships in the last couple of weeks, according to a previous statement obtained by the Herald. Only crew members remain, and those that had exhibited “influenza-like” symptoms were asked to isolate in their cabins.

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As of Saturday, however, crew members aboard the Infinity told the Herald that most of them had been confined to their rooms since Saturday, and learned of a fellow employee’s death on Thursday, but not how many positive cases had been recorded on the ship.

Prior to Saturday, the crew members were reportedly awaiting arrangements to repatriate to their home countries.

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Cruise ships operated by both the Carnival Corporation and Royal Caribbean, among other lines, have recently been linked to several coronavirus outbreaks since February. Most recently, two ships sailing with the Holland America Line (which is owned by Carnival) arrived off at Port Everglades, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Thursday to begin disembarkation after at least 200 passengers reported influenza-like illness symptoms since March 22.

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In March, both  CDC  and the  U.S. State Department  had since advised that Americans avoid traveling by cruise ship. Cruise companies largely suspended travel on March 13 under guidance from government agencies. Ships that were still at sea attempted to make arrangements to dock, though many were turned away and forced to seek docking elsewhere.

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A Widow Said Her Husband Was Left in a Drinks Cooler After Dying on a Cruise

Marilyn Jones accused Celebrity Cruises in a lawsuit of storing her husband’s body in a cooler rather than the ship’s morgue and allowing it to become “horrifically decomposed.”

By Lauren McCarthy

Last August, Marilyn Jones and her husband, Robert, set out from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on an eight-day Caribbean cruise aboard the Celebrity Equinox.

The couple, of Bonifay, Fla., were just two days into the trip when Robert Jones, 79, died of a heart attack.

Celebrity Cruises presented Ms. Jones with two options, according to a federal lawsuit that she filed against the cruise line this week: disembark with her husband’s body in San Juan, P.R., or agree to have it stored in the ship’s morgue until it returned to Florida six days later.

She opted to remain with the ship. But when a funeral home worker and a Broward County sheriff’s deputy came aboard in Fort Lauderdale to retrieve Mr. Jones’s body, they discovered that it had been moved from the morgue to a cooler on a different floor, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Having been stored at an insufficient temperature, the body had “horrifically decomposed,” the lawsuit said, preventing his family from having an open casket at his wake and funeral.

For her trauma, Ms. Jones, who had been married to her husband for 55 years, and her family are seeking a jury trial and at least $1 million in damages.

In a statement, Celebrity Cruises declined to comment, citing “the sensitivity of the alleged facts and out of respect for the family.”

The lawsuit, which was reported by Miami New Times , said members of the ship’s crew told Ms. Jones that there was a “50/50 shot” if she got off the ship in San Juan that the coroner’s office there would take possession of her husband’s body for an autopsy before releasing it to a funeral home. She was told she would have to stay in Puerto Rico with his body and make arrangements on her own to get it, and herself, back to Florida.

Assured that the Equinox was equipped to safely transport her husband’s body back to Fort Lauderdale, Ms. Jones, who was 78 at the time and suddenly traveling alone, gave the crew permission to store his body in the ship’s morgue and agreed to remain on board for the rest of the cruise, the lawsuit says.

“She was given a very difficult choice,” Thomas Carey, a lawyer representing Ms. Jones, her two daughters and three grandchildren, who are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said in an interview on Friday. “She logically selected the ship’s morgue,” he said, after she was assured it had a working facility.

“At some unknown point,” he said, “somebody discovered that the refrigeration was not working.”

When the funeral home worker and the sheriff’s deputy found that Mr. Jones’s body was not in the morgue but had been moved to a beverage cooler, the lawsuit said, it was “immediately clear” that it was in the advanced stages of decomposition, the lawsuit said. The body, it said, had expanded with gas and “his skin had turned green.”

The cooler was intended for things like soda, Mr. Carey said, and was not nearly cold enough to store a human body.

Like all cruise ships, the Celebrity Equinox, which is registered in Malta and can carry up to 2,852 people, is required to have a morgue because onboard deaths are not uncommon, said Hendrik Keijer, a marine operations expert who served for 10 years as a captain on Holland America Line cruise ships.

“For some people it is their last vacation, unfortunately,” Mr. Keijer said. “That’s why morgues are onboard.”

Jacob Munch, a maritime lawyer who is also representing Ms. Jones in her lawsuit, said cruise lines have an obligation to maintain the morgues.

“It’s incumbent on them to make sure they’re working properly,” he said in an interview, “especially in sensitive situations like this. She’s turning to them for advice.”

If Ms. Jones had known the ship did not have a working morgue, the lawsuit said, she would have chosen to take her husband’s body off the ship in Puerto Rico. Celebrity Cruises’ handling of the matter had been “reckless and careless,” it said.

Ms. Jones and her family are “devastated” and will struggle to heal, Mr. Carey said.

“For the rest of her life,” he said, “she’s going to have to think about this.”

Lauren McCarthy , a planning editor for live coverage at The Times, is on temporary assignment as a breaking-news reporter. More about Lauren McCarthy

Cruise ship staff allowed Florida man’s body to badly decompose after heart attack, lawsuit says

A Florida woman alleges in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday that her husband died aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean and the luxury liner’s staff failed to properly preserve the body, robbing his loved ones of an open-casket funeral.

Marilyn Jones, 78, set sail Aug. 13 aboard the Celebrity Equinox in Fort Lauderdale with her husband of 55 years, Robert Jones, 79, according to the suit filed in the U.S. District Court of Southern Florida. The ocean liner was scheduled for an eight-day excursion to ports in the East Caribbean, including San Juan, Puerto Rico, the suit said.

Marilyn Jones was listed as a plaintiff, as were her two daughters, an adult granddaughter and two minor grandchildren. The defendant in the lawsuit is Celebrity Cruises Inc., which owns and operates the Celebrity Equinox.

A representative with Celebrity Cruises said Friday in an email: “Due to the sensitivity of the alleged facts and out of respect for the family, we decline to comment on the matter.”

After two days on the cruise, the vacation turned somber when Robert Jones died from a heart attack, the suit said.

Following her husband’s death, the lawsuit said, Marilyn Jones was told she had the option of preserving her husband’s body in the cruise ship’s morgue for the next six days until the boat docked in Fort Lauderdale. The suit also alleges that Jones was dissuaded from taking her husband’s body off the cruise ship in San Juan when she was cautioned the coroner’s office there could take possession of the body and perform an autopsy before releasing it to a funeral home.

The ship’s staff also cautioned her that if she stayed in Puerto Rico, she would be responsible for securing travel back home for her and her late husband, the suit said.

The staff’s warnings about leaving the ship with her husband’s body in Puerto Rico didn’t leave her much choice, the suit alleges.

She was told there would be a “50/50 chance that a medical examiner in San Juan would ‘take possession’ of her husband’s body and perform an autopsy. This was especially distressing to Ms. Jones, who is elderly and was traveling alone with her husband,” the suit said.

When the Equinox docked in Florida after nearly a week since her husband’s passing, a worker with a funeral home and a deputy with a local sheriff’s office arrived to handle the body, the suit said.

But Robert Jones’ body was not in the ship’s morgue, instead, it was moved to a cooler on a different floor. The cooler, the suit said, was not cold enough to preserve the body which was in a state of severe decomposition, the suit said.

In the cooler, Jones’ body was not on a bed or medical table, instead it “was laying in a bag on a palette on the floor,” the suit said.

The unsuitable conditions in the cooler caused physical indignities to Jones’ body, the suit said.

“By allowing Mr. Jones’ body to decompose while on the ship to such a state that his family was unable to have open casket funeral and wake services, denying his wife of 55 years, children, grandchildren, friends, and community the closure their family and community deserved, a practice which was a part of his family’s culture,” the suit said.

The ship should have been equipped to handle a death, the suit said, citing heart attacks and cardiac incidents as the “leading cause of death among passengers on its ships, having had at least 37 deaths on board its’ own cruise ships since 2001,” according to the lawsuit.

The suit alleges the cruise should have kept a working morgue, inspected it to make sure it was working or checked Jones’ body with reasonable frequency to make sure it was properly preserved.

The Jones' family seeks a jury trial and damages of at least $1 million, the suit said.

Antonio Planas is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital. 

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Cruise line let passenger’s body decompose, lawsuit says

FILE - The cruiser Celebrity Equinox built by the shipyard Meyer in Papenburg, Germany, goes down the river Ems near Gandersum on Saturday, June 20, 2009. A widow and her family are suing Celebrity Cruises for allegedly mishandling her husband’s body after he died while they were on the Celebrity Equinox in August 2022, saying it was left to decompose and they suffered extreme emotional trauma. (AP Photo/Joerg Sarbach, File)

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A widow and her family are suing Celebrity Cruises for allegedly mishandling her husband’s body after he died while they were on a ship last year, saying it was left to decompose and they suffered extreme emotional trauma.

After Marilyn Jones’ husband of 55 years, Robert Jones, died of a heart attack Aug. 15 onboard the Celebrity Equinox, his body was stored for nearly a week inside a walk-in cooler normally used for beverages instead of a properly chilled morgue as she was promised, according to the federal lawsuit filed in Florida.

That left the body bloated and green, and the family was unable to have an open-coffin funeral “which was a long standing family custom and was what his family had desired,” the lawsuit says. Marilyn Jones, her two daughters and three grandchildren are seeking $1 million in damages.

Celebrity Cruises declined to comment, citing the case’s sensitivity and “out of respect for the family.” The Celebrity Equinox, which cruises the Caribbean year-round out of Fort Lauderdale, is flagged out of Malta and can carry almost 3,000 passengers and 1,200 crew members.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in Fort Lauderdale, after Robert Jones died, his widow was given two choices by crew members.

They allegedly told Marilyn Jones, then 78 and from the Florida Panhandle, that his body could be taken off at the next stop, Puerto Rico, or stored in the morgue until the ship got back to Fort Lauderdale in six days. Because passenger deaths sometimes happen, most large cruise ships have a morgue.

The crew told her that if she chose Puerto Rico, she would need to go with the body and then arrange transportation for it and herself back to Florida, the suit says. She was also told that island authorities would perhaps require an autopsy, which could further delay their return.

Because Jones was alone, she picked the morgue. But that’s not where the body was stored, the lawsuit says.

When the ship arrived in Florida, a funeral home employee and a Broward County sheriff’s deputy found the morgue apparently out of service. They found the body in a walk-in drink cooler in a bag on a palette, according to the suit.

It says the cooler was significantly warmer than the near-freezing temperatures needed to properly store a body, and Robert Jones’ remains were in “advanced stages of decomposition.”

Celebrity’s actions caused the family “extreme trauma by visualizing Mr. Jones’s body horrifically decomposed, and knowing their husband and father was callously and casually left in a beverage cooler, stripping him of his dignity,” the suit reads.

Jones’ attorneys are seeking a jury trial.

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Widow sues US cruise line after husband’s body stored in drinks cooler

Ship lacked required onboard morgue and Robert Jones’s body had turned green and was decomposing by time it reached Florida

A cruise line stored the body of a passenger who died onboard in a drinks cooler for several days, causing the man’s body to turn green and decompose, the man’s widow alleged in a federal lawsuit filed in Florida last week .

The man, Robert Jones, died of a heart attack on 15 August last year while onboard the Celebrity Equinox during a Caribbean cruise. Ship crew members allegedly told his widow, Marilyn Jones, that she could either take the body on shore in San Juan, Puerto Rico, or that they could store it in the working onboard morgue until they returned to Florida . Staffers told her that the body had only a 50% chance of undergoing an autopsy in San Juan and that she would have to remain there alone until the body was autopsied and embalmed, Jones said in the complaint. She chose to keep the body on the ship.

But when the vessel returned to Fort Lauderdale on 21 August, a sheriff’s office deputy and funeral home employee found that Robert Jones’s body had been placed in a bag on a pallet on the floor of a drinks cooler, according to the lawsuit. The room was not cold enough to prevent the body from decomposing, and funeral staff were reportedly not able to salvage the body enough for an open casket funeral. The ship’s required working morgue was not functioning at the time, the lawsuit says.

Marilyn Jones, her daughters, and three grandchildren are suing Celebrity Cruises for $1m in damages.

Celebrity Cruises declined to comment on the case, citing “the sensitivity of the alleged facts and out of respect for the family”.

“The actions and omissions of Celebrity and its crew have tortiously interfered with the body of Robert Jones and with plaintiffs’ last memories of Jones, which has caused extreme trauma by visualizing Mr Jones’s body horrifically decomposed, and knowing their husband and father was callously and casually left in a beverage cooler, stripping him of his dignity in the sacred time just after his passing,” the suit says.

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Celebrity Cruises improperly stored dead body in cruise ship's cooler, instead of morgue, lawsuit claims

April 23, 2023 / 8:44 AM EDT / CNN

FORT LAUDERDALE -- A Florida woman and her family have filed a lawsuit against Celebrity Cruises, claiming the cruise line improperly stored her husband's body in the ship's cooler, as opposed to the morgue, after he died on board.

The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Wednesday.

According to the complaint, Robert L. Jones, died due to a cardiac event while on the Celebrity Equinox cruise ship in August 2022, traveling from Fort Lauderdale to ports in the Eastern Caribbean.

The lawsuit states that after Jones' death, his wife, Marilyn Jones, was told that she had two options for what could be done with her husband's body. According to the lawsuit, those options were to "either have Mr. Jones' body removed from the ship in San Juan," Puerto Rico or to "have his body stored on the ship until it reached port in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, approximately six days from the date of his passing."

Jones' body stayed on board the ship for "approximately six days," according to the lawsuit.

"When the funeral services employee in Ft. Lauderdale was brought onto the ship to retrieve Mr. Jones' body, his body was not located in the ship's morgue," the lawsuit said.

"Instead, Mr. Jones' body had, at some time not yet known, had been moved from the ship's morgue to a cooler on a different floor than the ship's morgue. The cooler in which Mr. Jones' body was found by the funeral employee had drinks placed outside of the cooler, and was not at a temperature which was sufficient nor proper for storing a dead body to prevent decomposition," according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also says the body was found "in a bag on a palette on the floor of the cooler" and that it "was in advanced stages of decomposition."

Marilyn Jones and her family are asking for compensatory damages in the amount of $1 million and are demanding a trial by jury.

CNN has reached out to Celebrity Cruises for comment.

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A widow and her family are suing Celebrity Cruises for allegedly mishandling her husband’s body after he died while they were on a ship last year, saying it was left to decompose and they suffered extreme emotional trauma.

After Marilyn Jones’ husband of 55 years, Robert Jones, died of a heart attack Aug. 15 onboard the Celebrity Equinox, his body was stored for nearly a week inside a walk-in cooler normally used for beverages instead of a properly chilled morgue as she was promised, according to the federal lawsuit filed in Florida.

That left the body bloated and green, and the family was unable to have an open-coffin funeral “which was a long standing family custom and was what his family had desired,” the lawsuit says. Marilyn Jones, her two daughters and three grandchildren are seeking $1 million in damages.

Celebrity Cruises declined to comment, citing the case’s sensitivity and “out of respect for the family.” The Celebrity Equinox, which cruises the Caribbean year-round out of Fort Lauderdale, is flagged out of Malta and can carry almost 3,000 passengers and 1,200 crew members.

According to the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in Fort Lauderdale, after Robert Jones died, his widow was given two choices by crew members.

They allegedly told Marilyn Jones, then 78 and from the Florida Panhandle, that his body could be taken off at the next stop, Puerto Rico, or stored in the morgue until the ship got back to Fort Lauderdale in six days. Because passenger deaths sometimes happen, most large cruise ships have a morgue.

The crew told her that if she chose Puerto Rico, she would need to go with the body and then arrange transportation for it and herself back to Florida, the suit says. She was also told that island authorities would perhaps require an autopsy, which could further delay their return.

Because Jones was alone, she picked the morgue. But that’s not where the body was stored, the lawsuit says.

When the ship arrived in Florida, a funeral home employee and a Broward County sheriff’s deputy found the morgue apparently out of service. They found the body in a walk-in drink cooler in a bag on a palette, according to the suit.

It says the cooler was significantly warmer than the near-freezing temperatures needed to properly store a body, and Robert Jones’ remains were in “advanced stages of decomposition.”

Celebrity’s actions caused the family “extreme trauma by visualizing Mr. Jones’s body horrifically decomposed, and knowing their husband and father was callously and casually left in a beverage cooler, stripping him of his dignity,” the suit reads.

Jones’ attorneys are seeking a jury trial.

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Celebrity Cruises Accused in Lawsuit of Improperly Storing Body in Ship's Cooler, Not Morgue

The late man's family seeks damages of at least $1 million, according to the suit

Ryan Parker is the former Senior News Editor, Weekends for PEOPLE. He left PEOPLE in 2023.

Celebrity Cruises is facing a lawsuit in which a Florida woman and her family accuse the cruise line of improperly storing her husband's body in the ship's cooler, not the morgue.

In the lawsuit, cited by both CNN and NBC News , the widow of Robert L. Jones accuses the company of improperly storing the late Jones, thereby "allowing Mr. Jones' body to decompose while on the ship to such a state that his family was unable to have [an] open casket funeral." The Jones family seeks damages of at least $1 million, according to the suit as cited by the news outlet.

Jones died of a cardiac medical emergency while on the Celebrity Equinox cruise ship in August 2022, which was traveling from Fort Lauderdale ports in the Eastern Caribbean.

According to the lawsuit, as cited by CNN, after Jones' death, his wife, Marilyn, was informed there were two options: have the body removed from the ship in San Juan, Puerto Rico or have the body stored on the ship until it reached port in Ft. Lauderdale in six days.

The decision was made to store the body.

However, "When the funeral services employee in Ft. Lauderdale was brought onto the ship to retrieve Mr. Jones' body, his body was not located in the ship's morgue," the lawsuit alleges, according to CNN. "Instead, Mr. Jones' body had, at some time not yet known, had been moved from the ship's morgue to a cooler on a different floor than the ship's morgue. The cooler in which Mr. Jones' body was found by the funeral employee had drinks placed outside of the cooler, and was not at a temperature which was sufficient nor proper for storing a dead body to prevent decomposition."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Celebrity Cruises did not immediately return PEOPLE's request for comment. A representative with Celebrity Cruises on Friday said in an email to NBC News : "Due to the sensitivity of the alleged facts and out of respect for the family, we decline to comment on the matter."

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Celebrity Cruises improperly stored dead body in cruise ship’s cooler, instead of morgue, lawsuit claims

According to the complaint, Robert L. Jones, died due to a cardiac event while on the Celebrity Equinox cruise ship in August 2022, traveling from Fort Lauderdale to ports in the Eastern Caribbean.

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Cruise line let passenger’s body badly decompose in drink cooler after heart attack: lawsuit.

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A late Florida man’s heartbroken family has filed a $1 million lawsuit against Celebrity Cruises, claiming his body was improperly stored in a cooler — instead of the ship’s morgue — causing it to badly decompose.

When Marilyn Jones’ husband of 55 years  Robert Lewis Jones  died of a heart attack aboard a Celebrity Equinox ship sailing through the Caribbean in Aug. 2022, she was promised by cruise staff that his body would be kept safe in the ship’s morgue, according to the lawsuit.

To her horror, after the ship docked in Fort Lauderdale six days later, she learned her 78-year-old husband’s body had allegedly been kept inside a walk-in cooler, typically used to keep beverages cold. 

“When the funeral services employee in Ft. Lauderdale was brought onto the ship to retrieve Mr. Jones’ body, his body was not located in the ship’s morgue,” said the lawsuit, filed last week in Florida federal court.

“Instead, Mr. Jones’ body had, at some time not yet known, had been moved from the ship’s morgue to a cooler on a different floor than the ship’s morgue. The cooler in which Mr. Jones’ body was found by the funeral employee had drinks placed outside of the cooler, and was not at a temperature which was sufficient nor proper for storing a dead body to prevent decomposition.”

Funeral service workers from Fort Lauderdale found the body inside a blood-splattered bag on a palette on the floor of the cooler. After, it became “immediately clear” that the body was in “advanced stages of decomposition and was never stored in a temperature appropriate to stop decomposition from occurring.” 

As a result, his body became bloated and green, preventing his loved ones from having an open-coffin funeral, “which was a long-standing family custom and was what his family had desired,” the lawsuit claims.

According to the filing from Wednesday, the bereaved widow was given two options by crew members after her husband had died during the cruise.

Marilyn was told that the body could be taken off when the ship was docked at their next stop in Puerto Rico, or be placed in the ship’s morgue until it returned to Ft. Lauderdale six days later, according to the suit.

She decided to have the body stored in the ship’s morgue as she allegedly would have had to pay for transportation from Puerto Rico to Florida.

When the ship arrived back in Ft. Lauderdale, a funeral home employee and a deputy from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office were brought on board to retrieve the body only to discover it wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

The family claims that if Celebrity had informed Jones of the out-of-service morgue, she could have chosen to get off in Puerto Rico with the body and potentially still have an open-coffin service.

The filing said Marilyn Jones, her two daughters, and three grandchildren are seeking a trial by jury.

“The reckless and careless actions and omissions of Celebrity directly and proximately caused Plaintiffs’ injuries, because if Plaintiff’s knew that there was not a working morgue on the ship, they would have had Mr. Jones’ body taken off the ship,” the lawsuit claims.

“If the defendant’s crew had either kept the morgue in proper working order, or inspected Mr. Jones’ body in the morgue with reasonable frequency, his body would not have decomposed to the point that a funeral director was unable to salvage his remains such that he could receive the open casket funeral and wake services.”

Most cruise ships have morgues onboard because passenger deaths can happen during a voyage, and vessels are required to carry body bags. 

“Morgues are located on ships’ lowest decks, generally along what the crew refers to as “I-95″ — the long corridor that runs from one end of the vessel to the other,”  according to the travel blog The Points Guy .

According to the lawsuit, there have been at least 37 deaths aboard Celebrity Cruise’s ships since 2001.

That number is just a sample of total cruise ship deaths reported yearly. A 2020 study in the International Journal of Travel Medicine and Global Health found that between 2000 and 2019, there were 623 deaths reported on cruise ships.

The Equinox made its maiden voyage in 2009 and travels year-round between the Caribbean, the Bahamas, and its homeport of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Celebrity Cruises could not immediately be reached for comment by The Post Sunday morning.

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2 Holland America crew members die after 'incident' on cruise ship in the Bahamas

• Two crew members on a Holland America cruise ship died during an "incident" in the engineering space.
• In a statement, the cruise line said it was "deeply saddened" by the incident.
• The Bahamas Maritime Authority is investigating the deaths.

Two crew members aboard a Holland America cruise ship died during an 'incident' in the ship's engineering space.

In a statement released by Holland America, the cruise line said the unnamed crew members had died Friday whilst the Nieuw Amsterdam liner was at the small island of Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas.

"All of us at Holland America Line are deeply saddened by this incident and our thoughts and prayers are with our team members' families at this difficult time," the statement said.

"The safety, security and welfare of all guests and crew are the company's absolute priority."

Authorities were notified and the cause of the deaths is being investigated, the cruise line said. Crew members are also being offered counseling.

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Holland America later added that the Bahamas Maritime Authority was leading the investigation.

The ship, which can carry over 2,000 people, set sail out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on 16 March for a seven-night cruise.

Cruise ships are an incredibly popular form of vacation. In 2019 alone, the global cruise industry welcomed more than 29 million passengers and in 2022, the global cruise market was valued at $7.67 billion.

Deaths on board cruise ships are rare, however.

According to reports, a total of 623 people died on cruise ships between 2000 and 2019. Of these fatalities, 66 were crew members, and 557 were passengers.

Eighty-seven percent of these deaths occurred while on the sea, while the other 13% occurred while the ships were docked. Statistics also show that 97 passengers and crew members died due to cardiac issues, 72 died due to accidentally falling overboard, and 60 died due to jumping overboard. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic there were numerous outbreaks on cruise ships.

The Ruby Princess, operated by Princess Cruises, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation, became infamous in 2020 as the source of many of Australia's early cases when thousands of passengers were allowed to disembark in Sydney. There were 900 infections on the ship and 28 people died.

Watch: Cruise ship captain breaks down 8 cruise ship disasters in movies and TV

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'Drunk' 20-year-old man missing after jumping off a Royal Caribbean cruise ship

• A 20-year-old man on holiday with his family jumped off a Royal Caribbean cruise. 
• The man has been missing since jumping overboard in front of his father and brother.
• The US Coast Guard has launched a search operation. 

A 20-year-old man jumped off the Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas cruise on Thursday morning while vacationing with his family.

The passenger, whose identity has not been revealed, jumped overboard at about 4 a.m. and has been missing since.

The US Coast Guard said on X on Thursday that its crews were "searching for a 20-year-old man who went overboard from the Liberty of the Seas cruise ship near The Bahamas.

A Royal Caribbean spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement: "Our Care Team is providing support and assistance to the guest's family during this difficult time."

Passengers on the Liberty of the Seas ship described the tragedy as a "spur-of-the-moment decision."

Passenger Bryan Sims told the New York Post that the missing passenger was "pretty drunk" and that they had hung out in the hot tub until 3:30 a.m.

Sims said that when they left the hot tub, they encountered the drunk passenger's father while approaching the elevators.

"His dad was fussing at him for being drunk," said Sims.

The unidentified passenger reportedly told his father, "I'll fix this right now," and jumped out of the window.

Fellow passengers said his father and brother witnessed the "impulsive" leap.

Deborah Morrison, another passenger on board the cruise, told the Post that "there was a lot of yelling and that the crew was alerted immediately."

"The ship's crew immediately launched a search and rescue effort alongside the US Coast Guard, who has taken over the search," the Royal Caribbean spokesperson said.

The US Coast Guard said USCG Cutter Seneca and Air Station Miami HC-144 crews were conducting the search.

The Liberty of the Seas departed from South Florida and was 57 miles from Great Inagua in The Bahamas when the passenger jumped overboard.

The cruise ship has 18 decks and can accommodate 3,634 passengers, served by a crew of about 1,300.

The chances of you falling overboard off a cruise ship are extremely low .

In 2023, About 31 million passengers traveled on a cruise, and about 10 people went overboard, of which two miraculously survived, Business Insider reported .

"Even one incident is one too many," CLIA told Business Insider, explaining that "the vast majority of cases are either reckless behavior or some form of intentional act. People don't just inadvertently fall over the side of a ship."

Last month, a 23-year-old man who felt seasick fell overboard from the MSC Euribia cruise ship while crossing the North Sea in Europe and was presumed dead.

In December, an MSC Cruises passenger jumped from one of its ships while sailing from Europe to South America.

According to a Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) report, only 28.2% of passengers who fell overboard from 2009 to 2019 were successfully rescued.

If you enjoyed this story, be sure to follow Business Insider on Microsoft Start.

Celebrity cruise ship rescues 7 people from small vessel 'adrift' between Cuba and Mexico

A Celebrity Cruises ship rescued a group of people from another vessel between Cuba and Mexico this week.

Celebrity Apex “encountered a small vessel adrift and in need of assistance” on Monday, according to a spokesperson for the cruise line.

“The ship’s crew immediately launched a rescue operation, safely bringing (seven) people onboard,” the spokesperson told USA TODAY an emailed statement. “The crew provided them with medical attention, and is working closely with the U.S. Coast Guard.”

The ship departed from Fort Lauderdale for a week-long cruise with stops in Key West, Belize, Cozumel, Mexico and Grand Cayman on Saturday, according to CruiseMapper . The Celebrity spokesperson did not specify who the people in the vessel were.

The ship notified the Coast Guard of the rescue “but there was no U.S. Coast Guard involvement in the case” because of its location, Petty Officer Eric Rodriguez said.

“In accordance with the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and maritime tradition, it is common and somewhat expected that mariners will render assistance to other seafarers in distress if they have the capability to do so,” he said in an email.

Hotels at sea: Land-based hospitality brands bring guests with them to cruises

The news comes after another cruise ship, Carnival Jubilee, rescued two men stranded in a kayak off the coast of Mexico’s Isla Mujeres in January.

Nathan Diller is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY based in Nashville. You can reach him at [email protected].

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