Said Diana Sanders, quoted in "Woman Who Took 15 Tequila Shots on Carnival Cruise Gets $300,000 in Damages/The woman, who fell and injured herself, said in a lawsuit that bartenders had been negligent for serving her while she was visibly intoxicated" (NYT).
Before you judge, consider that Sanders had paid extra for what Carnival called the “Cheers!” drink package, which pays for as many as 15 alcoholic drinks per day. Sanders was drinking up the amount she'd paid for, and Carnival had structured its commerce in a way that created that incentive. The cruise ship business — what can you say? It's tawdry, isn't it?
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I thought it was established that bartenders aren't supposed to keep selling drinks to someone obviously drunk. I guess to some, drinking on a cruise is the whole point of going. You can get drunk and stuff your face and not have to worry about driving home.
Carnival is the Section 8 of cruise lines.
Remember that no woman must ever be held accountable for any decision she makes ever.
The cruise ship industry wants to sell you things.
Women in the United States are fucking stupid and now we have to give a stupid woman 300,000$ for being stupid.
Women go to college in the US to learn how to be stupid and how to never be held accountable for being stupid.
"I fell off a cruise ship, but I'm back... Took a hard, hard, violent fall. Kind of pinballed down. Hit a lot of railings, broke a lot of shit... And I swear to God, that dolphin looked not at me, but into my soul, into my goddamn soul..."
A package offering 15 drinks a day? Is this a feeder program for AA?
If a man gets drunk and falls down and hurts himself everyone just points and laughs.
Cruise ships provide the service of keeping people away from places I like to go and for that I am grateful. On a recent long haul flight most of the cabin was being picked up by shuttle from the airport to board a cruise ship in Aukland that was headed to Australia. Ask me how I know…fortunately I never saw these people again…
Cruise Lines may now be more careful in serving drinks - so she may have spoiled the fun for the rest of us. On the few cruises I have taken I have purchased the unlimited drinks option. I, and the many, many others who have also done so, have survived quite nicely thank you.
I thought it was established that bartenders aren't supposed to keep selling drinks to someone obviously drunk. I guess to some, drinking on a cruise is the whole point of going. You can get drunk and stuff your face and not have to worry about driving home.
Dram shop laws impose potential liability to a third party on bars and bartenders when they overserve someone who then causes injury to the third party, generally by getting into an accident while driving home. Thirty states have such laws. Laws that provide for liability to the drinker (as opposed to a third party) are much less common. I am not at all certain whose law would apply on a cruise - the state of departure, international law, the law of the nearest state or country at the time of the injury?
So, she purchased the 15 drink daily option while she was sober. She was fully aware prior to boarding that she intended to overindulge. That seems significantly different than the guy who drinks too much much because he was too drunk to stop.
The bartenders might be negligent if the person drove off and got in a wreck, but on a cruise ship? Puh-leeze. Was her arm hooked up to a machine that kept lifting it, to pour booze down her throat? Her character had already been defined by her own actions.
Also, drinking fifteen drinks over the course of an afternoon/evening, while certainly not healthy, is quite different than pounding fifteen shots, which could well take place in a far more compressed time-frame and leave you much drunker.
"..Cruise Lines may now be more careful in serving drinks - so she may have spoiled the fun for the rest of us...."
Well, that's just the price she has to pay for making sure nothing is ever her fault.
Remember that no woman must ever be held accountable for any decision she makes ever.
I believe there is a similar suit pending in which a male was overserved and then injured by the crew when they tried to restrain him. Not exactly the same, but would make for an interesting comparison.
Before you judge, consider that Sanders had paid extra for what Carnival called the “Cheers!” drink package
What does that change?
Stupidity all around.
The "Cheers" drinking package?
I guess Carnival does not have a legal team. A "cheers' drinking package is the white flag and red carpet to drunken stupidity and all the terrible things that come with highly intoxicated on a moving object.
This has nothing to do with her sex. You should see the multitude of cases brought by drunken male students doing stupid things, then winning huge court cases. Also males on cruises. These sound like lovely places to avoid.
This is why we can't have nasty things.
Reason number 472 why I'd never book on an extra large cruise ship. Is there a "keep me away from the stupid people" cruise?
The cruise ship business — what can you say? It's tawdry, isn't it?
What an ignorant comment! Different cruise lines have very different personalities and cater to different clientele. Carnival cruises are often described as “floating frat parties,” and especially their short itineraries are generally regarded as “booze cruises.” If you read about a rowdy group of passengers getting into a fight and being put off at a port to make their own way home as best they can, odds are good it’s a Carnival cruise.
A tawdry business that caters to tawdry people. The self selection process is quite effective.
Sounds like the jury members were drunk too!
(Sorry, I got nothing better.)
There are smaller and mid-sized respectable cruise lines. You pay for those...
Carnival is like the back of the plane on the dreaded over-nighter.
Imagine the smell. Gross sweaty sex, booze and vomit.
No thank you.
Fifteen drinks over 24 hours seems like a lot to me, but not necessarily too much. If they refuse to serve all 15, then they're going to get people demanding refunds for their drink passes after the cruise is over.
The song "Too drunk to f*ck" is on loud speaker at 2AM each evening. Gather on the Lito deck.
The overserving problem may soon be solved by robot bartenders. Each bartender will have a tube sticking out somewhere and you'll have to blow him...it...in it... in the tube, before you can get another drink. It will be fun! Indecent and shameful, yes, but good for some drunken laughs and selfies and impromptu contests and the like.
To be clear about the Carnival "Cheers" package:
It is $75/day. With many alcohol beverages costing about $15, you don't need to drink 15 to get your money's worth. And the package includes non-alcoholic beverages that otherwise cost additional money on the cruise, such as sodas, specialty coffee, mocktails. "15 drinks" is the limit per day for alcohol beverages. I agree that consuming that much is getting all that you paid for.
1 drink every hour starting at breakfast would keep you safely buzzed the entire day. But if you didn’t start until noon or 5 o’clock, you’d have some catching up to do.
$300K is not a horrible result for the cruise industry. With 20 million cruise ship passengers in the U.S. per year, that’s just 1.5 cents per passenger. The drink package is $70 a day, and a lot of people buy it, so it likely amortizes that way too.
Once in a while a robot bartender who has cut somebody off will no doubt be carried to the rail by hands and feet and thrown overboard as drunken passengers attempt to influence the other robot bartenders.
"The cruise ship business — what can you say?"
"A supposedly fun thing..."
The Miami Herald says it was only 14 shots of tequila:
“Diana Sanders, a 45-year-old nurse who lives in Vacaville, California, was a passenger on the Carnival Radiance ship on Jan. 5, 2024, when she was served at least 14 shot of tequila in an 8 hour and 39 minute span, between approximately 2:58 p.m. and 11:37 p.m.”
Also, the jury found “60% was the fault of Carnival and 40% the woman.”
Cruise business, lol. Yesterday I received a note regarding the dress code for an upcoming voyage. Depending on time of day, you may wear either "elegant casual" or "formal" attire. Drunks are probably dragged behind in a lifeboat, or just tossed overboard.
A woman's got to know her limitations. Nothing wrong with shooting tequila as long as the right people get the shots.
“ Sanders was drinking up the amount she'd paid for”
The sunk cost fallacy strikes again.
There is exactly one person here responsible for the accident and it isn't the bartender. A drinker learns his or her limits in their 20s and this woman is 45 years old. Old enough to take responsibility for over indulging but thanks to a misguided jury, she won't have to.
Now if we can only get the right to sue judges and prosecutors who let out criminals early who then proceed to hurt someone.
@Peachy, if you’re really interested, you might get on YouTube and check out the “Tips for Travellers” [sic] channel by Gary Bembridge. Along with his tips for people planning a cruise trip, he has had videos characterizing the type of people who tend to make up the clientele for the line. I don’t know about the major cruise lines, but he really nails it when he talks about the type of people who tend to sail on our favorite line.
Tequila, say no more. Along with red wine, it has developed a certain reputation for good reason.
Still an average woman of average weight should know better. An average person of average intelligence fully understands from the marketing that Carnival is the econo-alcoholic brand.
Hard to care. Cruise line was stupid. Woman was stupid. I see her as more stupid. And, my first thought in seeing this was to wonder if the lawsuit outcome would have been the same for a man making the same claim. Doubtful.
Achilles has become our own resident misogynist:
"Remember that no woman must ever be held accountable for any decision she makes ever.
"Women in the United States are fucking stupid and now we have to give a stupid woman 300,000$ for being stupid.
"Women go to college in the US to learn how to be stupid and how to never be held accountable for being stupid."
So "booze cruises" aren't just a myth? Be careful with those.
The 1999 Boston "booze cruise" scandal involved Massport Director Peter Blute, who resigned after The Boston Herald reported he hosted an alcohol-fueled, taxpayer-funded boat party on the Nauticus featuring a topless woman.
@Big Mike and @Peachy --
Gary Bembridge and "Emma Cruises" on Youtube can be useful, but also reflect the budgets and tastes of the hosts.
He's a VERY well off elderly solo traveler who goes on luxury lines, while Emma Cruises is a younger single woman who eats too many cookies and drinks too much diet soda (watch that weight...). She's oddly single at her age and travels with family, but that's her generation.
Gary's trip to the Galapagos was a disaster because he didn't do his homework at all. You've got to be fit, got to be prepped for going underwater, and you must have clothes for rustic beaches and trails.
Big Mike.
thanks for that travel tip.
Honestly - I've never been on a cruise. I've heard all about it from people I know who love it. It sounds terrible to me.
That said - I think I would like a small-boat cruise, like a river cruise with a few hundred people (not thousands)
I wouldn't take any cruise line that would have me as a customer.
Liberal. Radical. Inebriated.
I always love those "Fight breaks out" Cruiseship Videos. Makes me glad I'm not on them. Also seeing all the bleached whales packed around the ship's swimming pool like Sardines.
Jose Cuervo, you are a friend of mine
I like to drink you
With a little salt and lime
Anyone who spends money on 15 shots of tequila deserves to fall down and injure herself. why not just stay at home and buy a bottle? You're drunk anyway.
"A supposedly fun thing..."
Yes, that's the closest I've come to being on a cruise.
Mrs Christopher and I have cruised frequently, at least once per year, the last 10 years. We've always gotten the 'unlimited' drink package on Norwegian. While it was strictly alcohol at first it has, as Leland noted, shifted to a combination of alcohol and non-alcoholic beverages as well as now being a more limited selection of wines. Even if efforts are made to reduce the occurrence it appears the at least NCL expects the package is going to be shared, and 15 shots at typical cruise line per drink charges seems well beyond 'getting your money's worth"
Having 15 drinks in 8 hrs is not anything unusual to the average Wisconsin citizen, it happens every weekend. I suspect the problem is people going on the cruise alone and sitting there and just pounding them down. If they go with a few friends there is more organization.
Yancey Ward said...
Now if we can only get the right to sue judges and prosecutors who let out criminals early who then proceed to hurt someone.
My thought, too.
This lawsuit should never have been allowed to go to trial, and I hope Carnival appeals, and wins.
15 shots at night, sailor’s delight.
Left Bank,
> 1 drink every hour starting at
> breakfast would keep you
> safely buzzed the entire day
Exactly! They should name that drink package the "Winston Churchill" instead of "Cheers" to help people understand should be used
Kirk Parker, you beat me to it! Yes, every few years a British columnist with writer's block will do the old "I tried to drink like Churchill for a day" routine. CC, JSM
It's Carnival, the Temu of cruise lines.
Melvin Udall, call your office*
*-this may be a deep cut.
You probably want to steer clear of Carnival Cruise Lines these days anyway :)
If the weather was warm (likely for a cruise), then she may have become severely dehydrated too. That happened to my wife on a cruise -- the sweet rum punch made her loopy and out of character with way less than 15 servings.
I once asked for water to sober up, but my foreign hosts mistranslated it to "whiskey and water." Ugg.
1 drink every hour starting at breakfast would keep you safely buzzed the entire day.
I have a friend who is an infectious-disease doctor. He advocates that anyone traveling to the Third World should start the day with a stiff Bloody Mary or Tequila Sunrise, and maintain at least a little bit of alcohol in the lumen of the stomach until the last food and drink of the day has been ingested. Ethanol doesn't kill every nasty bug, but it gets most of them, and he swears he's never had "Montezuma's Revenge" or "Delhi Belly" despite much travel to exotic and filthy destinations.
Beer and Chardonnay are not strong enough, though. It has to be at least as strong as a full-bodied red wine or port.
I've tried it on a couple of trips to Mexico. It not only seems to work as stated, but it makes the day pass in a pleasant alcoholic haze that my wife cannot disapprove of. Doctor's orders!
I think I would like a small-boat cruise, like a river cruise with a few hundred people
My wife and I had a river cruise down the Rhine and enjoyed it very much. No seasickness, a better standard of food and booze, lots of culture, a port call every day with no days at sea, and spectacular scenery. I would do it again, but probably not an oceangoing cruise and never one of the "budget" lines like Carnival.
However, we were not happy to find that not only were we some of the youngest folks on the boat (and we're no spring chickens), but there was a heavy contingent of Europeans and Birkenstock-wearing busybodies from places like Burlington who all had a cripplingly monomaniacal case of Trump derangement syndrome. They could not sit at a table and enjoy a drink or a meal without most of the conversation being about the unspeakable wickedness of Trump and anyone who didn't agree that he was the devil incarnate and worse than Hitler.
Now if we can only get the right to sue judges and prosecutors who let out criminals early who then proceed to hurt someone.
What is the justification for protecting the government scum this way? The rest of us are liable for everything we do on the job. The government filth are not made of finer clay than we are. They are not nobility. People should be able to sue them individually for everything they own when they fuck up. The taxpayers should not have to cover the cost of their misdeeds.
There was a time when it was necessary to shanghai drunks out of dives and dram shops on the waterfront in order to get enough men together to crew a vessel. Now people pay good money to get on board and eat and drink themselves silly, unless Poseidon throws a conniption and everyone gets seasick. I'm not squeamish, but I have no desire to voluntarily plunk myself down on a gigantic metal container with 3,000 idiots and another 3,000 hostile foreigners whose job it is to feed and water the idiots. If I had wanted to have a life on board, I'd have joined the Navy.
The $70 daily pass is barely 4 drinks with tips if you paid for them, so it's a good deal if you're a drinker.
We usually go out for dinner at local gaming bars, and sit at the bar and play video poker. "Free" drinks for players usually cost me around $200 for 2 drinks each, but sometimes we go home with everything free and some extra spending cash, but of course usually not. Still, we always enjoy our addictions.
And here I thought cruise ships had no legal liability to their passengers once the ship passes into international waters, or actually, once outside US territorial waters. What about cruise company liability for all those people who simply disappear while on a cruise?
Wild horses couldn't drag me onto a cruise ship.
@ Lone Justice - We still have Shouting Thomas, and we have me, though I am a racially discriminating misogynist - I only detest white American women. I've thought about it a long time while living in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, and have concluded that affluence ruined them. Affluence is not an eternal heritage of Vagino-Americans.
I would have not taken her side if I was on the jury. She's just as culpable as the Cruise Line.
@Oso Negro --
There's a view that female psychology has been affected by reduced birthrates. Back in the pre-birth control era, adult females were generally either (1) currently pregnant, or (2) actively caring for small children. This resulted in directing their natural compassion where it was truly needed and a different hormonal/cognitive profile.
Also see 2026 research on how motherhood results in 5% gray matter loss and "baby brain." If you shift natural mothers toward sterile ideological cults...stuff happens. It's not just money.
Intentionally citing a lefty source, as baby brain made news everywhere:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/baby-brain-is-no-joke-it-does-exist-study-finds/ar-AA1Xy8Ww
@Enigma, entirely believable. But a counter-factual is that the birth rate is much lower here in Thailand and the women are still not batshit crazy
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