AFS1970

Nothing to do with cruise ships, but in my town, the police will not say someone is dead until a medic says it, even when painfully obvious. A couple of months ago there was a case where someone had been dead for approximately a year, inside an apartment. State Marshal was there to do an eviction and found the body, local police responded, essentially a mummy in the building, still called for EMS, who from what I have been told looked in the door and said, yup, he's dead, and left. No advanced skills or equipment needed. As for this case on the ship, I understand the FBI gets notified of all deaths and decides if they will investigate based on the details. Most that appear natural do not get investigated. In this case with a 37-year-old female, they will investigate because that is still a relatively rare occurrence. They may be trying to rule out any suspicious circumstances. However since there were few if any details given to the media, the headlines were the story.

I was surprised to see this rule, and actually see it is more reasonable than I thought. Loud music is always a problem, in public settings. However private security has much more ability to deal with this than public police, so it really is apples and oranges. A few years ago, I was on vacation in Aruba. I had a small speaker with me, but mostly left it in the room. One day at the beach, I was next to a family that had one, and they were playing music I liked. I said to my wife, I hadn't even thought to bring it to the beach, but I was glad the other family did. So often the complaint in a matter like this is because of musical taste more than volume. However, unlike in most communities, the cruise line had an outright ban whereas the police need a member of the public to complain about a breach of peace. Also the pool areas and other common areas are full of crew members who could notify security of a rule violation. As for security incompetence, this is probably due to two factors. First security is often a low paid job and employers fight against more training. Second rules of engagement are mostly written by lawyers and insurance agents who have no clue about security. Years ago, I had a friend who worked in security, his company had a rule that you were never to put your hands on anyone else. Most of you are thinking, how would he stop a bad guy without touching, and you would be right, but he was fired not for making an apprehension but for doing CPR, because he used his hands. I don't know if this is the case o the ships, but I can see this being a reason for why more rules are not enforced rigidly.

I understand the personal choice angle of this debate, but why doesn't the Cruise Line that owns the ship get a personal choice? It seems to me that they made their choice when they wrote the rules and most of these threads fall into the category of: I read the rules that the line posted but want to know if A) I have to follow them or B) have others not followed them and had them enforced? Why is this ongoing CC debate such a hard question to answer? Why does it even need to be asked?