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Carnival Crew Member Luggage Handling Injuries

November 22, 2013 Cruise Ship Crew Member Injury Law

Cruise Luggage Injury.jpgCarnival crew members, particularly assistant cabin stewards, have tremendously hard jobs. On embarkation days, their work duties include turning over mattresses, changing linens, hauling garbage and handling heavy luggage for several hundred passengers within a few short hours. Such an excessive work load has resulted in several back and shoulder injuries.

On embarkation days these crew members are required to frequently lift suitcases onto and from a trolley then into a luggage cage. The same procedure, but in reverse, is repeated for luggage of embarking passengers. A cruise ship like the CARNIVAL VICTORY carries 2,758 passengers. This behemoth hotel on the sea typically arrives in the turn-around port early in the day. Disembarking passengers are generally off the ship by 11:00 AM. Embarking passengers are generally all on board by 2:00 PM, latest 4:00 PM. The evening prior to arriving in port passengers are instructed to place all luggage, except carry-ons outside their cabins. In actual fact, Carnival does not enforce any real restrictions with respect to the number, size or weight of luggage being brought on board the vessel by passengers. It is also a known fact that some pieces of luggage could weigh as much as 100 lbs. Even assuming each bag did not exceed 50 lbs., the weight carried by assistant cabin stewards during the hours leading up to the vessel’s arrival in port between passengers disembarking and embarking on the ship is staggering. For our purposes let’s assume the 2,758 each bring along 2 weighing 50 pounds. This equals 275,800 pounds of luggage for just the disembarking passengers. Multiply this figure by the passengers coming onto the ship it equals 551,600 pounds these crew members must carry in a day!

This figure, however, does not account for the number of times each piece of luggage is actually lifted by the assistant cabin stewards. Each bag is minimally lifted once to be placed onto a smaller rolling luggage trolley, a second time to be placed into a larger luggage cage maneuvered by forklifts, a third time when luggage coming on board the vessel is removed from the luggage cages and placed on the smaller luggage trolleys, and a fourth time when the luggage is removed from the smaller luggage trolleys into a passenger’s cabin. Therefore, assistant cabin stewards aboard the CARNIVAL VICTORY lift over several short hours 2,206,400 pounds of luggage on a typical disembarkation/ embarkation day in port.

While unloading and loading suitcases weighing anywhere from 40 to 110 lbs. many cabin stewards suffer back and shoulder injuries. Our cruise injury lawyers represent multiple assistant cabin stewards who were injured from the overly strenuous lifting activities associated with embarkation day. If you suffered an injury lifting luggage for Carnival, we would like to talk to you about your experience.