Man overboard!!

[Dave the Wave]

Originally Posted by Paul Motter

Dave -- I know you are predisposed to "jests" and that is fine.

The only thing I ask is that you not link to those sites that are generally in the business of doing nothing but bashing the cruise industry. The less publicity for them the better.

Thank you.

Also - I played in bands for years, and certainly most musicians are not druggies/drinkers, but if you ever watch "where are they now" on VH1 there is hardly a single story of professional rock bands that does not involve rehab or an overdose. But those are ROCK bands - professional ones.

This young man was not a rock & roll band member - he was a professional singer (I believe I read he was the lead in the stage show) . That is vastly different. These people are usually pretty straight & narrow, not wild like Keith Richards.

Got you Paul. That site I know likes the dirt but had good comprensive list of OB's and how they happened and if they were rescued or not. I will refrain. Good article you wrote.

Keith Richards at least never OB'd. I saw the Stones (World's Greatest Rock n Roll band) recently in Tampa and for some senior citizens, they still know how to rock!

[nurseypoo5]

Originally Posted by katlady

It's surprising that no children have "fallen off" cruise ships. The people that fall off cruise ships are normally in there 20s and 30s. That's odd it must be something in the cruise ship design, we should enact Federal Legislation to fix it.

I'll admit this is my biggest fear. I let my 12 yr old pretty much have free riegn. carnival allows them to sign in and out of camp and he goes where he wants to go. Our first cruise i panicked at the thought of him doing something stupid....i still kinda do. but your right, i even googled "child falls from cruise ship" just to see if there has EVER been a report of one and nothing came up..not a thing ziltch.

i feel better.

[spacewoman]

In July 2004 we were on board the Legend and I swore one of three 5 years olds was going to OB off the stairs at the back of the ship on the lido deck. As most posters here know that area is supposed to be an adults only area except the adults (and I use that term lightly) aka the mothers of these 3 children were preoccupied with flirting with male passengers and getting free drinks at the bar. These kids were running up and down the stairs pushing each other. I swore that one wrong push was going to put one of those kids overboard. It wasn't until they starting knocking dishes off the ice cream station and people hearing the crash that one of the security guards came running. You guessed it - mothers still oblivious as to what was going on. My husband pointed to the bar for the security guard. She explained no kids back there and they had to move on. Maybe it's just my depth perception or fear of heights but it seems to me that those sets of stairs don't have high enough walls for safety. But it has to be me, no one has gone OB from that location.

Just adding my 2 cents. Made me hope that these two dingbats didn't have balcony rooms. Can you imagine these kids climbing on chairs at the railing?

[Nothin but blue skies]

I have been watching this thread and the news postings about the young man who went overboard from the Sensation pretty closely. We were on the Sensation in September and since we cruise the same ships frequently, we were wondering who the "Carnival Singer Dancer" was and if we would recognize him. We have frequently seen dancers from one ship on other ships a year or two later and recognized them. So today, I finally noticed his name and googled him (Antonio Matabans) and found a photo of him at the following link:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...,2262865.photo
My DH and I recognized him immediately and both believe he was the lead singer in the production shows. We had commented that he was probably the best male lead singer we had seen on any of our cruises.

The more we have thought about this tragedy, I remembered an incident on our 2nd cruise several years ago on the Fantasy. It was about 2:00 am on our last night at sea. My DH and I two sisters and and brother-in-law don't drink much and we had only had 1 or 2 drinks during the show earlier that evening. We found ourselves on aft deck of the ship drinking coffee, not wanting our last night to be over.

My B-in-law leaned against the rail, slightly, and there was some sort of gate section that began to give way under his weight. Of course, it scared all of us. We had almost forgotten about it, but now it seems probable to us that this would have been where the young man may have gone overboard. Such a tragedy.