Cruise Buzz

Princess Cruises (shame on you rogue employees)

Illegal bilge-water dumping lands Princess Cruises’ in a lot of hot water.

Social media was abuzz yesterday in response to the announcements that Carnival’s Princess Cruises will pay a $40 million fine for dumping oily waste into the ocean – the largest penalty of its kind in history.

In fact, even a YouTube statement was posted from Jan Swartz — president of Princess Cruises about the experiences that include the 18-ship cruise line taking  full responsibility for the events.

Not an isolated incident

“We are extremely disappointed about the inexcusable actions of our employees who violated our policies and environmental law when they bypassed our bilge water treatment system and discharged untreated bilge water into the ocean.” From Princess Cruises via YouTube channel.

Unfortunately, an internal investigation revealed that similar practices were occurring on other ships. “Although we had policies and procedures in place,” a written statement elaborated, “it became apparent they were not fully effective.” Worse, while the situation was brought to the company’s attention in 2013, the investigation revealed that violations had been occurring as far back as 2005.

Cruise Buzz

Related stories from social media and the web.

• CBS News – Carnival’s Princess Cruises to pay record fine for pollution, cover-up
• NBCNews.com –Princess Cruises to Pay $40M Fine for ‘Magic Pipe’ Sea Waste
• Washington Post –Princess Cruises to pay record-breaking criminal fine for ocean …
• NPR –Princess Cruises Hit With Largest-Ever Criminal Penalty For …
• In-Depth–USA TODAY –Princess Cruises to plead guilty to polluting ocean

By the numbers – social media snapshot and shares 

The most shares on social media about the incidents happened on the Facebook pages of the major mainstream news providers. I checked the Princess Cruises Facebook page and it looks like they are not using that channel to engage about the topic.

What I did see when reading through comments posted on Facebook is a lot of negative sentiment about cruising in general and how big corporations should be help accountable. I was looking for comments from cruise experts about their experience with Princess Cruises and did not have much luck finding people who were willing to stand by the brand. So, I did.

This is the comment that I posted on the Princess Cruises YouTube page and at USA TODAY post on Facebook, “I am not defending the incidents but would like to share that in my experience with the brand, I have never seen or heard of anything like this. In fact, I was impressed with the overall commitment to the environment and the stewardship I observed while cruising in Alaska.”