Miami Cruise Ship Injury Lawyer

• ✓Your deadline comes from your ticket contract, not Florida law. General maritime law would give three years under 46 U.S.C. § 30106, but that section opens with “Except as otherwise provided by law” — and 46 U.S.C. § 30526(b) is what lets a cruise line contract you down to as little as six months for notice and one year for suit. Carnival’s contract sets notice at 185 days; Royal Caribbean’s sets it at six months. Both require the lawsuit served within 120 days of filing. Florida’s general two-year negligence deadline, Fla. Stat. § 95.11(5), is not the operative clock here — Carnival’s contract says the guest “expressly waives all other potentially applicable state or federal limitations periods.”
• ✓Written notice has to go to a specific place, in writing, with details. This is a contractual condition, not a phone call to guest services. Royal Caribbean’s guest terms require written notice “with full particulars” delivered to Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., 1050 Caribbean Way, Miami, FL 33132, or by email to guestclaims@rccl.com. Carnival requires “full particulars in writing” given to Carnival. Telling a crew member on board, or filing an incident report, is not the same thing as giving contractual notice.
• ✓A waiver you signed cannot release the cruise line’s own negligence. 46 U.S.C. § 30527(a) bars a carrier sailing to or from a U.S. port from including in a contract any provision limiting its liability “for personal injury or death caused by the negligence or fault of the owner or the owner’s employees or agents,” or limiting the claimant’s right to a trial by a court of competent jurisdiction — and provides that such a provision “is void.” The statute treats claims for emotional distress differently, so the analysis depends on what you are claiming; that is a conversation worth having before you assume a signature ended your case.
• ✓Maritime law sets the duty of care — not Florida premises law. Kermarec v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, 358 U.S. 625 (1959), holds a shipowner owes passengers “reasonable care under the circumstances of each case.” In the Eleventh Circuit, Keefe v. Bahama Cruise Line, Inc., 867 F.2d 1318 (11th Cir. 1989), applies that standard and adds the notice requirement described below. Florida’s transitory-substance statute for stores and businesses does not govern a ship.
• ✓Notice is usually required — except when a crew member is directly at fault. For claims about a condition of the ship, the cruise line must have had actual or constructive notice of the hazard, per Keefe and Holland v. Carnival Corp., 50 F.4th 1088 (11th Cir. 2022), where constructive notice exists if the hazard “ha[d] been present for a period of time so lengthy as to invite corrective measures.” But in Yusko v. NCL (Bahamas), Ltd., 4 F.4th 1164 (11th Cir. 2021), the Eleventh Circuit held the notice requirement “does not—and was never meant to—apply to maritime negligence claims proceeding under a theory of vicarious liability” — meaning a crew member’s own negligence, a ship doctor’s medical error under Franza v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., 772 F.3d 1225 (11th Cir. 2014), or a crew member’s assault of a passenger under Doe v. Celebrity Cruises, Inc., 394 F.3d 891 (11th Cir. 2004).
• ✓Your lawsuit almost certainly goes to Miami federal court — with one exception. Carnival’s contract, cl. 14(c), requires suit “before the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Miami,” or, where that court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction, a court in Miami-Dade County. Royal Caribbean’s § 10.b.i designates the same court. Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. v. Shute, 499 U.S. 585 (1991), enforced that kind of clause while noting it remains “subject to judicial scrutiny for fundamental fairness.” Royal Caribbean’s terms carve out an exception at § 10.a.i: cruises that never touch a U.S. port go to the courts of England and Wales instead.
• ✓The arbitration clause in your ticket does not apply to an injury claim. Both contracts contain broad arbitration and class-action-waiver provisions, and both expressly carve injury out of them. Royal Caribbean’s § 10.c.ii lists among claims that “cannot be arbitrated”: “claims arising from personal injury, illness or death.” Carnival’s arbitration clause applies to disputes “other than for personal injury, illness or death of a Guest.” Your injury claim goes to court. Whether you get a jury is a separate question — Carnival’s cl. 14(c) provides that if the case proceeds in federal court under admiralty jurisdiction with no diversity jurisdiction, a jury may not be available.
• ✓A death at sea follows an entirely different statute, with a stricter damages rule. A death caused by wrongful act, neglect, or default more than three nautical miles from U.S. shore generally falls under the Death on the High Seas Act, 46 U.S.C. § 30302, whose damages section limits recovery to “fair compensation for the pecuniary loss sustained” (§ 30303). The Supreme Court held in Mobil Oil Corp. v. Higginbotham, 436 U.S. 618 (1978), that survivors therefore cannot add loss-of-society damages under general maritime law. A death within three nautical miles or in state waters is generally not a DOHSA case at all; Florida’s Wrongful Death Act, with its broader damages menu, may apply instead. Where the death occurred is the pivotal fact — and pages that put that line at 12 nautical miles are describing a different rule, the commercial-aviation carve-out at § 30307.

• •Pool decks & wet interior surfaces. Standing water and slick flooring — the classic slip-and-fall notice case under Keefe.
• •Metal thresholds & exterior decks. Raised watertight sills and weather-exposed teak, the setting for Keefe and Everett v. Carnival Cruise Lines, 912 F.2d 1355 (11th Cir. 1990).
• •Waterslides, wave riders & onboard attractions. Rock walls, surf simulators and slides — where the cruise line typically asks you to sign a waiver, and where 46 U.S.C. § 30527 limits what that waiver can actually do.
• •Buffets, bars & lounges. Spills on hard flooring, and where overserving of alcohol can turn into a passenger-on-passenger assault claim under K.T. v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., 931 F.3d 1041 (11th Cir. 2019).
• •Stairwells & handrails. Worn treads and inconsistent risers on a surface that is also moving.
• •The ship’s medical center. Where a delayed diagnosis or a treatment error can become a vicarious-liability medical-negligence claim under Franza.
• •Shore excursion sites. Off the ship entirely — zip lines, beaches, dive boats and tours the cruise line arranged or endorsed.
• •Cruise line private islands. The line’s own beach destinations, with their own walkways, trams, water parks and limited medical response — still beyond the point of debarkation, and squarely within the duty-to-warn framework of Chaparro v. Carnival Corp., 693 F.3d 1333 (11th Cir. 2012).
• •Open decks, rails & balconies. Where federal law requires ship rails at least 42 inches above the cabin deck — 46 U.S.C. § 3507.
• •Gangways & tender boats. The transfer points between ship and shore, often uneven, wet, and crowded.
• •Engine rooms, galleys & machinery spaces. Fires, mechanical failures and loss of power — incidents that can injure passengers and crew alike, and that generate their own regulatory paper trail.
• •Passenger cabins & crew work areas. Where a crime, a crew member’s negligence, or a workplace injury to a crew member can occur.

1. Running out the clock. The single most effective defense, and it requires no effort at all. Passengers who assume they have two years, as in an ordinary Florida case, simply lose the right to bring the claim.
2. “We had no notice of the condition.” The Keefe defense for slip-and-fall and premises-type claims — beatable, but only with the ship’s own records, and inapplicable to a Yusko vicarious-liability claim.
3. “You signed a waiver.” Produced for onboard activities and excursions. But 46 U.S.C. § 30527(a) makes void a contract provision limiting a carrier’s liability for personal injury caused by its own negligence on a voyage to or from a U.S. port. The document is not the last word.
4. The early recorded statement and the fast settlement. A call from a claims adjuster, or a future-cruise credit offered within weeks — before you have seen a doctor, read your ticket contract, or found out whether you need surgery.
5. Letting evidence age out. Video is required to be retained for only 20 days under 46 U.S.C. § 3507 unless an incident is reported and the FBI determines it relevant; cleaning logs, inspection rounds, and prior incident reports all have their own short retention windows.
6. Contesting the forum. Arguing your claim belongs somewhere other than the court your ticket contract designates, or, for a foreign-flagged non-U.S. cruise, invoking a foreign forum clause such as Royal Caribbean’s England-and-Wales provision.
7. Treating crew and passengers as the same case. They are not. A crew member’s Jones Act claim runs on a three-year clock under 46 U.S.C. § 30106, entirely different from a passenger’s contract deadline — and cruise lines know which rules favor them in which case.

The counter is speed: written notice inside the contract deadline and delivered where the contract says to deliver it, a preservation demand for video and logs before they cycle, and medical documentation that starts as soon as you are ashore.

• ✓We calendar the deadline first. We identify your carrier’s ticket contract and calendar the notice date, the suit date, and the 120-day service deadline before anything else — because under 46 U.S.C. § 30526(b), that window can be as short as six months, and Carnival’s contract sets it at 185 days.
• ✓We send notice the way the contract requires it. In writing, with full particulars, to the address or claims email the contract designates — for Royal Caribbean, 1050 Caribbean Way in Miami or guestclaims@rccl.com. Notice given the wrong way is a defense the cruise line does not have to work for.
• ✓We identify the correct legal theory. A notice case under Keefe, a vicarious-liability case under Yusko or Franza, a DOHSA case or a Florida Wrongful Death Act case, a Jones Act case — each has its own proof requirements and its own clock, and getting the theory right early shapes everything that follows.
• ✓We send a preservation demand immediately. Surveillance video, cleaning logs, deck inspection rounds, muster and maintenance records, and prior incident reports exist — and some of it, like security video under 46 U.S.C. § 3507, is only guaranteed to be retained for 20 days unless formally preserved.
• ✓We investigate notice and prior incidents. Where the claim requires it, we look for prior incidents at the same location on the same vessel, consistent with the constructive-notice standard the Eleventh Circuit described in Holland v. Carnival Corp., 50 F.4th 1088 (11th Cir. 2022) — whether this has happened before is often the whole case.
• ✓We prepare for the forum the contract designates. For most Carnival and Royal Caribbean passengers, that is the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Miami. Federal maritime litigation has its own rhythm, and a file built for it from day one is worth more than one assembled at the end.

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome; every case depends on its own facts, injuries, and available insurance coverage. Results shown are prior matters handled by the firm and are not a prediction about your case.