Carnival offers Costa Concordia survivors 30% discount on their NEXT cruise

[catlover79]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ml#socialLinks

Adding insult to injury: Survivors of Costa Concordia tragedy offered 30% discount on their NEXT cruise amid £100m lawsuit threat

By Julian Gavaghan

Last updated at 5:23 PM on 23rd January 2012


Costa Cruises called victims and asked if they were having nightmares

Firm faces having to pay hundreds of million of pounds in compensation
Class action lawsuit to be filed by 100 victims - with more expected to join

Number of missing passengers may be higher as 'some were unregistered'

Survivors of the Costa Concordia tragedy have been offered an 'insulting' 30 per cent discount on their next cruise amid claims the operator is trying to stave off an expensive lawsuit.

Victims of the Italian disaster, which has so far claimed 13 lives with at least 19 passengers still missing, have received phone calls from Costa staff offering the deal alongside refunds.

They were also understood to have been asked if they were suffering nightmares, sleepless nights and needed counselling.

It is believed that the firm is trying to reduce the damage from an impending lawsuit, which could cost it more than £100million in compensation.

So far, 100 passengers have joined a class action suit to be filed against owners Carnival Cruises in Miami, Florida. Each is said to be demanding between £100,000 and £1million.

But other victims may yet take legal action - with the offer of a discount prompting even more anger among those on board the Concordia, which capsized off the island of Griglio ten days ago.

Brian Page, 63, a retired accountant from Southampton, who survived by sliding from one side of the deck to another to find a lifeboat, told The Telegraph: 'It is a ridiculous and insulting offer.

'I'm very disappointed in them.They are not accepting their responsibilities at all. Our only back-up is separate legal action.'

A spokesman for Costa Conciere Cruises told the newspaper: 'The company is trying to do everything they can for those passengers directly affected. 'The company is not only going to refund everybody but they will offer a 30 per cent discount on future cruises if they want to stay loyal to the company.'

So far 13 bodies have been pulled from the wreckage. But there are fears that the number of passengers still missing could be higher than first thought. It has emerged that latest body to be pulled from the wreckage - a woman who is thought to be Hungarian - could be an unregistered passenger.

Italian investigators said other unregistered passengers might have been aboard the ship after drivers yesterday retrieved the corpse.

She was wearing a life jacket and found in the rear of a submerged portion of the vessel which hit rocks and capsized off the island of Griglio ten days ago.

Officials are today considering whether to start pumping some half a million gallons of fuel from the ship to avoid an environmental catastrophe.

There are fears that the Concordia's double-bottom fuel tanks could rupture in case of sudden shifting, spilling 2,200 tonnes of heavy fuel into pristine sea around Giglio.

The island is part of an archipelago in some of the Mediterranean's clearest waters and a prized fishing area.

The search had been halted for several hours yesterday, after instrument readings indicated that the Concordia had shifted on its precarious perch on a seabed just outside Giglio's port.

A few yards away, the sea bottom drops off suddenly, by some 65-100 feet, and if the Concordia should abruptly roll off its ledge, rescuers could be trapped inside.

When instrument data indicated the vessel had stabilised again, rescuers returned, but explored only the above-water section and evacuation staging areas where survivors indicated that people who did not make it into lifeboats during the chaotic evacuation could have remained.

Authorities are also trying to identify five corpses which are badly decomposed after spending a long time in the water.

Mr Gabrielli said the other eight bodies: four French, an Italian, a Hungarian, a German and a Spanish national, had been identified.

The missing include French passengers, an elderly American couple, a Peruvian crew member and an Indian crewman and an Italian father and his five-year-old daughter.

Some of their relatives toured the wreckage yesterday and also met Pierluigi Foschi chief executive of Costa Crociere, the ship's operator, who viewed the crippled cruise liner from a boat.

France's ambassador to Italy, Alain Le Roy, recounting Mr Foschi's visit, said: "He came to see the families, all families. He met the French family. He met the American family.

“I am sure he is meeting other families, mostly to express his compassion ... to say that Costa will do everything possible to find the people, to compensate families in any way.’

Passengers were dining at a gala supper when the Concordia sailed close to Giglio and struck the reef, which is indicated on maritime and even tourist maps.

The liner's Italian captain, Francesco Schettino, is under house arrest as prosecutors investigate him for suspected manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship while many were still aboard.

Costa Crociere, a subsidiary of US-based Carnival Cruise Lines, has said Schettino had deviated without permission from the vessel's route in an apparent manoeuvre to sail close to the island and impress passengers.

Schettino, despite audiotapes of his defying coastguard orders to scramble back aboard, has denied he abandoned ship while hundreds of passengers were desperately trying to get off the capsizing vessel.

The 52-year-old has said he co-ordinated the rescue from aboard a lifeboat and then from the shore.

He claims he sailed his ship too close to the coast because he was asked to do so by his bosses.

Francesco Schettino said the ‘sail by salute’ was ‘arranged and wanted’ by Costa Cruises chiefs for publicity reasons, according to details of his police questioning leaked to the Italian media.

A spokesman for Costa Conciere told Mail Online: 'Passengers on board the Costa Concordia on the night of the accident have not been offered a discount on future cruises.'

The firm was asked to explain the discrepancy between this comment and the one it gave The Telegraph that confirmed the discount, as well as passenger accounts. It has yet to respond.

[AKA]

Disgusting.

[Vahan]

When Armageddon comes, when judgment day finally comes, the angel of death is upon us, and all hell is breaking loose, the moron that is Francesco Schettino will be burning in "You-Know-Where".

[catlover79]

If this doesn't eventually put Carnival out of business, I don't know what will. This is the stupidest and most insensitive thing I've heard in a long time.

[The Flying Dutchmans]

I have had relatives take Carnival cruises and come home sick. Many passengers on the same cruise came home sick as well. The help on these ships are sub standard and so is the food they serve. My brother and cousin who took the cruise were offered a discount on their next cruise instead of money. Carnival never offers to pay money for their screwups. I have taken one cruise in my life, and that was with Disney and it was the greatest vacation I ever had bar none. I really hope this puts Carnival under once and for all.

[catlover79]

Carnival HAS to be held responsible - they've mishandled EVERYTHING about this cruise from the word go. You'll never get me onto one of their ships unless you knock me out and drag me in!!

[Janice]

I wouldn't go on a cruise if it was free and on the safest and best cruiseline going. It ties into my claustrophobia. Sleeping underwater gives me the creeps.

[Regulus]

I've been on two cruises. The first was with Royal Caribbean in 1991 and the second was with Holland America in 1998. Both were excellant, each one intercepted the path of a Total Solar Eclipse!

[catlover79]

I know some people have no problems with cruises, but my mother and I are in the same boat (no pun intended) as Janice. For the same reason, I won't fly overseas because even the thought of being thousands of feet up in the air with nothing but ocean below makes me sick. The thought of being on a huge boat with nothing but water around makes me queasy. Large bodies of water scare me.

On the other hand, my grandparents (my dad's parents) were world travelers who visited every continent and took several cruises. To each his/her own, I guess.

[Retro4Life]

^ I'm with you and Janice, Monika. I know the odds are against anything happening, overwhelmingly so, but it still sticks in my mind. I always tell people about flying that I don't want the last two minutes of my life to possibly be screaming in the dark with strangers. Pretty much the same for cruises.

[catlover79]

Yup - and watching Airport '77 and The Poseidon Adventure did nothing to quell my fears.

[OH Nuts!]

Oy, one public relations gaffe after another. Bet they'll go under in more ways than one. I'm with Monika and Janice, I HATE flying & cruise ships and will only go on a plane for something extraordinary. I like flying the way cats like bathes.

Sign me-

going Greyhound (whenever possible anyways)

[JamesG]

Originally Posted by The Flying Dutchmans

I have had relatives take Carnival cruises and come home sick. Many passengers on the same cruise came home sick as well. The help on these ships are sub standard and so is the food they serve. My brother and cousin who took the cruise were offered a discount on their next cruise instead of money. Carnival never offers to pay money for their screwups. I have taken one cruise in my life, and that was with Disney and it was the greatest vacation I ever had bar none. I really hope this puts Carnival under once and for all.

The only cruise I've been on, so far, was back in 2003 as a high school graduation gift.

It was with Carnival and the cruise was from NYC to Halifax, Nova Scotia.


The food was "average". I mostly ate stuff from the pool-side bar and not the stuff served in the main dining hall.

They had an Italian restaurant on the ship, but it was EXPENSIVE and you had to pay for it yourself. (it wasn't included in any pre-paid plan).



We didn't get much "action", which is a good thing. The only incident that happened was that one time at the dining hall we had a big wave that caused some people's dinner plates to fall off the table.

For a few seconds EVERYONE was panicking, until the Captain announced over the intercom that there was no cause for alarm. That was frightening.

[Regulus]

Originally Posted by catlover79

Yup - and watching Airport '77 and The Poseidon Adventure did nothing to quell my fears.

On the first evening of the first cruise I was on a prankster put a sign on the entrance to the ship's Movie Theatre that said "Now Showing, The Poseidon Adventure and A Night to Remember".

[Retro4Life]

Originally Posted by catlover79

Yup - and watching Airport '77 and The Poseidon Adventure did nothing to quell my fears.

LOL, yeah...isn't it funny how we all seem drawn towards the very things that scare the crap out of us?