Cruise passengers question their rights as hantavirus health scare sparks worry

As health concerns rise for those who enjoy cruising, passengers are taking a closer look at what protections they have if something goes wrong on board their ship.

Sloan said he recommends that passengers look at the bill before their cruises. 

With outbreaks drawing scrutiny, travelers worry they could be stranded in a port, lose thousands of dollars in canceled vacations or face additional costs of finding their way home.

Under the Passenger Bill of Rights, cruise passengers are promised several core protections.

One is "the right to a full refund for a trip that is canceled due to mechanical failures, or a partial refund for voyages that are terminated early due to those failures."

Passengers also have "the right to transportation to the ship's scheduled port of disembarkation or the passenger's home city in the event a cruise is terminated early due to mechanical failures."

Sloan said the protections were originally written with mechanical breakdowns in mind, not medical outbreaks.

"The passengers have rights, but when you are stuck on a ship during an outbreak, your individual rights are often outweighed by societal health and safety concerns," said Winkleman, whose maritime law firm specializes in cruise ship injury, assault and passenger rights cases. 

"Cruisers can rest assured that cruise lines will not leave them stranded in a situation like this," Sloan said.

"All the major cruise lines have committed in writing … to get people home if a cruise is terminated early due to a mechanical failure, and they traditionally have followed this principle when cruises are terminated early due to a medical crisis," he said.

"They'll also provide refunds for canceled or shortened cruises," he said. 

The specifics can vary widely, Sloan said. 

Still, some maritime attorneys and consumer advocates caution the cruise industry's Passenger Bill of Rights has limits. The policy is voluntary and focused largely on mechanical failures, not public health emergencies or large-scale quarantines, Sloan noted.

Critics say the protections are not enforced the same way federal airline passenger rules are.

In many cases, passengers' rights are governed by the fine print in cruise ticket contracts, which can limit where and when travelers are allowed to file claims, according to Elliott Advocacy, an organization that provides mediation assistance for issues between travelers and cruise lines, airlines and hotels.

"But when no one's looking, it's far less."