No Berth for Pregnant Woman

I recently came across this story about a pregnant woman denied boarding by Carnival at Port Canaveral. Unfortunately, there seemed to be a lack of communication. She claims that the information that she had, said that 27 weeks was the cutoff date. Perhaps she picked up an outdated brochure.

Nonetheless, I have been surprised by many of the comments written on the USA Today site that mentioned the incident. While I agree that the cruise line or any other business for that matter can set their own rules, I don’t believe that this woman was stupid for cruising, as many comments suggest. It’s true that there can be complications of pregnancy, but this person had a note from her doctor saying that she was fit to cruise, even though she was beyond the 24 weeks of pregnancy that Carnival allows. Obviously, many people think that pregnancy is a dangerous condition.
Do they not realize that potentially dangerous events, like miscarriage, most often occur early in pregnancy?

It would be interesting to know how many pregnancy-related emergencies have occurred onboard. Again, I totally agree that a cruise can set any rules that they choose and this particular one likely relates to both the fact that the cruise ship can not accommodate such emergencies and therefore lessens their liability. But, it seems strange that pregnancy is the only condition with such restrictions. Are passengers tested for TB? SARS? And what about prior conditions like heart disease, COPD or Stage IV cancer?

If you read the fine print as you should, you will notice that most cruise lines reserve the right to deny boarding to passengers if they seem unfit to travel. How often does this happen? How could they make this judgment simply from a observing a passenger at check-in?

Sail Away.