Disney Wonder cruise ship worker dies at sea

There is also the possibility that either in Curacao or Barbados, when the Wonder was there, that he might have been taking off the ship and arrangements made to fly his body home to the Philippines to return it to his family.
 
Kind of a morbid topic but with this news story it made me think about this subject. Many people on here have been cruising many more years than me and on various other cruise lines so they may have even been on a cruise when someone has passed? Do they keep the body on board till the cruise is over or do they helo it out right away? Also, if they do keep the body onboard, do they put it in the same freezer they keep our food? Do they have to turn around and go back to port? I can't imagine there's just a ton of empty freezers with the limited space on cruise ships. I apologize in advance if this is an unsettling question to ask the hive but with millions of people cruising, I would not be surprised if this kind of scenario did not happen again, so just wondering what happens when there are passengers on board and not just crew.

We were on a Royal Caribbean ship that sadly had an accidental death while at Labadee (Royal’s private area in Haiti). A teen who was locked out of his room tried unsuccessfully to climb across balconies and fell. I understand from news reports that the ship brought the body back to Fort Lauderdale, where it was taken to the county medical examiner. The cruise schedule was not affected. If I hadn’t been paying attention at the time (I was on the ship and heard the emergency call), I might not even have known something happened.

On a different cruise, on Princess, the morgue was one of the stops on the behind-the-scenes tour. They were keeping flowers in it at the time.
 
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Let’s hope the family of this worker doesn’t read these forums. I feel so very sorry for them.
 
Kind of a morbid topic but with this news story it made me think about this subject. Many people on here have been cruising many more years than me and on various other cruise lines so they may have even been on a cruise when someone has passed? Do they keep the body on board till the cruise is over or do they helo it out right away? Also, if they do keep the body onboard, do they put it in the same freezer they keep our food? Do they have to turn around and go back to port? I can't imagine there's just a ton of empty freezers with the limited space on cruise ships. I apologize in advance if this is an unsettling question to ask the hive but with millions of people cruising, I would not be surprised if this kind of scenario did not happen again, so just wondering what happens when there are passengers on board and not just crew.

Oceangoing cruise ships are required to have body bags and a morgue on board. The morgue is NOT a food storage area. It is usually a small closet-like space that can hold 3-6 bodies. The ship will also have a contingency plan to convert other space to morgue facilities should some kind of disaster hit where they required more capacity [and a following plan for then properly dealing with those facilities before they would be allowed to resume their normal use e.g. sanitization etc].
 


Kind of a morbid topic but with this news story it made me think about this subject. Many people on here have been cruising many more years than me and on various other cruise lines so they may have even been on a cruise when someone has passed? Do they keep the body on board till the cruise is over or do they helo it out right away? Also, if they do keep the body onboard, do they put it in the same freezer they keep our food? Do they have to turn around and go back to port? I can't imagine there's just a ton of empty freezers with the limited space on cruise ships. I apologize in advance if this is an unsettling question to ask the hive but with millions of people cruising, I would not be surprised if this kind of scenario did not happen again, so just wondering what happens when there are passengers on board and not just crew.


Depends. Was on a RCCL out of Bayonne, NJ and had a passenger collapse and pass away about two hours out of port. Party disembarked once we reached Bermuda.
 

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