Claims for compensation have been submitted on behalf of more than 100 people who were taken ill during holidays on the P&O Ventura cruise ship.
Hudgell Solicitors are urging Carnival Corporation & plc, the owners of P&O Cruises, to take a ‘sensible and collaborative approach’ to resolving the claims given there were ‘repeated outbreaks onboard over consecutive months’.
We are acting on behalf of 115 holidaymakers who travelled on the Ventura cruise ship and were taken ill on numerous separate cruise holidays, mainly between April and June this year.
It has been widely reported that there were large numbers of illnesses on board throughout those months, in particular on sailing from Southampton on May 11, where 519 people were confirmed to have been taken ill.
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Claims seek damages for illness, loss of enjoyment and losses
Anne Thomson, of Hudgell Solicitors, says claims have been submitted to Carnival Corporation & plc seeking compensation for illness, pain and loss of amenity, for the diminished value of holidays, loss of enjoyment, and any other losses suffered, such as time required off work when still ill after returning home.
Carnival Corporation & plc will now have six weeks to acknowledge the claims being made against it, and then a further six months to investigate matters and respond. She said:
However, Mrs Thomson says she hopes the travel giant has already considered how to ‘appropriately resolve the claims’ given the ‘undeniable fact that illness was rife on board, ruining hundreds of holidays’.
This legal action should come as no surprise to Carnival as the problems with illness outbreaks on the Ventura over the past year have been well documented, and extensively covered in the media. They are undeniable.
Illness was rife on board during many cruises, ruining hundreds of holidays.
Let’s not forget, it’s not just the time people are confined to the cabin and are too ill to leave, but also the impact it has on the rest of their holiday, as it takes some time to recover from feeling so unwell to again fully enjoy the facilities, restaurants, and locations and days out.
Of course, we understand and accept that illness outbreaks can happen on individual cruise sailings, but here we had a situation where it happened on consecutive sailings over a number of months.
We even had the situation where holidaymakers were being contacted the night before their holidays to warn them that there had been illness outbreaks on the previous cruise, only for the same thing to happen again, with hundreds taken ill and confined to their cabins.
Given there were repeated outbreaks onboard over consecutive months, we hope Carnival come back to us pretty quickly and take a sensible and collaborative approach to resolving these claims in a way which reflects the fact that so many people had their holidays ruined by illness.
To not offer appropriate compensation in a timely and efficient manner would not, in our view, be a good look for the business in terms of its customer care.
Each case is to be individually assessed
Mrs Thomson stressed that although Carnival Corporation plc has been presented with a ‘group claim’ of more than 100 holidaymakers, each case will also be individually assessed, based on medical records and independent expert assessments. She said:
We are already working to gather evidence to best support our clients’ claims by requesting GP records which should be able to help us demonstrate that people went onto this ship with no history of gastrointestinal illness before their holiday.
It is only right that people are fully compensated and we hope that Carnival Corporation & plc recognise this and come to the table quickly to offer sensible resolutions.
