Rick Morales
Theft Points To Crew Crime Ring Aboard
RCCL Majesty of the Seas - August 20, 2010
Clearly somebody in guest services was not thinking when they allegedly told Rick Morales that it was impossible for his cabin steward to have stolen items from the safe inside the Morales' cabin, because only a carpenter could have changed the lock code on the safe. In the flash of an eye, the guest services employee told the Morales family in effect that Majesty Of The Sea had a crew crime ring aboard their ship, that consisted of at least two employees, a carpenter and a cabin steward.
Soon after disembarking Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's Majesty Of The Seas, Rick Morales, 34, from Florida told us that he had been robbed aboard Majesty Of The Seas, and to him (and us) it seems clear it was an inside job.
The Morales family placed their valuables inside the locked safe within their cabin, then went about enjoying their holiday. When they returned to the cabin, some money was missing, a $20 bill here and another couple $20s there and the combination to the safe had been changed.
Morales says it wasn't just their cabin that was robbed, but at least one other cabin, the one next door was robbed as well.
Guest services allegedly told the Morales the only person to enter their cabin while they were away, according to card key data was their cabin steward. The cabin steward, guest services said, could not change the code on the safe, only one of their three carpenters aboard could do that, and none of those three had entered the Morales' cabin.
Morales tells us,
"Departing the Port of Miami and upon arriving from our first dinner on the ship we noticed that our previously locked safe was open and the passcode had been reset. Upon further investigation we realized that 40$ had been taken from my wife's wallet and 20$ from mine.
We went to customer service to report the incident and filled out a report as security was sent to our room to do a search for our missing money. Said to be standard procedure. Follow ups were promised but not delivered.
Upon returning from the customer service desk later that night to our room, we noticed our neighbors having the same problem. Each of them we're also missing 20$ from each of their wallets. It appears the thief would take 20$ for every hundred in cash. Little enough so that one may doubt himself as to whether or not a theft even took place. Luckily, we had previously counted our money and were 100% positive of the theft. Not to mention, the news of the neighbors being robbed also served to confirm our notion of reality.
One can only speculate how many people did not notice they were robbed on the ship, but common sense dictates that it is very likely we were not the only ones.
After repeatedly having to follow up with the crew, the third day of our trip; we finally got an answer.
Paraphrased: "This is a very rare occasion on our ship. As far as the safe being opened, it is simply impossible. (So we are liars!) Only the 3 carpenters on the ship have access to the safes and none came into your room. We have managed to read the key card reader on your room and it appears that the only person with access to your room is the stateroom attendant who has an exemplary record with our company and have no reason to doubt him. We asked him about the situation and he has denied all wrong doing.(At this point its our word against his even though he was the only other person to access our room) (6 RCCL guests against one stateroom attendant!)
We were told they could not do anything else, could not comment any further on the internal investigation, and that to compensate us in any way for our inconvenience and theft would be an admission of guilt and they were not prepared to admit any wrong doing. We we're sent on our way without even as much an I'm sorry.
Needless to say, we have a 10 person planned 7 day Cruise(10,000$) with RCCL in December which we are promptly canceling. We feel it is our duty to report this incident so that other people will not have to experience the same situation. DO NOT TRUST SAFES in Staterooms as well as STATEROOM ATTENDANTS. Do not travel with valuables unless you plan to keep them with you at all times, including cash.
Thanks Cruise Bruise,
R. Morales"
The deciding factor on whether an employee is trustworthy has nothing to do with the length of his or her employment record with the cruise line, Back in 2006 Elisha Cuffe worked for Princess Cruises as a purser for over ten years before she stole over $400,000 from their safe.
Based on the information Rick Morales says he was given when he complained, it would seem that Majesty Of The Seas has a crime ring aboard. Now we will wait to see if the Morales crime report makes it into the FBI cruise ship crime data base, or if this gets swept under the carpet as a non-event.
Mr. Morales says that a report was filed, but guest services told them that the incident would be handled "internally", which may be doublespeak for not reporting an incident to the FBI. That would make this case, the third such case we have uncovered in the past two days where the FBI data base shows under-reporting.
