Never set foot on a cruise ship

Cruise ships don't sail under the jurisdiction of the nation you think the cruise line belongs to. It's whatever flag of convenience the ship is registered under. That Disney cruise ship? Probably registered in the Bahamas. As this week's HDNet Special Report noted, a guy's daughter disappeared and the cruise line told the parents must have been a gigantic wave that washed her overboard from a deck far above the water's surface--a wave no one else noticed. 

So a single Bahamanian cop spent a couple of hours onboard interviewing staff...and left. All potential evidence had been scrubbed. Nobody in the crew knew nothin'. Many crewmembers are uneducated poor people from third world countries. 

Cruise ship lines stonewall any attempts to investigate crimes committed on board, and generally deny that there was a crime in the first place. American agencies like the FBI don't have jurisdiction. 

I would never go on a cruise ship unless it were registered under the American flag. But look at the flags flying from their sterns--you won't see the Stars & Stripes on any of them. 

Odds are nothing will happen to you. But odds also are that if something does happen to you or anyone you care about, whoever did it will get away with it. 

And nothing is going to change until people stop going on the no man's lands that are cruise ships.