Bringing a drone on a Cruise Ship

[TJBC75]

Hi all,

Just got back for a Princess Cruise/Land Tour to Alaska. Was on the fence about bringing my drone, but ended up not bringing it as Princess has a No Drone Policy. Many great drone video and photo opportunities in Alaska (watch out for seaplanes!) , but unfortunately, Princess, as well as several other major lines, do not allow drones to even be brought on board. When I was on the ship (Golden Princess) I did talk to one of the ship’s senior security officers about drones. He was pretty knowledgeable about the subject and we had a good conversation. End result, his take was that all the major lines will eventually be banning drones from even coming on board a ship like Princess does. He cited three incidents on Princess that led to the bans (there were probably more):

• Some knucklehead decided to fly his drone in the atrium of a Princess ship during a balloon drop celebration. Naturally, a balloon hit the drone and caused it to crash into a passenger.
• A passenger managed to sneak a drone onto and off the ship in Italy during a cruise. That passenger flew the drone in an Italian NFZ and got caught. The passenger AND Princess were both fined-Princess for allowing the import of a drone into the country without the proper payments and paperwork. The fine was “hefty” in the words of the security officer.
• A passenger tried to fly a drone from his balcony. He successfully launched, but was not so lucky bringing it back as it crashed into the railing and landed a couple of balconies below with people standing on them. No one was hurt, but complaints were made.
• He also said that more countries have very restrictive laws regarding drones and when passengers who have had drones use them without knowing the laws in a particular country, the passenger has blamed the Cruise line for not informing them of the laws and the government has chastised the Cruise line for allowing drones to be on the ship (similar to the Italian story above). A double whammy for the Cruise line.

Unfortunate, but the Cruise industry seems to be taking a very hard line approach to bringing a drone on board resulting from people doing stupid things with drones. Maybe it will change someday, but for the foreseeable future, probably best to leave your drone at home if you are going on a cruise.

 

[jtphotography]

Carnival will allow you to bring it onboard but you have to sign a waiver stating you won’t use it on the ship. This makes sense, as many port locations are drone friendly.