Royal Caribbean guests sue cruise line after sickening act by former crew member

A dozen Royal Caribbean passengers have sued the cruise line after a former crew member filmed guests in their cabins while they were naked — including children.

The new trial comes just five months after 34-year-old Arvin Joseph Mirasol, the ship’s former employee, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to producing child pornography.

He is named again in the recent 30-page lawsuit filed Thursday on behalf of all 12 plaintiffs — each a U.S. resident — in the Southern District of Florida in Miami. USA Today reports this.

“The plaintiffs in this case have suffered physical pain, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other mental and nervous disorders,” wrote Aronfeld Trial Lawyers, the firm that represented the plaintiffs.

“These injuries are permanent and persistent in nature,” it added. “We seek judgment for all damages recoverable under law, including punitive damages and a jury trial.”

The plaintiffs, identified as John, Jane or Junior Doe, had sailing dates in both December 2023 and January 2024.

They became victims of a disturbing crime while staying in cabins maintained by Mirasol when he worked on the company’s Symphony of the Seas ship before his arrest in March 2024.

The lawsuit alleged that Mirasol was responsible for uploading and/or transmitting images and videos of the victims while they undressed and engaged in private activities.

Additionally, the lawsuit alleged that he shared the sickening images on the Internet — including on the dark web — all without the guest’s knowledge or consent.

“The fact that many of the victims we represent still do not know if or how their images were used or distributed is incredibly disturbing,” Spencer Aronfeld, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said in a news release Tuesday.

“Some of the plaintiffs are children – and once an image is on the internet, it stays there forever.”

Mirasol, a Filipino citizen, additionally faces up to 15 counts of video voyeurism in Broward Circuit Court, CBS News reports this.

The 34-year-old man worked for Royal Caribbean as a cabin attendant from December 1, 2023 to February 26, 2024, where he regularly cleaned passenger rooms, replenished towels and changed sheets.

Cabin crew on the ship are assigned to a section of 16 to 20 staterooms – each room can sleep two to four passengers.

During one of the trips, a girl discovered that a small camera was pointed at the shower when she grabbed toilet paper from under the sink while on a cruise to Aruba and Curacao with her older sister and her mother, according to the Miami Herald.

The family then called guest services, who informed ship security of the incident.

Mirasol was then held until the ship docked back at Port Everglades in Florida a week later, where he was subsequently arrested on March 3, 2024. CBS News reports this.

Law enforcement officers then seized his electronics – including a USB flash drive – and found several videos of women undressing in their bathrooms.

One video clearly shows the suspect installing the camera in the bathroom, prosecutors said. “The camera is focused on the shower.”

Another video appeared to show a 10-year-old girl getting into the shower The New York Times reports this.

“The focus of the video was on the children’s genitals,” the charging documents say.

Prosecutors said there were numerous other videos of children between the ages of two and 17.

Mirasol later pleaded guilty to producing child pornography and admitted to entering passenger rooms and hiding under the bed to record people naked.

“If I like who’s in that room, I’ll post it,” he allegedly told investigators regarding his hidden cameras.

He then said that after filming he would retrieve the cameras and watch the videos while “pleasuring himself,” according to federal prosecutors.

Mirasol also acknowledged that he knew filming underage girls was illegal, and that he tried to choose women aged 16 and over.

But in a forensic analysis of his devices, Homeland Security Investigations found at least 11 children in his videos, according to the Miami Herald.

“I want to control it, but I can’t,” Mirasol claimed.

He was ultimately sentenced on August 28 to 30 years behind bars – the maximum possible sentence he could receive after pleading guilty.

In the immediate aftermath of his arrest, at least 23 people were notified by police that they had been caught in Mirasol’s photos and videos.

One of the victims filed a separate class action lawsuit in October 2024, seeking damages for passengers on board the ship who were unknowingly photographed and filmed during the February cruise.

The unidentified passenger who filed the lawsuit in October said she was suffering from severe emotional problems — including insomnia, physical pain and dizziness — when she discovered she was being photographed.

The lawsuit alleged that Royal Caribbean “knew or should have known that sexual violence was reasonably foreseeable given the prevalence of sexual violence aboard RCCL’s cruise ships,” referring to a previous hidden camera incident on another ship in the fleet, the Harmony of the Seas, in 2023.

The lawsuit also alleged that the company failed to provide adequate security, training or supervision to prevent sexual assault, and that it failed to notify passengers staying in the cabins where Mirasol stayed – noting that its victims can accommodate up to 960 passengers.

It was determined that during the time he worked on the ship (approximately twelve cruises), he had recorded a video camera with a memory card in the cabin bathrooms.

The passengers are seeking damages in the new filing – including both punitive damages and a jury trial.

There were as many as 131 sex crimes on cruise ships that embarked and disembarked guests in the U.S. that were reported to the FBI in 2023, USA Today reported.

Worryingly, that number is up from 87 alleged sexual assaults in 2022, along with 101 in 2019 before the industry shut down during the pandemic.