In all the cruises we have taken, we have not read the ticket contract you pay little attention to until you're ready to board the ship. Not once. Nada. Sign here, initial there and let us take your picture and an imprint of your credit card. Contract? Incidental.
Why are we so delinquent?
Probably because in reading all that legalese, which would delay our getting on the ship, we would be afraid of finding something that could make us feel we shouldn't be getting on the ship. You know, the fine print…whereas and whereby and in case 
of and etcetera (yes, etcetera is probably there but we can't say for sure because we've never read it).
Everybody knows the contract is loaded in favor of the cruise line.
Maybe it's time things changed.
The investigation that CNN aired this week about the fire on the Carnival Triumph, whose passengers endured the famous "poop cruise" for five days before being towed into Mobile, included a few choice fine-print selections. Things like the cruise line does not guarantee your cruise will be on a "seaworthy vessel" or that you will be served "adequate and wholesome food" or that you will be housed in "sanitary and safe living conditions."
It's all about liability, of course.
Most of this is a mystery to the cruise passenger, unless something happens. Most of it is unnecessary, probably 95 per cent of the time. Most of it, maybe all of it, is never mentioned when the passenger is being sold on cruising.
However, maybe the time has come for cruise lines to be forced to identify these odious possibilities as a disclaimer. If tobacco companies have to print "this could cause cancer" on their cigarette packages, and drug companies have to list a pocketbook full of conditions their product could lead to, then why not cruise companies?
Then will we read the fine print? Not likely.
Carnival Victory
5 nights
January 6, 2014
Miami (return): Grand Turk, Half Moon Cay, Nassau
Inside: $249
Cost per day: $49
www.carnival.com