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A New Jersey mother is seeking reimbursement for a family cruise after her autistic son was kicked off the ship in Mexico on Christmas Eve.
Carolyn Piro, a post-traumatic stress disorder therapist, told The Independent that her son, 31-year-old Sean Curran, was forced to disembark the Celebrity Cruises ship in Cozumel, Mexico, following an incident she said was mishandled by staff.
The company, which is owned by Royal Caribbean, advertises that it has achieved “Autism Friendly Cruise Line status.” And while Piro says she has accepted a “really sincere” apology from the company, she’s still waiting to hear back about her reimbursement request for more than $20,000.
“They said, you know, your family should not have been treated that way,” Piro said.
Piro, Curran and several family members boarded the five-star, seven-day cruise shortly before Christmas to celebrate her 60th birthday.
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Carolyn Piro’s son, Sean Curran, plays with a dolphin on vacation. The 31-year-old autistic man was kicked off the ship on Christmas Eve, Piro said (Carolyn Piro)
The incident occurred on the fourth day when Curran was on his way to the swimming pool. He met a teenage girl, who followed him to the bar and asked him to order her a Long Island iced tea, which he didn’t know contained alcohol, Piro said.
“If you ask Sean what a Long Island iced tea is, he’ll tell you it’s an iced tea from Long Island,” she said.
At one point, Curran and the girl went to the hot tub, according to Piro. There, he lifted up the girl, the same way he’d seen the character Shrek lift up Princess Fiona in the animated film.
“When [Sean] says, ‘like Shrek picks up Fiona,’ he’s talking about how a groom would pick up a bride,” Piro explained. “He was horse-playing. He did not make any sexual contact with her.”
“Sean didn’t do anything wrong. He really didn’t,” she added.
But when the girl’s parents arrived, Piro said security was called, and staff members questioned Curran without his mother present. Curran repeatedly explained he has autism and apologized, Piro said.
Piro said a staff member informed her they had her son, and asked if he is “high-functioning.”
“I said, ‘Well, that’s a relative term, right?’ Can he make a pizza in the oven? Yes. Does he know how to make change? No. So, can he order a Sprite? Yes. Does he know that a Long Island iced tea has alcohol? No,” Piro explained.
“Then, they went back and talked with him, and they still didn’t bring me into the room. Then they came in and they told me, ‘Your son got a girl drunk. She’s underage. He picked her up in the hot tub.’ And I became very upset. I started crying, and Sean kept asking me, ‘What’s wrong?’ He still didn’t understand that he did something wrong. He didn’t get it,” she added.
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Sean Curran was kicked off a Celebrity Cruises ship in Cozumel, Mexico, his mother said (Getty Images)
At one point, Curran was asked to write a report about the incident, and was instructed to refer to himself as the “suspect” and the girl as the “victim,” Piro claimed. She said Curran concluded the report by writing: “I have autism, and I was just trying to be nice.”
“His handwriting is that of a kindergartner. It’s very huge letters. When security saw his handwriting, they asked me to write the report for him. And I said, ‘I can’t do that. I wasn’t there,’” Piro said.
Piro said she told the staff, “I want you see what you’re doing here, who you’re attacking.”
After they took Curran’s report, Piro said she and her son were given 90 minutes to pack their things and leave the ship. Then, they were left in Cozumel, an island resort, on Christmas Eve.
“I did not get a moment alone with Sean until we were on a dark, deserted dock in Mexico. They just dumped us. I had no cell phone service. It was pitch black and everything was closed. It was Christmas Eve,” she explained.
“Fortunately, a paramedic flagged a taxi for us, who knew enough English. The taxi driver hot-spotted his cell phone for me so I could look up the address of the hotel,” she added.
Piro said she later learned the cruise line has a disability advocate on board, but that the staff member was never called in during the incident.
She has requested a reimbursement of more than $20,000 from the cruise line, which includes expenses for the trip and her “economic loss” after having to take three weeks off work to process the experience. Piro said she hasn’t heard back from the company about this request.
“My clients come to me with significant trauma, and we do significant processing. I couldn’t focus,” she said.
The Independent has contacted Celebrity Cruises and Royal Caribbean for comment.
Royal Caribbean, which owns Celebrity Cruises, told The Philadelphia Inquirer the company has reviewed the incident and “concluded we could have been more sensitive to their needs during the debarkation process.”
Staff will also undergo additional training to “ensure this experience doesn’t happen again,” the spokesperson added.
Since sharing her story, Piro said other parents have reached out to her with similar stories. Piro hopes she can help out with future trainings for cruise staff.
“I don’t want our story to disappear. I said to them, let us come and participate in your training with your security staff. I’ll pay my way. We’ll come and we’ll walk through how this could have been handled differently,” she said.
“Autism isn’t just a little kid with sensory issues. It’s adults who can talk, who like to meet people, who are out in the world. Sean’s a friendly guy who thought he was making a friend. He had no malicious intention,” she added.