A cruise ship crew member who planted a hidden camera to watch a young girl undress in her cabin may have spied on over 900 passengers, a class action lawsuit alleges.

Lawyers who filed the civil lawsuit in a Miami federal court last October want each of those people to be able to hold the company accountable and receive damages. But Royal Caribbean, the world’s second-largest cruise ship company, has pushed back.

RCL has tried to dismiss the suit, saying any passenger with an emotional or mental trauma complaint not involving physical contact or physical injury, like video voyeurism — must go through individual arbitration. The company says that’s because passengers agreed to that when buying their cruise ship tickets and signing the required contract.

The next step in the legal saga comes at the end of this month in a Fort Lauderdale federal courtroom.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Detra Shaw-Wilder has set a hearing date for 11 a.m. Oct. 27 to start considering the motion crucial to Royal Caribbean’s defense: whether the company can compel guests to go to arbitration instead of filing a lawsuit. Both sides can make oral arguments, and Shaw-Wilder will consider their arguments and likely rule in several weeks.

The cruise company, based near PortMiami, has argued that court is not the appropriate venue for victim claims, and is pushing for arbitration.

The class action civil lawsuit was filed Oct. 15, 2024, in Miami federal court against Royal Caribbean Cruises and Arvin Mirasol, the former Royal Caribbean room attendant. The plaintiff, referred to as Jane Doe in the complaint and represented by the Miami firm Lipcon, Margulies & Winkleman, was a passenger aboard Symphony of the Seas around Feb. 25, 2024.

Mirasol, a room attendant, regularly cleaned passenger rooms, restocked towels and changed sheets on Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas, a vessel that carries 5,518 passengers and 2,200 crew members. But that wasn’t all he did, according to court filings and the criminal complaint from the Broward County Sheriff’s office.

Searching his electronic equipment including a USB stick device, law enforcement agents found “several videos of naked females undressing in their bathrooms.” One girl seemed to be 10 years old, they said. He’d planted small, secret cameras in passengers’ rooms.

In a separate criminal case pursued by the U.S. Department of Justice, on Aug. 28, 2024, U.S. Judge Melissa Damian gave the maximum possible sentence to Mirasol, a 34-year-old Philippines national who had pleaded guilty a few months earlier. He was sentenced in Fort Lauderdale federal court to 30 years in prison on a charge of producing child pornography.

The civil class action suit initially claimed there could be up to 960 passengers who are victims. The complaint defines the class as passengers aboard Symphony of the Seas between Dec. 1, 2023, and Feb. 26, 2024, who stayed in cabins serviced by Mirasol. That was the period when Royal Caribbean employed Mirasol on Symphony of the Seas.

The civil lawsuit alleges invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress by video voyeurism and sexual assault committed by Mirasol and liability by Royal Caribbean. The lawsuit also accuses Royal Caribbean of inadequately training and supervising workers aboard the vessel and failing to “implement and/or enforce an adequate safety management system.”

Because of the sexual nature of the crimes and the ages of victims, the law firms and the Miami Herald are not identifying the passengers.

Royal Caribbean’s response

The cruise company has fought back in court filings this year, alleging it’s not at fault. RCL argues the passengers need to handle their complaints through arbitration because they automatically agreed to that when buying their cruise tickets and signing the required passenger contract.

“Plaintiffs’ claims that they suffered mental and emotional injuries, however, must be settled in arbitration, not in this Court,” the attorneys representing Royal Caribbean wrote in a March 26, 2025, court filing. “Plaintiffs agreed in their digitally signed ticket-contract that all claims for mental or emotional injury must be resolved through arbitration.”

Arbitration is a secretive process often favored by companies.

In one document, attorneys mention that the passenger contract references an arbitration provision “on its first page in all caps and in bold.”

That provision warns guests of “significant limitations ... including time limits and forum for claims and suit, applicable law, [and] arbitration.” The cruise line also claims the Federal Arbitration Act and subsequent court cases support its argument. The firm Cozen O’Connor is representing RCL.

What’s not in dispute and what RCL acknowledges is the exception to requiring arbitration would be if a guest suffered physical injury. Then, guests can go to court and try to prove a cruise company was liable. That’s usually difficult, but in September a Miami woman won a different case against Carnival Corp.

But in the Royal Caribbean case, “Plaintiffs allege that their emotional distress resulted from the discovery of Mirasol’s secret, voyeuristic acts, not from any physical injury inflicted by Mirasol,” the company’s lawyers wrote.

“No Plaintiff alleges that Mirasol damaged them through physical contact. Instead, their complaints make clear they were not aware of Mirasol’s actions as he conducted them,” according to a court filing.

Most plaintiffs only learned of Mirasol’s secret recordings, hidden cameras and other acts of voyeurism over six months after their cruise. That is what “caused their alleged emotional distress,” the cruise company’s attorneys argue.

But why it took victims so long to find out and why RCL didn’t release a passenger manifest earlier aren’t addressed.

Jane Doe’s rebuttal

The plaintiffs counter that Royal Caribbean is greatly downplaying the injury the victims suffered. They argue, citing experts, that sexual assault and sexual harassment don’t require physical contact that the cruise line is requesting.

“It is very telling that [Royal Caribbean] tries to characterize all of these claims as simply ‘video voyeurism. Unfortunately, the admitted and undisputed facts are much darker, and much more devastating,” attorneys wrote in a court filing on April 17, 2025, behavior continued during 12 cruises.

The victims’ attorneys also citing federal laws, including maritime law and the Ending Forced Arbitration Act, which U.S. Congress enacted in 2022 that bars employers from requiring arbitration for disputes related to sexual assault or harassment. Its full name is the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act.

They said that Mirasol “was never caught by [Royal Caribbean], but was only caught by these Plaintiff victims, who themselves found hidden cameras in their rooms and whose claim RC has now stayed for over five months.” Stayed means trying to stop a trial.

“Incredibly, in their continuing effort to keep the full extent of these horrible facts hidden and out of public discussion, [Royal Caribbean] actually tries to convince this Court that none of the pending claims-as alleged could be considered related to ‘sexual assault disputes,’ as defined by the Ending Forced Arbitration Act.

The judge

While Royal Caribbean’s attorney dispute the rebuttal, the matter now falls to Judge Shaw-Wlider, who will make a ruling that will be closely watched and could have important consequences, especially in a digital age when cameras are smaller and cheaper.

Shaw-Wilder , a native of Miami Gardens and graduate of Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High who went on to earn her law degree at the University of Miami, was nominated in 2024 as a federal judge by President Joe Biden.

But Florida’’s two Republican senators blocked the appointment of the longtime partner with Coral Gables law firm Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton.

In May, the region’s federal district court judges appointed her as a magistrate judge to fill a vacancy. She now has in her hands a critical case with a big question.

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