{"id":26393,"date":"2025-11-03T02:40:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T02:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/26393\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T02:40:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T02:40:18","slug":"ny-mom-overserved-alcohol-before-fatal-plunge-off-cruise-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/26393\/","title":{"rendered":"NY mom overserved alcohol before fatal plunge off cruise: lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

A New York mother who plunged to her death<\/a> from a Taylor Swift-themed cruise in the Bahamas last year was allegedly overserved before she \u201cdrunkenly\u201d fell overboard<\/a>, according to a new lawsuit filed by her family.<\/p>\n

Dulcie White, a 66-year-old from Westmoreland<\/a>, fell from the deck of the Royal Caribbean\u2019s Allure of the Seas on Oct. 22, 2024, more than 17 miles off the coast of Nassau. Her body remains lost at sea more than a year later.<\/p>\n

While Bahamian authorities claimed at the time that White jumped from the 14th floor<\/a> of the cruise ship, her family \u2014 including her daughter, who was with her on the boat \u2014 says otherwise.<\/p>\n

According to a wrongful death suit<\/a> filed in Florida\u2019s Miami-Dade County, where the cruise line is based, White was served \u201cat least seven alcoholic beverages\u201d over the course of about six hours. It accuses the crew of \u201ccontinually\u201d plying her with drinks despite having slurred speech<\/a>, glassy eyes and difficulty standing up.<\/p>\n

White\u2019s daughter, Megan Klewin, told CBS Miami that her mother had purchased the additional \u201cunlimited alcoholic beverages\u201d package<\/a>\u00a0and \u201cdid overdo it,\u201d perhaps trying to \u201cget her money\u2019s worth.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the lawsuit claims that crew members should have known better than to keep serving someone so \u201cvisibly intoxicated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was completely intoxicated in a way I haven\u2019t seen before,\u201d Klewin told the outlet. \u201cIt saddens me that that\u2019s my last memory of her.\u201d<\/p>\n

At one point in the night, another passenger noticed White\u2019s behavior and helped her back to her cabin, the suit states. That\u2019s when Klewin saw her mom go out onto the balcony.<\/p>\n

\u201cI assumed that what she was doing was going to check her suitcase,\u201d Klewin said, noting they kept their luggage on the balcony to create more space in the small room.\u00a0\u201cI wasn\u2019t looking and the next chance that I did look up, I saw her back. She was seated on the edge of the balcony like she had climbed up. She was seated and then fell over before I could get to her.\u201d<\/p>\n

After White fell into the water, the boat never turned around<\/a> nor deployed adequate rescue services to search for her, the suit claims.<\/p>\n

However, a Royal Caribbean spokesperson told TMZ at the time that its \u201ccrew immediately launched a search-and-rescue effort,\u201d alongside the U.S. Coast Guard and the Royal Bahamas Defense Force.<\/p>\n

The search was called off the following afternoon, less than 24 hours after White went overboard.<\/p>\n

Her daughter and widow are now suing Royal Caribbean for one count each of over-service of alcohol, negligent search-and rescue operation and negligent infliction of emotional distress.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel the overconsumption of alcohol and the over-service of alcohol was the cause of this,\u201d Klewin said. \u201cThese crew members are incentivized to continue to serve them because that\u2019s how they make their tips.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spencer Aronfeld, the family\u2019s attorney, says he hopes the case will radically change how cruise lines offer alcohol packages in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoyal Caribbean didn\u2019t just sell drinks \u2014 it sold danger,\u201d Aronfeld said in a statement. \u201cThis isn\u2019t an accident; it\u2019s an industry pattern. We\u2019re putting the cruise lines on notice: The days of profiting from over-service while passengers die at sea are over.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A New York mother who plunged to her death from a Taylor Swift-themed cruise in the Bahamas last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[85,607,9,24,12,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-26393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-latest-headlines","9":"tag-national-news","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-nyc","14":"tag-staten-island","15":"tag-staten-island-headlines","16":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}