For decades, Carnival Corporation has successfully sold affordable luxury to passengers, becoming the largest cruise ship business in the world. 

The reason why a vacation at sea can be so inexpensive has to do with both the vision of Carnival’s founder and the historical origins of the cruise industry itself. But that affordability can also come with unpleasant consequences. Now, the entire industry’s future has been thrown into doubt by a deadly virus.

Cindel Pena was a passenger onboard Carnival’s headline-making “poop cruise.” Ross Klein is a cruise industry expert and professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Jim Walker is a Miami-based maritime lawyer and publisher of Cruise Law News.

Podcast production by Jess Miller and Asha Saluja.

Slate Plus members get ad-free podcasts and bonus episodes of shows like Dear Prudence and Slow Burn. Sign up now to listen and support our work.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.