The mother of a 5-year-old girl who fell off the Disney Dream cruise ship in June will not face criminal charges, the Broward State Attorney’s Office has decided.
The family, who live outside of Florida, were taking photos around 11:30 a.m. on June 29 on Deck 4 of the ship. This deck features a wraparound exercise track and some areas with porthole windows. During the photo session, the girl climbed onto the railing in front of one of the windows, turned around to face her mother, and tumbled backward, falling 49 feet into the ocean.
At the time, the ship was traveling from the Bahamas to Port Everglades at about 12 mph, according to a close-out memo obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel. The mother told investigators that many other portholes on the ship were blocked with glass barriers, and she assumed the openings on Deck 4 were similarly enclosed.
The girl’s father did not see the fall but jumped overboard to rescue his daughter after hearing his wife scream. The ship’s man overboard alarm sounded only after the father had jumped into the water. Crew members immediately tossed life rings into the ocean as the ship began to turn around to recover them.
A rescue boat was deployed at 11:40 a.m. and picked up the father and daughter nine minutes later. In total, they spent about 20 minutes treading water before receiving medical attention aboard the ship, according to the Broward Sheriff’s Office.
Once the ship docked at Port Everglades the following day, the pair was taken to Broward Health Medical Center. The girl was diagnosed with mild hypothermia and mild lactic acidosis but suffered no other injuries. The father, however, sustained two spinal fractures from his landing in the water and from repeated efforts to pull his daughter to the surface while staying afloat.
The State Attorney’s Office declined to file child neglect charges against the mother, citing that “all evidence shows that it was merely accidental.” Assistant State Attorney in Charge Melissa Kelly noted, “Parents and caregivers of children are not held to a standard of perfection under the law. While the defendant was irresponsible, her act of facilitating the victim’s position on the railing was an isolated incident that resulted from a momentary lapse in proper judgment and unawareness of surrounding circumstances.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/20/girl-overboard-disney-dream-cruise/