Just when the Merritt family thought there might be a light at the end of the tunnel, the saga continues. Their stolen suitcase has now been returned after weeks of strife, but was missing several important belongings.
Jason Merritt’s suitcase originally went missing during Carnival Magic’s 8-night Southern Caribbean sailing that embarked from PortMiami on February 8, 2025 – which was supposed to be a fun celebration of his anniversary with his wife, Tammy.
The suitcase could not be located during the voyage – but after weeks of tracking the suitcase to the cruise ship using a pair of AirPods inside, the luggage was finally located inside of another guest’s cruise cabin.
The passenger allegedly stole the suitcase because she liked how it looked – and it remained onboard because she had booked back-to-back sailings. For her actions, the unidentified suspect was placed under confinement in her cabin and was banned from all future Carnival Corporation sailings.
Once the bag was found, Carnival made arrangements to send the suitcase home to the Merritt household. But, the family was met with more disappointment when they looked inside and found several items were missing.
“Daddy-O’s made it home!!!!,” Jason wrote in the Daddy-O’s Facebook page, which is a reference to the name of the AirPods that were used to track the suitcase.
“Unfortunately, most of my clothes didn’t. She took my slacks, my belt, all my dress shirts, both pairs of shoes, ALL OF MY BOXERS, the key to my Bronco, my toiletry bag was empty (don’t know why she needed my toothbrush and deodorant), meds were gone, my glasses, all of my shorts, couple other shirts and my Rangers Spring Training hat,” he continued.
The Merritt’s are understandably peeved, as the items will cost a considerable chunk of change to replace. Some items, like the commemorative spring training hat, may be irreplaceable.
When the ordeal first began, Tammy estimated that the contents of the suitcase were valued at around $1,000. In the state of Florida, where the cruise embarked from, grand theft charges can be levied for stealing property valued at $750 or more.
The Quest for Compensation
If Jason’s luggage had arrived at his house intact and with no missing belongings, there is a good chance that the family would have let the incident go at that. But now that a lot is confirmed missing, the Merritts want fair compensation.
“I’m pretty ticked off. It will cost a lot of money to replace the clothes and some of it can’t be replaced,” Jason shared.
“We’ll be contacting the authorities in the coming days and see what the next step is. Thanks to everyone that helped, shared, looked and complained on my behalf. This is not over yet!”, he added.
The family is now hoping to receive compensation from the cruise line and is looking into pressing charges against the guest who stole the suitcase.
The legal consequences will vary depending on if she is charged with theft or grand theft, and if she is prosecuted in the port state (Florida) or not – which can get confusing when cruise ships sail in international waters and are registered to non-US countries.
Carnival Magic, along with the majority of Carnival’s fleet, are registered in Panama.
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Per Jason’s updates, communication with Carnival’s team members has been challenging, but the cruise line did get in touch on the next step – which appears to be filling out an incident report.
“I’ve tried to post both negative and positive here throughout all of this, so, in light of that…Carnival Cruise Line reached out to me and explained how to go about getting the incident report and how I need to proceed. So I do have that information now. Thank you, Carnival,” Jason updated on March 7, 2025.
Incident reports are documented by the ship’s onboard security team, with serious crimes reported to local law enforcement as is mandated by the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act.
It’s unclear at this time what will follow the incident report in this case – and if the Merritt family will receive any additional compensation beyond the $350 that was provided onboard by the Miami-based cruise line.
Cruise Hive reached out to Carnival for a statement, and did not hear back. We will update this article if and when we receive a response.
