Murder, Suicide, And Tragedy: 9 Of History’s Most Mysterious Cruise Ship Disappearances

Published September 7, 2022

Merrian Carver: The Cruise Ship Passenger Who Vanished Into Thin Air

Merrian Carver

YouTubeMerrian Carver’s family is outraged by how Royal Caribbean treated her 2004 disappearance.

In 2004, without telling her family, 40-year-old Merrian Carver boarded a Royal Caribbean cruise to Alaska. On the second day of the seven-day cruise, she vanished without a trace — but no one told her family or the authorities.

“In effect, Merrian vanished from the Earth,” her father told ABC.

Ever since his daughter disappeared, Kendall Carver has struggled to understand exactly what happened on her final voyage. He found that she boarded the cruise ship while her daughter was staying with her ex-husband and vanished just two days into the voyage. But though a crew member noticed her disappearance, he was told to keep quiet.

Merrian Carver Smiling

YouTubeTo the fury of her family, no one on the ship reported Carver missing, despite noticing her disappearance.

“The steward reported Merrian missing daily for five days to his boss,” Kendall told CBS. “And his boss said, ‘Just go do your job,’ and that’s it. So no action was taken.”

To make matters worse, the cruise crew never reported Merrian Carver missing. Instead, they gave most of her belongings away to charity.

“They got rid of most of her stuff,” Kendall Carver told ABC. “A gold wristwatch, all her clothes were gone, vanished… She was gone. And the purse had her name, Social Security number, and everything. They just put it in storage, did nothing.”

Though Royal Caribbean settled out of court with the Carver family, they also claimed that Merrian Carver probably took her own life. “Ms. Carver had emotional problems and had attempted suicide before, which she appears to have done on our ship,” they said in a statement reported by ABC.

But to Kendall Carver, who founded the International Cruise Victims Association before his death in 2019, Merrian’s fate remains a mystery. “Do I know what happened to Merrian?” he said, according to ABC. “God only knows.”

author
Kaleena Fraga
author
A senior staff writer for All That's Interesting since 2021 and co-host of the History Uncovered Podcast, Kaleena Fraga graduated with a dual degree in American History and French Language and Literature from Oberlin College. She previously ran the presidential history blog History First, and has had work published in The Washington Post, Gastro Obscura, and elsewhere. She has published more than 1,200 pieces on topics including history and archaeology. She is based in Brooklyn, New York.
editor
Cara Johnson
editor
A writer and editor based in Charleston, South Carolina and an editor at All That's Interesting since 2022, Cara Johnson holds a B.A. in English and Creative Writing from Washington & Lee University and an M.A. in English from College of Charleston. She has worked for various publications ranging from wedding magazines to Shakespearean literary journals in her nine-year career, including work with Arbordale Publishing and Gulfstream Communications.
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Fraga, Kaleena. "Murder, Suicide, And Tragedy: 9 Of History’s Most Mysterious Cruise Ship Disappearances." AllThatsInteresting.com, September 7, 2022, https://allthatsinteresting.com/cruise-ship-disappearances. Accessed July 26, 2025.