Key Aspects:
- A Carnival Cruise Line guest was arrested after an incident on Carnival Conquest.
- The violent behavior involved a case of mistaken identity.
- The suspect is a 38-year-old mother from Minnesota.
Rather than making her way home after a Bahamas getaway cruise, one passenger, a 38-year-old woman from Minnesota, was put behind bars.
Paetra Ann Grandsberry was arrested by Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office authorities when her ship, Carnival Conquest, returned to PortMiami on Monday, December 22, following a 3-night cruise to Celebration Key, Carnival’s private destination on Grand Bahama Island.
Local media reports described how Grandsberry, who was traveling with her sons, became angry after finding out that her children had been attacked by other young guests.
The woman was said to be talking with the ship’s security team members when she saw a group of young people running and assumed they were the ones who had hit her children.
Grandsberry allegedly ran after the group, tackled one boy, and grabbed his collar. The sheriff’s deputy’s report indicates that the woman later said she accidentally fell on the child.
The boy managed to pull away and run to a nearby relative. He told officers that he only began running when he saw other kids running, thinking there was a safety issue. He had played no role in attacking Grandsberry’s children.
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Celebration Key was the only port call on the 2,980-guest ship’s itinerary. The altercation happened on December 21, 2025, the same day as the call to the private destination. Law enforcement’s report does not indicate when Grandsberry’s sons were hit — whether it happened on the ship or at Celebration Key.
The boy Grandsberry tackled was not injured, but reports indicate that authorities contacted the Florida Department of Children and Families on his behalf.
When Carnival Conquest docked at PortMiami on debarkation day, December 22, 2025, Grandsberry was arrested. She was held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, in Miami, after a local judge found probable cause for a charge of child abuse.
It is not clear what happened to her children after she was taken off the ship. It is also not known whether Grandsberry was in any way confined on the ship following the alleged attack on the child.
2025 Saw Several Examples of Bad Cruise Behavior
While physical altercations on cruise ships are uncommon, there have been several high-profile cases that made headlines in 2025 — some onboard ships and some on land.
In April 2025, a brawl erupted at the Galveston Cruise Terminal luggage pick-up area as guests debarked Carnival Jubilee. Video footage showed a group of people beating up at least two other men while bystanders looked on.
On Carnival Sunrise, a fight broke out in June 2025 near The Pizzaria on Lido Deck. A video posted on social media showed several guests throwing chairs and fighting each other while passengers watched. The ship also sailed from PortMiami.
It isn’t only Carnival Cruise Line ships that sometimes see violent behavior. In August 2025, a fight involving multiple guests broke out in the Oasis Lagoon on Royal Caribbean’s Perfect Day at CocoCay destination in the Bahamas.
Two ships were visiting the private island that day, Utopia of the Seas and Jewel of the Seas, sailing from Port Canaveral and Fort Lauderdale, respectively.
The fight, also video-taped, involved about a dozen people in the freshwater pool, which was later closed for sanitation purposes.
Cruise lines frown on violent behavior of any kind, and will often place guests who behave badly on no-cruise lists, often for life.
