Seems a little excessive. I'm not defending this act because the government could have done much better. But consider the following 1)Carnival charges $499 for the lowest accommodations only, 2) I doubt any of these folks were buying excessive amounts of alcohol on board like many cruisers, 3) Carnival lost money from ports-of-call they would have received while cruising, 4) the cruise ships were only 25% capacity while a normal crusie would be over 75% capacity, 5) in addition to paying for their normal crew's salaries (whether working or not), they had to pay for more security not necessary while at sea. ----- As I said, still excessive but let's not spin it this story too far.