Carnival cruise passenger jumps off the pier in Cozumel on camera. Then crew tossed life preservers — and he refused them all

A now-unavailable video of a man jumping off the Puerta Maya pier in Cozumel, Mexico, and swimming away from a Carnival cruise ship had gone viral on TikTok, drawing over 1.8 million views, according to Boarding Area. The clip was apparently posted by a creator who goes by Exquisite (@mzvictorious33) on TikTok, and it showed the man ignoring two life preservers thrown by crew before being pulled out of the water by a rescue boat. The incident reportedly took place aboard the Carnival Breeze.

Exquisite, described on her channel as an entrepreneur who mostly shares family and business content, said her group had been on their way back to the ship after an afternoon in Cozumel when the incident unfolded. She captioned the video: “This was so scary and completely off guard #fyp #carnivalcruise #cozumel #jumpintheocean #overboard.” The four-minute clip reportedly opens with her group dancing on the pier before the camera shifts to catch the man already in the water.

In the footage, as described by Boarding Area, a man wearing a red shirt with a backpack still half off his shoulder can be seen running toward the pier railing. Someone in a teal shirt, apparently a crew member or fellow passenger, appeared to attempt to stop him. 

He ignored both life preservers and kept swimming away

The man reportedly shrugged off the person, climbed up on the railing, and dropped over the side, hitting a blue pipe on the way down before entering the water. He then appeared to surface shortly after, turned onto his back, and began swimming away from the dock.

Carnival staff threw two ring buoys toward the man, but he reportedly ignored both and continued swimming in the opposite direction. The video ends with security personnel using a pole from a rescue boat to hook the man and pull him aboard.

A commenter on the original video claimed to have been standing on the pier when the incident happened. “He seemed to have been angry about something, cheek and face all red, heard him say that he couldn’t get any sleep the previous night, then the next thing you know he runs towards the rails,” they wrote. 

“A person was trying to hold him back. He snatched away, climbed up on the rails and jumped. He refused securities help with the tube at first, turning away and swimming on his back before they got a hook to reel him in.” Carnival passengers have previously shared other unexpected and distressing incidents aboard Carnival ships, including a family who allegedly woke up to dark chunks flooding their cabin.

According to Cruise Radio, there were 19 confirmed man-overboard incidents across the global cruise fleet in 2024. They also stated that “the vast majority of overboard cases are linked to reckless behavior or intentional acts, rather than accidents.” Pier-side jumps while a ship is docked represent an even smaller subset of those incidents, per the same report.

Carnival Cruise Line‘s published Code of Conduct states that “any guest whose conduct affects the comfort, enjoyment, safety or well-being of other guests or crew will be disembarked at their own expense and banned from sailing on Carnival in the future.” 

The policy also lists a $500 fine, possible stateroom confinement, and removal from the ship as potential consequences, along with charges for any costs related to detainment or disembarkation. Disputes over how Carnival handles such situations are not new, as one passenger said the cruise line’s response to cabin flood damages left her thousands of dollars out of pocket with only $300 offered in return.

Exquisite said in a reply to a commenter that those consequences appeared to have been applied in this case. “He was stuck in his cabin for the remainder of the trip with security standing outside the room,” she reportedly wrote.