The NEW Warning We’re Issuing for Disney Cruises This Summer

Sunscreen is one of the essential items Disney Cruise Line passengers need to pack, especially for excursions to Castaway Cay, Lighthouse Point, and non-Disney destinations in the Bahamas. However, the industry is currently in legal hot water.

Currently, several companies behind some of the most popular brands of sunscreen are involved in massive litigation with the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office stemming from a dispute over whether the companies’ claims that their chemical sunscreens are harmless to marine environments are accurate.

According to SFGate, in the last several months, Santa Clara prosecutors settled civil lawsuits for $350,000 against Supergoop and Sun Bum for $300,000 in civil penalties. In addition to the financial penalties, the companies can “no longer advertise that their chemical sunscreens are harmless to marine environments, and must also contact every California retailer that sold their products and ask that they cover up the references to reef safety with a sticker.”

After those victories, the DA’s office has moved on to suing Edgewell, the country’s largest sunscreen manufacturer behind the Banana Boat and Hawaiian Tropic sunscreen brands. The brands are accused of using chemicals that are harmful to reefs, and misleading consumers with “claims not supported by research.”

According to the office, the “company claimed its sunscreens were ‘reef friendly’ while using avobenzone as a UV filter. The suit said that avobenzone shares ‘structural similarity’ with another chemical called oxybenzone, which was banned by the Hawaii Legislature in 2018 for how it negatively impacted marine environments.”

Furthermore, as stated in the DA’s lawsuit, “Not only was the ‘reef friendly’ claim by Defendants a scientifically unsupported one, the actual scientific evidence and public legislation pointed strongly to the opposite conclusion — that the active ingredients in Hawaiian Tropic and Banana Boat chemical sunscreens were demonstrably harmful (i.e., ‘unfriendly’) to reefs, including coral reefs.”

According to Santa Clara County Deputy DA Christopher Judge, “If there is a settlement, it’ll be public like the other two. If a consumer goes into Google and types ‘Is x-y sunscreen reef safe and friendly?’ Well, there’s going to be a lot of information there … the consumer has the opportunity to become educated on what’s going on.”

The sunscreen industry is facing legal challenges in California stemming from dubious claims of their chemicals being safe for marine life. Stay tuned to AllEars for more on these ongoing proceedings.

Why Is Everyone Ignoring This HUGE Disney Cruise Line “Problem”?

What is your go-to sunscreen brand? Let us know in the comments below.