A 29-year-old North Miami Beach mother was arrested at PortMiami on Monday morning, the moment she stepped off a three-day Carnival cruise, after investigators say she left her four young children alone at home for days while she vacationed in the Bahamas. Nathalie Belizaire now faces four counts of child neglect without great bodily harm, one for each child, including a two-month-old infant and a two-year-old.
According to Cruise Fever, Belizaire boarded Carnival Conquest, a roughly 3,000-passenger ship that departed PortMiami on Friday for a stop at Celebration Key, Carnival's private resort destination on Grand Bahama Island. The ship returned to Miami on Monday morning, and North Miami Beach police were waiting for her as she disembarked, per an arrest affidavit. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reportedly took her into custody once she left the vessel before handing her over to local police — the same kind of manifest cross-checking and inter-agency handoff that regularly occurs when international cruise ships dock at PortMiami, according to Cruise Fever.
Father's 911 Call Led Police to Children Hiding in Bathroom
The case broke open over the weekend when North Miami Beach police received a call from the father of the two-month-old, who told officers he found the children without adult supervision after arriving at the apartment and hearing a television and children's voices inside, the outlet reports. First responders forced entry into the apartment and found all four children alone, with the four of them huddled together hiding in the bathroom, according to the police report cited by the same account.
Belizaire had reportedly told the father she planned to leave the children with their great-grandmother before she left for the cruise. But the great-grandmother told investigators that Belizaire said she would drop the children off and never did. The outlet also notes that Belizaire's brother received a text instructing him to check on the children over the weekend. After her arrest, Belizaire declined to provide a statement and invoked her right to remain silent, per the same account.
Prior Arrest Adds Context to Officers' Response
This is not Belizaire's first encounter with North Miami Beach police. In January 2025, she was arrested and charged with aggravated battery after allegedly pepper-spraying a neighbor in both eyes during a dispute over claims the neighbor had harassed her daughter, according to Local 10 News. She was held at Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center following that incident, the outlet reported at the time.
What Belizaire Now Faces Under Florida Law
Each of Belizaire's four child neglect counts is classified as a third-degree felony under Florida Statute § 827.03, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine per count, according to Online Sunshine, Florida's official statutes portal. That leaves her facing a maximum possible sentence of 20 years across the four counts. The statute defines neglect as a caregiver's failure or omission to provide a child with the care, supervision, and services necessary for physical and mental health, a standard that can be met through a single high-risk incident or a pattern of repeated omissions, per Women's Law.
Because the allegations were reported to Florida's child abuse hotline, they also trigger a mandatory Child Protective Investigation under Florida Statute § 39.301, which requires the Department of Children and Families to conduct an immediate home safety evaluation and face-to-face interviews with the children, according to Online Sunshine. Those investigators are tasked with determining whether the four children need to be placed in temporary protective custody while the criminal case moves forward.
How This Case Compares to Other Cruise Neglect Allegations
Cases of parents leaving young children behind to go on cruises have drawn scrutiny elsewhere. In April 2024, a 29-year-old Houston mother was arrested on felony child abandonment charges after leaving her 6-year-old and 8-year-old home alone for days while she cruised, monitoring them remotely via a home camera, after neighbors alerted authorities, according to The Mirror US.
Not every case involving a child and a cruise ship results in charges, however. In October 2025, Broward County prosecutors declined to file criminal neglect charges against a mother whose 5-year-old fell 49 feet overboard from a Disney cruise ship near Fort Lauderdale, determining the fall was an accident rather than criminally culpable negligence, according to WDW News Today. That outlet notes Florida law requires proof of flagrant disregard for safety to sustain a criminal neglect case, a distinction prosecutors will likely weigh as Belizaire's case proceeds.
PortMiami itself has become something of an active screening point for law enforcement in recent months. In February, officers arrested five men attempting to board a Royal Caribbean ship with illegal narcotics, according to NBC Miami, while Florida's Port Canaveral saw six passengers arrested in a single day in July after automated manifest checks flagged outstanding warrants, per Cruise Radio. Carnival Conquest itself regularly sails three- and four-night Bahamas cruises out of Miami, making it one of the more routine itineraries departing the port.
