Lawsuit over early wake-up call on cruise. Yes, really.

[Jason]

A judge in the U.K. on Wednesday dismissed a much-ballyhooed lawsuit against Thomson Cruises over an early wake-up call on one of its ships, a U.K. news outlet is reporting.

In a case that made international headlines, David Bookbinder, 71, of Derbyshire, England had sued for a full refund for his Red Sea cruise on the Thomson Celebration after being forced to get up before 5:00 a.m. on the day of a stop in Israel to clear immigration.

Bookbinder argued that while the ship's staff told passengers the early wake-up call was necessary so they could be interviewed by Israeli immigration officials, it really was a ploy to sell more shore excursions for the visit, the Daily Telegraph says. But the judge in the case on Wednesday wasn't buying his claim that the wake-up call was unnecessary and had caused a level of stress that ruined his vacation, the news outlet says.

The early wake-up call "may have been inconvenient for ... passengers, but it was not a breach of contract," the Telegraph quotes the judge as saying.

The judge ordered Bookbinder to pay half of the court costs incurred by travel agency Thomas Cook, which also was named in the lawsuit, after saying the case against the company was built on "not so much very thin ice but no ice at all," the Telegraph says.

Bookbinder didn't have to pay Thomson Cruises' court costs, as the judge ruled it wasn't unreasonable that he had sued the line.

By Gene Sloan, USA Today

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