Area man missing from cruise ship

A surveillance tape showing the man alone on the ship will be examined.
STAFF/WIRE REPORTS
CANFIELD -- Parents of a township man who went missing Monday morning on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship bound for the Bahamas from Florida were to board the ship today in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, a family member said.
Ronald and Susan DiPiero, parents of 21-year-old Daniel DiPiero, were en route to the ship Tuesday, according to Ronald DiPiero's sister, Nancy Dixon.
The DiPieros were traveling to St. Thomas with their two daughters, Katie, a senior at Canfield High School, and Josie, 13. Dixon said Royal Caribbean was flying the family there. The FBI is also involved. Agents, as well as family members, will examine a surveillance tape that provides the last known whereabouts of DiPiero, she said.
Camera footage from Royal Caribbean's Mariner of the Seas last showed him around 2:15 a.m. Monday leaning on a rail on the ship's fourth deck. In the video, he is alone for nearly two hours, lying in a chair most of the time, according to the cruise line.
Reported missing
Friends realized DiPiero had not slept in their cabin and reported him missing at 11 a.m. Monday.
The Coast Guard was not alerted until 7 p.m. Royal Caribbean said it waited because it wanted to make sure DiPiero was not on the ship and was not on the company's private island, where the ship docked Monday.
Poor weather delayed an aerial search until early Tuesday, when a C-130 airplane took off to follow the ship's path. The Bahamian Coast Guard was assisting.
The cruise ship had left Port Canaveral, Fla., on Sunday morning.
Dixon said it was to be a 10-day cruise. He was accompanied by two friends and the mother and aunt of one of the friends, she said.
"Oh my God, I hate this," said Dixon from her Canfield home Tuesday.
She said her nephew has been a student at Youngstown State University but had taken some time off from school.
Parents devastated
His parents are devastated, she said.
"Your son is lost and you don't know what happened to him. There's no feeling to describe that," she said.
Royal Caribbean said it was cooperating fully with authorities and was providing counseling to the man's family.
The cruise line has dealt with criticism since George Allen Smith IV, 26, of Greenwich, Conn., disappeared from its Brilliance of the Seas last summer, apparently after a night of drinking. Blood stains were found on a canopy that covers life boats, but his body was never found.
Smith's family has accused Royal Caribbean of covering up the disappearance, which the company denies. The FBI has been investigating.
The cruise line is owned by Miami-based Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.