Rebecca Coriam

The case remains under investigation, and her whereabouts since the phone conversation have not been established. Her parents have been critical of Disney's handling of the investigation, believing the company knows more than it claims to and has been more interested in avoiding unfavourable publicity than cooperating with investigators. Her family settled a lawsuit against Disney out of court in 2016.

While the Coriams later claimed the flip flops were too small, they were unable to find anyone on the ship who had seen her wearing them and learned that no forensics had been done on them. In 2016, private investigators working for the family said that they had conclusively established that the footwear did not belong to the couple's daughter. Not only were they not in a style she would wear, they noted, the flip-flops had another crewmember's name and cabin number written on them. The Coriams said this led them to strongly doubt Disney's claim that they had been found in the pool area, as well as its theory that Rebecca was swept or fell overboard from there.

Labour MP Chris Matheson, who has represented the City of Chester constituency since the 2015 election, believes Coriam was a crime victim, possibly murdered or sexually assaulted. "The more you look into this the more it smells rotten; the more it smells like a crime has taken place", he told the Echo the year of his election. He claims to have a copy of the original police report with "compelling" evidence to that effect. John Anderson, a private investigator who has worked with both the Coriams and Matheson, says records show the seas around the Wonder were normal that night, casting doubt on Disney's "rogue wave" claim. He also says that any wave capable of taking her off the ship would have caused visible damage to it as well.

Early on the morning of 22 March 2011, Rebecca Coriam (born 11 March 1987), a British crewmember on the cruise ship Disney Wonder, was captured by CCTV in the crew lounge, having a phone conversation that appeared to be causing her some emotional difficulty. Several hours later, she missed the beginning of her work shift and could not be located anywhere aboard the ship, then off the Pacific coast of Mexico. Her disappearance was the first such incident in the history of Disney Cruise Line.

Coriam returned to the Wonder and her duties as a youth worker, maintaining contact with her family via Facebook and Skype. Six weeks later, on 21 March 2011, the day the ship left Los Angeles, she sent what would be her last message to her parents via Facebook, saying she would call the next day.

In October 2011, journalist Jon Ronson took the Wonder along the same route and made discreet inquiries while aboard. With the Coriams' permission, he wrote about it in The Guardian. Several crew members, none of whom wanted their names used, who had been on the ship at the time of Rebecca's disappearance, spoke to him. They suggested that more was known about her fate than Disney or the Bahamanian police had publicly admitted.

In November 2011, Stephen Mosley, then the Coriams' MP, brought the case up in the House of Commons. "The investigation into Rebecca's disappearance was appalling," he told Mike Penning, the Minister for Shipping.

In June 2010, she went to London to interview for the Disney Cruise positions; after being hired she went to the company's theme parks in Florida for training. After four months on cruises to the Bahamas, where the ships are registered, she went back to Britain for two months off. When she returned to work, it was on the Disney Wonder, based in the Port of Los Angeles. She visited all its ports of call on the Mexican Riviera and went through the Panama Canal.

"In other corporations, police get involved," said Kendall Carver, an American who founded the lobbying group International Cruise Victims after his own daughter's 2004 disappearance from the Celebrity Mercury. "On cruise ships they have, quote, security officers, but they work for the cruise lines. They aren't going to do anything when the lines get sued." Miami lawyer Jim Walker, publisher of the blog Cruise Law News, which is highly critical of the industry, concurs. "The Coriam family does not deserve Mickey Mouse games," he commented in Ronson's article. Walker later represented the Coriams in a suit against Disney in American courts; they settled with the company in 2015 for an undisclosed sum and an agreement not to discuss the case publicly.

The Coriams have been joined in their criticism of the investigation by British government officials, Rebecca's friends among the crew, and advocates for victims of other incidents on cruise ships and their families. The latter, especially, note that 170 passengers and crew have disappeared from cruise ships since 2000, many without being seriously investigated or widely reported. All critics contend that Disney, like other cruise operators, is more interested in avoiding adverse publicity related to these incidents than anything else.

Coriam was born on 11 March 1987 in Countess of Chester Hospital, Chester, England. She grew up in Chester with her parents, sister Rachael and two foster brothers, finishing Chester Catholic High School. In her youth, she also worked at the Chester Zoo, where other relatives had worked. A memorial bench to her grandparents Kevin and Dolores is on the zoo grounds.