Travel Securely Securely Travel
The luxury cruise ship market serving the Australia and Southeast Asia market continues to grow, and with such the law of averages state that untoward onboard incidents will also grow. Within the last year two cruises within this market have percolated to the top as sufficiently disruptive to capture the attention of the rest of the world. They were in essence, cruise passengers gone wild.
Families on each of these cruises, one hosted by Carnival Cruise Lines and the other by Royal Caribbean Cruises, learned first hand that vacationing on a cruise ship is different than vacationing on land, as you truly are captive (at least for a short period of time) to the behaviour of one’s fellow passengers. And when the behavior is alcohol fueled, the odds of onboard incidents increase. Let’s look at these two incidents of cruise passengers gone wild.
Voyager of the Seas turns into a burlesque club
A group of 1200 passengers, all part of what appeared to be a corporate award charter by Indian tobacco conglomerate Kamla Pasand, turned the 3-day cruise into their own 3-day stag party (aka buck’s night). Media reports of the 06 September 2018 cruise indicate this large group brought not only their own food on board, but also their own entertainment as part of their charter. This entertainment came in the form of “burlesque dancers” and “Playboy bunnies.”
We reached out to Royal Caribbean for a statement, but haven’t heard from the cruise line. Reference to Royal Caribbean’s solution appeared elsewhere and it appears their “satisfactory solution” was full refunds to those passengers who petitioned for such.
Carnival Legend turns into fight club
A family of 26 turned the Carnival Legend into their own personal fight club during a February 2018 voyage. Six men and three teenage boys were part of the larger group and were evicted from the Carnival Legend after a series of brawls on board the ship. One of those involved ship personnel, and appeared to have been the last straw as they were taken off the Legend via police boats at the next port of call by law enforcement. The family’s behavior appeared to be an alcohol fueled predisposition to violence. In this instance, Carnival offered passengers a 25 percent discount off future cruises, which many guests found totally inadequate.
These two incidents serve to highlight some of the challenges faced by the cruise industry. First and foremost, the profitability of every cruise voyage lays with the bar revenue generated during the voyage. It will come as no surprise to any adult that individuals who become intoxicated my behave differently than when they are sober. Some may become hilarious, while others belligerent. When you have 500-6500 strangers melding amidst an alcohol haze the odds of an inadvertent incident occurring is real. Every ship has a brig, and the ability to confine an unruly passenger to their stateroom. Security personnel, predominately made up of contract personnel, are there for your safety and security. Their level of training in crowd control and handling spontaneous eruptions of violence is, from this writer’s optic, uneven.
Reviewing the two videos above, one can see in the Carnival Legend incidents which escalate to fisticuffs exceeded the security team’s capabilities. While the incidents on the Voyager of the Seas, that the charter group felt the ship was theirs and these passengers had no issue pushing other passengers out of venues or entertainment locales so that the larger group could enjoy their cruise.
Charter groups are not unusual for the cruise ship industry, indeed each cruise line has its own group reservation team to handle such. The larger the group the deeper the discount. Royal Caribbean dedicates a page of their website to “Cruise Ship Charter Cost & FAQ ready to accommodate groups of 16 to 5,400.
Disclosure: Christopher Burgess, the author, has enjoyed many a cruise vacation and intends to enjoy many more. He is a stockholder in CCL, the parent company to Carnival, Princess, Holland America, and other cruise lines.
