If there’s one thing no traveler wants, it’s to be stuck on the same vacation with this family.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, at least 30 passengers aboard a Carnival Cruise Lines ship traveling to Melbourne were injured after a series of brawls. What is now being called the "the cruise from hell" led police to "remove a family group of passengers" when they left passengers scared and bloodied.
It was reported that 23 members of one family left the 10-day cruise in the South Pacific early because of their behavior. Six men and three teenage boys were removed by police while the other 14 passengers, women and children, followed suit.
“This is all over a thong, not a foot, a thong being stepped on and being instantly apologized for. What happened there and then was apologized for,” revealed a family member, who was identified only as Zac. “My nephew was threatened as he was returning a soccer … when four or five blokes walked up to him and said, ‘Don’t worry we’re gonna get ya.'”
Videos show men and women engaging in the fight, as well as security kicking the entangled men on the floor.
WARNING: The below video may be disturbing to some viewers.
The man argued that security on the ship aggravated the situation by following them at “every possible moment.”
“The first hit was thrown by security towards, not just my daughter and my sister-in-law, but my wife as well,” he argued.
WARNING: The below video may be disturbing to some viewers.
"They were looking for trouble from the minute they got on the ship," a passenger identified as Katie told 3AW.
David Barkho told the station that his son called him from the ship after being injured.
“He said, ‘Please Dad, please, call the Federal Police,'” the father recalled. “I could hear a lot of screaming, crying in the background.”
The cruise line explained its actions in a statement:
We asked [New South Wales] Police Marine Area Command to attend Carnival Legend in Eden to remove a family group of passengers from the ship.
A video shows that the family remained rowdy even in the removal process. At least one man thought to raise his middle finger toward the cheering onlookers after being loaded onto a separate vessel by authorities.
Link to that video can be found here.
Carnival initially released the following statement in response to the incident:
Safety is the number one priority for Carnival Cruise Line, we take a zero tolerance approach to excessive behaviour that affects other guests and we have acted accordingly on Carnival Legend.
The ship's highly trained security staff have taken strong action in relation to a small group of disruptive guests who have been involved in altercations on board.
The ship's security team is applying our zero tolerance policy in the interests of the safety and comfort of other guests.
Carnival Legend is currently on a 10-day South Pacific cruise scheduled to be completed in Melbourne tomorrow where the ship is currently homeported.
The cruise has reportedly offered the other passengers a 25 percent refund on their tickets.
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