In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past fortnight, you will have noticed that the Rio Olympics are in full swing. Whilst team GB have done us all proud, there have been a number of funny stories surrounding the Olympics and cruise ships…
First we heard that the men’s American basketball team had hired out a luxury cruise ship to stay on, (which you can read all about here) and now it emerges that the mother of an Olympian has had her suitcase blown up by NCL. No – really!
Cindi Lloyd, mother of USA soccer player Carli Lloyd, had dropped her bag off at the Norwegian Getaway which she would be staying on for the duration of the Olympics.
She left her bag with port officials after checking in before rushing off to see her daughter compete. However, upon returning to the ship she found that her bag had been blown up for security reasons!
Cindi explained what had happened: “The handle was nowhere. It was completely blown up. There was some clothing. They use some sort of wet bomb, I think, because everything was wet. Some of the clothes were salvageable, but some were melted. Some had holes. My American flag was melted. And all the toiletries with caps had their caps blown off.”
She was then questioned for ten minutes once getting back on-board before being released. Her bag had apparently been detonated because it had set off alarms when being scanned due to an additional mobile phone that was placed within the suitcase.
Strangely, Brazilian authorities removed the phone and then proceeded to destroy the case anyway. It has been revealed that the decision to blow up the case lay with the authorities and not just NCL.
To apologise for the mishap, Norwegian Cruise Line have since given Cindi free drinks and food and have offered to reimburse the items that were destroyed.
What do you make of the news? Do you think its security gone mad or do you think tight security is needed to protect passengers – and in this case Olympians? Let us know in the comments below…
