1300 strong stag party on a 3 night cruise

OK, not a stag party but just as bad.

Picture the scene. You’ve saved up for the perfect holiday – complete with luxury accommodation, meals and tours – and counted down the days, only to find your trip rudely interrupted by a raucous stag party.

This was the situation facing passengers on board a recent Royal Caribbean Australia cruise, except in place of the stag do was a group of more than 1,300 revelling employees from Indian tobacco company, Kamla Pasand.

More than a third of the Voyager of the Seas’ passenger capacity (3,144) was taken up by the group, which joined the ship in Sydney.

The workers had come from a conference and brought women dressed as Playboy bunnies and burlesque dancers on board, according to Australian news website. Fellow passengers are said to have taken refuge in the ship’s restaurants as the rowdy contingent took over the decks and buffet.

“It was almost like a huge bucks party – a bucks night for 1,200 people,” western Sydney passenger Cassandra Riini told Australian news programme A Current Affair.

A Royal Caribbean spokesperson told Telegraph Travel: “During Voyager of the Seas’ three-night sailing from Singapore on September 6, a group onboard caused complaints from some of our guests who raised their concerns with us after they returned to Australia. We were able to quickly provide them with a satisfactory solution.

“Royal Caribbean operates with the safety of our guests and crew as our highest priority. While we have had a long history of successful group bookings in which all guests have enjoyed their cruise, we are looking into this incident, including all guest feedback to ensure our group booking policies are suitable and that our guest conduct policy is applied appropriately.”

While this event may be alarming to some cruisers, out-of-hand behaviour or incidents of crime are rare on cruise ships. Plus, the Australian cruise market typically attracts a younger demographic.

Although this must have been horrifying for the other 1800 passengers and of great concern for their safety statistically crusing is 1 of the safest, if not safest form of travel and holidaying.

Between 1990 and 2017 there has just been 7 murders on a cruise ship, 6 of them were domestic and the other a casino disagreement.

Personally I think there needs to be a cap on the size of a group or that the ship is chartered out specifically to that party.