Brawling on Britannia

Wow this is a title I never thought I would type but today I have to mention “Brawling on Britannia”. When I first heard that it had been reported of a mass brawl on a cruise ship I thought it was a wind up to be honest. I would of never in my wildest dreams imagined such a thing could or would happen on a cruise but as the cruise world changes could we see more and more if this kind of thing?

For those that don’t know what happened yet, it is reported that a late-night brawl broke out in the buffet restaurant on P&O’s flagship the Britannia. Depending on where you saw or heard the news of this reports vary drastically and it started off by saying that the whole thing was started off by someone taking exception to a person dressed as a clown ( Yes a clown ) who gatecrashed a black-tie event. That version of the event has now been rubbished bit you do have to wonder how someone could come up with that if there was no clown involved.

Was someone like this responsible for the start of the trouble?

If you just google it for example like I have just done you get so much conflicting information. The Sun paints a picture of rowdy Brits on a booze cruise drinking all afternoon and blood everywhere and families fleeing. the Star ( I don’t read it but it is one of the first google brings up ) said has dubbed it Benidorm at Sea and then the Telegraph has based the problem very much on the fact on all-inclusive drinks packages………..

Whilst I’m sure of one thing that drink was involved and played a part I for one don’t blame all-inclusive as the issue here. I’m pretty sure people drank and in some cases still do to excess with or without a package.

What does surprise me is this was a cruise to Norway that would attract a lot of families so not would you expect to hear, but there again as it was the start of the School Holidays and this cruise will of been a lot cheaper than a lot of the longer durations and hotter destinations so it may of had a different cruise customer profile to the norm.

I’m sad to read of something like this however big or small the brawl was as I want cruising to be open to everyone and would dread to think of anyone being put off by this. I had customers on this cruise and spoke to them last night and they said it all has very much been blown out of all proportion. Most people were in bed and although they did here security being called over the address system they thought nothing more of it and were not really aware of anything the next day until a few rumours started doing the rounds. They also asked me to look at another P&O cruise so were not put off in any way!

Every person I spoke to yesterday did mention this mostly as a joke but I would say to anyone don’t be put off by this. I’m sure it was an isolated incident that has been blown out of all proportion for a few headlines as let’s face it we all love to read anything about cruises.

Let’s see what else emerges from the story and if anyone does indeed have action taken against them by the authorities and P&O and hopefully we will get a truer version of what happened.

I’m sure we all have our own thoughts on this so let me hear what you think……………..