Passengers On Balcony Railing?!

[3Sisters]

RCL cruise guests were spotted sitting on the balcony railing with their feet dangling over the edge. I'm terrified just looking at this photo. It appears to be one of Royal Caribbean's Radiance-class ships. These passengers are seemingly young adults or children. This is just so unsafe and not smart at all! Have you seen anything like this before off of your cruise balcony? I wouldn't dare! 

Edited July 25, 2023 by 3Sisters

[Cruising Caribbean]

What in the world! There is no way I could stay calm witnessing this sighting. This is why you never leave your children unattended on a cruise ship. 

[kefthecruiser]

Crazy. Hopefully, the ship was docked. It does look like both are holding on to something as well. 'White Shoes' is holding (?) an overhead beam, while 'Black Shoes' left arm holds the balcony partition. Still, not really smart. Why are more and more people doing such dumb things?

[Aquainst1]

The family got removed from the cruise and the mother claimed she was being victimised.

Falling onto water from around 250+ feet is literally like falling onto concrete, and most cruise ships average 190 feet.

Isn't falling off a ship deadly 80% of the time? With a low recovery rate as well? (Rhetorical questions)

[Terence O]

As an avid cruiser, the behavior on ships has been unacceptable not only with the youth but adults as well. The experience is supposed to relaxing and a getaway from the everyday life. People bring their bad, selfish attitudes on vacation making the experience less enjoyable. Thankfully, I have not had to deal with any of it. I pray I dont to ever.

 

 

[Cruising Caribbean]

@Aquainst1 That's pretty shameful that she's claiming to have been victimized. In fact, the children in this case are victims of neglect. If something terrible happened, like these children fell off and died, the mother (or parental/guardians onboard) would be fully responsible. 

@kefthecruiser Holding on to something definitely doesn't make this situation any safer. I'm curious about the ages of these children. Either these boys were being defiant or the parents did lay the ground rules beforehand, but either way, that's all the responsibility of the parents if the children are under 18.

@Terence O I have unfortunately experienced a man overboard situation and it wasn't a good outcome. It ruins a great vacation. I would love to hear more details on this story!

 

[3Sisters]

Not all the info has been released yet but here is the Cruise Hive article associated with the photo. https://www.cruisehive.com/passengers-captured-sitting-on-cruise-ship-balcony-railings/107486 

This article shows more recent incidents of young children/adults making poor choices onboard cruise ships. This is an awful way to risk your life and a lifetime of cruising because it 100% breaks the safety rules of all cruise ships.

[FJB]

Life has a way of naturally eliminating the ignorant. I have no problem with that. 

[Jim Lamb]

It's the old "shallow end of the gene pool"!

[FJB]

Natural selection. 

[PaulB]

@Aquainst1 victimised? How can someone actually believe that. These people annoy me, believe they have done nothing wrong and then have that spiteful attitude about them when someone actually speaks up. If God forbid, those children fell, it would have been someone else fault too. I'm glad she got removed, they need to be made an example of.

[Kendall James-Vargas]

@Terence O This should be a demonstration for all children to see before they get onboard a cruise ship on what not to do. Children should be aware of the rules and regulations of the cruise ship they are on, and furthermore, they should fully respect those rules if they don't want to be banned for life due to ignoring the ship's rules. This parent should be responsible and take responsibility for her child and his/her behavior. Her lack of responsibility is a reflection of her parenting and personal immaturity. There should be ramifications for these children's actions. These children were either unaware or blatantly breaking the rules. I believe a waiver should be distributed to the children on board in their staterooms demonstrating proper and improper behaviors onboard. Airlines do this! For instance a photo of someone learning on the balcony or standing on the railing with an X and then someone sitting on the balcony chair with a check. What do you think of that?

[PaulB]

The parents should take responsibility for the children's behaviour. I know we live in a world where people are rude and don't care, happily allowing their kids to run amok and disrespectful to any establishment, but the fact we should punish the parents who believe that is welcomed. 

[Seaawgs]

@Jim Lamb and @FJB Thanks for saying what we're thinking. Economically empowering the lower rungs of society with government give-a-ways and easy credit has caused chaos across all aspects of travel.  Daily incidents involving air travel, hotels and cruise ships have become the norm. Social media narcissism has also contributed to this current wave of "natural selection ".

[PaulB]

I agree it has become the norm and as a society, we have allowed it to happen and turn the other way.

[Jim Lamb]

On 8/1/2023 at 6:43 AM, Seaawgs said:

@Jim Lamb and @FJB Thanks for saying what we're thinking. Economically empowering the lower rungs of society with government give-a-ways and easy credit has caused chaos across all aspects of travel.  Daily incidents involving air travel, hotels and cruise ships have become the norm. Social media narcissism has also contributed to this current wave of "natural selection ".

My wife and I were on a Carnival cruise in November of '22 and the whole "lower rungs" thing was on displayed. In the cabin next to us was several young teenagers staying un- supervised as their parents were staying down the passageway a good distance from the kids. There was yelling and loud music and bumping into the wall on the other side of our headboard at all hours of the night! We mentioned it to the steward but nothing was done. You could hear them running up and down the hallway the whole voyage. We decided that since we were going on a Royal ship a week after we got back that we would just call it a common Carnival "Wal-Mart" cruise due to the cost of what we ended up paying for our cabin and just related it to what we see at the local Walmart store all of the time.   

[LukeJ]

Such a shame this type of behaviour is allowed. People want to go on cruises to enjoy themselves not be tormented by mindless idiots that just do not care about other people. There is hardly any consideration from parents anymore, and we see it get worse each day in everyday situations. When I go on a cruise and spend money to go on a vacation, i do expect some type of respect from unruly behaviour.

[Cruising Caribbean]

@Jim Lamb What a shame! I really hope you got a good rate for the RCL itinerary. I see the need for parents to need to unwind and relax but not at the expense of others onboard or their own children's safety. I find this behavior to be negligent. If you end up taking another RCL or CCL cruise, I recommend just getting a stateroom at the very end of the hall. We did this and, although we got some mechanical sounds, no one came down to the end to bother us! It was a little rocky and a bit of a walk to the stateroom, but to have a quiet/peaceful sleep/evening, this was well worth it.

@LukeJ I completely agree. There is a big difference between allowing your children to have a good time on vacation and them becoming unruly and disruptive to others. I think children always need to have rules and expectations for their behaviors and actions. If you give your children no rules, they are going to behave poorly, especially if you truly don't care. Parenting takes constant effort, if you aren't willing to put in the effort, then you shouldn't bring them on your vacation. 

[PaulB]

I've been on vacation before, not on the cruises but whenever we witnessed unruly behaviour and parents that aren't able or won't able to control their behaviour, then the hotels would give them a warning and if continued, I've seen the hotel management kicked them out onto the streets to the fanfare of the remaining guests. When the parents complained, the answer from the hotel was your problem not ours. Maybe something like that could be introduced on the cruises. Let it be known, any unruly behaviour, I don't mean kids or people just being loud, but really unruly, then they get removed at the next port of call and let them find their own way back 

[FJB]

7 hours ago, PaulB said:

I've been on vacation before, not on the cruises but whenever we witnessed unruly behaviour and parents that aren't able or won't able to control their behaviour, then the hotels would give them a warning and if continued, I've seen the hotel management kicked them out onto the streets to the fanfare of the remaining guests. When the parents complained, the answer from the hotel was your problem not ours. Maybe something like that could be introduced on the cruises. Let it be known, any unruly behaviour, I don't mean kids or people just being loud, but really unruly, then they get removed at the next port of call and let them find their own way back 

I would give them an inflatable dinghy and a couple days of food & water and kick them off the ship in the middle of the ocean.  It would only take one or 2 of these incidents before everyone would straighten up and cruise right. 

[PaulB]

@FJB I tend to agree, maybe not as severe as marooning them though, however removing them from the ship yes. And it would only take a few incidents for the whole industry leaves its mark. Any messing, then you're off. Absolutely no excuses. 

[LukeJ]

Let's all get together and begin a petition contacting each CEO of cruise lines and demanding the necessary actions that be taken.

[Cruising Caribbean]

@LukeJ This sounds great but we will need to team up on certain topics. If we dilute our requests I think the cruise lines will just sweep it under the rug. We need to use our voices together. What would you recommend to the cruise lines in order to correct this from reoccurring? 

[LukeJ]

@Cruising Caribbean maybe the baseball mentality of three strikes and you're out. If a certain cruise line continues to get complaints, then it will get a knock on effect on whether guests will book onto their ships 

[Cruising Caribbean]

@LukeJ Yes, that could work. I'm even thinking a two-strike you're out could work even better. That's another way to look at it. No one wants to book on a ship that notably attracts a rowdy crowd unless they themselves are rowdy. Maybe cruise lines can add a little tag on the guest's cruise card that displays they are on the naughty list. No one would want to display their tainted cruise card anywhere. It's more of a shameful approach.