These People Were Banned From Cruise Lines For Life – What Went Wrong?

It’s not easy to get banned from a cruise line but it happens a lot more than you’d think.

The question is are the people who got lifetime bands being reckless and they deserved it or did they make an honest mistake, the consequences of which they’ll have to live with forever?

In this post we will look at real examples of people who received lifetime bans from cruise lines and you can decide if you think it was deserved.

One of these people, when asked if they thought about the consequences of their actions before doing the thing they did said

How do You Get Banned From a Cruise Line?

You might think that to be banned from a cruise line you’d have to do something big, maybe hit somebody or flip a table upside down but that isn’t always the case.

In 2019 a woman was banned from a cruise line for standing. Of course, there is more to the story than that though, it was where she was standing that was the issue.

The main focus of a cruise line is to keep its guests and crew safe. Safety is more important than the guests being entertained or fed or anything really. Safety is always number one.

A Lady Was Banned For Life After an Event on Allure of The Seas

The lady in question was cruising onboard the Allure of The Seas in 2019. She was spotted by a fellow passenger who described her as an ‘absolute idiot’ for what she did.

She climbed up onto the balcony railing and put her hand on the balcony above to support herself for a photo. The fact that she needed her hand up to support herself shows just how tricky it is to stand on a balcony railing.

They are designed specifically to be as difficult to climb on as possible.

Balcony railings are usually chest height, or at least above waist height if you’re tall.

They are usually slopped and slippery and designed to be as unappealing to somebody looking to climb as possible.

The below shows the balcony railings.

emma cruises celebrity silhouette balcony — Me enjoying my balcony on the Celebrity Silhouette

On average 25 people fall off cruise ships per year. This might sound like a lot but it’s not when you realize that around 30 million people take a cruise each year. The majority of people who ‘fall’ off cruise ships are doing something silly like this lady, or they wanted to jump off.

In total 26 people went overboard from cruise ships in 2019.

6 people were found alive meaning the success rate was roughly 25%. Of course, cruise lines want to minimize the chance of this happening so anybody putting themselves or others in danger will be instantly banned from the cruise line, and possibly even other cruise lines.

To learn more about what happens when somebody falls overboard on a cruise, check out this post: Cruise Ships Stop if You Fall Overboard – Here’s What Happens

A passenger who saw the lady took a photo and reported her to guest services. He said he wondered at first if she was going to commit suicide.

Thankfully though she was just trying to take a photo and the women didn’t fall off. She was found by the staff and was taken off the ship in Jamaica which was the next stop on the cruise.

I know some people will say that she shouldn’t have been banned because she was only risking her own life but I really don’t think that’s the case, if she had fallen overboard the cruise line would have had to try to find her and that isn’t an easy thing to do in the middle of the ocean.

Royal Caribbean banned her for life.

A Group Were Banned For Life After an Event on Symphony of The Seas

The next person who was banned from a cruise line took this even further. It wasn’t just the person who performed the act that was banned, but everybody involved.

The event happened on the world’s largest cruise ship Symphony of the Seas. Symphony of the Seas is 18 decks high, she has huge internal neighborhoods and can hold almost 7000 passengers at full capacity.

Symphony of the Seas Flag Nassau Bahamas

A group of men were staying in a cabin on deck 11, the ship was docked in Nassau in the Bahamas and they decided they wanted to film something cool for Instagram.

They were on the world’s largest cruise ship so you’d think they could find something cool to film onboard like the ultimate abyss 10 story slide or maybe they could try the FlowRider but nope, they decided to do something very stupid instead.

Like the lady we talked about earlier, the man in this situation stood up onto his balcony, while his friend was filming the whole thing.

He jumped off the ship into the water below. They were on deck 11 so the drop would have been at least 120 feet. Landing wrong from this height definitely could kill you.

In the Olympics they dive from around 30 feet, with a LOT of training, so yeah a 120 feet dive isn’t a good idea. Especially when you don’t know what’s under the water.

“I did not think this through before I jumped. My idea was this would be a good laugh for my friends and I would just swim back to shore and continue my vacation and never thought this would be this serious”

The man said that the jump hurt ‘very badly’ and that he could barely walk for 3 days and could barely sleep from the pain.

He was picked up by a boat and had to gather his things. He was then left in Nassau and had to make his own way home to Miami.

It wasn’t just him who was banned but all of his friends cruising with him. I’m not sure that all of his friends should have been banned, after watching their friend jump I doubt any of them would ever try the same stunt but I guess it’s a better safe than sorry approach from the cruise lines.

A Group Were Arrested on a P&O Cruise

This next one caused a LOT of media attention when it happened and it doesn’t involve anybody standing on, or jumping off of a balcony.

All parties involved in this incident were definitely on the ship at the time but there are a few questions about what happened.

p&o britannia kids — Me with P&O Cruises Britannia

The event happened on board P&O’s Britannia and if you’re from the UK you’ll probably remember this story. If you’re from outside of the UK you might never have heard about it, and it’s one of the weirdest and funniest cruise news stories so I’m excited to get to break this news to you.

Britannia was sailing on a 7 night Norwegian Fjords cruise and was on her way back to Southampton at the time. Officers on board made an emergency tannoy announcement at 2 AM for security to head to deck 16.

It sounds like when people heard this announcement if they were nearby, and weren’t security but were just passengers they headed to have a look. Witnesses said that they were ‘so frightened they had to hide’ as ‘family groups fought’.

The incident was described as a violent late-night brawl with ‘blood everywhere’ but this isn’t the interesting part of the story.

A witness who was part of the group involved said to staff that things kicked off when another passenger appeared dressed as a clown.

P&O have a strict no costume policy and they apparently booked this cruise because of the policy. A confrontation occurred that got violent.

I’m not 100% sure if the people involved in this incident were banned from cruising with P&O again but they were arrested, and usually, if you do something on board that gets you arrested, the cruise line won’t want you back.

Interestingly cruise ships do have jails onboard which they can use in case of an emergency. The police said that 6 people were assaulted in the fight and a man aged 43 and a women aged 41 were arrested.

There is no information to suggest that a clown was involved in this incident.
UK Police

There are a lot of accounts online from people who said that they did see a clown.

I guess it’s up to you if you think that the clown was there, but I do think it’s a funny idea so I’m going to carry on believing that.

Not every mistake made on a cruise results in a lifetime ban, some can just be embarrassing.

Watch this video next to find out about the most embarrassing mistakes I’ve seen other people make on a cruise, including the man who lost his swim shorts at an inconvenient time.