Cruise ship hooligans: Passenger beaten after asking youngsters to stop rocking lift

• An incident on Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas has led to the arrest of a young cruise ship passenger for aggravated assault.
• A fight broke out between a man who asked an 18-year-old and a group of children to stop jumping in the ship’s elevator
• He was then struck from behind, and his next memory is waking up in a pool of blood.

A man has been allegedly king hit after an incident onboard Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas – another incident involving cruise ship young hooligans misbehaving at sea.

The incident comes after news of a nine-year-old being banned for life by Carnival Cruise Line and a string of reports about poor behaviour, which has sparked a global debate among cruise passengers.

Michael White, 18, and another minor were arrested and charged with aggravated battery causing bodily harm.

The man who was travelling with his wife was riding in the ship’s elevator when a number of children entered and started jumping up and down.

According to a police report, the woman, who was with the victim, asked the children if they would “stop jumping up and down on the elevator”.

The children started yelling and saying, “B—-, who are you talking to?” when she had asked them to stop.

The police report continued: “At this point, (the victim) said he yelled to stop jumping in the elevator, but the kids wouldn’t stop; they kept arguing and fussing at them and calling them names.”

The couple then decided to exit the lift, according to the police report.

“The ‘kids’ did not move when the door opened, so he pushed through the crowd to exit the elevator.

“Once he got out, he said he started getting struck by individuals in the face area, causing him to stagger backward. After staggering backward, he (redacted) fell to the floor and that’s when he started getting kicked. Also, at this point, (the victim) said he blacked out and the next thing he knew, he woke up in a pool of blood on the floor.”

Documents obtained by an American local news outlet, WPLG show White and others assaulted the victim to the point of unconsciousness.

He and another unnamed person were arrested by Borward County police after the ship returned to Port Everglades in Florida.

White was released from Jail after posting bond.

Are cruisers fed up with badly behaved kids?

Badly behaved youngsters on cruises have been an issue among some passengers. It comes after hundreds of cruisers raised their concerns about the nine-year-old who was banned from Carnival after destructive behaviour.

However, cruisers tend to put the responsibility on the parents. A previous Cruise Passenger poll showed that 70% of cruisers blame parents for bad behaviour from kids onboard ships.

Plenty of those commenting expressed this same sentiment.

One reader wrote: “The child and his parents should be banned for life. The responsibility of making sure your kids behave rests in the parents. I’ve been on Carnival cruises where I’ve witnessed kids running wild all over the ship and playing on the stairs, and parents nowhere in sight. It’s really a problem with these kids misbehaving, unsupervised.”

Another wrote: “Unsupervised children ruin vacations. They should not be allowed to run rampant around the ship. As soon as an errant child is identified, they should be given a warning. Second offense they should be restricted from common areas on the ship. Third offense, drop the family off at the next port of call.

“The entire family should be banned.”

Other users even felt sympathy for the child, directing their anger more towards the parents.

“Banning a nine-year-old for life seems childish in itself. 20 years from now, he may be a perfectly behaved adult. They should not be banned for things he did as a child. The parents should be banned for life, and he should be banned until he is eighteen or twenty one but not for life. That is an extreme overreaction on the part of Carnival.”

We’ve previously seen cruise lines float ideas for how to control child behaviour on board. For example, Royal Caribbean has piloted a system of location tracking for kids, and many cruise lines impose curfews and are considering imposing stricter curfews.

However, many cruise passengers seem to feel that not enough is being done.

What do you think cruise lines should do?