Fed up with her company making headline news and going viral on social media for all the wrong reasons, Carnival Cruise Line president Christine Duffy is taking strong action against unruly passengers.
The Miami-based cruise line has announced that it is taking a hardline approach to bad behaviour on its fleet of 26 cruise ships.
Duffy made it clear in a video recently posted on YouTube that Carnival would throw the book at passengers who do not behave.
The company, she said, was updating its safety and security procedures to stamp out anti-social behaviour.
New measures to support the polite behaviour Carnival expects on its ships run the gamut from adding more security personnel on board to sniffer dogs at turnaround ports to screen passengers and their luggage for drugs.
Those highly trained dogs, which are a common sight at airports worldwide, will also be introduced at ports on the itinerary to make sure that passengers do not stock up on suspicious herbs and chemicals during their cruise.
“Our guests shouldn’t be surprised if they see dogs come on board at both our homeports and destination outports to make random searches,” said Duffy, who reminded passengers that the definition of illegal drugs includes marijuana, which is prohibited by federal law.
Duffy suggested that users of medicinal marijuana products talk to their healthcare providers about alternative, more legal relief for use on board.
During the embarkation process, all passengers will be required to sign on to Carnival’s code of conduct, Safety First!, which spells out the penalties for bad behaviour of any kind.
Not only does the policy cover serious stuff like fighting and narcotics, it includes simple rules of social etiquette, such as wearing headphones while listening to music, smoking in designated areas and not throwing rubbish overboard.
Passengers who break the code risk $500 fines, being confined to their cabins and, in worst-case scenarios, being dumped on the dock with their baggage at the next port of call.
Carnival’s “family fun” image takes frequent hits from video footage of big brawls between passengers and other types of nefarious activities. These are quickly published by disdainful passengers on social media and are picked up by news networks, as are drug raids by local authorities worldwide.
Carnival is not alone in suffering from this problem. Anti-social behaviour on cruise ships is a growing phenomenon that is plaguing most mass-market cruise lines.
Social media footage of bad cruise passenger behaviour viewed by TradeWinds is mostly labelled as “not safe for work”.
Now that Duffy has laid down the law, it is not safe for Carnival passengers either.
