A British family say they were forced to take refuge in their cabin after their ‘family-friendly’ cruise was ruined by drunken louts who turned the ship into a ‘club’.
Iain and Sally Wright, from Sunderland, paid £8,000 for the voyage which ‘looked great for kids’ and embarked on a two-week trip around the Spanish coast on the MSC Cruises Virtuosa on July 12 alongside their two children, Jack, 11, Molly, eight, and their mother-in-law.
But they said they endured a holiday from hell after they were surrounded by ‘an insane level of drunkeness’ from rowdy youths, while Molly suffered an allergic reaction after swimming in a pool covered in black soot.
Mr Wright, 41, an author, said they tried to leave the cruise halfway through when in Majorca after they were sheltering in their rooms to avoid the ‘horrible’ atmosphere of ‘constant swearing’ and drunkness on board.
One inebriated guest even threw up next to the family’s table while they were playing Scrabble. Mr Wright claims it took an hour for staff to clean up the ‘smelly mess’.
The holiday was further ruined after Jack and Molly returned from the pool the following day ‘covered in black soot’, which left the eight-year-old needing medical treatment after suffering an allergic reaction.
The family complained to customer servics about the fumes but were told it ‘happens sometimes when we pull away from a port’ by staff.
They then spent the remainder of the trip, which included stops in Galicia, Seville, Granada, Alicante, Barcelona, Valencia and Lisbon, inside their cabin to avoid the ‘awful’ atmosphere, which resembled an ’18 to 30s club’.
MSC Cruises said they ‘regretted’ that the family’s experience did not meet their expectations and said they will be reaching out to ensure their ‘concerns are properly reviewed and addressed’.
Mr Wright said: ‘We wanted to book this cruise because we thought it was a family ship. We thought it looked great for kids.
‘We were really looking forward to it. My mother-in-law loves cruises and she said she might have one more left in her so for her, this was going to be her last cruise.
‘But the level of drunkenness was insane. It was worse than a Wetherspoons. It would take you half an hour to get a drink. It was just horrendous.
‘It felt like an 18 to 30s club at times. If you were by the pool, you’d just hear constant swearing and people getting louder through the day.
‘We just thought “what have we spent our money on?” It became like Fawlty Towers.
‘We were playing Scrabble on the main pool deck when a drunk passenger just walks by and vomits on the floor right next to our table.
‘It smelled. It was left there for over an hour. They couldn’t get a cleaner. And when you think about the bugs that go around on cruises, this is basic hygiene.’
The Wrights’ misery was compounded when Molly was ‘covered’ in black soot, believed to be ‘raining’ from the ship’s funnels, which left her ‘suffering with itching for 24 hours’.
‘We were leaving the port and the kids went up to the top deck to see if the water slides were open,’ Mr Wright said.
‘While they were on that deck, it just rained down black stuff all over them. They came down to tell us and Jack’s skin was covered in black stuff, Molly’s swimming costume was stained all over her and it was on her arms.
‘We went down to guest services and told them our kids have been covered in the black soot from the engine I think and she said “yeah that happens sometimes when we pull away from a port”.
‘She said we can make a claim about the damaged costume. While we were there, there were other people complaining to say they’d been covered in the black soot too.
‘Two days later she started itching and broke out in hives so we went to customer services to see the doctor.
‘He said it was an allergic reaction to an external substance. They said it was from the fumes because it was in the area where the fumes had touched her skin.
‘They gave her hydrocortisone cream. She suffered with itching for 24 hours but it was a result of her being covered in this soot. It’s not acceptable.
‘We get accidents happen but customer services just didn’t care. They acted like we were the problem for wasting their time. Their only intention was to disprove your complaint.’
The family were later offered a £9 ticket for a premium show on-board the cruise after raising their complaints.
But Mr Wright wants the cruise line to apologise for the ‘disappointing’ trip.
‘We spent most of the holidays just going out to eat and staying in our cabins because the atmosphere was just awful.
‘There were no quiet areas. Everywhere was packed.
‘We were looking to disembark halfway through the cruise in Majorca. We felt like we were left with no choice.
‘There’s a level of basic customer service that we didn’t get, whether it’s a budget cruise or not.
‘We wouldn’t step foot on one of their cruises ever again. We got back feeling quite disheartened. It was a lot of money. The kids were disappointed.
‘We probably had 12 hours of fun on a two-week cruise. We would love a partial refund because that could go towards booking the holiday that we wanted in the first place.
‘They should apologise.’
A MSC Cruises spokesperson said they ‘take all guest feedback seriously and regret that the Wright family’s experience did not meet their expectations.
‘As we have not received any additional communication from them since then, our Customer Service team will now reach out to the Wright family directly to ensure their concerns are properly reviewed and addressed.’
