1,300 men from Indian tobacco company turn family cruise into 'huge bachelor party'

What was meant to be a relaxing three-day vacation turned into a nightmare for some families aboard a cruise ship.

Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas became "Voyager of the Sleaze" as some 1,300 men from an Indian tobacco company hijacked the ship's decks and bars to throw wild parties.

They boarded the cruise ship at Sydney on Sept 6 to attend a conference, Australian media reported.

When night fell, scantily dressed women danced to pulsating music on the deck which was surrounded by the men, who made up a third of the ship's capacity.

"It was crazy... little Playboy bunny outfits, you know this is a family boat," said passenger Christine Weyling. 

Fellow traveller Cassandra Riini described the jamboree as a "huge bachelor party."

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The men also harassed young female passengers by filming them on their mobile phones, Newsweek reported.

"It is hard to forget after seeing all the flashbacks of these men around all the time, 24 hours a day, like we could not escape," said Riini's daughter Tahli.

With the men occupying the common spaces, passengers said that they were forced to stay in their rooms.

Bingo games - a cruise holiday staple, was cancelled as a third of the guests were busy partying, and other passengers had to dine in restaurants because they could not get to the buffet, 9News reported.

The stressed-out travellers couldn't even catch a family flick at the ship's outdoor cinema as it was screening videos from the Indian company.

"I think that they should have notified us that there was a big group that had been booked and had booked the pool deck out...everyone on that ship should have been notified," said Weyling.

After receiving negative feedback on the trip, the cruise company offered full refunds to affected passengers.

In a statement, Royal Caribbean said: "We operate with the safety of our guests and crew as our highest priority, and are currently looking into all guest feedback regarding this incident to ensure it does not happen again."

minlee@sph.com.sg