
Passengers aboard a cruise ship that booted off a large “violent” family have described three days of mayhem during what was supposed to be an ideal holiday through the South Pacific.
The Carnival Legend arrived at its homeport in Melbourne on Saturday, following an unscheduled stop to offload the 23-member family at Eden on the NSW south coast.
Days of fighting onboard preceded a major brawl at the ship’s nightclub during the early hours of Friday morning.
Passenger Lisa Bolitho said the “big Italian family” spent the past few days attacking “Aussies”.
“Very violent, they were full-on attacks,” she told reporters on Saturday.
“The captain said ‘What do you want me to do about it – throw them overboard?’.
“We’ve all made several complaints saying kids were scared. They saw people getting strangled and punched up.”
Ms Bolitho questioned management’s handling of the incident.
“We were saying ‘We want them either locked up or taken off board’. It never happened and there was another four occasions,” she said.
“We dropped them off at Eden yesterday, but that was after three days of violence.”
She said security staff ended up “jumping” the family, and had no choice but to do so.