Clown in clear as cruise ship brawl blamed on ‘all you can drink’ deals

All-you-can-drink offers offered on a P&O cruise have been criticised after an evening function descended into a mass brawl.

Two people were arrested on suspicion of assault after a fracas that sent families fleeing to their cabins at the end of a week-long cruise around Norway.

The brawl was reported to have been started after a man dressed as a clown gatecrashed a black-tie event. However, Hampshire Police yesterday ruled out a clown as the perpetrator.

“There was no clown on board or involved in this incident,” a spokesman said. Violence had erupted between “drunken idiots” who threw plates and furniture across the 16th-floor restaurant in the early hours of Friday morning, according to witnesses.

Six people suffered “significant” cuts and bruises in the 10-minute melée.

Emergency announcements were made to summon paramedics and staff at around 2am. A 43-year-old man and 41-year-old woman from Chigwell, Essex, were arrested when the Britannia cruise ship docked in Southampton on Saturday, and have since been released under investigation.

A mother who had travelling with her young son yesterday condemned the drinking culture she claimed was fostered by P&O’S alcohol deals. She described how the cruise – which would have cost passengers around £1,000 – felt like “Benidorm-on-sea” as “obnoxious” customers tried to drink as much as they could.

The mother, who asked not to be named, said that it would be her last cruise.

“From the moment we embarked we found many of the other guests to be rude, have zero manners or respect for others,” she told Mail Online.

“The boat was [Benidorm-on-sea] with a me, me, me attitude.”

A spokesman for P&O Cruises said “the matter is now in the hands of the local police”.