Featured Image Credit: Getty/Wayleebird
Topics: Cruise, Cruise Ship, Travel, World News, Social Media, TikTok
Rhiannon Ingle
Topics: Cruise, Cruise Ship, Travel, World News, Social Media, TikTok
A luxury cruise ship gave passengers on board a clearly very unexpected warning as the vessel sailed through pirate territory on its 111-night world voyage.
Cunard Cruise Line's Queen Anne, which can hold more than 3,350 passengers, set sail from Hamburg in Germany earlier this year (7 January) and is set to return next month (29 April) after making stops in a number of countries, including England, New York, Hawaii, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, China, Vietnam, South Africa, Singapore and Malaysia, according to CruiseMapper.
But passengers on the vessel - who reportedly paid a hefty $16,379 a pop, according to Cruise Critic - were issued a stark warning and told to draw curtains and turn off lights as they passed through a pirate hot spot.
Last week, they were told to take precautions as the staggering 114,000-ton vessel navigated a piracy-prone area in Southeast Asia during the voyage where the ship passed through the Sulu-Celebes Sea - an area once described by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism as a 'hotbed for crime, piracy, and terrorism'.
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In various footage uploaded to social media platforms including TikTok, cruise ship Captain Inger Klein could be heard stating: "This area is known for piracy threats.
"Therefore we will be operating at a heightened level of security alertness during this period. The external promenade deck will be closed on both sides from 9pm to 5am overnight between the night of 14th and 15th of March.
"And no guests will be allowed access during these times for the duration of the transit."
The captain continued: "I would like to emphasise that the safety and security of the ship, all guests and crew onboard is my highest priority."
"I assure you that measures to prevent any unlikely incident have been well planned and the likelihood of this happening on a big ship like Queen Anne is absolutely minimal."
Between 2016 to 2022, ships were advised to avoid the waters between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines which were reportedly once notorious for kidnapping-for-ransom incidents with ReCAAP's Information Sharing Centre, which tracks piracy in Asia, deeming the threat of abduction to be high.
However, there have been no abduction incidents reported in the area since January 2020 with the threat level downgraded to 'low' in January of this year.
A spokesperson for Cunard has since explained that taking such precautions was standard procedure in certain areas when sailing the seas.
"As part of standard maritime procedures, our Captains may make precautionary announcements when sailing through certain regions," the spokesperson told Business Insider.
They added: "There was no specific threat to the ship or its guests, and our onboard experience remained uninterrupted."
Tyla has reached out to Cunard Cruise Line for further comment.