A punch-up at sea has ended with more than a dozen travellers permanently shown the gangway. Costa Cruises has confirmed that 13 passengers involved in a violent fight aboard the Costa Smeralda have been added to the line's "Do Not Sail List" — effectively a lifetime ban from its fleet.
The trouble flared on 5 March during a seven-night round-trip sailing out of Marseille, with stops in Barcelona and Palermo. According to Italian newspaper Palermo Today, it started when a passenger made an unwanted joke at a woman near the ship's nightclub, and quickly escalated. Two groups of young Italian guests traded punches and hurled chairs at each other, and the fighting spread through corridors and into the lift area. One guest was reportedly kicked unconscious. CCTV footage later released by the Palermo Maritime Border Police shows the chaos in detail.
When the ship docked in Palermo, the case was handed to local law enforcement and all 13 participants were reported for aggravated brawling. Costa says its onboard security team dealt with the situation at the time and stresses it has zero tolerance for this kind of behaviour. The line has not ruled out further action.
It's a striking reminder that cruise ships — the Costa Smeralda carries up to 6,554 passengers across 20 decks, with four swimming pools — are essentially floating towns, complete with the occasional town-centre scuffle after dark. Security staff are on board and incidents do get escalated to police once you reach port, with consequences that outlast the holiday.
The timing is awkward for Costa, an Italian brand owned by Carnival Corporation. In May the same line made headlines for a very different reason: warning guests on select sailings that taking buffet food back to their cabins could trigger a €60 (about £51.50) cleaning fee, which the company frames as a sanitation measure. Between restaurant policing and now mass bans, the brand is clearly signalling it wants a more orderly ship.
For holidaymakers, the practical takeaway is simple. Onboard behaviour has real consequences — cruise lines keep internal blacklists, and a shipboard fight can turn into a police matter the moment you dock. If you're sailing the western Mediterranean, keep the night out civilised, and know that the buffet is for eating in, not takeaway.