Transport / ‘It was absolutely insane’ – woman pledges to avoid pod lounges after all-night ordeal
NorthLink says it has ‘protocols in place’ for dealing with disruptive passengers
FIGHTING, singing and shouting – a 27-year-old Shetlander says she will never travel in NorthLink’s pod lounges again after being subjected to a night from hell.
A drunken group of passengers kept an entire pod lounge awake on Tuesday night’s northbound sailing, with NorthLink staff helpless to stop them.
Despite attempts to get the group thrown out of the room, NorthLink staff twice just asked them to sit down and go to sleep.
A fight even broke out between the group and another drunken passenger at one point, but still nobody was ejected from the room.
Mari Anderson videoed the altercation as her and boyfriend Russell Arthur made their way home from a two-week holiday this week.
She described the whole episode as “absolutely insane” – and has called on NorthLink to improve its security aboard its ferries.
Anderson said a member of staff twice asked the group to leave the pod lounge, but they simply refused.
“I didn’t feel safe because you had this group of men who had been acting violently still in the room,” she said. “Everybody was on edge.”
Concerns have also been raised because passengers could not initially find a member of staff to report the group to.
Anderson said she searched the entire boat, from the bar to the reception, and found nobody.
“There was a sign at reception saying, ‘if there’s nobody on, press the red button’,” she told Shetland News.
“But there was no red button. They must have forgotten to put it out.
“There was not a single person about. It was like a ghost ship.”
Another strong concern is that the keycard system for the pod lounge door had broken, meaning passengers were asked to input a four digit code instead.
However, Arthur said the code was exactly the same as it had been the last two times was on the ferry – meaning passengers without a pod pass could enter, if they remembered the code.
Anderson said everyone in the lounge was disrupted by the group of men coming in drunk at around 11.30pm.
“They were just so loud – they were acting like they were school children on a school trip,” she said.
After a failed trip to find a member of staff, Arthur and a few more pod passengers congregated at reception and eventually found a staff member.
But after they told him about the disturbance, he replied: “So are you wanting to change pod lounge?”
Arthur added: “I said, ‘what, all of us?’”
The NorthLink worker tried to tell the disruptive group to leave the pod lounge, but Anderson said they refused to go.
“So he told them, ‘well you’ll have to sit down and go to sleep’.”
They continued “sniggering” and taking photos of each other with the flash on, before one passenger tried to deal with them himself.
“I heard something and took out my earplug, and heard someone shouting ‘you’ll have to go,” Anderson said.
“I saw this older man and the group shouting and pushing them, but I don’t know who started it”.
Anderson decided to video it as evidence, and again someone went to find a member of staff.
However the same NorthLink worker returned, and when he asked the group to leave again they replied: “No, we’re not going anywhere”.
“It was really frustrating,” Anderson said.
“I’ve worked in a pub, I’ve chucked guys out before – it’s not that hard.”
Instead of throwing the group out, the staff member decided to move the man who had challenged them to the back of the room.
But that only started another episode.
“About 3am I started hearing this really loud music,” Anderson said.
“I looked back and he was sitting with his headphones in, but either the music was so loud we could all hear it or they weren’t plugged in.
“He was sitting there air drumming. We could smell the drink off him when he walked past, so we knew he was drunk.
“I made eye contact with him and asked him to turn the music down, and he did.
“But then he started singing out loud.
“I was absolutely hysterical by that point.”
His singing was so loud NorthLink staff picked it up on their cameras, and a different worker came in to throw him out.
Anderson estimated she got to sleep at around 4am – getting roughly two and a half hours before the NorthLink morning announcements began.
She said she felt completely unsafe on Tuesday’s sailing, and both her and Arthur have written to NorthLink urging them to improve their security measures.
“I’ve never experienced anything as bad as that on the boat,” Anderson said.
Asked if she will avoid the pods in future, she replied: “100 per cent.
“I saw the pods as a safe place, but I don’t think I’ll be ever to go again.
“I have a bad back because of scoliosis, so it’s impossible for me to sleep on the floor.
“The cabins are absolutely extortionate, if you can even get one.
“So I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do next time.”
NorthLink said the safety of its passengers and staff was its “absolute priority”.
“We are aware that on this occasion the behaviour of some passengers has been disruptive and apologise for any impact.
“We have protocols in place for dealing with this type of situation and the team did intervene on more than one occasion to reduce disruption for our passengers onboard.
“All of our overnight passenger sailings have dedicated security personnel and we would encourage anyone who witnesses disruptive behaviour to bring it to our immediate attention.”
It comes in a week that NorthLink chief Stuart Garrett defended the pods as a “bespoke” sleeping solution aboard its ferries.
He said there had been a significant increase in the number of people using the pods, and said only 17 per cent of passengers had rated them negatively after using them.
