A cruising staffer has reportedly had his contract terminated after a passenger allegedly caught him filming women from a female bathroom.
The passenger on-board the ship MSC Meraviglia, Saja, was left visibly shaken when she discovered a man had locked himself in the toilet cubicle and appeared to be pointing a camera at her.
She shared a now-viral TikTok of the incident, showing the moment several women confront the man.
“There’s someone hiding under there filming me,” she is heard telling a housekeeper in the video, who then appears confused.
“A man?” the housekeeper asks.
“In there, yeah, it’s a man,” Saja is heard saying.
The housekeeper then knocks on the door several times saying “housekeeping”. He doesn’t get a response and attempts to look under the door before a female passenger intervenes and begins to knock on the door loudly.
“OK, why don’t we do this?” she says as she bangs on the door.
The man opens the door and can be heard saying: “I was wrong.”
In the video, he appears to be wearing an MSC employee uniform.
“You need to call security because he’s an employee,” the woman is then heard telling the housekeeping staffer.
Another shocked female passenger turns to Saja and asks, “He was filming you? Wow.”
“I didn’t know; I just saw a camera pointing at me,” Saja replies.
An MSC Cruises spokesperson told news.com.au they are aware of the incident and the staffer has since been fired.
“Our security team did fully co-operate with the authorities on this investigation,” the spokesperson said.
“We took immediate action to terminate employment of the crew member involved and support the impacted guests.
“The safety and comfort of our guests and crew is our top priority, and we have a zero-tolerance policy for any misconduct on board our ships.”
Saja shared a follow-up post, explaining she had been contacted by authorities and was informed the staffer had apparently “been deported”.
She also stressed her goal was not to “disgrace” the cruise over the acts of one of their employees, but to have women “be aware of their surroundings at all times”.
She also said that as the bathroom was near the ship’s kids’ club, she wanted people to be wary of leaving their children alone.
“We had a great experience besides this incident and the other crew members were some of the best staff I had the privilege of meeting.
“I decided to post this video to bring awareness on leaving your children alone in any setting, especially while on vacation.”
Saja described the fellow female passenger who helped her as a “hero”.
“She was the hero of that night for sure,” she told viewers in the comments section of the post.
“She took me to security and demanded we see the supervisor immediately.”
Saja’s clip has been viewed more than 10 million times, attracting more than 14,000 comments.
“This is scary. So glad he was caught, but still, a cruise is supposed to be fun. S️o traumatic, I’m so sorry you experienced this,” one woman wrote.
“I would have been in that cubical swinging arms, legs whatever! Can’t imagine how scary that would have been. My flight or fight mode would have kicked in,” another woman wrote.
A third said: “I’m so glad you have video evidence of this. I’m so sorry that happened to you and staff too.”
Saja went on to say she has not been compensated “in any way, shape or form”, or had contact with the cruise line.
“Nor am I interested. Just wanted to spread awareness,” she wrote in a caption.
MSC Cruises describes itself as “the world’s third-largest cruise brand” as well as the “leader in Europe, South America, the Gulf region and southern Africa”.
“We are also the fastest-growing global cruise brand with a strong presence in the Caribbean, North America and the Far East markets,” it states on its website.
The company headquarters is in Geneva, Switzerland.