A man on a cruise to Bali was forced to leave his “dream vacation” after he was caught flicking his cigarette overboard the ship, his daughter says.
Mark O’Keefe, 57, and his wife Debra were on a 10-day P&O cruise from Fremantle to Bali when part-way through the cruise, O’Keefe’s cigarette disposal allegedly got him kicked off and he was made to pay his own way to Bali.
“He had maybe two drags because the weather was horrendous – he butted it out, and without thinking, he flicked it,” O’Keefe’s daughter, Courtney, explained to WA Today.
“He instantly regretting it and apologized.”
Courtney O’Keefe says her dad was told he could go back to his cabin and face no consequences when caught flicking the cigarette, but then Mark O’Keefe was later removed from the ship.
“The captain said ‘you’re off’ – no letting my dad apologize, no option of cutting him off at the bar, no giving him a fine. Nothing.”
From there, Mark O’Keefe was transported to an island then flown to Denpasar, his daughter said.
“My dad is 58 in a few weeks – he’s ex-army, SAS, with cancer and cholesterol problems – and my mum handles all his medication,” Courtney O’Keefe said.
His wife apparently didn’t leave with him from the ship because the couple couldn’t afford two tickets home and had used their savings to pay for this cruise.
While a P&O spokesman told WA Today that he couldn’t comment on this specific incident because of privacy reasons, he did say it was totally possible a passenger could be kicked off the ship for flicking a cigarette overboard because of the safety concerns and passengers had been given an “explicit warning” not to throw cigarettes off the side of the ship.
“A lighted cigarette can be drawn into the ship posing a serious risk to the ship and the safety of passengers and crew.”
