The Tribune newspaper in the Bahamas is reporting that a pleasure cruise on board the Discovery cruise ship turned into terror and aggravation for hundreds of passengers when a bomb threat stopped the ship at night en route to Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale. The incident began when Miami Dade Police Department received a 911 call around 9 PM that a man was aboard the ship with a gun and a bomb.
The Discovery cruise ship ship left Grand Bahama with approximately 900 passengers around 5 PM. The five-hour cruise back to Port Everglades usually arrives around 10.30 PM.
US Coast Guard and bomb squad technicians and bomb dogs boarded the cruise ship approximately 18 miles off the coast of Florida. The search was unproductive and the cruise ship returned to port around 4:00 AM. Law enforcement officers from Customs and Border Protection, the FBI, and the Broward County Sheriff Office Bomb Squad personnel and bomb detection dogs boarded the cruise ship.
The newspaper indicates that passengers were restricted to their cabins and in certain areas of the ship while the search was conducted. The newspaper also quotes a passenger stating that "everyone was very scared and some persons were even upset because of the long delay and late arrival into Fort Lauderdale."
The last bomb scare was last year when the Carnival Sensation cruise ship’s arrival back in Port Canaveral today was delayed. You can read the article: Bomb Hoax Gets Drunken Carnival Cruise Passenger Arrested. Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas also had a bomb threat last year – Are Cruise Ships Equipped To Handle Bomb Threats On The High Seas?
If you were a passenger aboard the Discovery, please leave a comment about the experience below.