A WOMAN has claimed that TUI continues to deny a series of racist aggressions hurled at her family during a £13,000 Caribbean cruise.
Kelly Gleeson was on holiday with family in February for two weeks when she says her mixed-race daughter Tia was told to “turn that black s**t” down, in reference to music playing from her phone.
The 40-year-old mum claims Tia, 19, was told this by a white woman, who continued to provoke the family and got staff members involved – who allegedly refused to listen to the teen.
Kelly from Coventry, West Midlands claims that she complained to eight uninterested members of staff, until she finally came across a black staff member who was the only one to understand the incident.
Kelly also alleges that she was told to keep quiet about staff members’ racist behaviour, claiming that TUI are now denying responsibility for the matter and are yet to resolve the situation or refund her.
Mum Kelly claims that daughter Tia had been entertaining her two-year-old cousin with music on her phone at the time the first incident occurred.
The mixed-race model was allegedly approached by another cruise passenger who yelled at her to “turn that black sh*t down” amongst other discriminatory slurs.
Kelly claims that the woman then continued to make hurtful comments before eventually calling over a group of the hotel’s staff members who curtly spoke to Tia and refused to listen to her side of the story.
She added that the assistant director of the cruise also shouted at the youngster, demanding that she listen to him.
However, Kelly claims that as well as further incidents with their own family, many Jamaican passengers were also subjected to the staff’s racist behaviour.
She also claims that another member of her family had also been taken in by immigration at the cruise ship’s first stop in Belize and vigorously searched, before being refused entrance to the island.
Kelly now claims that, after complaining about the multiple incidents of racism, she was brought into a side room and told to keep quiet about them.
Kelly took to social media last month to air her disgust, writing: “I have recently returned from a two-week cruise around the Caribbean on the Marella Discovery 2.
“I was with my family and the holiday was booked for us all to be together for the anniversary of my dad’s passing away.
“I have never in my life witnessed so much racism and discrimination. My teenage daughter is mixed-race and was playing music on her phone by the pool to entertain my two-year-old niece.
“It was not connected to a speaker, just the level of sound equivalent to the ringtone volume. She was told to turn her black s**t music down by a woman who had already upset several people on the cruise.
“After a few words the racist woman went storming off and returned with a few members of staff who did not listen to my daughter’s side and after my daughter asked if they were listening to her, a response from one of the staff was ‘Don’t speak to me like that, I’m the assistant director of this cruise.’
“I was so upset and angry about what happened and I decided I would go to complain.
“I spoke with eight members of staff who shrugged it off and didn’t seem to care about my daughter being racially insulted.
“It took me to find a black member of staff to listen and see the seriousness of what had happened and he then proceeded to contact management to speak with us and take our complaint.
“From that incident I was more vigilant about what was happening around me and I witnessed incident after incident.
“The racism and discrimination was very open and was from both passengers and staff. We witnessed the Jamaican passengers go through absolute hell on that ship.
“I am disgusted with TUI for not treating this seriously in the beginning and for not providing sufficient equalities training to their staff.
“I would advise anybody to look at other options before committing to a cruise with them.”
Speaking today, Kelly said: “This vacation was for my family to spend time together after losing my brother in a car accident in 2017 and for the second anniversary of my dad passing away during Covid.
“My niece, who is 20-months-old, was getting restless, so my 19-year-old daughter put a music video on the phone for her.
“While that was happening, an older white woman and her husband approached the beds that the other family were using and moved the family’s towels and personal belongings and sat themselves down.
“The mother of the family came over from the pool and asked why they had done that; the older woman raised her voice and was rude and aggressive.
“About 10 minutes later, the same woman shouted over to my daughter, ‘turn that black s**t music off’.
“We were absolutely gobsmacked as this was a racist comment directed to my daughter, who is mixed-race.
“My daughter responded, saying ‘You did not have to be racist, you could have just asked me to turn it off without saying that’.
“It appeared this woman was determined to have an argument with somebody. So, I told my daughter to just turn the video off and ignore the woman.
“However, the woman continued to make comments and tried to provoke a reaction.
“After a few minutes, she realised she was not getting a response and stood up abruptly, while announcing ‘watch this’.
“By this point we were feeling very on edge and concerned at what she meant by this – was she going to assault us?
“We did not know as her behaviour was erratic and we did not know if she had been drinking – she then marched off.”
Kelly then explains that the woman came back with TUI staff – who were allegedly uninterested in listening and disrespected the family.
She added: “A few minutes later she returned with a member of TUI staff who we now know is named Kayla.
“It was immediately apparent that Kayla had decided that we were in the wrong and I explained we had just been racially abused.
“Kayla didn’t seem to take onboard what I had just said and instead decided to go on about not playing music.
“I was really dismayed at this point because in the UK we could report this as a hate incident to the police.
“I felt that the TUI agent, Kayla, was not sympathetic nor aware of how we had been made to feel by her approach and handling of this matter.
“This continued when Kayla came back with another TUI representative and invaded our space as we lay on the sunbeds.
“My daughter was trying to explain what had happened and the staff member was not making eye contact.
“She continued to interrupt by speaking to the other passenger and had no interest in what my daughter was saying.
“My daughter asked her ‘Are you listening to me’, she responded with ‘Don’t speak to me like that, I am the assistant cruise director’.
“She made us feel at risk by demanding our cabin numbers in front of this volatile passenger, spoke to my daughter like a child and had absolutely no empathy nor understanding about how my daughter was feeling after the racist abuse.
“This ordeal was not something that should happen on a £13,000 cruise. It ruined our holiday and left my daughter upset for many days.”
“The whole experience is just shocking. It was the fact we were trapped on this boat, you could not escape from what was going on.
“The most worrying thing is they all got their stories together before we even got off the boat.”
TUI has been approached for comment.
