• A photo that appears to show two children sitting on a balcony railing has gone viral. 
  • The cruise has not been officially identified, but several users say the incident occurred on a Royal Caribbean ship. 
  • "We remind all guests of this policy, and we take any violations to this policy very seriously," Royal Caribbean told news.com.au.

A photo of two children who appeared to be sitting on a cruise ship's balcony railings went viral recently, and people online are now calling for the operators to ban the kids' parents. 

The photo, which was posted by the Carnival Cruise Line Miami Blog on Facebook on July 25, shows two young boys dressed in short-sleeved shirts, bermudas, and socks, sitting on the railing of a balcony, on what appears to be a cruise ship. The boys' faces were obscured in the photo. Insider was not able to independently verify the authenticity of the photo.

"Where are the parents?" the Carnival Cruise Line Miami Blog wrote in the post, adding that the photo was taken by a person named Liz Pride. 

 

The operator of the cruise has not been officially identified, but several users commented on the Facebook post that the incident occurred on a Royal Caribbean ship. Pride, who took the photo, also said in a comment that the ship shown in the photo belongs to Royal Caribbean.

One Twitter user named Robert Dempster agreed, writing that the photo was taken on the Serenade of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean cruise. 

"The kids were on Serenade of the Seas and the photo was taken from someone on the cruise I was on, on Oasis of the Seas," Dempster said in a Twitter post, adding that the incident occurred at CoCo Cay. 

Royal Caribbean declined to confirm to Insider that the ship in the photo is part of its fleet, but acknowledged the incident.

A Royal Caribbean spokesperson told Insider in a statement: "The safety of our guests and crew is our upmost priority at Royal Caribbean International. To ensure the safety of everyone on board we have a guest conduct policy that all guests must adhere to. We remind all guests of this policy, and we take any violations to this policy very seriously."

Dozens of users on Facebook called for the operators to ban the children's parents from cruising for allowing their kids to sit on the balcony railings. There were almost 10,000 comments on the post at the time of writing.

"Yes the whole family should be banned from all cruise lines," one user said.

Another user commented: "Whatever ship it was they should be ban for life."

But several users defended the parents, saying that it might not be their fault that their children acted dangerously.

"But I wouldn't be so fast to blame the parents when we don't know the entire story. Because these kids are older they may have ran to go get something or one was in the shower," one user wrote.

It's not the first time passengers have been caught misbehaving on cruise balconies. In May, a video showed a man climbing in between balconies aboard a Carnival cruise ship.

Pride and Dempster did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside office regular hours.

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