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Coast Guard, NYPD respond after a THREESOME triggers massive BRAWL on NYC-bound Carnival cruise ship

Video footage of the skirmish showed a chaotic scene with nearly 60 passengers punching and shoving one another

NEW YORK HARBOR, NY: A massive brawl erupted aboard a cruise ship following a threesome between passengers, a witness has claimed. A travel agent who witnessed the melee revealed how the dust-up began in the first place.

Reportedly, the brawl started over allegations of cheating, after an alleged threesome upset the participants' respective partners. Video footage of the skirmish showed a chaotic scene as nearly 60 passengers on board the cruise began punching and shoving one another. The initial argument was between two passengers on the dance floor but quickly spiraled out of control as more and more people joined the fight. The altercation took place on the final night of the ship's eight-day Caribbean cruise with stops in Dominicana, Turks, and Caicos, and the Bahamas.

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Speaking to Fox News, travel agent Theresa James said the fight started just before 2 am and last an entire hour in the ship's nightclub and casino area. No serious injuries were reported, but bottles were smashed and a woman was also cut in the fracas. The fight moved around the ship from the fifth floor down to the first floor as a couple of security guards tried in vain to break up the fight but were vastly outnumbered. The brawl prompted the Coast Guard to escort the ship back to dock before the NYPD opened an investigation into the incident.

James told the outlet that the guests involved in the fight were "ignorant fools acting stupid." She lauded the security team for their efforts to calm things down despite being heavily outnumbered. One witness took to Twitter to recount how he was "at the bar listening to my own music sipping a Shirley Temple, then the brawl broke out of nowhere!" Tweeting under the handle @nyeem0, the witness said some of the passengers were "injured and cut up from glass" as the ship's security guards tried to restore order. "It was the last night so I guess they wanted to go out with a bang, but a lifetime ban from cruising is wild lol," the witness added.

The brawl reportedly broke out as the ship approached the harbor in New York. However, it's unclear whether the cruise was in New York, New Jersey, or international waters at the time of the fight, thereby "making criminal jurisdictional issues murky," according to the Daily Mail. That said, there were no arrests reported in the aftermath of the incident.

Cruise officials notified the Coast Guard, which sent a boat from Staten Island to escort the vessel to dock in Manhattan. Police and paramedics were waiting to greet the ship at Pier 88, where it docked without incident. The incident was initially described by the NYPD as an "emergency docking." In a statement to PIX11, however, the Carnival cruise line said it was a scheduled port call. "Last night while Carnival Magic was returning to New York, a number of guests were involved in an altercation in a nightclub," the statement read. "Thankfully no serious injuries were reported and our onboard security team intervened. The ship arrived as scheduled this morning and shoreside law enforcement authorities were notified and met the ship to interview suspects and witnesses and conduct an investigation," the cruise line added. Authorities said passengers disembarked the ship gradually and without incident.