Photo of Kids Sitting on Cruise Ship Balcony Railing Goes Viral

A photo of two children who appeared to be sitting on the railing of a cruise ship's balcony went viral, and people are 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, showed two boys 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 Liz Pride.

The cruise operator has not been 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 the ship belonged to Royal Caribbean.

A Twitter user named Robert Dempster agreed, writing that the photo was taken on Royal Caribbean's Serenade of the Seas.

"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 CoCoCay, Bahamas.

Royal Caribbean declined to confirm to Insider whether the ship in the photo was 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 Facebook users called for cruise 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 the 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 between balconies aboard a Carnival cruise ship.

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