A DREAM holiday in the Seychelles turned into a nightmare for a North Yorkshire woman when her cruise ship was attacked by pirates.

Sue Ball, of Killinghall, Harrogate, today told The Press how armed Somali pirates tried to board her cruise ship and that passengers and staff fought them off.

She was on the MSC Cruises vessel Melody with her mother when the Kalashnikov rifle-wielding tried to get on board, on 25 April.

Ms Ball, who runs the Setting Sail Nursery School in Killinghall, said: “It was kind of funny because the couple who first spotted them, the husband said to his wife 'you keep an eye on them and I'll go get someone'. Normally these pirates take hostages so he could have returned to find her gone.

“Passengers threw chairs down on to the pirates, knocking them back into their inflatable speedboat.

"We were in the lounge on the deck below where the bullets struck the ship and we saw the security men running around with guns and heard the gunfire.

"I was very worried but my mother was a bit panicky and I was aware I would have to calm her down.”

The day after the attempted attack an Italian warship with a helicopter escorted the cruise ship until it left the danger zone.