14 Behind-The-Scenes Secrets of Cruise Ship Workers

14 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Cruise Ship Workers
Home
Mail
Search
News
Sports
Finance
Weather
Games
Answers
Screen
Flickr
Mobile
More
Search
Search
Search
Sign in
Mail
Travel Home
Follow Us
What to Read Next
Cruise
Eat
Adventure
Tips From SyFy's Ghost Hunters:
Roadtrip
Yahoo
Travel
Romance
Snapshot
Family
Weekend Getaways
Video
Stuff
A Broad Abroad
Hotels
Solo
How To
Guides
Cut
Daily Your
NomadRate Plan In Half
SprintSponsored
Explorers
How (and Where!) to See a Ghost
Thank you for your feedback

We'll review and make changes needed.Undo
Why don't you like this ad?

It's offensive to me
I keep seeing this
It's not relevant to me
Something else
https://www.yahoo.com/travel/14-behind-the-scenes-secrets-of-1287365449801782.html[10/30/2015 10:33:33 AM]

Done
Done
How to Snag a Ticket on the Sold-Out Star Trek Cruise

Yahoo Travel
The 8 Best All-You-Can-Eat Cruise Ship Buffets

Yahoo Travel
An Instagram Obsessed With Senior Citizens on the Beach

Yahoo Travel
Learn More About Prop 1

Texan's For Prop 1 Sponsored


I keep seeing this
Something else
Done
Done
The Bizarre but True Story of Starfsh Committing Suicide

Yahoo Travel Contributors
Halloween Hoax! Story of Teenage Boy Eaten at Haunted House is Fake

Yahoo Travel
What Does Your Travel Selfe Say About You?

Yahoo Travel
One Plan. Pick a Size. Simple.

Verizon WirelessSponsored


I keep seeing this
Something else
Done
Done
The Great Vacation #Selfe War: Parents vs. Teens

Yahoo Travel
The 21 Best Hot Dog Joints in America

Thrillist on Yahoo
Group of Dudes Offers Free Hugs at SFO Airport

Yahoo Travel
Savings Spotted. Get A Free Quote With Geico!

GEICOSponsored


I keep seeing this
Something else
Done
Done
What's on Your Phone? A Traveling Essay of Pictures That Reveal All

Yahoo Travel
A $60K Emirates First Class Flight for $300: This Blogger Did It
Yahoo Travel
Living the Dream: I Bought an Island With My Friends for Under $10K Each
Brittany Jones-Cooper
Banks Are Worried Homeowners Will Do This

FetchaRateSponsored


I keep seeing this
Something else
Done
Done
This 5-Year-Old Photographer Is Snapping His Way Across the U.S.

Yahoo Travel
Cities Most Likely to Survive a Zombie Attack

Yahoo Travel
Which Island Has the Caribbean's Most Perfect Beaches? You'll Never Guess
Yahoo Travel
Incredible Military Flashlight Now Available

G700 FlashlightSponsored


I keep seeing this
Something else
Done
Done
Your Wild Salmon May Be a Lie: Heres What That Means for Your Health
Korin Miller
10 U.S. Cities That Feel So Foreign it's Like You Need a Passport
Yahoo Travel
Boo! 15 Terrifying Haunted Houses Around the Country

Yahoo Travel
Maintaining a Positive Work Environment

AnyPerkSponsored


I keep seeing this
Something else
Done
Done
Chilling Photos: Would You Brave this Abandoned Amusement Park?

Yahoo Travel
Rough Arrest Highlights How In-School Police Offcers Are and Aren't Trained for Kids
Korin Miller
The Story Behind One of the Most Remote Places in the U.S.
Yahoo Travel
Savings Start Immediately with 1Dental Plans

1DentalSponsored


I keep seeing this
Something else
Done
Done
Boy with Down Syndrome Takes Flight in 'Wil Can Fly' Photo Series
Yahoo Travel
7 Islands You Can Camp On

Yahoo
Travel
14 Behind-the-Scenes
Secrets of Cruise Ship Workers
Mental Floss
October 28, 2015
Reblo
Shar
Twee
A Salted Chocolate Caramel Shortbread Slice Thats Easy to Make
Pin
Gina
Pace
Sen
Penny Stock Millionaires

Money NewsSponsored


I keep seeing this
Something else
Done
Done
What Americans Get Wrong About Canada

Yahoo Travel
Cruise ship secrets (All photos: iStock)

From an outsiders perspective, working on a cruise ship might seem like a dream job. What could be more glamorous than getting paid
to travel the world by sea, without having to pay for housing or food? But as with many dream jobs, there are a few signifcant
downsides to consider before you fll out an application. We spoke to a few cruise ship employees about what its like to live and work on
a foating hotel.
1. Americans are the worst cruise workers.
On most large cruise liners, the majority of staff and crew are not American. On any given contract, youre working with about 64
nationalities, says Kat, who spent three years working for a major cruise line. There are a number of possible drivers behind this
Move
Grumpy
Cat:ship
Meet
Instagram's
Most
statistic,Over
but one
is that cruise
employees
work really
long Adventurous
hours and almost Animal
never get a day off, which isnt particularly appealing to
Yahoo
Travel
Americans used to a 40-hour workweek and relaxing on weekends. On my worst contract, I was working close to 300 hours a month,
Kat says. Yeah, you might be in beautiful places, but youre so tired sometimes you dont even want to go out and explore. A lot of
times they wont even hire Americans because the rate of people quitting is so high.
Americans are also more expensive to employ, even if they do the same work as their counterparts from developing countries. Sam, who
worked on Princess Cruises for two years, says her monthly salary of $1100 was higher than that of her Filipino boss. According to Sam,
the offcial reason the ship gave was that the dollar is worth more to people from developing countries than it is to Americans, justifying
the lower salary.
Related: Envelope Please the Best Cruise Lines of 2015
2. The crew is trained for pirate attacks.
Its rare for pirates to take on a massive cruise ship, but it can happen, and if it does, the crew is prepared. Nolan, who worked for both
Princess Cruises and Oceania Cruises, says he was trained to get all guests away from windows and spray the intruders with giant
Europes
15 Most Picturesque Gardens
water cannons.
Yahoo
Travel
Our ship can totally outrun their little dinghies, he says. We could spray them with water and theyd be helpless. Other ships may be
equipped with Long Range Acoustic Devices that emit loud, painful noises to deter attacks. Thats how a luxury cruise liner escaped a
pirate attack off the coast of Africa in 2005.
3. Want to lose weight? Work on a cruise liner.
While passengers are feasting on steak and scrumptious seafood, the staff and crew arent so lucky. Imagine eating at your high-school
cafeteria three meals a day, seven days a week for a year, writes one former cruise ship worker on Reddit. Kat recalls strange offerings
like goat foot stew. The unappetizing food, combined with the many hours spent running the length of the ship, often mean crew
members lose a signifcant amount of weight during their time at sea. I would lose about 10 to 12 pounds per contract, Kat says.
Gavin, who worked as a waiter for a major cruise line, said the crew would occasionally get treated to whatever leftovers remained from
the passenger buffet, but it would disappear so fast.
4. Crew members sometimes mess with passengers.
How To Get Better Knees - Do This Daily

InstafexSponsored


I keep seeing this
Something else
Done
Done
The Top 38 Diet SodasRanked!
Eat This, Not That
Life at sea can get a bit monotonous. It got mundane really fast, writes one former worker on Reddit. It was basically the same comedy
of errors each day of the week, with a different cast of passengers each week.
On
Hunt
the Eeriest
Ghost
Mexico
Some
crew for
members
shake things
up byTown
gettingin
a rise
out of passengers in the form of good old practical jokes. According to another
formerTravel
crew member, a favorite was while in a passenger area say to another crew member, loud enough to be heard by passengers,
Yahoo
Meet you in the bowling alley tonight! Of course, there wasnt actually a bowling alley on board. Then wed wait for the comment cards
to come in: Why do crew get a bowling alley when we dont?
5. And theyre probably drunk.
When theyre not working, employees are probably drinking and partying. We partied our asses off, Gavin says. We joked about how it
makes a frat house look like a monastery. The staff get their own designated watering holes on board, referred to as the crew bars,
where the drinks are dirt cheap. At the passenger bars they were charging like $15 for a drink and wed go down into the crew bar and
you could get a beer or mixed drinks for $1.25, Sam says.
And what happens when you give copious amounts of cheap alcohol to people who are cooped up together for months at a time? It
seems like a cliche, but everyone was hooking up with each other, Sam says. In a lot of the crew areas there were these huge posters
about STD prevention.
The crew is regularly threatened with the possibility of random breathalyzer tests (and drug testing), but even this isnt always enforced.
There was a strict limit on our ship of no more than .04 blood alcohol content at any time, Gavin says, but as long as you didnt make
a fool of yourself, you wouldnt get randomly breathalyzed, so people would break that rule all the time.
Related: How to Sneak Booze on a Cruise
6. Hooking up with guests is strictly forbidden.
So you spotted a cute crew member on your ship and are thinking of chatting them up? Good luck with that. Having sexual relations with
a guest is one of the fastest ways for a crew member to get fred. This is mainly to protect the cruise line from reputation-damaging
accusations of abuse. Ship security keeps a close eye on crew members day and night. That doesnt mean hookups never happen, but
if a crew member is caught in the act with a guest, theyre kicked off the ship at the next port.
7. Youre almost always being watched.
Surveillance! (Photo: iStock)

It is safe to assume if you are outside of your cabin you are probably on camera, Gavin says. In the event of any kind of emergency,
they could pull security footage at any time.
8. You have a lot of power over how much the crew gets paid.
At the end of a journey, you might be asked to rate your experience and share any praise or complaints on a comment card. These
reviews are taken very seriously and often translate directly into salaries and bonuses for workers. For most people, their salaries are
quite low and they rely on those bonuses, Kat says. So if you leave a bad review and mention someone by name, you can be sure
theyll feel the impact on their paycheck.
The very best thing you can do for a crew member is to write a glowing review, mentioning them specifcally on your comment card,
says a former cruise worker on Reddit. Their superiors superiors take note of that.
9. Some cruise workers have double lives.
You get a lot of married people that have their own separate lives on the cruise ship, Kat says. Ive worked with couples that have
wives at home and a whole different relationship while theyre on the cruise ship. Its kind of like a dont-ask-dont-tell policy.
Gavin says one of his fellow employees lived as an out-of-the-closet gay man while on board, but was still closeted on land.
10. They have no idea whats going on in the world.
You stop following news and sports and pop culture, Gavin says. Youre really kind of isolated out there. It can be diffcult (and
expensive) to fnd an Internet connection while at sea, so many ship workers completely lose track of current events while on contract.
Related: How to Survive a Cruise Ship Buffet
11. They speak in code.
Crew members have shorthand codes for everything from fres to medical emergencies, which they can announce over the loudspeaker
without alarming passengers.
Code Adam: a child is missing
Code Alpha: theres a medical emergency
Code Oscar: man overboard
Code Bravo: fre on the ship
12. The ship has many mafas.
But not the kind that will make you an offer you cant refuse. According to Sam, the crew members on her ship were split into mafas
based on their country of origin, and each mafa dealt in specifc goods. For example, the Indian mafa was in charge of getting good
food for the crew parties, she says. Because Sam worked in the youth center, she was tasked with providing art supplies for crew
costume parties. Thats just one of the economies of the ship, Sam says. Everyone is always trying to fgure out what they can get
from another person.
One former cruise ship worker says the Filipino mafa was known for getting good booze at all hours. If you wanted anything after hours,
they would get it for you! The crew bar would close around 1 or 2. If you wanted to keep drinking, but were out of booze, you would just
go to the Filipino mafa and get what you needed. You paid a huge markup obviously, but it was still pretty cool!
13. Theres a morgue on board.
Roughly 200 people die on cruise ships every year, and cruise lines need some place to store the bodies safely until they get back to
shore. As a result, many ships have small morgues on board that can hold fve or six bodies. We defnitely had a morgue on board,
one former ship employee told me. Because the line was for older demographics, we had people die on the ship pretty regularly.
14. They will leave you behind.
If you leave the ship for an on-land excursion, make sure you get back before departure time. Cruise lines pay massive fnes if they
overstay their port time, so chances are high the ship will leave without you if youre running behind. Youre on your own, Kat says.
They wont wait.
More from Mental Floss:
How to Travel Cross-Country For Only $213
7 Reasons to Never Ever, Ever Vacation on a Cruise Ship
10 Shipwrecks You Can Visit
WATCH:Caribbean Travel: Smart Ways to Save
Let Yahoo Travel inspire you every day. Hang out with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Watch Yahoo
Travels original series A Broad Abroad.
Reblog Share Tweet
Pin it
Send
Sign in to post a comment.
Hotels Flights
Powered by
City
Help
Privacy
About our Ads

Terms

14 Behind-The-Scenes Secrets of Cruise Ship Workers

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

14 Behind-The-Scenes Secrets of Cruise Ship Workers

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

14 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Cruise Ship Workers

What to Read Next

How (and Where!) to See a Ghost

Thank you for your feedback

Why don't you like this ad?

https://www.yahoo.com/travel/14-behind-the-scenes-secrets-of-1287365449801782.html[10/30/2015 10:33:33 AM]