“Sailing international waters and flying flags of convenience allow cruise ships to break labour laws found in First World nations,” he said. He claims he worked as many as 100 hours a week for 15 weeks at a time, and that pay is not commensurate with the number of hours worked. Makes sense because they are very large, very gentle, and stand around eating all day,” he said. “In the restaurants we regularly referred to the guests as ‘cow animals’. He worked for Carnival, telling journalist Sadie Whitelocks that maintaining a high level of customer service was often very difficult, especially when it came to “raucous drunks”, and the crew often met behind closed doors to let off steam. MailOnline spoke to Brian David Bruns, who penned a book about his experiences. He’s not the first disgruntled crew member to question life on the seven seas. He alleges tips were deducted from monthly wages, meaning if he earned $950 American dollars in gratuities, the cruise lines effectively got to keep him for free. Working as a dealer, Blake says he earned $950 American dollars a month ($1256), but stewards could make as little as $200 (A$264), and they were all living on tips. He told Thrillist the only way to deal with the cramped space is to stack, roll and stuff your clothes into your locker, and travel light.Īnd as for pay, well, it’s really quite shocking.
While guests lap up the views, there’s a seedy underworld below decks.Īnd while guests are lapping up the luxury, staff quarters are smaller than you could possibly believe - around half the size of a regular guest room, shared between two people. The guys often pretend their wives don’t exist, maybe until the day before she arrives.” Then the night his wife went home, the girlfriend would move back in as though nothing had happened. When his wife came on board for a holiday, the girlfriend would move out of his cabin for the week and basically pretend she didn’t know him. “Men who had a wife and kids at home, and a girlfriend on the ship.
“The main thing I didn’t like was the cheating,” she told last June. Queenslander Cathryn Chapman worked throughout the Carribbean and Bahamas during her 20s and 30s, and she wrote a fiction called Sex, Lies and Cruising based on her experiences. The claims have been echoed by other cruise ships workers in the past. And for the most part nobody was loyal to anyone,” he told Matt Meltzer. So any time a new girl started working on the ship, the first night at the crew bar was a free-for-all. “I think the ratio of men to women was like 9:1. While guests experience a sun-drenched high-life above decks, Blake describes a dark world of low pay, cramped rooms and rampant sex on the levels below. “THE ships were the most incestuous workplace I’ve ever been a part of.”Ī man known only as “Blake” has revealed the truth about life on the high seas, in a no-holds-barred interview with Thrillist.