The Strangest Things I Have Seen at Sea Working Onboard a Cruise Ship!

When you work in the same place for enough time, you’re bound to encounter a few funny, strange or memorable situations. Now, when there’s a weekly (typically) rotation of well over a thousand guests, you’re a lot more likely to encounter such situations. So here’s a few things I have seen and heard of during the many years I have worked onboard a cruise ship.

• During the embarkation process of a charter cruise, a self-proclaimed drug dealer was arrested in the terminal. Locating him was a fairly simple process, when you learn that he had published online he would have drugs available for sale, and how to contact him. Even easier when authorities learned he had already checked in, BUT was not yet on board, meaning the only place he could be is the terminal.
• I once was passing by the Reception back office and heard a woman screaming, “How could you?!” to her husband. I later learned they (and by they, I mean HE) had been invited to leave the ship on the second day of the cruise. The reason? He had licked a crew member’s neck.
• Right after returning to service after the pandemic, I spotted a guest refilling their tiny hand sanitizer bottle… from one of the automatic hand sanitizing machines. I mean, brilliant idea if you think about it, and choose to ignore the fact that they go for about a buck!
• I witnessed a woman being escorted off the ship in a really remote port in Chile (Puerto Chacabuco). No idea how she would get home from there, as for sure the Cruise Line did not arrange the flights for her. This was following several reports of guests stating she was walking the guest hallways “selling” excursions in Spanish in the different ports, and attempting to collect cash payments on the spot, and becoming aggressive to Security when confronted.
• Not sure there was any consequence to her action, other than asking her to stop, but a lady was reported for having taken the time to drop religious flyers outside every room of the ship. Just something you don’t see every day.
• I once got to meet a really nice couple. He was in his late 40s, heavyset, quite nice, though not particularly good-looking. She was in her early 20s, and a former Miss Brazil (enough description, I guess). They were staying on their own in the largest suite onboard, a 3-bedroom apartment, which otherwise holds up to 8 people. What I came to learn later is that, each day, these guests would go ashore ONLY to board their yacht, which was following the ship along the entire route, as their Chef was there to prepare their lunch. If this is not fancy enough for you… this happened for 4 weeks.
• I am not certain this was an actual violation of the cruising terms and conditions, but a guest was caught with one of her suitcases filled to the rim with toilet paper rolls, shampoo and conditioner bottles, and everything “free” she could get her hands on. When I say it was filled, I mean there were at least 40 toilet paper rolls, and a way higher amount of bottles. She just spent all the cruise asking for them claiming she kept running out! Way to get back some of the money you spent!

I’m sure I am not alone in seeing “interesting” things in the course of doing my job. These were a few that stood out to me as unique to a career onboard a cruise ship given that when people are on vacation they tend to let their hair down, so to speak. – ThatGuy (onboard)