A lot of the time, cruise lines try to avoid hiring Americans. But, why? Well, Americans are spoiled in the sense that we are used to 40-hour workweeks, which is not the case with much of the rest of the world. Americans are also used to working the standard Monday through Friday schedule and taking their weekends off.
Hours can very much exceed 40 hours on a cruise ship, and you can forget about taking an entire weekend off. Most of the time, you would be lucky to get a single day off for your entire contract. And therefore, most people who hired on cruise ships are not American.
Sewage Situation
Emergencies do happen, and when something goes wrong on a ship and you’re in the middle of the ocean – things can get pretty bad.
Just ask Carnival Cruise, who, in 2013, lost power after there was a fire within the engine room. Passengers aboard the ship got stuck in the Gulf of Mexico, and the sewage started to get backed up. The nasty liquid got so full that it started overflowing all around the ship, and smelled so bad that some areas were labeled as toxic, and passengers camped out in tents in an effort to escape the hideous stench. Yuck!
Norovirus Outbreaks
When sickness strikes on a cruise ship, it can be absolutely devastating. This is because it has the tendency to travel super quickly, and passengers can’t do much to avoid getting sick, because they’re basically trapped in a small space with the virus. This is what happened when 100 passengers on a Carnival Cruise ship developed Norovirus – a foodborne illness that causes flu-like symptoms.
The passengers just happened to get sick on their very first day of a ten-day cruise. Norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships are actually fairly common, and happened four times on four different ships over a single year alone!
Cruise Ships Wreak Havoc on the Environment
We know the last thing anyone wants to think about when they are packing up to go on a tropical cruise vacation is their decision’s effect on the environment. But cruise ships can do some serious damage, as far as air pollution is concerned. And the devil is in the details.
One cruise ship alone can produce an equal amount of air pollution in a single day to one million cars! Even though cruise companies are fully aware of the damage the ships do to the air, they have not done much to address the problems they cause and to control the pollution.
The Tips Can Be Amazing
As with many jobs in the hospitality industry, cruise ship workers depend largely on tips to maximize their paychecks. They are just as entitled to tips as anyone working in a bar, restaurant, or even a hotel. Most cruise lines even have a mandatory gratuity, which is automatically added to a customer’s bill and then split fairly among employees.
And since there are little to no living expenses when you’re on board, you can save that money very easily! In that respect, working on a cruise is pretty sweet and you can make a pretty sweet living while travelling the world.