Cruise Secrets You Didn’t Know
Cruise Secrets You Didn’t Know
Oh, this beautiful moment when you have an extra buck in your pocket and think of spending it on a trip. Should you go and bask in the sun on luxurious beaches of tropical islands? Or climb high as hell to freeze and chill on a ski resort? Or ditch it all and buy a better couch to spend some quality time with a TV? Or you could go on a cruise! You know where it was heading for, it’s in the title.
Cruise is a type of vacation everybody should experience at least once. I’m serious, you feel like a freaking member of the Royal family! Depending on the amount of money you are willing to spend it may be either the British Royal family or some African tribal king. But! It’s still worth it. You’ve got to see a bunch of islands, enjoy fantastic food, and the sea view (unless you’re seasick — then why the hell would you decide to go on a cruise in the first place).
In a nutshell, a cruise for many is a symbol of a luxurious and prosperous life. Oh, but if you only knew what’s behind that glamorous cover! And today you have a chance. But be warned, you may not want to step on another cruise ship after you read what the crew has to say.
LOOKING FOR MORGUE? THERE’S PROBABLY ONE ON YOUR CRUISE SHIP
Like, if you take a moment to think about it, it’s logical and not something strange. The thing is that many people just don’t want to think about dead bodies being on the same ship they spend a honeymoon.
A ship is not a super-safe place: accidents and emergencies happen there as often as anywhere else. And don’t forget about all those sweet older couples that finally decided to see the world and oops, too many impressions for one person.
And since we’re not in the Middle ages, nobody will take the liberty to bury the unlucky one in the sea. I wouldn’t mind if it were me, but civilized society and all that shit. So in case, there is a need to deal with a body in the middle of the ocean, there is a morgue.
WANT TO SPEND SOME TIME IN THE JAIL? DROP BY TO THE JAIL CELLS DOWN BELOW
You remember when I said you would be treated as a Royal family member? Well, it’s all until you get in trouble you become a trouble. People on vacation can sometimes go beyond normal behavior. You have seen such characters in all-inclusive hotels, I bet ya.
Having an aggressive drunk guy (or girl) moving freely in a closed space is a recipe for disaster. To avoid any danger, the crew will place the trouble-maker into a jail cell somewhere below the deck. But you can still expect it to be a lavish cruise cell!
WANNA EAT? THE AMOUNT OF FOOD IS INSANE!
Once on a ship, you fast start to notice how many and how different and how tasty the food there is. It seems like one of the main goals on a trip is to never feel hungry and to treat yourself with all kinds of goodies. You feel like you live in one of those fancy mansions: breakfast, lunch, dinner, buffets, snacks, desserts, and late-night eats.
Now imagine how much it takes to feed all of those gourmet guests. A typical cruise ship may have thousands of people on board at the same time! And don’t forget to count the staff: hundreds if not thousands of people who aim to make your vacation perfect.
According to a former cruise ship worker, the largest ship in the world goes through “3.5 tons of rice, 5.5 tons of flour, 31 tons of vegetables, 8 tons of chicken, and 15.8 tons of oil.”
THE ALCOHOL IS NOT INCLUDED, BUT HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO
If the amount of food you get is sometimes beyond imaginable, the drinks are a different story, talking about alcohol. Who wouldn’t want to have a glass of wine or a sip of a good whiskey while on vacation? But prepare to pay for it and sometimes pay a lot: you can say that when there is one seller only, the prices are going up.
In order not to worry about paying for each and every glass you order, you can use cruise packages. Many companies suggest their guests a bunch of options on how to pay for their drinks in advance. It can be for example a flat-rate, where you pay for a day (let’s say $50 a day for a week), so you can drink as much as you want without worrying about how much cash is in your wallet.
IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE EXACTLY AN ICEBERG
Let’s play some associations game. I say “cruise”; you say “Titanic”. I say “iceberg”; you say “fog, crash, disaster, death, I don’t want to go on a cruise any more!”
It’s been a while since the Titanic story happened, and you would expect the technology has gotten much better now, and missing a huge thing sticking out of the water is impossible. Kinda, but not really. The technology is much better, it’s true. But for can still be a pain in the neck even for modern ships. It can sometimes be so thick, that it’s literally impossible to see what’s going on around. There have even been cruise lines in the past who have crashed into a group of Humpback Whales or even a whale that passed away, belly-up.
NOT EVERYONE COMES BACK BY THE END OF THE TRIP
When you load your washing machine, you expect to get back exactly the same amount of clothes. But there is most likely a sock that has gone missing after the washing up, even though you’re one hundred percent sure you put it in.
The same story with people on board. Cruise ships can be huge, hundreds of meters long, but it’s still an isolated boat floating in the middle of the sea — closed space where people still go missing from. The Cruise Victims Association (another interesting fact that is such an organization even exists) reported that there had been over 165 people who went missing from cruise ships since the ’90s. The thought of where and how that might have possibly disappeared is disturbing and terrifying.
FOOD POISONING ANYONE? CRUISE SHIPS HAVE YOU COVERED
Back to food. Taking into account the mammoth (got it, mammoth, hehe) amount of food produced on board, no wonder some of it goes bad. You would even expect to have food poisoning in such conditions. The not-so-funny fact is that food poisoning rarely affects one or two people. It’s a chain effect. You feel sick after your seafood breakfast, and next thing you see are people on deck vomiting, going to the bathroom, and cramping up so much they can’t do much of anything, which is a real shame considering they’re on a cruise line.
The most unlucky were the Crown Princess guests: back in 2014 more than a hundred and seventy people had their vacation interrupted by food poisoning.
THE POLLUTION IS ENORMOUS!
The birds are singing, the sun is shining, the fish is dying because cruise ships spill a ton garbage into the ocean. You certainly don’t want to think about ecology when you’ve spent a shitload of money on a sea trip. You want to enjoy the experience.
But the sad truth is that many of the cruise ships pollute the ocean to a great extent — way more than an average car. To move one mile, The Little Things claims it takes over “100 gallons”!
Some of the modern ships claim to be eco-friendly, but that mostly means they don’t throw garbage into the water where no one can see it. Which is great, but not enough.
SOME LOOPHOLES OF CRUISE BUSINESS
Cruise is a business. And businesses always look for an option to cut down expenses or avoid regulations or at least lessen the pressure. For cruise ships, it is possible thanks to the Flags of Convenience loophole. The idea is that cruise companies register their cruises in some other place but not Northern America. Doing this can dramatically cut down costs by using cheap labor and not giving a shit about pollution control or accident prevention. Not every cruise can be registered so: whether it is possible depends on where the ship goes and what places to visit. But it still sucks.
PIRATES AHEAD! GET READY FOR THE BATTLE!
Are you ready, kids?
Aye-aye, Captain!
I can’t hear you!
Aye-aye, Captain!
No jokes, the staff is always ready to protect the ship from pirate attack. Of course, it’s nothing like in the Pirates of the Caribbean, but it’s still dangerous and absolutely not romantic or adventurous.
In certain parts of the world, the threat is real, and if the ship goes that way, the staff is trained for such an occasion: how to prepare guests and what to do physically on the ship. Probably, that’s one of those scenarios where either morgue, or cells, or both come in handy.
So here are ten things that may have changed the way you look on a cruise journey. In case you still want to give it a try, remember to pay for your drinks in advance and clarify if there’s a cell for trouble-makers on board. If there is none, go have some fun!