It’s not always smooth sailing on the high seas.
According to Lucy Southerton, who has worked on a cruise ship for nearly a decade, there are some annoying things passengers do that irk crew members.
In a resurfaced video posted to YouTube, the 28-year-old from Birmingham, England, revealed a list of things that irritate employees on the ship.
The most popular complaint, she informed her more than 65,000 subscribers, was when people comment on workers’ English.
There is often a melting pot of people aboard cruise ships who come from around the globe, meaning those workers often speak another language in addition to English.
“It is scary going to work on a cruise ship where you have to speak English, which isn’t your first language,” she said in the clip.
“So it’s really, really crap when you have a passenger say something bad about your English,” she added.
In the same vein, Southerton said that the crew hates being culturally stereotyped, recalling an incident where a sailor asked her Colombian friend — who has “never, ever, ever ever touched drugs” — if she had ever “done cocaine” just because of where she was from.
“It’s just a bit insensitive,” she said, adding that it goes “both ways,” since Americans “get really upset” when they’re stereotyped as “dumb.”
Southerton also revealed that the crew also hates when travelers leave their cabins or the ship a mess, try to go into the restaurants, bars or shops just before closing and ignore the crew’s greetings, which she called “a little bit disrespectful.” Bragging about wealth, she added, is also a no-no.
Next, she said that it’s irritating when “passengers flirt with you and think they have a chance with you just because you are a crew member.” She explained that, while it’s part of the crew’s job to “be friendly,” it often gets misconstrued by travelers because “you’re a sexy crew member,” urging future passengers to consider that the crew might not want the attention.
Being treated like they are “not people” is another pet peeve of hers.
“I think with manners, the reason it annoys me so much and annoys crew members so much is because it doesn’t take anything to just say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ or ‘hey, how you doing?’” she said.
In general, good manners go a long way, and not being polite to the crew is “the biggest mistake that people can make,” she told The Daily Star.
“You don’t know what you’re going to need and which crew member is going to be able to solve your issues and it has happened before where a passenger has been incredibly rude to a crew member that they have later needed during their cruise,” she said.
