A British cruise worker has revealed three of the annoying things passengers do that crew members on board hate.
Lucy Southerton, 28, from Birmingham, has worked on cruise ships for nine years.
She documents her experiences and shares behind-the-scenes information and advice with her 65,000 subscribers on YouTube, where she posts under the name ‘Cruising As Crew’.
In one clip, she delved into all the pet peeves that really get on the nerves of cruise ship workers, to try to encourage future passengers not to do them.
She told viewers that she went around different departments and asked some of her colleagues what it is that they ‘really don’t like’ people do – read below for three of the annoying habits.
Lucy Sotherton, 28, from Birmingham, has worked on cruise ships for nine years
Commenting on their poor English
The first thing passengers do that excites the onboard staff is to comment on their English.
Lucy explained: ‘On cruise ships there are a lot of people from the Philippines, from India, from South Africa, Spain, Serbia, Ukraine.
‘So everyone has a different mother tongue and everyone has an accent – and it’s scary working on a cruise ship where you have to speak English, which isn’t your first language.
‘When you’re learning a new language it’s all about boosting your confidence, so it’s really a bummer when you have a passenger say something bad about your English.’
The cruise ship worker advised: ‘Of course you can say ‘Can you repeat that please?’ or ‘I didn’t quite understand you, what was that?’ but what crew members really hate is when passengers say, ‘You need to learn English, your English is terrible’.
‘Something along those lines, because you know they’re a ******. It can set that person back several weeks because then they’re like, oh my God, I don’t want to say anything because their confidence has been shot.
‘I always just think people who make comments like that are generally people who only speak one language and unfortunately it’s usually English.’
In one clip, Lucy delved into all the pet peeves that really get on the nerves of cruise ship workers, to try and encourage future passengers not to
The first thing passengers do that excites the onboard staff is to comment on their English
Being ignored
Moving on to her next point, Lucy added that one of her ‘pets’ is being ‘completely ignored’ by passengers after greeting them.
She reasoned: ‘I get it, I get why they ignore me. They obviously want to trade in peace, they don’t want to be talked to, they don’t want me to help them trade at all. That’s perfectly fine, I get the point.
‘But it would be nice if there was a ‘hello’ or a nod even – I can handle a nod but just going blank is always a bit disrespectful and it’s just not nice, it makes you be like oh God why am I even bothering to greet these people?’
Although she assured viewers that most of the time saying hello to people, they say hello back and it’s a ‘good interaction’.
She ended this section of the video by suggesting: ‘So if you’re going on a cruise ship and a crew member says hello, you don’t have to get into a full conversation with them, but it’s nice to just give them a little bit of recognition – just a hello or even a nod.’
Cultural stereotypes
Third on the Brit’s list was cultural stereotypes, which she revealed were ‘talked about for quite a long time’ when she asked her crewmates.
She gave viewers an example of a conversation she recently witnessed.
Lucy has worked on cruise ships for nine years, starting her career at 19
Lucy recalled: ‘I was standing outside the shop with my friend from Colombia and a sailor came up to her and we had a chat.
‘She asked my Colombian friend: ‘Have you done cocaine? do you like cocaine?’
‘My friend had never ever touched drugs, just not her stuff. But I was like oh my god I can’t believe you asked that because she said she was from Colombia.’
Adding: ‘It’s just a bit insensitive, so just be careful when you ask your questions. Obviously, it’s fine to ask people about their country of origin, but don’t try to stereotype a person.
“It works the same way both ways because there are a lot of American sailors on this ship, and I know Americans get really upset when there’s the stereotype that all Americans are stupid.”
The revelations come just after Lucy highlighted some of the most frustrating issues brought on board by a small number of guests: having bad manners and being rude.
She told The Daily Star: ‘I think the biggest mistake people can make when on a cruise is not being polite to all crew members.
‘You don’t know what you will need and which crew member will be able to solve your problems and it has happened before where a passenger has been incredibly rude to a crew member that they have subsequently needed during their cruise .’