How to Make Everyone on Your Cruise Ship Hate You
I have a conflicted relationship with cruising. As a travel writer, it is a part of my job to take cruises, to evaluate and describe the experiences. There are ships I love, ships I like, and ships I dread sailing on. The same, unfortunately, is true of passengers: There are great ones, good ones, and just plain awful ones. Here are the seven worst things you can do on a cruise ship. Do any of these with the full understanding that many of your better-mannered, too-polite-to-say-so fellow passengers will despise you as a result.
1. Smoking
Keep your smokey air to yourself. (Photo: Age Fotostock/Alamy)
Of course, it is none of my business what you do to your lungs. It is, however, my business what you do to mine, and to the fresh sea air that I always look forward to on a cruise. Health issues aside, if you smoke outside one of the few, small designated smoking areas — on many ships this is part of the pool deck, and the casino — then you are basically stealing my precious fresh air! It’s bad enough that on some ships I have to pass through thick clouds of smoke in the casino to get to places I need to go, but on one recent cruise, a neighboring passenger spent the entire trip smoking on their balcony, which means I never got to use mine.
2. Hogging deck chairs
Deck chairs are for everyone (Photo: Mlauri/iStock/Getty Images)
It’s one thing to throw your purse and hat on a pair of deck chairs, run and get a cup of coffee, and come back 20 minutes later. (Yes, guilty as charged.) But to get a meal, or spend an hour at the gym, or go back to bed … well, it’s just rude and selfish! Don’t be surprised when you get ugly looks from those around you when you return. Just be grateful that nobody is telling you what a jerk you are, even though they are all absolutely thinking it.
Related: Surviving the Cruise Ship Buffet
3. Cutting in line
Vacationers boarding cruse ship in Port Canaveral, Florida (Photo: Age Fotostock/Alamy)
A cruise ship is, essentially, like a small town or community, so you shouldn’t behave here in ways that you wouldn’t at home. I get it, lines are long on some bigger ships — to get off the ship in port and to reboard at the end of the day, for example. But there’s no way around it. Be a grownup and patiently wait in line with everyone else.
4. Barking into your cellphone
We can’t hear the ocean breeze over your loud talking. (Photo: Age Fotostock/Alamy)
On a cruise out of a domestic port to, say, the Caribbean, before the ship has sailed into international waters may be the only time you can use your cell without roaming charges. As a result, you may want to say one last goodbye to friends, family members, and co-workers before unplugging. Just be considerate: Do it in your cabin, or at an appropriate volume. There are other people trying to have conversations too, and while some of the ship’s public spaces may look like shopping malls, they aren’t, and you don’t have that same degree of anonymity.
5. Not supervising your older kids
There are rules to follow in the pools (Photo: Rosalrene Betancourt 1/Alamy)
Some cruises are made for families, so no one really has a right to complain about the typical behavior of children. But if you let your older children run through the baby pool area so quickly they terrorize the tots, I am going to judge you and your poor parenting skills. Also, don’t let your child do cannonballs. Ships have small pools, and the number of people splashed, and even possibly hurt by such behavior, is not small.
Related: 8 Cruise Ship Pools That Make You Say Wow
6. Not watching your younger kids
Don’t use other passengers on the ship as babysitters. (Photo: Pavel Losevsky/Alamy)
I’ve heard stories of parents leaving small children unsupervised in cabins and in public spaces. There are lots of people around, but it is not their job to take care of your child. On a recent cruise I actually had to pull an unsupervised small child out of the water because he couldn’t swim well and had fallen off his inner tube. I was happy to swoop in and help the frightened child, but a parent should have been there to do that instead.
7. Being sloppy drunk
Drunk karaoke on board! (Photo: Ruby/Alamy)
After dinner, some cruise ships go to bed — and others seem to come alive. I am all for dancing and having fun, but if you’re knocking people over on the dance floor or by the bar, you deserve the dirty looks you get from other passengers. A ship has a finite amount of space, and if you’re negatively impacting the atmosphere on the dance floor, you’re probably spoiling the one dance space available to your fellow cruisers.
Of course, the worse you behave, the more your fellow passengers will hate you. If you’re screaming down the hallways in the middle of the night because you’re too wasted to find your cabin, I will consider calling the front desk to have security step in.
Consider yourself warned.
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