On Cruising

I went on a cruise ship recently for the first time. I have a lot of thoughts on my experience, mainly that I did not enjoy it and had this eternal sense of discomfort and unease throughout the trip. This is a quick dump of my thoughts on various things that made me feel uncomfortable.

Thankfully, it was made a lot better with my wonderful travel companions. Being with my partner and his family was a delight as always. But I think next time I will insist on a hotel.

The premise

There's something that feels so overly fake and opulent about cruises. You're staying on a floating hotel that travels between destinations, without ever truly "being" there. You don't pay for a hotel, you're not really shopping or visiting many attractions. You're normally back on the boat by the late afternoon and eating dinner there instead of a restaurant on land; as a result, you're never really bringing any money into the local economy.

Your time ashore is very limited and sanitised, often just as guided "shore experiences" where your route and activities are extremely selective and brief. You're not there long enough to learn about the area or even get to speak the local language or explore the culture. You're essentially appropriating the destination, while cosplaying the vicious imperialist past of Maritime Britain. You descend on the port town like locusts, get the rushed highlights of fanciful things the guides select for you, and then you're whisked away to your next port to do it all over again.

The vibe

The ship is designed to reflect the "prestigious" past of the seagoing British empire. One of the areas on the ship I stayed on was called the "Uganda Room", reflecting one of the many countries that the UK fucked over. It's a function room filled with navy blue fabrics, model boats, dark woods and gold trims. It just feels like it's catering to people who yearn for more of this evil our country brought on the world.

Bars, restaurants and common areas are designed and furnished to exude opulence. However, they more often just ooze sleaze. It reminds me very much of a floating Trump Tower, with strange flourishes and art work scattered around, like the 35-foot statue in the main atrium. Every day, the "upmarket" shop onboard the ship had events to talk about and try to sell watches that cost multiple thousands of pounds. It felt garish.

The passengers

Onboard a cruise ship, prepare to dine and coexist with some of the rudest and most demanding people you'll ever meet. They seem to constantly be entitled yet pissed off with everything they come across. They will put put in complaints about the smallest things, such as their rooms not being made up with a towel shaped like an animal. These people are always sporting a scowl and pushing and nudging their way past others. You constantly overhear conversations about how Britain has "gone to the dogs", and any time a transsexual like myself walks past, I am met with glares and petulance, despite my returning smile. I sure hope I didn't make their holiday worse by existing...

Passengers are often horrible to staff. Being irate, demanding their time and attention, interrupting their work to ask for another drink. "I've been waiting for ages!": a phrase uttered constantly throughout the decks of the cruise ship. It just feels like passengers treat staff as just machines that provide for them, rather than humans with feelings and thoughts and their own stuff to deal with. This happens all the time in retail and service work, but it's just on another level completely on cruise ships. Because, of course, the entire world revolves around the passenger's happiness. So get them that G&T they've been waiting for two minutes for!

The "pampering"

In Shipping Out, David Foster Wallace discusses the lengths that cruise companies will go to in order to "pamper" you, encouraging the reader to make the connection between this word and the popular brand of baby's nappies. It leads him down a path of despair and I felt this all too well.

On a cruise, you are there "to relax". You are seldom allowed to do things for yourself. Staff will bring you wine and do that silly dance of letting you "test" the bottle to make sure it's not off before pouring a glass out. Bar service doesn't happen, the staff come to you. You mustn't tidy away after yourself, return empty glasses, anything like that, because someone's supposed to do it for you. I absolutely hated this loss of independence. I really enjoy being able to do things for myself and have some amount of control over the situation. I don't like that shore visits are limited by someone else's schedule and not my own. This whole situation is my hell.

The exploitation

Do you know what a "flag of convenience" is? Neither did I until I started wondering why the cruise ship I was on, owned by a British company, was flying the flag of Bermuda from its stern.

Shipping vessels have to be registered to a country's ship registry, but it doesn't have to be the country that the owner lives in if the registry doesn't require that. Countries like Bermuda, Panama, Liberia, Malta and more offer these "open registries". Companies will register their ships with these countries for many reasons like tax avoidance, different laws, environmental regulations, and... lax labour laws. This means that cruise ship companies can hire workers for less money and won't necessarily have to follow things like working time regulations. Essentially, they can get away with exploiting cheap labour.

Reduced health and safety regulations means that cruise ship crews can be put in a lot more danger than they should be, especially when performing maintenance duties. Staff are less protected when raising grievances or whistleblowing. Staff may be underpaid and on seasonal contracts that companies can threaten to not renew. It's harder for staff to form unions. So, as well as screwing over the economies of ports that the cruise ships call at, they will also screw over desperate workers from developing countries with hard and low paid work.

Cruise ships are these multi thousand tonne behemoths that frack society wherever they go. Exploitation is rife.

In short, I'm not a fan.