I will never forget my first trip on the high seas. One of my best friends and I took a fabulous trip to the paradise Bermuda. It was a glorious trip into the horizon. But beyond the beach, the grandness of the ship and the sense of peace on the water, one aspect of the trip stuck with me most.... witnessing the behavior of cruise life. Cruise life is a real thing, that people take very, very seriously. Who knew? Guests on cruise ships are crazy. I mean.... crazy. Most for good but some.... highly questionable. Workers on cruise ships deserve a medal I swear. LOLOL. I can't wait to set sail again.
Redditor u/bubba1217 wanted staff on the open seas to tell a tale or two about cruise life behavior by asking.... Cruise Ship Employees: What's the stupidest thing you've witnessed a passenger doing aboard the ship?
Out of Shanghai
Fire Extinguisher GIF by Playing With FireGiphyWorked for Royal Caribbean for 7 years, was based out of Shanghai at the time and saw a guest put a lit cigarette in a garbage can. You can guess what happened 30 seconds later. Luckily there was a fire extinguisher near by.
Not Without my Chair
Saw 2 employees escort a 30-something year old woman from the pool deck back to her cabin while others were scrambling to get some rags. She had peed while lounging on a poolside deck chair, and the huge puddle was streaming into the pool. Her excuse was she did not want to give up the chair.
So many questions....
Not a cruise ship but I worked a couple of contracts on a passenger ship. Special questions passengers asked me (stupid questions don't exist but dang it, these people came close):
1-does the crew sleep onboard? (During a multi day sail). No ma'am. We change the crew every night with a submarine with a nightshift. (This one gets asked a lot).
2-could you stop those vibrations? (Sure, let me shut down the engines quickly).
3-could you stop the ship for a few minutes (after a passenger saw a whale and wanted to take pictures).
4-can i get a tour in the crew's area? (I sort of understand this question but let's just assume that we don't really like to show our house to random people you meet at work). No sir, regulations don't allow that.
5-what do you mean I should know not to hang my clothes there? (Right after a passenger found out that the sprinkler head actually goes off if you brake the glass tube when you try to hang your clothes hanger on there. It was a nice fire fighting exercise).
Overboard
doc savage dive GIF by Warner ArchiveGiphyNot an employee, but a former frequent cruiser. I once saw someone sitting on the railings that surround the top deck of the ship. If they'd fallen, they would've been killed instantly.
Who is not Stupid?
I wasn't an employee but I was on business to work with the employees so kind of had the backdoor experience. The dumbest thing I saw was someone standing on railings, luckily it didn't last long.
But one of my favorite things I saw was in the "club" style bar. A woman maybe like 85 was straight up dancing like she were 23 to some techno. We joked that her hip replacement must have been top notch.
As a passenger I think the stupidest thing I witnessed was myself ordering liquor drinks like they weren't watered down.
Death's Trip
Die.
Hear me out. Many cruises, especially the cheaper ones, become YOLO nursing homes for the extremely elderly/unwell who want to spend their last days on vacation. Because forget everyone who will be massively inconvenienced by your death aboard a vessel in international waters. The amount of extremely frail or sick old people on cruises is staggering. There's a trend of blowing their retirement/life savings on a non stop series of cruises with the expectation that they will either die on board or their kids will put them up somewhere when they get back.
Not only is their death a problem but they tend to treat the service staff like their hospice nurses, requiring an extraordinary amount of maintenance to keep happy and comfortable. Almost any cruise employee develops an intense hatred of old people by the end of their time.
Dangerous Tides
I saw a woman walking through one of the buffet restaurants, stop pull a funny face, wiggle a bit and then carry on walking. You guessed it she had just shat herself and then left a log on the carpet and carried on straight outside to carry on eating. Absolutely vile. Of course the restaurant had to be shut until it could be cleaned properly and the whole area sanitized thoroughly.
I personally got arrested in Spain once, but I was lucky and got out of the clink before anyone noticed I was gone so I turned up to work the next morning as if nothing had happened (drunk and disorderly type of thing)
I'm sure I can think of more given time...
will ferrell snl GIF by Saturday Night LiveThe stupidest thing I've ever seen was probably on one of those weekend booze cruises. There was a group of former cheerleaders who were clearly out of practice and very drunk. They attempted to do a pyramid on the pool deck and 2 out of the 3 ended up in the infirmary.
The stupidest thing I've ever done when I was working on ships? I got drunk on Absinthe in St. Petersburg, Russia, and nearly got arrested before I got back to the ship.
Stay Sober
Drinking so much they fell down a flight of stairs and broke their spine. Putting a still smoldering cigarette butt into a trash can inside the ship and setting the can on fire. Both happened while I was working onboard, seen by coworkers. Other than that, just really stupid questions and any generic dumb crap customers do at retail/hospitality places/restaurants on land.
Rona Days
Cruise Ship GIF by GIPHY NewsGiphyBoarding a ship during a pandemic. (Not actually a cruise ship employee.)
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"What's the most mysterious thing happened in your life that you can't find any explanation for?"
Mom Acting Weird
"My mum is a type 1 diabetic, has been since she was 11 years of age."
"When me and my little brother were very young, I was about 7 and he was 5 , I came into my mum's room to find she was acting extremely strange."
"She looked almost drunk, and wasn’t really responsive."
"I went to pick up her insulin needles to see if she would react to that and she didn’t."
"So I panicked and phoned my Nan who told me to put the phone down and dial 999."
"For some reason I was so frightened and confused I didn’t, and sent my little brother outside to get help while I tried to get my mum to respond to me."
"My brother came back in crying saying he couldn’t find anyone and then about five minuets later this woman just walked into my mum's bedroom, called me by my name, and my brothers, said she knew my mum and help is coming, she was calm, soft-spoken and had a warm feeling about her."
"I didn’t recognize this woman and neither did my brother."
"Shortly after the ambulance arrived and got my mum's sugar levels back up."
"And when I went to find the woman, she was gone."
"Like literally gone."
"When my mum came round I explained to her about this mysterious woman and what she looked like."
"And my mum had absolutely no idea who she was, and we never saw her again."
"If she didn’t help us my mum would have died eventually."
"Still gives me shivers now."- leeshouse90
Portrait Of A Lady On Fire Neon Rated GIF by NEONGiphyPsychic, or lucky?
"When I was around 18 a friend and I were traveling in Europe."
"We were walking along a pleasant, quiet street in Rome one day and saw an elderly homeless man sitting on the street."
"He said to us if he could guess our date of birth could we give him some money?"
"Of course we said ok."
"He did it! "
"He told us both our correct dates of birth!"
"Never met him before and never saw him again."- robertodurian
Some Unfinished Work, Maybe?
"I was at my mother in law's flat in Hungary."
"Fyi I don't speak Hungarian, so I couldn't be aware of any of this."
"I tend to go to bed later that my wife, and for the first couple of nights, I had trouble falling asleep because around midnight I could hear the neighbor upstairs."
"It's an old block of flats made under the communist era, walls are incredibly thin."
"Walk in high heels, which was very annoying."
"I could also hear little objects fall on the floor, and I told my wife it sounded like the plastic buttons you have on some clothes."
"She looked at me funny and told me her niece hated to sleep in that room because she was scared by the noises coming from upstairs."
"I said that was a bit exaggerated, and I thought it was until my wife told me the flat upstairs had been empty for the past at least 4 years."
"Neighbor died years before that, and guess what?"
"She was a tailor, always nicely dressed and wearing high heels."- mimzou
High Heels Shoes GIF by Real Housewives Of CheshireGiphyGone Without A Trace
"When I was a kid, I participated in Big Brothers Big Sisters, which if you don't know what that is it's pretty much just a mentorship program in the US."
"I basically just hung out with this dude Chris for a couple hours a week."
"We'd go to the movies, out to eat, he'd help me with my homework, that kinda thing."
"One day, he tells me that he's going to Baltimore for a couple weeks and when I should expect him back."
"The day rolls around and I give him a call to see if he's back yet."
"A man whose voice I didn't recognize answered and I asked if Chris was there."
"He said no."
"I asked him when Chris would be back just kinda thinking it was someone staying at his house or watching his dogs or something."
"But he said that I had the wrong number, that he and his wife had lived there for years, and there was never a Chris there."
"I double checked in the phonebook to see if it was the right number which it was because I had it circled."
"I was confused so I just said sorry and hung up, and I never heard from Chris ever again."- theautomemoriesdoll
A Clever Distraction?
"When I was 10 or so I was staying at my grandma's over the summer break and we were having breakfast."
"We barely started eating when the phone rang."
"She left the dining room and I followed her thinking that maybe they were my parents calling."
"When we returned most of the food was gone."
"She asked me if I ate while she was on the phone and I said 'no'."
"There was no one else home and there were no pets."
"My grandma just shook it off saying we might have eaten more than she remembered but I am absolutely positive that I had at most two bites of my toast by the time the phone rang."- queenliz2fr
Hungry Good Morning GIF by HBO MaxGiphyMystery Benefactor
"Every month around the 5th I get a letter with exactly 23 dollars."
"No note, no return address."
"I’ve asked family, relatives, friends, the two past occupants of this apartment."
"Nobody knows anything about it."
"It is not addressed to me, but to my unique postal address."
"The total is now exactly 1886, I have just stashed it all in a box."
"I do not want to spend it in case it is cursed."- Puzzleheaded_Ad928
A Comforting Sign
"My grandmother always loved roses and had them growing in her back yard."
"She died in a December and when we were gathered at her house for the funeral my father happened to look out the back window and saw a bright red rose had blossomed."
"It stood out brightly against the snow."
"He brought it in and put it in a vase on the kitchen table."
"We all left for the funeral and when we came back the rose was on the living room floor."
"No one had been in the house while we were gone."
"My father is the most hard-headed person alive but he was convinced it was his mothers way of telling him she was all right."- regular6drunk7
Mystery Portal?
"We have a built in wardrobe in our bedroom."
"About a month ago our cat had managed to get herself inside and I must have closed the door."
"I heard her meowing and I opened the door and she jumped out and walked off."
"Silly cat."
"I closed the wardrobe door."
"Less than five minutes later I hear a meow in the wardrobe, I open the door and to my surprise, our cat jumps out again and walks off."
"My partner and I were both stunned as there is no way into the wardrobe with the doors closed."
"Neither of us have any idea how this happened."- TorthOrc
Cat Jumping GIFGiphyLost Time
"I had just picked up a coworker from her house heading to work.'
"We are just talking and chatting, "how'd your weekend go" type of stuff."
"We are maybe 5 miles away from her house, when all of a sudden, we realize we are in town pulling into works parking lot."
"We both kinda look at each other not sure what happened."
"We had gone near 20 miles in a blink of an eye."
"And what cemented this experience as something that I actually happened, and not just simply losing track of time, IS THE TIME!"
"It should have taken us almost half an hour to get to work."
"Instead the time from when I picked her up was 2:30."
"And the time when we got to the building was 2:40."
"There is no way in HELL!"
"We couldn't have gotten there that fast."
"From that point on we both called that experience the time when we Jumped, like from the movie Jumper."
"I have no explanation why."
"I'll also state, I don't believe in the paranormal or supernatural."
"So this experience is one of those things that makes me question my own sanity."- belac4862
car dark GIFGiphyThere must be an explanation for these circumstances...
Even if it's not an explanation that will make any sense, otherworldly or not.
What is a great example of 'f*ck around and find out'"?
Never Be Afraid To Seek Help
"Hey remember how they said drugs can ruin your f*cking life?"
"Turns out that was true."- WowAPenguin
They Put Up Those Walls For A Reason
"People who die after going over the safety fence at zoo, or basically any safety fence."- Solid_Refrigerator16
They Can't Say They Weren't Warned...
"Those who go deep cave diving and ignore the warning signs."- somekindofmiracle
cave GIFGiphyNever Stand Behind Them...
"Jacka**es who come to the stables I ride at and act weird around horses."
"Those animals play no games."- clem82
Is It Really Worth It?
"Running of the Bulls in Spain."
"The videos each year of the people getting completely annihilated by the bulls is a great example."- getagrooving
Never Get Too Big For Your Britches...
"When I was young I boxed and eventually got into golden gloves."
"I got a few wins under my belt and said I wanted to fight someone legit, someone who would be a real challenge."
"An opportunity came up to fight someone very good, a guy who'd eventually win regional and state and later go pro."
"At this point I'd not lost or even been knocked down, so my confidence was high, that is until he knocked me the hell out very early in the fight and taught me that there are BIG differences in the different talent levels of fighting."-Reddit
episode 2 boxing GIF by Archie ComicsGiphySharks might be the least of your problems...
"Go swimming outside the flags in Australia."- d*ckflip1980
Clown Behavior
"When people were dressing up like clowns to scare people."
"It kinda stopped after one got shot."- BigMaraJeff2
Or With Anything Dangerous...
"Playing with electricity."- tlmega124
Jack Nicholson Hair GIF by MOODMANGiphyThey Won't Harm You If You Won't Harm Them...
"People that approach wildlife in state parks."- Rider-of-Rohaan42
Best To Keep Hands And Feet Out Of Moving Vehicles...
"Your boss at the warehouse is constantly telling you to keep your feet within the confines of your vehicle, and not to hang them, and to stay clear when walking, because if you don't, a 6,000 pound+ vehicle impacting a fixed surface will turn your foot into spaghetti sauce."
"Do not f*ck around, ever, with industrial vehicles."
"Follow all guidelines, always."
"A powered ride-on pallet jack weighs as much as 2-3 small cars, when fully loaded."
"It will absolutely ruin you if you don't operate safely."- SpaceCorpse
Still Probably Best Not To Do It At All!
"My uncle was a high-profile defense attorney specializing in folks who were arrested for drug trafficking."
"The greatest advice he ever gave to me was, if you want to smuggle ANYTHING, you can do it one time."
"Just once."
"After that, you will be caught and you will be f*cked."- redoctober2021
Confusing On So Many Levels...
"Trying to armed rob a gun store."- VagabondTexan
You'd Think People Would Have Learned By Now...
"Taking Julius Caesar hostage."- EgoSenatus
caesar GIFGiphyNo One Is Invincible...
"Ye saying he can’t be dropped by Adidas, then immediately getting dropped by Adidas."- Admin_Untold
It's one thing to make a mistake after being a bit too hasty, and not giving something enough thought.
But if you end up in the ER after being urged not to do something, and well aware of what might happen, don't expect too many flowers...