Cruise worker explains reality of 'free-for-all' dating between employees onboard ships
A cruise worker has explained the reality of there being a ‘free-for-all’ dating pool onboard ships.
I mean, it seems pretty fair to assume those singletons on the ships would just be happily getting off with or having relationships with one another.
Let’s not even get into the idea of ‘spicy cruises’, I’m just talking about the staff onboard the regular big boats.
Although one worker did say it’s very bad news if you start even as much as flirting with a guest – but what about between staff?
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Well, YouTuber ‘Wanderlust Alley’ spoke to her fellow staff members onboard about the ‘expectation vs. reality’ of their job.
And she says she gets asked about ‘intimacy and dating’ on the ships ‘all the time’ with the expectation being that it’s ‘just a massive free-for-all’.
“Well, let me tell you what it’s like,” Alley says, explaining she’ll go on to share some of her own ‘personal experiences’.
“I would like to note that ships are a very expedited environment, if you enjoy someone’s company, it is beyond tangible to spend so much time together and get to know each other.”
She explains how back ‘on land’ you might meet someone for dinner on a Friday night, and then not see them again until the next weekend. Whereas on ships, you can do that one night and then have ‘breakfast, lunch, dinner’ with them the next day and so on.
“So maybe on the outside looking in, it may look like the situation is a bit rushed,” Alley adds. “But you can just form relationships super quickly here.”
The cruise worker says that plenty of people marry someone that they meet on board but ‘that doesn’t mean that casual relationships aren’t happening as well’.
One of her co-workers says he reckons ship life is a bit like ‘college at sea’ as another says dating on board ‘is nice’ but it becomes difficult when work ends and you’re getting off the boat.
A worker says he even had a ‘ship relationship’ where it was agreed that it would come to an end when he left.
“You have to control yourself,” another says. “For me, if you have a girlfriend, you’re not having a girlfriend to just play around – if you are committed, you have to be committed.
“But I know that other people have families at home and they have agreements where they get on a ship and then they have ship wives, ship husbands.”
So, it seems it’s really up to you how you play it.
Apparently ‘there is a lot of opportunity’ on a ship if you ‘want it’.
Alley reckons that really, it doesn’t ‘vary too much from what happens on land’.
“I think the major difference here is that the bar is as easy as a four-minute walk from your house and that just means it’s simple to meet people,” she says.
“And on top of that, because we’re in a confined environment, everyone just may seem to know about it.”
Yeah, it really does sound like uni.
Jess Battison