A British cruise ship worker has revealed three of the annoying things that passengers do that the crew members onboard hate.
Lucy Southerton, 28, from Birmingham, has been working 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 of the pet peeves that really get on cruise ship workers’ nerves, 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 they ‘really don’t like’ people doing – read below for three of the irritating habits.
Lucy Sotherton, 28, from Birmingham , has been working on cruise ships for nine years
Commenting on their bad English
The first thing that passengers do that riles up staff members onboard is commenting on their English.
Lucy explained: ‘On cruise ships, there’s a lot of people from the Phillippines, from India, from South Africa, Spain, Serbia, Ukraine.
‘So everyone has a different first language and everyone has an accent – and it is scary going to work 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 growing your confidence so it’s really really crap when you have a passenger say something bad about your English.’
The cruise ship worker advised: ‘You can obviously say ‘Could you repeat that please?’ or ‘I didn’t quite understand you, what was that?’ but what crew members hate, quite rightly, is when passengers are like: ‘You need to learn English, your English is terrible’.
‘Something to that effect because you know, they’re a********. That can set that person back 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 of the pet peeves that really get on cruise ship workers nerves, to try to encourage future passengers not to do them
The first thing that passengers do that riles up staff members onboard is commenting on their English
Being ignored
Moving on to her next point, Lucy added that one of her ‘pet peeves’ is being ‘completely ignored’ by passengers after greeting them.
She reasoned: ‘I get it, I understand why they’re ignoring me. They obviously want to shop in peace, they don’t want to be spoken to, they don’t want me to help them shop at all. That is absolutely fine, I get the hint.
‘But it would be nice if there was a ‘hello’ or a nod even – I can deal with a nod, but just to get completely blanked is always a bit disrespectful and it’s just not nice, it makes you be like oh God, why do I even bother greeting these people?’
Although, she did reassure viewers that most of the time she says hello to people, they do say hello back and it’s a ‘nice interaction’.
She finished off 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 blown conversation with them, but it is nice just to give them a little bit of acknowledgement – just a hello or even a head nod.’
Cultural stereotypes
Third on the Britons list was cultural stereotyping, which she revealed was ‘talked about quite a long’ when she asked her fellow crew members.
She gave viewers an example of a conversation she recently witnessed.
Lucy has been working on cruise ships for nine years, since starting her career as a 19-year-old
Lucy recalled: ‘I was stood outside the shop with my friend from Colombia and a sailor came up to her and we got into a conversation.
‘She asked my Colombian friend, ‘Have you done cocaine? do you like cocaine?’
‘My friend had never ever touched drugs, just not her thing. But I was just like oh my God, I cannot believe you asked that because she said she was from Colombia.’
Adding: ‘It’s just a bit insensitive so just be careful when you are asking your questions. Obviously, it’s fine to ask people about the country that they’re from but try not to stereotype a person.
‘It works the same both ways because there are a lot of American sailors on this ship and I know that Americans get really upset when there’s the stereotype that all Americans are dumb.’
The revelations come just after Lucy highlighted some of the most frustrating problems 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 that people can make when they are on a cruise is not being polite to every crew member.
‘You don’t know what you’re going to need and which crew member is going to be able to solve your issues and it has happened before where a passenger has been incredibly rude to a crew member that they have later needed during their cruise.’
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