Following the military coup there was absolute chaos at Istanbul International airport. Thousands of passengers were stranded after all flights have been canceled. Among the stranded passengers were crew members working on cruise ship. Some of the stranded crew members were waiting to catch connecting flights to get back home, others to return to cruise ship for another contract.
Port Authorities in Civitavecchia, Italy, received distress call from the cruise ship Sovereign operated by Pullmantur Cruises. The emergency involved a Filipino crew member who suffered serious poisoning because of the accidental ingestion of chemical (muriatic acid) usually used for cleaning and disinfection of swimming pools. The incident happened last night at around 10p.m. just hours after Sovereign left the port of Civitavecchia.
Many crew members that successfully complete one or more contracts and receive favorable work performance evaluation are often promoted to a higher position or transferred to another department. For example, a cleaner working in the hotel department can be promoted to assistant cabin steward position, as well as crew mess employee can be promoted to the dining room or room service.
Each crew member working on cruise ship has an extraordinary life story to share. Crew members are unique breed of people who life on land and life at sea taught them to be strong, smart, pleasant and companionate. One crew member is inspiring thousands with his passion of life on cruise ship and his book “My Way to the Seven Seas”. His name is Martines Rocha de Souza, a Brazilian bar waiter working on Cunard Line.
Every ship has a captain, but on larger percentage on the ships in the cruise industry captains are of the male gender. It has been the truth as old as time, men overpopulate the majority of the higher paying positions around the world and this positions has not been any different for as long as the cruise industry has existed. It seems that this old-fashioned way of thinking has been shifting lately since the cruise industry slowly is incorporating female captains into their fleets.
It's Saturday and I joined the cruise ship today. I am already exhausted from the trip. I look at around my crew cabin as I type this, staring at the four walls of this closet size space with four beds. Soon my cabin roommates will be off work so I am glad I was able to take a shower before they get back. Four beds, one bathroom, one tv, one other Canadian, a Philipino, and a Romanian Romanian. I can't remember their names yet. The Romanian roommate seemed stuck up as hell. In fact, so did most of the Romanian girls I met today on the ship.
I was at the Guest services Desk last night talking to a guest about Florence and overheard two guests removing their gratuities. I heard the GSA ask them both why and the answer “ personal reasons” baffled me. After they left I spoke with the guest services associate and took their cabin number and made a few calls.
