Sleeping with your colleagues on a cruise is not the same as doing it on land, according to Lucy Southerton.
The woman, originally from Birmingham, has spent almost a decade working out at sea, starting her career as a massage therapist on cruise ships aged 19.
Taking to her YouTube channel Cruising As Crew, she provides ‘no nonsense’ insights into what actually goes on over international waters.
For passengers, she tells you what mistakes not to make on board, and what you need to do if you don’t want to be made fun of.
Now, if you like the idea of travelling and keeping away from home for most of the year, then working on a cruise might be for you.
But Lucy has warned how easy it is to get a little too close to your colleagues, and the dangers of actually sleeping with them.
“So, I think it’s kind of well known that a lot of stuff goes on, on cruise ships,” she said in a viral video from two years ago.
“And it’s all kind of ‘incestuous’ in a weird way because when you live in a small town there’s only a certain amount of people.
Cruise worker Lucy Sotherton has warned against sleeping with coworkers on board (Instagram/@cruisingascrew)
“So you know, friends end up hooking up with friends, who then end up going with the other friend, and that’s like cruise ships.
“Ultimately, there is only a certain number of people to choose from, so things are going to cross over at certain points.”
However, Lucy has insisted that having sex on board is actually very ‘safe’.
“So my friend was really worried about catching something like an STI or an STF because he was like, ‘are they just rife?'”, she continued.
“Well firstly, when you have your medical done to work on a cruise ship, I would say 80 percent of medicals test you for sexually transmitted infections and diseases.
“So actually, in that sense, it’s quite safe because the majority of people who work on a cruise ship have been tested for something.”
That being said, she still warned against the different repercussions of sleeping with co-workers at sea, adding in a video from last year: “Sleeping with a colleague on a cruise ship is very different to sleeping with a colleague in a job on land.
“Now the reason is if you’re working a job on land, of course everyone in the office likes the office gossip and is involved in everyone’s business.
“But you get to leave the office and go home to your friends and your family who are completely separate from those people that you work with.
“On a ship, you have obviously left your friends and family at home to work on a ship, which means that the people you work with are going to become your friends, your family and everything in between.
“So you’re going to be getting all of your needs met from this one group of people.”
A woman who has spent almost a decade working on cruise ships has issued a warning about sleeping with fellow staff members on board.
Lucy Southerton, from Birmingham, was 19 years old when she began her cruising career as a massage therapist.
Nine years on, she has shared her experiences on her YouTube channel Cruising As Crew, where she provides interesting insights into what really happens out at sea.
Lucy has been working on cruise ships for almost 10 years (Instagram/@cruisingascrew)
From the one mistake passengers always make on board to what not to do if you don’t want to be made fun of, Lucy has revealed various things you need to look out for, from a traveller point of view.
This time, however, she’s given a warning to those who are thinking about working on a cruise ship, and what is likely to happen if you sleep with a colleague.
“Sleeping with a colleague on a cruise ship is very different to sleeping with a colleague in a job on land,” she said in a video from last year.
Cruise worker Lucy has warned against sleeping with coworkers on board (YouTube/Cruising As Crew)
“Now the reason is if you’re working a job on land, of course everyone in the office likes the office gossip and is involved in everyone’s business.
“But you get to leave the office and go home to your friends and your family who are completely separate from those people that you work with.
“On a ship, you have obviously left your friends and family at home to work on a ship, which means that the people you work with are going to become your friends, your family and everything in between.
“So you’re going to be getting all of your needs met from this one group of people.
“They’re also going to be your professional team who you want to impress on a professional level if it’s a career and you want to progress.
“And what this means is there is no escape. There is no escape from the people you work with because you work every single day on a cruise ship contract, so you will see these people every single day and they will want to talk about the new relationship that’s sparking up between you and so and so.”
There are benefits, of course, to finding the love of your life at work, as Lucy adds: “And this is obviously amazing when everything is going well because it’s fun to tell your work colleagues, ‘Oh my God, we did this, we did this. It was so good. We had such a good time.’
“And it’s really fun to see your crush at work. It adds a little bit of excitement to the day like, ‘Oh my God, he’s over there’.”
Although she cautions that if ‘s**t hits the fan,’ you’ll be in ‘deep water’ (not literally).
“When the conversations you’re having with your team members are, ‘Yeah, I’m really upset, I’m really disappointed, or ‘I’ve really upset him or her,” she continued.
“And you can’t escape him or her. You have to see them every day for the next four months.
“That is when it gets a little bit sticky. And you know what? If we could control who we got feelings for, wouldn’t life be literally 20 times easier?”
Best to avoid, then..
People who are partial to a spicy cruise tend to hop onboard to get lucky, let their hair down and soak up a bit of sunshine – but we can’t say the same for the staff members.
While hundreds of passengers are enjoying a bit of hanky-panky and swapping partners left, right and centre, these lot still have a job to do.
A host of employees on these sex-charged ships have previously spoken out about what it is like to work on one, revealing what happens in the notorious ‘red rooms’ and what their typical responsibilities are.
But so far, none have discussed the cardinal rule, which is enforced on the majority of spicy cruises and the severe consequences they will face if they break it.
Adult cruise companies such as ‘Temptation Cruises’ and ‘Bliss Cruise’ have strict codes of conduct which passengers must abide by, and some of the regulations also apply to staff too.
Couples on spicy cruises can release their inhibitions, but staff members can’t (Getty Stock Photo)
As well as having to comply with guidelines regarding the likes of clothing and behaviour, holidaymakers are ordered not to get too comfortable with members of staff.
Passengers and employees are explicitly forbidden from fraternising with one another in an unprofessional way.
Workers are warned that they will face instant dismissal if they get caught copping off with open-minded tourists in a cabin, or anywhere else for that matter.
But even just getting a bit too chummy with passengers could land them in hot water.
While listing the ‘playground rules’ for heading onboard a spicy cruise, Temptation explained that it’s number one priority is to provide a ‘safe environment’ for people trying out swinging.
Firms say employees can ‘immediately’ face the sack if they get too chummy with guests (Getty Stock Photo)
It states: “Due to company policies, all staff members, original affiliates, brand representatives, and any person in a commercial relationship with the resort or Original Group, are strictly forbidden to interact intimately or drink with guests.
“Their incurrence could cause their immediate dismissal and/or termination of their contract with the company.”
There’s no messing about on these spicy cruises – if you’re trying to join in with the fun while you’re on the clock, you will get shown the door.
Or perhaps you’ll be forced to walk the plank instead, if you’re a fair distance away from dry land.
The same strict rule about relationships between staff and passengers is also in force on voyages hosted by Bliss Cruise too.
The firm’s website says: “Under no circumstances can you approach any of the shipboard staff for any reason to solicit any form of sexual activity.
“They are not permitted in your cabin either. They will lose their jobs.”
A man who survived jumping off a cruise ship admitted that it had actually been a spectacularly bad idea and that he ‘didn’t really think it through’.
He’d willingly made the leap and been filmed by his friends in an attempt to go viral, but he very nearly plunged himself into a watery grave.
See, when someone goes overboard from a cruise ship there’s all sorts of procedures in place to deal with it, but a vast majority of the people who go into the water don’t come back out alive.
Your chances of falling overboard from a cruise ship are very slim, but it doesn’t help if you jump off and into the water yourself for the sake of social media clout.
American man, Nick Naydev, seemingly learned his lesson after leaping from the 11th floor of the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Symphony of the Seas while it was docked in Nassau, Bahamas.
Nick Naydev jumped from the 11th deck of a large cruise ship. (Inside Edition)
As Nick leapt off the ship, his friends filmed him and laughed while the man landed into shark-infested water after a 100ft drop.
Fortunately, he managed to avoid serious injury as water won’t cushion your fall all that much if you plummet from a great height, but said he could certainly feel the impact in his tailbone and neck.
Nick later admitted to Inside Edition in 2019 that he didn’t want people to follow his example.
He said: “I remember hitting the water, impact was pretty big ’cause it was pretty high up. It impacted my tailbone and my neck pretty hard, luckily it wasn’t anything serious.
“Nothing was really going through my mind. I’m like, ‘I gotta do this,’ and just two seconds later, I just jumped and didn’t really think it through.
Nick was not badly hurt by jumping off the cruise ship. (Inside Edition)
“The previous night we were drinking quite a bit so I was still feeling the effects of the alcohol.
“I hope I don’t inspire anybody to do this because it is very dangerous, I mean they’ll think this is a joke.”
Royal Caribbean ended up banning Nick and his friends from their cruises for life.
In a statement, they called the stunt ‘stupid and reckless’, adding that they were ‘exploring legal action’.
Other passengers who’ve gone overboard the Symphony of the Seas haven’t been so lucky, with one person having fallen from the ship and to their death in the past.
In other incidents involving the cruise ship, a couple didn’t get back on in time as they missed the last call for boarding by 50 minutes and could only watch from the shore as the ship sailed away.
A member of staff aboard the Symphony of the Seas was also arrested for allegedly placing hidden cameras in passenger’s bathrooms
According to a cruise ship passenger, there is one word you should never say whilst at sea.
Cruising can be one of the most luxurious ways to travel, of course, that’s providing you don’t get sea sick easily.
Like any holiday resort, there’s rules that guests have to abide by, but one man was shocked when he heard the extent to which the rules go.
Marc Sebastian is on Royal Caribbean’s nine-month cruise, though he is only onboard for the South America-Antarctica leg.
He has been documenting his journey on his TikTok page, and it turns out that the rules go way past lights out by 10pm and keep the noise down a bit.
Viewers have been baffled by the crazy niches of the cruise, such as an iron being $8 to use.
Marc Sebastian is currently on Royal Caribbean’s nine-month cruise. (Tiktok/MarcSebastianf)
But the biggest no-go of all, is one that Marc unfortunately learnt the hard way.
Apparently, one thing you should never talk about whilst out at sea on a cruise is the Titanic.
Now, whilst it doesn’t take a scientist to work out why this might be, it’s a strange unwritten rule to have.
In the clip, he said: “Who knew that? I didn’t.
“I brought up to an entire room of people having lunch that our ship is only 100 feet longer than the Titanic.”
And the sheer mention of the ship apparently had people’s jaws dropping.
“When I tell you that, utensils dropped okay. Waiters gasped dead silent.” he said.
It wasn’t until his friend leant across the table and dropped the hint.
He mentioned that the ship didn’t come ‘with a f***ing handbook’, and whilst that’s fair enough, we can see why it might make people feel uneasy.
But people in the comments said their fascination would be too strong to not talk about it whilst onboard the ship.
One said: “I’m sorry if I’m going on a boat, I’m talking about Titanic and OceanGate.”
“Who knew that?” (Tiktok/MarcSebastianf)
Another said: “Not being able to talk about the Titanic would definitely ruin the experience for me.”
A third added: “Is the titanic thing for cruises the same as like macbeth for theatre?”
And if you thought the quirks of the ship couldn’t get any weirder, well, you were wrong.
Further in the video, he revealed that ships tend to have ‘godmothers’ – the particular one he was on being Whoopi Goldberg…which is kind of iconic.
There was even a framed picture of the actress.
According to Cruise Critic, a ship’s godmother is said to ‘bring good luck and protection to the vessel’.
