Tag Archives: cruise lines

book reviews, careers, travel

Reviewing The Truth About Cruise Ships, by Jay Herring…

Okay… so I have just finished Jay Herring’s book, The Truth About Cruise Ships: A Cruise Ship Officer Survives the Work, Adventure, Alcohol, and Sex of Ship Life. If you are among the three people who visited yesterday’s post, you may already have an inkling of how today’s review is going to go. It may surprise one or all three of you that my mind has changed slightly since I posted yesterday.

Mr. Herring kind of redeemed himself somewhat toward the end of the book. Now, instead of feeling repulsed and disgusted by his stories of drunken debauchery while working as a computer specialist on Carnival cruise ships, I’m left feeling more ambivalent about his story. I still take a dim view of a lot of his behavior when he worked for Carnival Cruise Line, but I was heartened to see that he recognized that he’d grown up a lot during his time working on ships. That’s a good thing. On the other hand, reading the book still kind of made my skin crawl. Allow me to explain, as I delve into my review of The Truth About Cruise Ships.

Who is Jay Herring and why did I read his book?

Sometime in the early 00s, Jay Herring was a regular college graduate living with his parents near Dallas, Texas. He’d had a land based job he hated, fixing computers. He told his boss that he didn’t enjoy his job and was looking for a new role. Two months later, his boss laid him off, and he moved back in with his parents for the second time since college. He needed to find a new job– preferably one that would get him out of his parents’ house.

After unsuccessfully looking for gainful employment for three months, Herring had a brain storm. He could be a bartender on a cruise ship. This idea came to him even though he’d never seen a cruise ship, let alone taken a cruise as a passenger. Nevertheless, he found himself on Carnival Cruise Line’s website, scouring career opportunities. He noticed an opening for “shipboard I/S manager”. The idea of traveling, leaving the boring 9-5 lifestyle, and moving out of his parents’ house really appealed to him.

Herring filled out an online application; then he later found out who the hiring manager was and sent his resume directly to him. The manager interviewed him on the phone for five minutes, then told him about some of the unusual conditions of the job, such as working for eight months straight, then getting a mandatory eight week vacation. Although the lengthy vacation requirement was odd to Herring, he was still interested. The manager invited him to Miami for an in person interview, where he learned even more about the job and what it would entail. He learned that most people who work on cruise ships end up drinking and smoking to excess; he’d have to carry a pager 24/7; and eventually, the ship would feel like a prison.

Still okay with those conditions, Herring reiterated that he was still interested in working for Carnival. Two months later, Herring got the job; with it, he also got a tiny shared cabin with bunk beds, an officer’s uniform, which later came with epaulets, and raging drinking and sex habits. At the beginning of the book, Jay Herring explains that he was a “nice guy”, who was saving himself for marriage to the “right” woman. When he boarded his first cruise ship as a brand new officer in charge of computers, he was practically a virgin who hadn’t had sex for 12 years. By the time he quit working for Carnival, he was practically a manwhore. I know I probably shouldn’t use that term, but that’s a pretty accurate way to describe what happened. Even Herring admits it; he’d become a man with far fewer inhibitions and qualms having meaningless sex with almost anyone who suggested it.

I have read a number of books written by people who have worked on cruise ships. One book that immediately comes to mind is Cruise Confidential: A Hit Below the Waterline, by Brian David Bruns. Indeed, Mr. Herring credits Bruns in his acknowledgments. I reviewed Bruns’ book for Epinions.com and reposted it on my travel blog. Now that I’m looking at that reposted Epinions review from 2011, I see that I actually read and reviewed Jay Herring’s book before I read Bruns’ book. Incredibly enough, I had completely forgotten that I’d read Mr. Herring’s story before. This is unusual for me; I normally remember the books I’ve read, even if I don’t like them.

It’s kind of telling that I completely forgot about having already read Herring’s story. However, based on what I wrote in my review of Bruns’ book about working for Carnival, I seem to have liked Herring’s book the first time I read it, as it led me to read Bruns’ (vastly superior) book. But, in my defense, I did read the Kindle version of Herring’s book sometime around 2011. That was a long time ago, and I’ve downed a lot of booze since then. I’m sure I’ve killed some brain cells, even if I seem to have matured since 2011.

What I didn’t like about The Truth About Cruise Ships…

To be honest, I was pretty disgusted by many of Herring’s stories. He often came off like a shallow creep, as he described how he was constantly looking to hook up with the women who worked on cruise ships with him. At the beginning of the book, he wrote about how he’d been a “nice guy”, although he seemed a bit shallow. But, within his first days on his first ship, he was propositioned by a woman from Trinidad and Tobago. He turned her down, but it wasn’t long before he’d become a lot more willing to have sex with anyone who offered. At the same time, he worried about catching diseases and causing pregnancies, so he wisely used condoms… until he tried having sex without one and realized it was much nicer for him. After awhile, he worried less about sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancies.

Below are a few samples from the book that I found kind of gross. They aren’t necessarily the worst anecdotes; they’re just snippets that I thought to highlight. Maybe you can see what I’m referring to when I comment on how gross some of the “truth” is…

Herring was in his late 20s when he was working for Carnival, but he came off as much younger and less mature. He had what seemed like a shallow and selfish attitude toward women, reducing to warm beings who should be “hunted” for his own gratification. It was depressing to read about it, especially given that a lot of the people he wrote of were married– sometimes even to other people on the ship. Combine this gross attitude toward women and sex with extreme booze drinking, and you quickly turn into someone who is very unappealing.

I might be able to overlook this distasteful and sleazy aspect of Herring’s book if the writing had been stronger, but I didn’t find Herring’s writing especially compelling. It was serviceable enough, but he doesn’t have a flair for story writing like fellow former Carnival officer Bruns does. Bruns also comes off as a much nicer person than Herring does, and keeps his stories a lot more tasteful. Most people can learn how to write in a competent way, but there’s also an art to writing well. It takes talent and empathy. I didn’t get the sense that Herring had much of either.

What I liked about The Truth About Cruise Ships…

I do think Herring’s book offers an interesting look at what it’s like to work on cruise ships. So many people take cruises and have no concept of what it’s like to live on one. Beneath the passenger areas, there’s a whole underworld where the people who make the ship work are living their lives.

Some of the realities of life working on cruise ships are kind of sad. I can almost see why so many people on ships become so fixated on vices like smoking, drinking, and promiscuous sex with practical strangers. The work can be very stressful, depending on the job, and the living conditions are neither private nor comfortable. But for a person from a poor country, the tiny cabins might not be so bad– at least there are hot showers and flushing toilets, and they can make a lot of money that goes far in developing nations.

I appreciated the fact that Herring realized that he was rapidly becoming a scumbag. He was also smart enough to know when he’d had enough of working on ships and went back to a land-based life with his Czech born wife, Mirka, whom he’d met while they were both working for Carnival. I liked how he’d had a chance to realize how Americans come across to people from other countries, and I appreciated that he took the opportunity to travel. I can personally attest to how travel and meeting people from other countries can change your life and your world view. That part of the book was inspiring.

Overall

I think Jay Herring benefitted immensely from expanding his horizons by working with people from all over the world. I just wish he’d focused less on the sex and drinking in his story. I don’t think he did his image any favors, especially given that some of the stories seemed kind of juvenile and “Porky’s-esque“. If you were around in the 1980s, you probably have an inkling of what I write.

I know Herring is conscious of image, since he writes about it in his book. That was another thing I liked less– that he would go into a pseudo-philosophy mode at times, offering some half-baked theories on human nature, some of which didn’t seem very insightful to me. Given how casual he was regarding his health and basic decency when he worked for Carnival, it seemed ridiculous that he was including these lofty passages about his theories on life. He’d go from writing about hooking up with some woman he barely knew, to some theory about human nature. It just came off as disingenuous to me.

In the end, I didn’t hate the book as much as I thought I did yesterday. But I do think there are much better books about cruise ship life out there. I see the Kindle version of The Truth About Cruise Ships is apparently no longer available. I’m not sure I’d recommend paying for the paperback version, but I can also see that some people on Amazon enjoyed the book. So if you think you would, go for it… and leave me a comment on what you think. Personally, I’m glad to move on to another book now. I don’t think I’ll be reading this book a third time.

As an Amazon Associate, I get a small commission from Amazon on sales made through my site.

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first world problems, travel

The big decision has now been made…

Again, cross-posted on the travel blog… The featured photo was taken on the car ferry from Denmark to Germany, back in 2019.

Yesterday, I wrote about my apprehension about booking a cruise. I termed it a “true first world problem.” Aye– as my Scottish ancestors would say– that it is. Twenty-four hours ago, as I was pondering whether or not I wanted to spend big bucks on a luxury cruise in the Baltic region, I started looking for alternatives.

A friend of mine had suggested touring the Norwegian fjords on Hurtigruten, which is, of course, a perfectly good suggestion. However, if I had decided to go for the fjords, that would have completely negated using the champagne bucket to choose where to go. The Norwegian fjords are a place I’d love to see the right way, and a cruise is probably the right way to go. But it wasn’t one of the choices for this particular trip. Moreover, I never asked for alternative suggestions.

I still decided to look into the Norwegian fjords experience and found that besides Hurtigruten, there’s another line that does cruises along the fjords. Maybe at some point we’ll pull the trigger on that. I did look into short cruises in Norway for the days we’ll be there, but they aren’t very convenient to our plans.

After a short while, I stopped researching travel possibilities, and turned my attention to my guitar, which badly needed new strings. I don’t play it so often that I routinely change the strings. But, it had gotten to the point at which I had forgotten when I had last changed them. The old ones were starting to get discolored, and weren’t staying tuned well. So, as much as I hate changing the strings, but love the results of changing them, once they stretch, I knew it was a job that urgently needed doing. I had just put one string on when my phone rang.

It was someone from Regent Seven Seas Cruises calling. I felt confident in answering, since I knew Bill was already agreeable to my booking the cruise, once we confirmed the correct price. The cruise specialist, whose name is Andrea, is from Germany. She thought I was German too, and was speaking German to me, even though I had made contact in English. I didn’t realize it, but the voicemail on my phone is in German… No one ever calls me, so I didn’t know. I thought the call was coming from Germany, but actually, it was a U.S. based call that somehow looked like it came from Germany.

Andrea and I got to talking, and it turns out she lives in Florida, which is where Regent is based. She’s been there since 1991. I always find myself bonding with Germans in the U.S., since I’m an American in Germany. As we discussed the cruise, we talked about how we ended up in each other’s countries. In many ways, Germany is kind of like the U.S., but I find that the U.K. feels more like home to me than Germany does, even though people drive on the other side of the road and kids wear uniforms to school.

Andrea said that my request went to her, because I am in Germany. She handles all clients from Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, and Germany, even though she’s based in Florida. It was still very early in the morning where she lives when we were talking– maybe 5:30AM! Nevertheless, she was wide awake and friendly. I guess she’s a morning person like Bill is. All of our documents are in German. Andrea says there’s nothing she can do about that, since I’m in Germany. Google Chrome will save us, I’m sure…

It didn’t take long for Andrea to sell me on Regent. I put a deposit on the cruise. I would have just paid for the whole thing, since the cruise is coming up in June, but I used my credit card with a lower limit, and the whole cruise costs more than the limit is. I used that card rather than the other one, because I knew it was less likely to get declined for “suspicious activity”. Both of my cards usually have zero balances. I rarely use them because it took me forever to pay them off when we were less affluent. The deposit didn’t raise any red flags, which made me feel confident.

Bill got home later and I proposed booking the flights. I was thinking of flying into Stavanger or Bergen, since we had never been to either of those beautiful towns, and we have been to Oslo. But it turned out there weren’t any flights that worked with boarding Noyzi and didn’t cost an arm and a leg. Like… there was an attractive flight that would have worked, except it left at 10:30AM, and that wasn’t enough time to get Noyzi to the Hundepension and get ourselves checked in at the airport. So, Oslo it is…

I had no idea that Norway’s cities were so far apart. Stavanger looks like it’s not that far from Oslo, but it’s a seven or eight hour car ride or train trip. Bergen, likewise, is hours away by car or train. There are cheap flights available, and we may decide to avail ourselves of one, just so we can get a feel for a city other than Oslo. But, we did also enjoy visiting Oslo when we were there in 2009, and that was at a time when we had a lot less money.

Oslo is also closer to Stockholm, which is where we will be meeting the ship. We haven’t seen anything in Stockholm except the cruise port, which is where our first Baltic cruise in 2009 ended. It was a four night “short break” on Royal Caribbean, and we started in Oslo and stopped in Tallin and Copenhagen, then ended in Stockholm. We couldn’t enjoy the city, because Bill had a conference in Garmisch-Partenkirchen the next day. So, we hopped a plane to Munich. I spent the next week taking tours out of the Edelweiss MWR Lodge while Bill tended to his Army duties. We had flown to Oslo from Munich, and when we got back to the parking garage, the car battery was dead, necessitating a call to ADAC. Plus, our bags didn’t make the flight, and had to be brought to us in Garmisch.

This time, we will end in Copenhagen, a city we’ve been to twice, but haven’t had much of a chance to really enjoy. The first time, it was on that short cruise, that only allowed a few hours in town. The second time was in 2019, when we were passing through on our way home with our new car and stopped for a night of rest as we continued onward to Rostock, Germany. This trip will at least give us a full day to enjoy Denmark. We’ll spend a couple of nights there before coming home on July 2.

So, off I went to Lufthansa to book our flights, after confirming with Bill which ones we wanted. I input all of the information, then tried to use my trusty credit card to pay. Sure enough, it was declined. I called up PenFed and explained that I was trying to book my vacation. I should have probably asked them to raise the limit on that card, too. Maybe next time I call…

The tickets are now booked. All I have to do now is decide on hotels in Norway and Denmark and maybe book transportation to Stockholm. A flight from Oslo takes an hour, but a train is much more scenic and is about five hours of fun. 😉 Oh… and I also need to choose excursions and restaurant reservations for the cruise, since they are included in the fare.

It’s hard to believe, just a few days ago, I was agonizing over all of this. It’s all coming together now, like magic. I wasn’t planning to do a cruise, but this may turn out to be a bit of a Godsend. If it turns out we really love any of the places we see, we can come back and do a land based tour, as I originally planned. They are now building a railway in the Baltics that will make it a lot easier to travel there. And I do want to go and spend more than a few hours. We already know we like Tallinn from our 2009 trip, and Bill enjoyed Riga when he went.

I know… first world problem, and maybe I should be ashamed of myself for writing about it. But, at least this isn’t a cranky complaint post about politics or similarly unpleasant topics.

For those who are curious, here’s a video highlighting the ship we’re going to be on. Yes, it’s expensive, but it’s not like you don’t get a lot for the money. This is also not our usual style. We normally prefer much smaller ships, and that generally means the ships we’re on are usually much older. Splendor was built in 2020. Hebridean Princess, by contrast, was built in 1964 as a car ferry and later became a cruise ship in 1989. SeaDream I was built in 1984. I think Vision of the Seas is 1998 vintage, and I’m not even sure if it’s still in service.

A new experience for us… revisiting the region where we had our very first cruise. This time, we’re taking more time and spending way more money!
We booked a Concierge Suite.

Again, I chose this entirely for the itinerary, and the fact that it’s an all inclusive cruise. I’m not a Regent cheerleader, and I’m not sure we’ll give up small ships for this. But then again, maybe we will. We won’t know until we actually have the experience. At least now, I’ll have something new to write about on the travel blog!

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law, modern problems, rants, sports, stupid people

Idiot proofing…

Back in September 2015, Bill and I had the experience of a lifetime. We went to Tarrenz, Austria and swam naked in a big vat of hot beer.

Okay… so it wasn’t beer like you and I might think of it. It was actually wort that was in a huge vat that was once used for brewing Starkenberger beer. It was just the two of us. No lifeguard was on duty. We were allowed to drink as much beer as we wanted. All we had to do was be done by 10:00pm… and even that was negotiable.

There wasn’t a single sign on the wall warning us of no lifeguard on duty. I don’t think we even had to sign any legal disclaimers or waivers. We just handed over the 250 euros it cost for our experience, and off we went. It was glorious! We had a great time. I will NEVER forget it. I distinctly remember thinking it was refreshing to be treated like someone with a brain and common sense. It occurred to me that over here in “the old country”, people are expected to take some responsibility for themselves. That’s what keeps things fun for everyone.

Do people over here get sued for negligence? Sure, they do. But generally speaking, I have noticed that people are also expected not to be idiots. If you do something stupid and get hurt, you can expect little sympathy. It seems that in the United States, people are often looking for reasons to sue, even when they’ve been partly at fault for their own misfortunes. Consequently, there’s a lot of “idiot proofing” that is done in the United States. Companies and, inevitably, their lawyers, are always looking for the next potential lawsuit and taking steps to guard themselves from them.

Strangely enough, our experience swimming unsupervised in warm beer wort came into my head this morning as I read about Salvatore Anello being sentenced for his part in a negligent homicide. Salvatore Anello made the news in July 2019, when he accidentally killed his 18 month old granddaughter, Chloe Wiegand.

Anello and his family were cruising on Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas cruise ship on July 7, 2019 when they were docked in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Chloe liked to bang on the glass at the hockey games her brother played in Indiana. For some strange reason, Mr. Anello decided to place Chloe on a railing near a window in a children’s area on the ship. Thinking there was glass in the window, Mr. Anello tried to let Chloe “bang” on it, as if they were at a hockey game. But there was no glass, and before he knew what had happened, Chloe had fallen to her death, eleven stories below.

Mr. Anello was arrested by Puerto Rican authorities and charged with negligent homicide. However, Chloe’s family maintained that the cruise line was negligent, because they thought there was glass in the window. The family decided to sue Royal Caribbean, claiming that Chloe’s death is the cruise line’s fault for “not having a safer situation on the 11th floor of that cruise ship.” Chloe’s mother, Kim Wiegand adds, “There are a million things that could’ve been done to make that safer.”

Perhaps that’s true. However, the number one thing that could and should have been done to keep the toddler girl safe is not making the decision to put her on the railing in the first place. Clearly, the railing is NOT intended for children to be climbing on or set upon, and clearly glass windows were never meant to be banged upon. Why in the hell would anyone ever encourage their child to bang on a glass window in the first place? At best, it’s noisy and annoying. At worst, it can lead to a terrible injury or death.

Let me be clear. I am glad Mr. Anello is not going to be serving any jail time. He took a plea deal, so he will be on probation for three years in his home state of Michigan. I think that’s a just punishment. I don’t think he’s a bad person and I don’t think he will reoffend. And I am absolutely certain that this accident has been devastating on many levels. However, I do think it’s in very bad taste to sue Royal Caribbean, unless the family is ONLY doing it to get the cruise line to change policies, and not looking for a payday. There is no doubt in my mind that Royal Caribbean executives are already doing what they can to idiot proof their ships even more against people like Salvatore Anello, who apparently lost his grip on common sense while cruising. He says he wasn’t drinking. Thank God for that. If Anello makes these kinds of decisions while sober, I would hate to see what he does when he’s been drinking alcohol.

Chloe Wiegand would probably still be alive if her grandfather had not made the poor decision to put her on that railing… a place that is clearly not intended to be sat upon or walked on by anyone, especially children. She probably would not have died if he hadn’t decided to encourage her to bang on glass, as if she was at a hockey game. My God… they were on a mass market cruise line! Couldn’t they have participated in some other safe, kid-friendly, cruise line approved and promoted activity?

I have only cruised on Royal Caribbean once, but I know from that experience that there are many child friendly activities. If Chloe had gotten hurt or killed while taking part in a child friendly activity that was previously deemed safe, maybe I could see her family’s decision to hold Royal Caribbean responsible. But she wasn’t. She was doing something that she shouldn’t have been doing, mainly because the adult responsible for her care was negligent. Or, at least, that is the impression I get when I read about this sad case. Nowhere have I read that Royal Caribbean encourages people to put toddlers on railings eleven stories up from the dock. Most people have enough common sense not to do that. Most people don’t need that much idiot proofing.

Having written all of that, I do feel very sorry for Chloe’s family. I’m sure this was heartbreaking for them. They will never, ever forget it, and life will never be the same as it was. I’m sure they feel guilty. Or, I hope they do. If I were one of them, I think I’d be very ashamed of myself on many levels. But I would also feel sad beyond belief and, if I know myself, I’d probably wonder if I wanted to go on living. Hell, I wonder that now, and I don’t even have children. I might be angry that there was no glass in the window, but when it came down to it, I think I’d know that I shouldn’t have put a toddler on a railing and encouraged her to bang on non-existent glass. That’s just stupid. But, if the family’s goal was to make cruise lines dream up more disclaimers and liability waivers for passengers, I think they succeeded. And, if it makes them feel better, I’m sure Royal Caribbean will make sure to put glass in all windows… and hang more signs and make more rules. That’s if the business survives the pandemic.

Speaking of idiocy and the pandemic… this morning I read an opinion piece in The Washington Post by Michele L. Norris, who seems dismayed that there were a bunch of optical illusions and cardboard cutouts of people in the stands at the Super Bowl. Ms. Norris expressed disapproval that the show was engineered to make it look like the stadium, which holds 65,000 people, was packed with happy fans cheering at the annual football game.

This year, thanks to COVID-19, there weren’t many people watching the game live. Norris writes that there were only 25,000 fans at the game, 7,500 of whom were vaccinated healthcare workers. Fans who weren’t able to make the game were allowed to pay $100 to have cardboard cutouts of themselves put in the seats. They could then check the “fan cam” to see their cardboard visages on camera.

Norris writes that this plan, which was supposed to give the illusion of a packed stadium, caused America to “suffer a loss”. She writes that we’re long used to not seeing packed stands. And the message should have been to “stay home and stay safe”. Evidently, this is more important than ever, since the game was played in Tampa, Florida, where people have been very lax about COVID-19 guidelines.

I don’t actually give a shit about the Super Bowl. I don’t watch it, even when there isn’t a pandemic. And I agree that people should be encouraged to be safe and responsible about preventing the spread of COVID-19. But I want to know– does Michele Norris really think that seeing stands with cardboard cut outs of fans is encouraging Americans to break COVID-19 protocol? Really?

I don’t know about you, but I have about had it with all the preaching and shaming about COVID-19. I really have. That’s not the same as not taking the virus seriously. I do take it seriously and have from the beginning of this fiasco. It’s true that I hate the masks and rarely wear them, but that’s because I’m ALWAYS AT HOME. If I weren’t always at home, I would follow the rules. I would hate following the rules, but I would comply with them. And it would not bother me at all, if I cared about football, to see a bunch of cardboard cutouts of people at the Super Bowl, nor would I care that the sound of the crowds were augmented to enhance the effects. We know a pandemic is going on. It’s been hammered in our heads for months. I don’t think seeing cardboard cutouts of fans is going to make the COVID situation worse. That’s just dumb.

I think, if I was going to complain about something related to the Super Bowl, it might be the creepy jockstrap halftime show. Yes, I know they weren’t jockstraps on the performers’ faces, but so many people thought they looked like jockstraps. I saw photos of the spectacle. It doesn’t look appealing to me. But then, pretty much everything about live entertainment and sports events has been fucked up this year. I don’t think I would be outraged over the illusion of a packed stadium. People are starved for fun. I know I am. But then, maybe Michele L. Norris has a point… maybe Americans really do require idiot proofing more than other people do. After all, a company is being sued because a grandfather wanted to let his 18 month old granddaughter bang on glass while on an eleventh story railing.

Featured photo is of me, in the buff at an Austrian death trap. We had a ball! No lifeguard on duty… and none required.

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