What's causing bad behavior on cruise ships?

[beachchick]

I think it's a combination of many factors.

 

Cheap cruise fares whether last minute or not are attracting new customers who may have thought they couldn't afford cruising.

 

 

We have become a very "me" society. We are the most plugged in we have ever been but we don't know how to act with real people. Everyone is trying to get the "deal", the upgrade, the freebie. Definitely alcohol plays a factor in a large number of these incidents.

 

We have 3 24-hour news channnels in the US alone. They have to fill the time with something. And an idiot missing a ship, falling overboard, getting into fights in port, etc... gets up loaded to you tube or sent to a local tv station and it quickly makes its way around the world.

 

The sad part is the people involved in these stories love their "15 minutes" of fame. There is no shame anymore.

 

I completely agree...(I write on a website chat forum; I do understand the irony);). But it really is true that some people are so plugged in to electronics, ipods, texting, etc. that they either forget or never learn how personal interaction should work nor do they develop a true sense of how their actions affect others. It's upsetting to see children who haven't even learned proper table manners or how to make polite conversation. It's even more upsetting to see adults reinforcing that kind of behavior.

 

To me Twitter is the ultimate example of this. How much more self-absorbed and self-important can someone be if they believe anyone, even their family and friends, should be interested, excited, or care that "I just got a cup of coffee; it's hot.":rolleyes:

 

It's simply a clash of social-economic groups.

 

In recent years the cruise market has opened up from being only for the toffy, stiff upper lip classes to a more general holiday maker.

 

In the same way as workplaces dress code has evolved from suited and booted to anything down to Jeans and a shirt the cruise market has evolved to appeal to the mass market with casual dress codes, freedom dining options etc..

 

The problem is when a cruise line like P&O try to be a jack of all trades and attract all groups into a common ship and as with any situation being cooped up in a confined space with alcohol flowing will lead to disagreements on what are acceptable standards.

 

With Carnival shooting themselves in the foot killing lines like Ocean Village and promoting Ventura as the suitable replacement whilst still insisting on ship-wide formal nights clashes are only going to grow..

 

Some people want a freedom, enjoyable, relaxed family holiday, some people want a traditional, formal holiday.

How many 5-star hotels do you see also offering budget rooms. Imagine a Hilton with a whole floor of Travelodge-style rooms.

 

Most of the reported incidents are likely extremes and retaliations.

 

For the most part, I disagree. Cruise ships are actually one place where socio-economic differences are less obvious. Being wealthy doesn't make one well mannered or polite; being poor doesn't make one rude or boorish. I think there's some truth to the notion that at least some clashes result from the differences between the so-called "traditional" cruise fans and those who prefer the often more casual and relaxed "modern" cruise style. OTOH, there are multiple cruise lines with many different styles and approaches. I think there are many people who do not do enough research or "think" before they book a cruise on a specific cruise line. The first question people might want to ask themselves about a ship/line is "Does this cruise suit both my style and my preferences?" That would help, IMO.

 

Also, IMO the analogy of a Hilton with a floor of Travel-Lodge style rooms is not particularly apt to the issues of how people behave. Some of the richest people in the world are also the most destructive, rude, and selfish with a sense of entitlement simply because they have monetary wealth.

 

I'm sure you're right that alcohol contributes to the problem, regardless of who is involved.

 

There has been a prolonged slide in standards of personal conduct over several decades. The "me generation", self-absorbed, entitled people have gradually become a majority. Perhaps the most graphic demonstration came in the 1970's when "assertiveness training" came into vogue -- it simply codified the me-first mentality - don't let anyone push you around attitude --which reveals itself on cruise ships most simply in the expression: "It's my vacation, no one can tell me what to wear."

 

I've thought about this for a while and come to the conclusion that there has always been a segment of the population with the "me, me, me," self absorbed, entitled attitudes and behaviors. In the past, they were generally the so-called elite (i.e., those with the power and money); it was a given that they could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and the hell with the "little people" who they consider beneath them. There was no need for any "assertiveness training" or other fad to codify the "me first" mentality; it was already there in a smaller segment of society. Could it be considered the height of hypocrisy when some of them denegrate others for doing exactly what they've done for so long? (I don't mean anyone specifically and certainly no one here; it's a general question.)

 

I suppose it could be considered worse now that such behavior is not confined to that small part of society and has spread to all social and economic groups. OTOH, why would we consider it worse for someone with little money to behave in a way that many wealthy people have behaved for centuries?

 

Anyway, I think the general lack of civility, personal responsibility, and just plain good manners is a big part of the problem.

 

beachchick

[simplelife]

I think the majority of posts are spot on - our society as a whole moved away from civility and kindness. And it's no wonder - the media ( which now includes youtube) publicizes and even glorifies incidents of rudeness and hate-mongering. Civil dilalogue has been replaced by namecalling and screaming (recall the recent behavior at "town halls"). The airwaves are filled with "reality" shows which celebrate outrageousness, many of them based on a me-first, or win-at-all-costs attitude. Selfish and inconsiderate behavior is presented as the norm.

 

I strongly disagree with the posts which blame rude incidents on a "certain type" of passenger. Inconsiderate behavior knows no socioeconomic or cultural boundaries.

[RetireeWannabee]

The airwaves are filled with "reality" shows which celebrate outrageousness, many of them based on a me-first, or win-at-all-costs attitude. Selfish and inconsiderate behavior is presented as the norm.

 

oh boy, Reality Shows... :eek:

 

some of those seem like Prime Time Jerry Springer, with people willing to completely humiliate themselves in order to be on tv. Selfish pursuit of fame.

 

Wanna bet we hear a lot more (for far too long) about the "helium balloon boy" and his family??? I will be interested to see how those kids turn out since those parents seem to want to chase fame. Don't imagine they'll shoo the press away any time soon.

 

I do enjoy some reality shows (LOVE Top Chef, liked original Apprentice) and know plenty of others do, also. I will cop to occasionally not being able to stop watching some seriously embarrassing programming because it can be like a train wreck where you just have to look. "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire" spawned some disgusting shows we call "Who Wants to be the Biggest Slut?" ick.

 

The lowbrow realities never seem to run out of new contestants willing to do most anything on camera.

 

better hop down now. Realities really get me going.

[paul929207]

I think to many peple feel they are "entitled" to everything and throw a tantrum if they do get it.

[Chusan]

Although lower fares might attract boorish behavior, you only have to scan our TV programmes to see where many "learn" how to interact without respect or consideration for other peoples feeling. It isn't likely to change because the shock "value" of being rude to other people is actively encouraged by all kinds of media in search of ratings.

 

Being in a business that involves communicating via phone or in person I am no longer stunned by what people will say to me on the phone (but not usually in person), or how blunt they can be if they feel service is poor simply because a few people are in a queue ahead of them.

 

Still I preferred to be old fashioned and patient than adopt TV manners!

[Guest TropicOne]

Of course low fares would be the most popular answer :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:. In reality it is a reflection of how people are everywhere in todays world, regardless of their income level !!!!! Yet most of society still has the ignorant notion that income level and social behavior go hand- in- hand.

[2Cruise4Ever]

To say that bad behavior is attributed to lower fares attracting more people is saying that the poorer people are, the more likely they are to get into trouble. That's just wrong. People fail to realize that a cruise ship is a small city. Crime, rudeness, and lack of courtesy exist everywhere we go. That's just life. When we travel, we don't change our behaviors regarding protecting ourselves. When we are home, the doors are locked. Same on a cruise. When we are home, we are aware of who is around us and what they are doing. Same on a cruise. Many people tend to let their guards down when on vacation, thinking that it's somehow safer than their home towns. I believe it is simple math; the more people in one place, the more likely one will encounter what we would call bad behavior (or a real crime).

[momofmeg]

I love most about cruising is being served by a crew of people who treat me like a celebrity for a week. I suspect there are people who allow that sense of power and entitlement to go to their heads, demanding more and more rather than appreciating how well they are being treated.

 

 

This made me remember the first time we flew stand-by after my hubby started working for Delta-(he no longer does, hasn't in 3 years)-we were all ga-ga- because we were given seats in first class.

 

Across from us were a couple, and the husband was very obnoxious, he ran the flight attendants ragged-he did not like this wine, it was too dry, bring another, his coffee was told cold, bring him another, etc. etc.

 

After this type of behavoir for most of the flight, shortly before we landed, I heard the flight attendant ask him how long had he worked for Delta, and so I realized, this man was flying stand-by just like us-who was being a jerk. I vowed then and there I would NEVER take advantage of that privilege as he had. He really made a fool of himself.

[m steve]

It's not only on ships, due to drinking or class. It's everywhere you go.

I've seen the publisher of a Washington business journal walk into The Palm in his pjs and robe and demand his usual table. On cruises I find parents letting their kids do and go wherever they like while having another of the daily special drinks and then gets bent out of shape when their kid is ordered out of the adult pool. Another incident was when some self appointed religous nut starts taking over the piano in the smokers bar and blasts hymns at everyone. Security had to remove him. It's not getting any better.

[cruisemom42]

I think different geographies/local norms come into play as well. We took the exact same cruise on the exact same ship exactly one year apart -- only difference was the first one departed from Fort Lauderdale, the next year from New York.

 

On the second cruise I have never encountered so many pushy, loud, belligerent cruisers (of all ages). It was quite a different story to the year before, and I can't believe that manners had deteriorated so much in just one year....:cool:

 

People would pile onto elevators without letting others out first, and the concept of a line in the buffet was apparently unknown to these passengers. I witnessed an actual fist fight that occurred in the Princess lounge over the saving of seats. :eek: I heard another occurred in the laundry room. I have never heard staff talked down to so rudely on any other cruise I've been on. And the dress was much more casual as well.....folks trying to wear shorts in the MDR at night, etc.

[Happy ks]

I think it is a combination of all things. I've always noticed a few boorish people on all cruises. I pretty much just go the other way, my husband can always find the humor in it, so we have gotten a few laughs out of others poor manners. But, since we only started cruising in the late 90's I have no idea how people behaved before that time.

 

Growing up in the 60's, I remember hearing my parents say the same thing about society, it was much more civilised in the 40's and 50's :)

 

The only other things I'll add is that the cruise lines are trying to attract a broader audience and portray cruising as a casual, more adventurous type of vacation. Plus, if people think that behavior is attached to the level of income, I'll have to politely disagree. There are many people with lower levels of income who have by far better manners, civility and grace than those who can afford the finer things in life. Just think of all the servers and cabin attendants on cruise ships, they come from poverty and know how to maintain their dignity and how to behave in public.

[derkie]

Cruising is our favorite passtime since retirement and we are fortunate in cruising 3 to 4 times a year.

 

The situation of problem passengers is not just in cruising. I am positive we all can point out incidents whereby someone was acting in a poor manner.

 

I think it began a few years ago in all walks of life. Parents (not all) do not teach their children responsibility for their actions and they grow up self absorbed and demanding. Many travelers we are seeing today are from this era.

 

Our cruise trips always start in airports and one can usually pick out all the "cruisers" plus the ones that will be troublemakers. They are demading, rude, loud and unconcerned with others.

 

I also think our manner of dress lends to our behavior. One used to see people in airports dressed neatly, etc. Now, most are there in cutoffs, jeans, midriff baring tops and flipflops. That is the way they dress on cruise ships for the most part. With that dress comes the behavior problems.

 

Since I am southern by birth I always expect a certain amount of "niceness" to be a part of everyone but am fast learning that it is not a part of people these days. What is wrong with; "excuse me", "thank you",

"may I", "please", etc? Why not dress neatly and comb my hair?

 

Remember, others judge us not only by our appearance but by our actions, so when we see people "acting out", saving deck chairs or theater seats, breaking into lines, cursing and being rude to employees, we look upon them harshly.

 

Thankfully we seem to cruise with a little older group of people on HAL and Princess so this problem is not quite as evident.

 

Could it be these people do not act any better because they have not been taught better?

[BroncosFan2010]

While I think the low fares are attracting new and inexperienced travelers/cruisers, I think it has more to do with the fact that cruise lines have rules, but will not enforce them! There are rules for dress code, hogging chairs, and children being allowed in adult areas (Solarium, and hot tubs). However, I rarely see any staff members enforcing these rules. If rules are not enforced people will continue to behave badly.

[cruiserbryce]

sadly rude people are all over and when you combine their poor tact with the carefree attitude of vacation and booze you get the rude pax...not really much to do about it other than just deal:(

[greatam]

IMHO, it's the low fares.

 

Some of my employees have been taking a cruise from Alaska instead of flying home on the company provided ticket. These are 25 yo that have been in Alaska working for the summer. They have jeans and t-shirts. They have never been to a 4 or 5* restaurant in their life. They have no concept of cruise ship "decorum". But they can cruise cheaper than they can fly plus get blasted without worrying about driving, so they figure why not.

 

DH is an electrical engineer at the USA's largest nuclear plant. They are currently in "outage" and skilled tradespeople from all over the USA are working the outage. These are people that make pretty darn good money ($30.00 per hour and up plus per diem plus overtime for a 70+ hour week). A group of them usually gets together and flies to Cabo or the Caribbean for a week when the outage is over.

 

This year they are going on a cruise-at last count 154 of them. I had lunch with several of them the other day at the local bar/restaurant. None of them had any idea there was any kind of dress code, that dinner is on a fixed schedule (they are sailing RCL), that the shows were not raunchy comedy. They all believed it was strictly buffet and fast food with a bar close by for "refills". To me it sounded like they thought it was a Saturday night in the bar we were sitting in-fights, bad behavior and all.

 

All the 4 of them kept saying-"we can drink and eat all we want and not worry about getting arrested in a foreign country. PLUS it was cheaper than airfare to Cabo". Talk about a porker fest-and these people are more than casual acquaintences. I'm glad I'm not going!!!

[lilpiglet97]

Why blame the cruise lines for peoples' behavior. Why shouldn't the individual person be held accountable.

[dandro]

A decline in decency in general. The "dumbing down" of America. Lack of respect for others, children brought up not learning proper manners, adults with a sense of entitlement ("I paid $x,xxx for this cruise, I'll do what I want"),

people that don't give themselves limits or boundaries. People see others getting away with bad behavior, (high ranking officials included), they figure why not do the same ("if they can get away with worse, then I'm not so bad"). Moral & ethical decline in society.

[Bakincakes]

Of course the cruiselines are partially responsible. They are ones allowing the kind of behavior everyone has be noting. They've lowered their standards in order to get people on their ships!!

 

Rule breakers aren't punished and are allowed to do as they wish. don't you think other pax feel if others can get away with it why can't they?

 

You've got pax smuggling booze and then racking up large bar bills. I'm not say all of them get loud but I'm betting many of them do.

 

Lines are terririfed of losing business so they are dumbing down cruises.

 

I'm not sure that low cruise fares mean the "poor" are cruising. I think it means that some people get something "cheap" and they think they can act and behave cheaply in kind.

[beege44]

There are rude, disruptive people at all levels of the socio-economic scale. I find the wealthy often treat the staff terribly and let their entitled children do the same or worse. Alcohol cunsumption has alot to do with bad behavior. I think the cruise staffs handle the situations well and that the media love to blow any incident out of proportion.

[luddite]

A decline in decency in general. The "dumbing down" of America. Lack of respect for others, children brought up not learning proper manners, adults with a sense of entitlement ("I paid $x,xxx for this cruise, I'll do what I want"),

people that don't give themselves limits or boundaries. People see others getting away with bad behavior, (high ranking officials included), they figure why not do the same ("if they can get away with worse, then I'm not so bad"). Moral & ethical decline in society.

 

That sums it up.

[sevenseasnomad]

Having only read one or two posts, I agree with jjones. When common decency and manners are considered superfluous, rudeness as a side-effect of selfishness rushes in to fill the void. It's unavoidable.

 

After a 23 year hiatus, I returned to teaching. I teach high-school History and am shocked and sickened by the disrespect of 17 and 18 year-old students. It is blatant, across the socio-economic spectrum and involves ALL races. Parents, when informed of their child's behavior, chastise the teacher for "failing to understand my son or daughter."

 

Teenage girls have no sense of decorum, no idea of what it means to be a lady. They cuss and talk back worse than some of the boys. The boys have no concept of what it means to be honorable or to treat a woman with consideration.

 

After being in the classroom for less than 2 months, I am worried about the future if these young people are our future hope. While I am not saying that ALL students fall into this category, enough do that it is a matter of grave concern.

 

So it is not surprising to me that there is a general lack of decorum on cruise ships. It is sad that our world is reduced to this.

 

Graciousness, someone once said, is what makes life tolerable for all of us who share the world. Unfortunately, there are few places where graciousness is practiced as a matter of course.

[holly1961]

i don't think that the lower prices have anything to do with it. when you have alot of people drinking theres going to be issues

[rdler]

I think that so many of the previous posters bring up good points. I am a single middle-aged dad of a 7 year old boy. We have been cruising since he was two, and I think of it as good father/son time.

 

My son is extremely polite. He wears a jacket when we go to the dining room, as do I. We do not go to breakfast until we are showered and dressed.

 

Because he is a 7 year old, I do tend to go on the lines that cater to families. I am apalled at the behaviors I see and the lack of standards. The Lido Deck on a Carnival ship at feeding time looks like a state unemployment office (yes, I've been to some).

 

People, rich and poor, should follow basic rules with respect to hygene, language, appearance, and behavior. In no event should they argue loudly with their spouses, companions or children in public. I do not want to be in the main dining room with my son across from a table with people dropping the f-bomb and every other variation of that word or wear tank tops to show off their myriad of tatoos or who haven't showered.

 

I can hear people saying, "Well, then you shouldn't cruise," and that may be right, but one encounters this behavior many places.

 

On the other hand, I think part of the problem lies with the cruise lines. They should enforce their rules. If people are drunk they should not be served any more alcohol. If they are unruly consistently, they should be put off the boat. If they are swearing, being too loud or throwing things they should be asked to stop. To do this the ship would have to encourage its employees at whatever level to intervene. They don't.

 

Similarly, the ship's employees should try to be helpful. The answer to every passenger's request should not always be "no". Just because I have to go to the Purser's desk for something, I should not automatically be viewed as an adversary.

 

And things like "fun ships" ought to reconsider whether they should promote themselves as such. Sure have fun, and have things like the slides, or rock climbing walls, but do we really need the things like the Hairy Man Contest (not very edifying) or Kareoke (sp?) that most normal people would have to be pretty drunk to do?

 

I really don't think it is a price point thing as much as a lack of enforcement of basic rules. Proper behavior ought to be expected, but if people behave improperly action should be taken.

[SargassoSage]

The rogue state of New Jersey is the cause of the decline of mass

market cruise passenger manners. The same pattern holds for the

mobs at Great Adventure!

[bjay3]

I'm sure any & all of the reasons given for this behavior are correct. But my concern is that cruise lines are almost welcoming the behavior when they do nothing about it. I realize they are trained to keep everyone happy but in our 28 cruises, I have never seen a cruise employee be firm or try to correct bad behavior. I have seen a lot of the opposite to try to molify people. When someone complained that their towels had been moved after being left for over an hour on a lounge, the crew member got them a new lounge, cushions & apologized profusely. I've seen drunks left to disturb other passengers when they should have been escorted back to their cabin. Cruise lines do set rules & standards but seem reluctant to enforce them. Is it worth upsetting everyone else on the cruise just to keep the trouble makers happy?