Permanent Passenger: My Life on a Cruise Ship

by Micha Berman

  Like Puerto Rico, Cozumel, Mexico provided a wonderful opportunity for nightlife. In Cozumel passengers and crew members joined together for a night of unlimited drinking at a loud, rambunctious "dive" called Carlos and Charlies. Walking into the club, you saw drunk men and women, mostly cruise visitors from our ship; as well as, the Royal Caribbean Fleet that arrived the same day, dirty dancing on table tops, forcing large quantities of every conceivable liquor down each other's throats. Add in some loud Rock & Roll music and some drunk people going to the bathroom in the street and you pretty much have the feeling for Carlos and Charlies on a typical night, an annoying sight but the lifeblood of the local economy. Of course, the difference between a drunk patron and a drunk passenger is that the passenger has to be on a cruise ship by a certain time. In Cozumel it was 1 a.m. and due to shallow water around the dock, the only way to reach the cruise ship was to take smaller boats called tenders. The last tender left at 12:45 a.m. and on average two passengers were left in town each week. "Don't forget to bring your cameras," Gary would remind all passengers spending the night at Carlos and Charlies. A passenger would always ask why. "Because there is no better picture than the M.S. Ecstasy sailing off into the distance," he would answer. A second later he would remark sarcastically, "Unless, of course, you're supposed to be on it."

  Ports were like steaks. You had to decide how you wanted it done. For many passengers, the only part of the port or island experienced was the façade, the line of stores, restaurants, tourist information booths and bike rental stalls blanketing the main street. It was a Potemkin village, with no peasants, but smiling Caribbean merchants and American tourists reaching into their pockets for more cash. There were other choices for your steak besides rare. Behind this façade each island had a vibrant culture urging to be explored. Simply walking one or two streets beyond the glitter of the jewelry stores and banks revealed a world of natural wonder.

  Cozumel, Mexico had its run down restaurants in broken-down concrete huts serving savory authentic chicken soup with flotillas of fresh vegetables and spices in every spoonful. San Juan, with its cozy and intimate cobbled streets showcased building after building of unique architecture and beautiful flower arrangements. Ocho Rios, Jamaica, for all its annoying and conniving salespeople, was a town rich in music and steeped in personality. Beyond the hustle and bustle of the town was a land of jungles, rainforests, and incredible wild life.

  In the end, however, my favorite port was Miami, for it always felt like home. I savored my hours in Miami. This was my day to catch up on unfinished business. It also happened that Sandy, a good friend of mine was working in Miami for a year and routinely picked me up at the port to play golf, go swimming, or just hang out in his apartment to catch up on gossip. As I left the ship each Sunday, I would anxiously await his stories about two of our favorite subjects, women and movies. Both of us were major movie freaks often coordinating what films we saw during the week so that we could compare notes, sort of like Siskel and Ebert. It felt great to get in a car and drive away; it was a type of escape. One of the first times I met Sandy at the port I brought him on to the ship to see my new home.

  Soon I discovered several ways to bring Sandy on the ship without anyone ever knowing he had come on, which in essence meant he could cruise for free. I thought of sneaking Sandy aboard but the risk seemed too great and his busy schedule never allowed for it anyway. I found out I wasn't the only crew member thinking about sneaking friends aboard the ship. Margie, a friend of mine who worked as a child counselor aboard the ship, had a sister who lived in Miami. One night after the ship had been several hours out of Miami I went to visit Margie to borrow some tissues. To my surprise her sister answered the door."What are you doing here," I asked knowing full well I was looking into the eyes of a stowaway. "Micha, I snuck aboard and am planning to stay for a couple of weeks to save some money so I can fly home," she quickly explained. Before I could respond she clasped her hands together and looked desperately into my eyes. "Please let me stay, I promise you won't get in any trouble," she begged." Are you kidding me," I thought, I could lose my job. "Look, I am just going to pretend I did not see anything here tonight," I said as I turned my back and left.

  I watched the both of them pull this stunt off for a couple of cruises. Walking to dinner with Margie and her sister, we ran into Gary. He looked at the sister with a confused face and said "I'm sorry we haven't met." Of course he knew all the cruise staff members but there were always visitors and there is just too much confusion aboard the ship to really keep track of who is who. A week later Margie's sister left the ship.

  On the legal end, I was entitled to bring on immediate family for only two hundred dollars a week. Through some trickery my friends became brothers and soon the whole ship was astonished by the size of my family. Often I heard the comment,"Gee, he really looks like you." But I wasn't the only one breaking this rule. One unfortunate cruise staffer was caught kissing their "sister". Well such is life on a cruise ship where trickery is part of survival.

  Crazy Cruise Trivia

  Did you know?

  During times of war, cruise ships often become war vessels.

  In the Falkland Islands conflict between England and Argentina

  in the early 1980's England ordered the takeover of

  Cunard's QE2, the Canberra

  and the Uganda to transport troops.

  Unfortunately for the soldiers

  the casinos, open bars and

  Vegas Extravaganzas

  were closed!

  Photo Section

  Dad visits the ship!

  Backstage for main show production. I look pretty professional, but only pushed a couple of buttons to open curtain.

  Mail! Mail! Mail!

  Stripes Disco -- "Man on the Mike".

  Gary, the Cruise Director, backstage for bingo game. Check out the wads of cash.

  My co-workers, British Dancers. What a drag!

  The "infamous" protein shakes.

  Johnny, the disc jockey, poses with me in Stripes Disco.

  Denzel, the manic aerobic instructor, clowning around.

  Rule #1 - No hanky panky on the ship.

  One happy family!

  Often crew members would go on outings together. That's me on the far right. What a hunk! This picture has a combination of musicians, pursers, child counselors and moi.

  Chapter 7 Temptations of the Sea

  A couple of hours into a cruise, ladies often notice that something is missing. Their faces all wear a mask of confusion and uncertainty and an edge of nervousness, as they search, feeling a fleeting moment of nakedness like grasping for your wallet in your pocket and finding emptiness. It's not their pocketbook or a piece of clothing missing, rather it's their male partner: a boyfriend or husband led astray. They finally give up the search for their men and just enjoy the company of the other women on the ship who have also become temporary singles. These women often approached me asking the same questions, "Have you seen my husband Harold?" or "Did a man named Bill say he had lost his wife?" In a prophetic tone I would answer,"Follow the sounds of the slot machines and you shall find them."

  Casinos are the busiest places on the ship. Open all night long, they buzz with the sounds of hopes and resonate with the whispers of frustration and reality. For crew members the casinos on the ship are off limits, but that's no problem considering many Caribbean ports are famous for their big time casinos, including Puerto Rico and the Bahamas, places we just happened to visit every other week. The casino is the primary destination for many working on the ship, a place they dream about for days after getting their paycheck and their real port-of-call once they step on land. For a couple of months I found myself attracted to this world of gambling, looking to augment my petty salary. It all began after a friend of mine gave me a book on counting cards in black jack, a book I might add was written with scientific confidence and a straightforward plan for immediate wealth. Each day I would read a chapter slowly, conce
ntrating on each word, falling under the spell that this was an actual skill I could learn and eventually perfect winning big bucks in my defeat of the casino lords. Next I would stay up all night with a group of musicians trying to practice counting cards with six decks. As unpolished as I was I still had the courage to try it in the real casinos; but before long realized it was going to take a lot more than reading a couple of pages to make my fortune. Clumsy and unsuccessful, I eventually lost my passion for the casinos, an auspicious event for my bank account.

  However, I was an exception on the cruise ship. Often the casinos were full of cruise ship employees all sitting with a thick wad of fresh cash they had just earned on the ship. Each week Carnival employees lined up outside Chris's cubbyhole office and received a small check and a stack of brand new fresh smelling American bills in denominations of twenties, all paper clipped together. It was a bizarre form of payroll and I'm sure some type of corporate legal maneuver that had direct financial benefits for the cruise line. However, for the average ship worker it was the devil's work. A plethora of available cash was a great incentive for gambling and before long those crisp stacks of green were history. It's true that there are great opportunities on a ship to save money; however, temptations like gambling surrounded crew members and often debt was the result.

  Another temptation was alcohol. No matter where you turn on a cruise ship you are bound to see a bar or a cocktail waitress. The Ecstasy was a safari of striped fruity concoctions and endless species of beers. Passengers were treated to Rum Swizzle Night their first evening on the ship, champagne bashes with the Captain the following night, and beer drinking competitions the rest of the time. Waiters walked up and down the Promenade deck offering tastes of wine and other free drinks to willing consumers. One might think passengers are doing all the drinking on the ship, but the truth is most of the alcohol on the ship gets consumed on levels below the passenger decks. Walking through the crew living quarters, I couldn't believe the amount of empty beer cans lying around. Much of this drinking is a form of escape for crew members who are homesick or just depressed about their working conditions on the ship.

  Alcohol also stands at the center of social life on the ship. My first week on the Ecstasy I had been given a card and a code by Gary which allowed me to get alcohol at any bar for free. This enabled me to get champagne for prizes and beer for the beer-drinking contest. He also mentioned with a wink that I was free to get myself a couple drinks every now and then and not to worry about the tab. And this is exactly what I did.

  No matter how hard a person tries on a cruise ship, it's impossible to avoid the sight of food, maybe a temptation more wicked and cunning than alcohol or gambling. Gary performed a song at the beginning of the cruise that detailed how a passenger could start eating in the morning and keep going through the entire day and night. Each night had its own special buffet ranging from pasta nights on Wednesday to desert nights on Thursday to seafood night on Friday. Cruise staff was only allowed to enter the buffets an hour after they were open, but I would often sneak in without anyone knowing who I was and eat with the passengers. Long tables of elaborate ice carvings and food sculptures delighted passengers, each cruise patron passing in front of the creations as one would a Monet or a Renoir in a sacred art museum. My reaction was quite the opposite, these strangely shaped configurations of beef, chicken and pork in the shape of houses, trains and flowers sickened me to the point of nausea.

  I couldn't even go close to the buffets after months of eating at each one., Yet, I was a solitaire anomaly in a city of carnivores and scavengers all clawing their way to the food line. There is no doubt that extended time on a ship can do damage to a person's weight. Looking through old pictures of Gary, I almost didn't recognize the thin man in the pictures. He had beefed up considerably in the years he had spent on the ship. A couple of dancers began to battle this problem too; however, for them their job was on the line. All dancers would be weighed once a month to determine whether they were over their required weight, an agreement they had signed in their contract when they joined the ship.

  Maybe the most dangerous temptation at sea is wasted time. This is not a problem for most people working 12 to 13 hours a day; however, for cruise staff there is an abundance of free time. Without any hobbies or activities a cruise ship can become a very boring place. How many times can you walk around the ship staring at the same rooms? The dancers also had a lot of time to themselves, but seemed to be pretty adept at finding hedonistic endeavors to partake of, like massages, reading books, sunbathing and watching lots of movies. There was a movie channel on the ship; however, the films were usually bad and remained the same for months at a time. Gary was responsible for ordering new films but was too lazy to get it done, resulting in films like Tom Selleck's Mr. Baseball playing for months at a time.

  Not a sun worshiper I was obligated to find activities that would keep me busy. One of the first projects I undertook was a weight gain program. The first day I arrived on the ship I weighed only 145 lbs. My thinness reached a state of emergency, many classifying my stomach as concave. Unable to open doors in a single bound I was tired of going through life weak and determined to put on some weight. The cruise ship provided the ideal place to gain weight with a free nautilus and unlimited buffets--it was thin man's utopia. I would lift weights for two hours a day, consume large protein shakes that promised to turn my body into a fighting machine and spend as much time on my bed sleeping or watching movies. The point was to stay motionless and let the pounds build up.

  My chocolate shakes put quite a scare into my cabin steward. I had been using my towels to clean the jugs of shakes, leaving my room full of white towels stained with large brown streaks. I could see the disgust on my cabin steward's face as he removed these towels believing me to be a sick animal that was wiping myself with his beautiful white towels, a disgusting but comical thought. Each day after my workout I would go to the crew dining room and eat two of everything, not even pausing to talk to the people sitting next to me. They knew I was on a mission. I wasn't interested in what the food tasted like; rather I wanted large quantities to stuff myself with. Into my mouth I would shove bananas, bread, pasta-- anything that would fit. After a month or two my body began to transform from a weakling to this muscular stud. Like the Incredible Hulk my skin was stretching, new muscles were blossoming throughout my arms and legs. It was a harvest of tendons. Each day as I walked out of the gym and looked in the mirror I would break into hysterical laughter. I could not believe what I was seeing!!

  My next project involved viewing over 400 films during a nine-month period. Certain ports of call have video stores that cater exclusively to crew members renting videos for up to four weeks at a time. Armed with my Roger Ebert review guide I marched directly to the video store once our ship docked in the Bahamas and came back with a stack of ten videos each week. In the jungles of Africa, chimpanzees scream across miles to warn their brethren of a predator. In the wilderness of the M.S. Ecstasy a similar phenomenon occurred with videos. Word spread from cabin to cabin on who had what video and what they were willing to trade for it. It was a bartering system of the highest complexity, video trading that stretched to all levels of the ship. Democracy in its purest form. You might be swapping Pretty Woman with Captain Gallo or handing over Top Gun to the new child counselor aboard. It was surprising how many crew members had VCRs and how much time was spent holed up in tiny cabins watching Hollywood flicks. I guess it made sense, a true escape from the confined surrounding to the magical places of the movies: deserts, canyons, mountain ranges, and palaces.

  Another fascinating phenomenon existed on the ship where crew members'entertainment systems were passed from generation to generation of those who worked on the ship. It was simply too much trouble to haul these items off the ship each time a crew member left or was transferred. Instead a raffle occurred each time a VCR became available. A large sheet was passed around and for ten dollars you could put your name on it. For d
ays the VCR would sit on a table in the crew bar,a statue of glory,provoking sighs and lustful stares from VCR deprived individuals. Finally after about 40 to 50 names were collected they were cut out and thrown in a box. The name chosen won the entertainment system. Everybody won because the departing crew member left with some money in their pocket and didn't have to carry their stuff off, and for ten dollars one lucky shipmate got an entertainment system and a ticket to Hollywood in their cabin.

  If I wasn't watching movies or exercising, I could be found reading. The ship library on the Promenade deck had a far better supply of board games than actual books. The novels on the shelves were sparse and placed more for décor than actual use. Along with the comfortable velvet lounging chairs, the library retained a certain shallow dignity and almost always was a quiet sanctuary to gather your thoughts. Passengers brought their novels aboard like their toilet accessories. Packed tight in their suitcases, there was no way they were going to forget them--Steele, Clancy were common names at sea. I always had a curiosity to read the entire Bible cover to cover.

  Strange as it may seem I would sit in a chair overlooking the ocean reading verses from Genesis or Leviticus. After reading the Bible for a couple of months, I began to look forward to something different. "How about the complete works of Shakespeare," I thought, and so I began my journey enjoying the poetry of the bard while the beauty of the sea surrounded me. The eloquence of Victorian England experienced among the debauchery of 20th century America was an amusing concept to experience. One thing was for sure, I never saw another traveler pull out William Shakespeare but in a surreal gift from God, the stories and the poetry fit quite nicely into the surroundings.