Should You Return To Royal?

Nothing much good has come from the coronavirus pandemic. Sure, for the individual, the chance to learn something new or get something done that you’ve been putting off for ages during lockdown isn’t bad. Or maybe starting a business selling overpriced masks and sanitizer worked out well. But overall, it’s obviously been pretty shite.

There is however one positive for all of us. The opportunity to see which companies treated their staff in a despicable way in order to protect profits for those at the top.

This was a pretty big story early on in the pandemic, with news of companies in the UK firing staff rather than going down the furlough route.

By accepting the government aid, these companies would still have to pay 20% of staff salaries and so it was easier to just let them go.

A list of which stores, pubs and restaurant chains that were doing the right thing, as well as those that weren’t, was published and regularly updated here.

It made for a good read and since I recently had an interesting, coronavirus affected cruise contract with Royal Caribbean, I thought I’d write about my experience on-board and what really happened so that anyone who comes across this article can decide for themselves whether to return to the company as a guest or crew.

What everyone should know before I start is that all cruise companies are pretty bad. There’s literally thousands of articles online as well as lots of documentaries to watch so I won’t go into it too much here.

The basics are that they register their ships in countries with little in terms of employment and human rights so that they can pay for cheap labour, as well as stuffing some nationalities four workers at a time in a tiny cabin for six months or longer.

They also pollute the sea. Still. Even though they show many presentations on how green and amazing they are.

I think this was sand and not effluent. At least I hope it was.

It’s important to remember that a lot of what happened isn’t specific to Royal Caribbean. Because of the strict hierarchy that exists on cruise ships, those at the top get away with a much easier experience.

It all started to go wrong on the 15th of March. In my previous article, I explained that I wasn’t enjoying the contract for various reasons. So when I read on the internet before going on stage that day that Royal Caribbean was suspending cruising for 30 days, I was pretty happy.

During our set, the sound cut off for an announcement from the cruise manager and everything was made official! Surely we were going to be sent home.

As this was the last day of that specific cruise, the final passengers disembarked on the 16th of March and that would be the last we would see of them.

Sterilization of all surfaces was a familiar sight.

Initially things looked good for us. As one of the bands on-board, we would keep playing each evening in different locations for the crew until we got sent home. As well as being able to buy drinks from the bars.

We were also still getting full pay, as our contracts stated we had to be given 30 days notice of an early termination.

This pic had to be done.

The 17th of March was my birthday and that started well too. A meeting was called in the morning and we were told we would be leaving on either the 18th or 19th.

Social distancing apparently wasn’t necessary during meetings.

Half way through the afternoon whilst getting drunk on the sundeck, an announcement was made informing us that no one would be leaving before the 23rd at the earliest.

We were actually pretty pleased with this and continued to get more inebriated. It was feeling like a holiday at this point. No passengers, very relaxed work, sun and cheap drinks.

The problem was that this was the first of many occasions that a date would be given for going home that would later be cancelled last minute.

It was different for everyone but I personally had seven leaving dates cancelled. Normally you would have to log into the slow and buggy Royal Caribbean app to see if you had been booked on a flight. Then either one or two days before your departure, you’d log in to see that your flight had disappeared with no explanation.

Most flights were cancelled as the US carriers couldn’t afford to fly empty planes, and so would cancel last minute any flights that were not going to be profitable.

To make things worse, if you were one of the unlucky ones to travel to the airport, only to find out your flight had been cancelled literally last minute, you had to return to the ship and quarantine alone in a cabin for 14 days.

To keep morale up amongst those really wanting to get home to family, the senior crew on all ships were organising events to help keep everyone entertained. On Majesty of the Seas, as well as the bands playing every night, there would also be a crew Olympics, with each department competing against each other at various events.

The opening ceremony of the world’s shortest Olympics.

It seemed safe since there were no cases of coronavirus on-board. As it turned out, it wasn’t a great idea as the bar staff took the basketball competition too seriously and an engineer lost a tooth.

Because of this injury and a sudden decision by head office to implement more strict social distancing measures on all ships, the Olympics were cancelled after one day.

On the 25th of March, a meeting was called for the entertainment department. With the progression of the pandemic, Royal Caribbean didn’t think they were going to return to sailing after the 30 day pause and so made all none essential staff redundant.

As we hadn’t been given any notice, we would still get the equivalent of 30 day’s pay. As we were due to end our contract on the 2nd of May, losing out on one week’s salary wasn’t a big deal. Also, once we were officially unemployed, we were no longer allowed to play for crew. So no more work at all.

Things continued much the same until the end of March, when social distancing measures stepped up another notch. We weren’t allowed to serve our own food in the buffet anymore.

These extra precautions were taken as there were a few ships in the fleet, most notably Oasis of the Seas, which had major, well publicised Covid outbreaks. In order to protect the now plummeting share price, Royal decided to make every ship take tougher precautions to reassure shareholders.

This might seem like a sensible decision from the outside. In reality, no one had been allowed on or off the ship for the last two weeks. There were no cases on-board and we had been repeatedly told that we were a healthy ship.

On the evening of the 31st of March, whilst having some drinks and complaining about Royal’s inability to get crew home, we read rumours on social media of a fleet wide, two week isolation. At 7:30pm an announcement was made by the captain that confirmed the isolation period would begin from 12pm the following day.

This didn’t go down well with crew. Our ship, like the majority in the fleet, was unaffected by the virus. People were already angry with the poor repatriation efforts so far made by the company. And now we were being told we would have to isolate alone in our cabins for no reason.

Obviously there was a reason, in that Royal Caribbean wanted to reassure its shareholders that precautions were being taken to avoid another bad news story about infected ships.

The only positive of the isolation was that on Majesty of the Seas, it would only last for 72 hours, as opposed to the rumoured two weeks.

The next morning, my roommate, the drummer from our band, was assigned a new cabin. We collected water and fresh bedding as well as having a last walk outside before isolating began.

Food would be delivered outside the door three times a day as well as more water now and again.

A sneakily taken pic of empty plates and rubbish left outside the other cells on the block.

Isolating in a tiny, windowless cabin was pretty awful. Time slowed down and although the food was usually terrible, each mealtime turned into a highlight of an otherwise boring day.

My cell. I mean cabin.

I stopped sleeping regular hours and just napped when I felt tired. It wasn’t like I needed to be well rested for work or anything else.

On the evening of the third and final day, an announcement from the captain came over the tannoy. Like the majority of his messages from here on out, it started with “unfortunately…”

Like many of us expected, the isolation was being extended to two weeks.

Even though I had been expecting this as I always think the worst in situations like these, it was still sickening.

To make things worse, the isolation period gave those higher up in the company the opportunity to show how out of touch they were with the situation.

Broadcast daily on our televisions were updates from head office management. One guy, who was particularly annoying, was the head of hotel operations. He tried to give motivational updates whilst pretending we were “all in it together”, talking to us whilst locked down in his massive apartment. 

This guy was unbelievable.

On one occasion he used the tagline for Royal’s private island, Coco Cay, to let us know he hoped we were all having a “perfect day”. This apparently received a lot of complaints from crew throughout the fleet but it didn’t stop him from delivering these patronising speeches to crew every day.

The CEO recorded a video from his mansion saying how the situation was bad for him too. That he had to have his wife video him on an iPhone rather than have a film crew. It was unbelievable.

This guy had it just as bad as we did. Only in a mansion.

There was the head of health and fitness showing you exercises you could do to stay healthy. Sometimes she was in her nice apartment, sometimes on a private pier outside. Most crew on our ship didn’t have cabins close to big enough to do the routines.

To cheer crew up, but probably also because it was illegal to lock people in windowless rooms, two one hour exercise periods were organised. One in the morning and one on the afternoon.

This was the fancy name for your time in the exercise yard.

This was good as it was something else to look forward to twice a day. But it was also like being let out into the exercise yard in a prison so was also pretty weird.

The higher ups also allowed the sale of beer on our ship. A maximum of two bottles with lunch and two with dinner. I didn’t hear of any other ship that did this so we got pretty lucky here.

I usually saved mine for the exercise yard and got tipsy in front of security for entertainment.

During the two weeks alone, I slept, watched the odd movie, ate, watched 24 hour rolling news about the virus and sometimes showered.

Seeing what was going on in Italy at the time made me feel somewhat lucky to be on a ship.

I say somewhat because about halfway through isolation, the US refused not only to not allow ship crews on land unless they were returning home, but also not allow them on land for medical treatment of any kind.

At this point, if an outbreak occurred on the ship, we’d have to take those that needed treatment to the place where the ship was registered. In our case, that was Nassau. Where there wasn’t a particularly well equipped hospital for Covid patients.

It was at this time that the officers removed the basketballs, table tennis and even the shuffleboard pucks from crew in case of an injury. I kind of understood basketball and table tennis. But shuffleboard?!

The next annoyance came when someone on the Majesty of the Seas Facebook group posted a picture of the food being served to the officers.

I understand that in normal service they get better food, better cabins and room service. But in a time of crisis, which this was made out to be by them, they should at least be eating the same utter shite that we had to.

In the photo they had fresh salad starters, a nice main course with fresh vegetables, actual dessert and a bottle of wine. Whilst everyone else got shit with their crappy cake planted in the hot rice or pasta to melt everywhere.

A cake on rice or fries was an isolation specialty.

On the 14th of April, isolation was finally over! And we could start to mix with others again, only with strict social distancing.

Wearing a mask needlessly. At least there was beer.

Food had to be served by designated crew members, masks worn everywhere, temperature checks taken twice daily and two meter queuing distances at the crew bar, which was now moved to the sun deck outside.

The queue for temperature check.

The pool and hot tubs were closed and the sunbeds spaced out, before being completely removed.

All this seemed pretty unnecessary considering everyone had been isolating for two full weeks and there had been no cases on-board prior.

The social distancing rules, particularly around the bar, were not taken seriously by those in charge. I actually don’t blame them for this. We were fortunate that our officers seemed to balance what needed to be done to satisfy head office quite well with the actual risk on the ship.

Things remained pretty much the same from April 14th onwards. I woke up, drank coffee, went to temperature check, walked around on deck and then had lunch. The afternoons featured another temperature check followed by more walking.

At least the sunsets were nice.

After more of the same shitty food for dinner, most crew proceeded to get drunk to kill the boredom.

I was actually not finding the whole experience quite as awful as most crew on board. Mostly because I had met someone on the ship and spending time together was great.

The situation back home in the UK was also now a lot worse, with the disease spreading rapidly and a nationwide lockdown still in effect.

But I did understand that for a lot of crew it was different and they needed to get home for financial and personal reasons.

Around mid-April, things got a lot worse for those wanting to get off the ship. The CDC banned all cruise ship crew from using any kind of public transport throughout the US.

As the breakouts on cruise ships had been big news, it seemed like the US government were using the cruise industry, which by this time was wrongly perceived as a major source of infection, as an example of their new, tougher measures on Covid.

Americans were scared by the idea of crew coming onto land in their cities and so we were stuck on-board unless the cruise companies followed the now strict CDC guidelines and booked private charter flights along with private buses to get us to the airport.

According to the head of repatriation and the CEO, none of this would be a problem, and Royal Caribbean would be providing flights to get crew home as soon as possible with cost not being an issue.

One month later and after three cancelled private charter flights home, crew were starting to lose patience. To make matters worse, the Miami Herald posted an article that confirmed everyone’s suspicions that something else was going on. You can read it here.

The first we knew of the article was when the captain made an announcement stating that he and the other officers were unaware of what was going on shore side with the CDC and that he would let us know as soon as possible if what was written in the newspapers was true.

Up until this point, the official Royal Caribbean newsletter and the higher ups on our TV’s had been blaming the CDC for banning their charters.

They continued to tell us that none of this was their fault and definitely wasn’t down to expense.

The second article that was published by the Miami Herald stated otherwise. That’s when everything kicked off.

The Filipinos gathered in a large group by the information desks to confront officers. Crew from all the ships from within the Royal fleet, as well as their sister companies Celebrity and Azamara, started writing to the press.

Whilst I was still having a better time than most, the way we were being lied to daily by those on board and those at head office was infuriating.

A week or so later, we found out that during the two week quarantine, some of the officers and managers had been having parties and not following the rules.

The whole thing was a joke. I also found out that myself and another guy from Manchester had also missed a flight home on the 7th of August because HR had forgotten to inform us at the time, so just tried to keep quiet about it. I wasn’t too annoyed by this because of my situation, but he was.

Eventually we were told of a new plan to get us home. We would sail back across the Atlantic on Majesty of the Seas.

Whilst we were all amused at the idea of this old ship taking us all home over a two week voyage, it wasn’t all plain sailing.

We first had to take part in an overly complicated, ever changing crew swap with many other ships in the fleet at Royal Caribbean’s private island, Coco Cay.

Just a few of the ships involved in the crew transfers.

This was to get as many British crew on board as possible, as well as those flying onward from available flights in London to China and Eastern Europe.

The date of our Atlantic crossing changed three times as the plans for exchanging crew were not going smoothly.

One cancellation resulted in a protest from the Eastern Europeans. They also had a large party and damaged fixtures on the ship. This resulted in a two day alcohol ban.

There were only a few stragglers left when got up to the sundeck.

The third and final exchange before sailing resulted in us losing our drummer to Anthem of the Seas, as he now lives in Finland. Others were nearly taken away too and it was unnecessarily stressful and last minute.

Once the ship finally left Coco Cay for the last time, it was a good feeling.

The voyage across the Atlantic was largely uneventful apart from a day of medium storms.

Despite the promise of less social distancing measures once we were away from the CDC, nothing really changed.

There were some more private parties for the officers and their helpers, but otherwise the same routine of eating shit food and taking temperatures continued.

The views from the ship were pretty much the same from the second day of the crossing until the fourteenth day. Mainly just empty ocean as far as the eye could see. Actually quite pleasant.

The weather changed halfway through as it got noticeably colder. I wore my jeans for the first time since February and borrowed a jacket.

I didn’t pack for cold weather as an Atlantic crossing wasn’t planned.

When we arrived in Southampton on June 1st, I should perhaps have been relieved and excited to be finally home. Almost everyone else was. But I actually felt pretty depressed to be leaving behind the girl I met during this experience.

A part of me still did feel good to be getting away from the ship though. It had felt like a floating prison at times. During the two week isolation, it pretty much was.

First time back on dry land after 78 days.

Writing this seven months after arriving back home, I’ve had a lot of time to think about the experience and how we were treated. I’m not feeling quite as angry as I was then, but still think Royal did a pretty bad job at handling the situation.

It was however a highly unusual one that hopefully won’t happen again once sailing resumes.

As for the question as to whether you should return to Royal as a guest or crew in the future, it doesn’t really matter. People are going to go back regardless.

Guests are still pre-booking in large numbers and a significant portion of the crew were very loyal to the company throughout, due to the comparatively high salary of working at sea.

No matter what you choose, your actions aren’t going to affect a huge industry like cruising.

Hopefully we’ll never have to find out if the cruise companies will have better protocols in place to handle crew and passenger repatriations in the future.

As unpleasant as a lot of the experience was, a few things have changed already which actually make me want to try another cruise at some point. Majesty of the Seas and Empress of the Seas, the two oldest ships in the fleet, have now been sold. So at least there would be no chance of ending up on one of these smaller ships, which played a big part in how depressing it sometimes got when stranded at sea.

Considering the current state of the entertainment business, once the Coronavirus is under control, very few people are going to be in a position to be picky about work. So whether crew want to return or not, they may have to.

In my opinion, I still think there are much worse places with lower salaries to end up and so despite my experience, I’d probably go back. Not that I’ll have a choice when all this is over anyway.

If you found any of the above even mildly interesting, feel free to repay me by visiting my Clickasnap page! It’s where I post my better photos from my travels. For every pic that gets at least a 5 second view, I get a tiny share of the ad revenue from the site. As tiny as it is, I need the money right now!