Cruise Ship Workers Share Their Best “The Passengers Can’t Find Out” Moments

A cruise ship voyage is a wonderful way to travel around the world, seeing beautiful sights on the open seas. It can make for a very relaxing, stress-free vacation. However, in order to properly run a ship with thousands of passengers on board, a lot has to go on behind the scenes that guests might not be aware of.

The fact that cruise ships are massive, complicated machines, along with the unpredictability of the ocean, can make for some situations that don’t go quite as planned. However, even when everything goes awry, it’s important that the crew keeps the guests calm and collected. Therefore, even during some of the most extreme onboard catastrophes, passengers often remain completely oblivious. Here are some of the best “the passengers can’t find out” moments, as told directly by cruise ship workers…

Drifting Away

I was a cruise ship worker for a few years, and worked on a route between two cities. There was a really bad storm, so we decided to dock as a safety precaution. All of the passengers were let off the boat to go do what they wanted in the town. A few minutes after the passengers got off, the storm got so rough that the ship was ripped off the docks, and drifted out to sea.

The ship’s engines had already been turned off. Because it takes quite a while to start up the engines, it took some time before they could even start to drive the boat back to the harbor. It’s so lucky that none of the passengers were aboard when this happened. If they had been, it could have gone very badly. Reddit user: idontmindtherain78

Toilet Paper

I was working on a ship once when a water pipe burst in a storage room, and soaked all of the spare toilet paper. This was on day two of a 14-day voyage to Antarctica. The cabin stewards were running around swapping out rolls of toilet paper between “low use” and “high use” guest cabins while the passengers weren’t in their rooms.

It was complete pandemonium among the ship’s crew. None of the guests found out what had happened, or even realized that the stash of toilet paper in their rooms had changed. After that, toilet paper was hidden in every cabin instead of a centralized location. Seems like an obvious thing to do anyway, but sometimes it takes a disaster to learn a lesson. Reddit user: myjobisawesome

Overboard Shenanigans

One time I was on a cruise ship, and a few cabins down from mine, a man and woman got super drunk, and fell over the edge of their balcony. A balcony that was really high up. It was at night, too. The whole cruise ship stopped once it was reported, and it took an entire day to find them.

Apparently, the man figured out a way to inflate his pants, so that they floated. They were holding onto the pants as a floatation device. They reported that they were stung by multiple jellyfish, and were super cold the whole time. That must have been the scariest, most terrifying eighteen hours of their lives. No one else on the ship knew why we’d stopped. Reddit user: DaniSeeh

Crew Member Overboard

I used to be a crew member, and one time a guy working at the front desk jumped overboard after a crew party. He was found a few hours later by the Coast Guard, and everybody was asked to be discreet, in order to keep the cruise running smoothly. Everything was fine until the captain came on the PA system.

Like an idiot, he said that we were delayed because a crew member had jumped overboard. Then the madness began, rumors appeared out of nowhere, and the rest of the cruise was pretty much guests asking what happened the whole time. But the good thing is we eventually got the crew member back on the ship, and he was fine after a while. Reddit user: rjdac

Lost Engines

I provide software and services for most of the major cruise lines, and spend a lot of time on the ships as well. One story that comes to mind is the first sailing of a new ship. About three hours into the sail-away, I heard a loud thump, and felt massive vibrations all around. I could see some concern, but passengers continued on with their business.

About three or four hours after that there was another loud thump, and even more vibrations. After speaking with a few crew members, I found out that we’d lost two engines in the initial incident, and now we’d just lost the rest. Passengers were notified that we’d be running late but that they should continue having fun, and drinks were on the house. No other information was given. Reddit user: Rally_Blue

Bullet

When I was on my last ship, somebody shot at the navigation bridge of the ship from the shore. I’ve no idea why someone would do this, but they did. The bullet bounced off a wall and hit my colleague on the hand. There was no real damage to her, but obviously it really scared her. She ended up going home for a few weeks.

While we waited for the local police to come on the ship to investigate, and take some statements from crew members, passengers were told we were delaying the departure in order to wait for more fresh drinking water to be brought on board. And people just believed it. I’m still shocked that it never leaked out. Reddit user: ElGofre

Software Update

All of the computer systems on my ship run on Windows 7. This includes all of the automation in the machinery space, the security system, the fire detection system, etc. When Windows comes out with an update, it will automatically restart all the computers, as it does with a normal desktop. Unfortunately, we don’t have the ability to stop this.

While it’s doing the update, it can also take out every computer on the ship at exactly the same time. This means we’re flying blind until it finishes. I remember this happened once, and passengers were very confused about why everything had gone out. We just acted like it was normal, and said it’d be back soon, so that they didn’t freak out. Reddit user: Mr_Happy_80

Virus Control

I worked for a while on a Disney ship. The first night of the cruise, one of the passengers came down with the norovirus. He was brought to the onboard physician and was given a shot, which made him feel better almost immediately. Just a few hours later, he felt completely fine, but we couldn’t risk exposing all of the other passengers.

We quarantined that passenger for the remainder of the five-day cruise. He was really bummed out, and missed out on just about everything. If word got around that a passenger had been walking around the ship with this virus, everyone would’ve completely freaked out. So it was for the best that this little mishap was kept quiet. Reddit user: robfrizzy

Protesting Teenager

I worked on a ship almost 15 years ago, and saw many crazy things happen. But this one was one of the craziest. A family came on the ship together. They had a teenage son, who wasn’t interested in the cruise at all. As soon as the family got to their room, he jumped off his balcony into the water.

This was extremely dangerous, of course. He was very far from the water, and could have died if he’d hit it the wrong way. But luckily he survived. They fished him out quickly, and the family got kicked off the ship immediately. We dropped them off at the next stop. None of the other passengers were ever informed that this took place. Reddit user: rothmaniac

A Running Jump

One time, our ship officers got a call from a ship of a completely different cruise line, off the coast of Cozumel, Mexico. They’d just found one of our passengers floating in the ocean. He told them which cruise he’d been on, so they just gave us a call. He wasn’t even near the shore at all, just floating in open water. Luckily, he was alive, and perfectly fine.

We reviewed the security footage, and saw that in the middle of the night, this guy was drunk on Deck 5. He was dancing to music by himself. He then climbed onto one of the lifeboats, and did a running jump into the ocean. He wasn’t injured at all when he hit the water. Even his family didn’t know he was missing, because he’d booked a separate room. Reddit user: too-tsunami

Sewage Mishap

I was once playing in a production show on a cruise ship. One night, I was standing on stage alone, with a wireless unit, about to play Purple Rain, and then all of the sudden the house lights came on and the curtains closed. I had no idea what was happening, but I could tell something was wrong, so I stopped playing right away.

Everyone in the audience looked at me in confusion, and I ran off the stage. It turns that out a sewage pipe had burst backstage, and there was sewage everywhere. It was absolutely disgusting. The show was obviously cancelled, and the passengers never found out why. I never even went back on stage to say I wouldn’t be finishing. Reddit user: Lacklusterbeverage

“Drill”

I worked for a while on a Carnival ship. One day they had a huge “fire drill.” They needed “all emergency medical and fire teams to report immediately” for a “drill” in the crew sections. The passengers continued with what they were doing, as it was only a “drill” and didn’t involve them, and all of the crew members snuck away.

Immediately, I could tell that it wasn’t a drill. We definitely do have scheduled drills on cruises, but they’d never announce a drill for the crew members over the entire intercom of the ship. Luckily, I don’t think the passengers really thought much of it, which is surprising as we all quickly booked it to the crew section. Reddit user: TheHancock

Mine

I worked on several cruise ships for a long time. This was probably the freakiest thing that ever happened. We were stuck in the locks of Amsterdam for over four hours, and no one was told anything about what might be going on. Passengers were starting to ask questions, and there was a bit of a sense of panic building on the ship.

A few hours later, the captain came on the PA system, and informed us that the reason we hadn’t left was because there was a live mine left from World War II just one km from the front of the ship. I don’t understand why the captain would make this information public. Obviously, chaos ensued. Eventually, we pulled away – with no explosion. Reddit user: CrashTestAstronaut

Fires

I worked on a cruise ship for two and a half years, and we had three major fires during that time. They were all in crew areas, and were controlled and extinguished by our awesome fire team. The passengers never knew what happened, only that their waiter had to leave in the middle of the dinner service for some mysterious reason.

Most people don’t realize how much training the crew members go through to handle these kinds of emergency situations. And they’ll never even imagine that their missing waiter might just have helped save the whole ship from going up in flames. Oh, the bliss of ignorance is truly a magical thing. Especially on a cruise ship. Reddit user: wanderinggal

Acidic Jacuzzi

One time when I was working on a cruise ship, there was a new employee who was in charge of tending to the Jacuzzi. He miscalculated the pool treatment, and one of the Jacuzzis ended up with a pH of less than two. Luckily, it was discovered before the area opened, and that Jacuzzi remained netted for the rest of the day, until it was balanced out.

For those who aren’t familiar with the pH scale, a pH of two or less is extremely acidic, with an acid level similar to that of vinegar. If that hadn’t been discovered in time, passengers probably would’ve been burned upon entering the tub. I’m not sure whether or not that new guy got to keep his job after that little mishap. Reddit user: DukeboxHiro

Kitchen Sewage

I once worked in the kitchen of a cruise ship for a while. This one time, a pipe burst and flooded the entire kitchen. But it wasn’t just any pipe – this was a waste pipe leading directly to the sewage system. You can probably imagine the level of disgust those of us working in that kitchen felt. Obviously, we couldn’t cook there.

We had to throw everything out, get a sanitation company to meet us at our next port, and then go out and buy all new inventory and supplies. We gave out vouchers for food to all of the passengers, because we couldn’t supply them with food for a whole day. They were just happy to get some free vouchers. I can’t imagine what would’ve happened if we’d been farther from a port. Reddit user: Grimcupcake

Flying CDs

I was working as a musician on a ship, and the cruise-line would sometimes fly a singer in to perform for one night, and then fly him off the next day. There was this one guy who performed, and thought he was a superstar. While he was on stage, he started throwing out his CDs into a completely dark crowd to give them away.

One of the CDs ended up clocking some old woman a half an inch below the eye, and she had to go to the ship’s doctor. The husband wrote the cruise director a very threatening letter, basically saying, “My wife almost went blind, so I strongly suggest you give us a free steak dinner.” That seems like a legit payment. Reddit user: Keachypie

Hot Tub Troubles

I was once working on a cruise ship where someone had gotten into the hot tub, and passed away while he was sitting in it. This was the first night of the cruise. People had no idea for several hours. He managed to stay propped up against the wall of the tub, and his sunglasses helped to hide his face.

Several passengers entered the hot tub during that time, and assumed he was just antisocial for whatever reason. The crew discovered him when they were closing the pool area for the night, and noticed he was still in there. They moved the body downstairs to the morgue. None of the passengers, except for the guy’s family, ever found out about it. Reddit user: Wolfgang7990

A Quick Pickup

The last cruise I was on, a kid needed surgery due to some kind of accident, and so the Coast Guard came to collect him from the ship. The ship did have a helipad. But rather than landing on the deck, they just hovered over the boat, and EMTs were lowered to the deck. They strapped the kid into some kind of gurney, and then raised him into the helicopter.

Afterwards, I asked the captain why the helicopter didn’t just land to pick him up, and he just said they didn’t need to. I think what really happened was that they wanted to fly him off as quickly as possible, so that no one could have time to notice and start asking questions about what was going on. Reddit user: GourdGuard

Incoming Shoal

We were cruising through this area that had a few small islands, and a few larger islands. I was hanging out on the deck, chatting with some fellow crew members. That’s when I saw what looked like a shadow on the water. It was extending left from an island. Something about it didn’t look right, so I kind of did something a little out of character for my role as a deckhand.

I jumped over to the big spotlight, and flicked it on. That’s when we saw, just a few boat lengths in front of the ship, a rock and gravel shoal. It was low tide, and this big long shoal was smack dab in front of us. The captain was informed, and he cranked the wheel hard. Luckily, we just missed it. It did rock the boat quite a bit, but no passengers ever heard why. Reddit user: AtomicFlx

Secret Repair

I used to work on cruise ships. Generally we would leave ports around 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon. We’d never stay much later than that, due to port regulations. One night, we had a weirdly late night at a port. All the passengers, and most of the crew, had a wonderful time enjoying their night on the town, but it seemed strange that we were still there.

When I came back, I noticed a few men in scuba suits entering and leaving the water, as well as large machinery, and the water off the stern of the ship was sporadically lighting up. It looked like someone was welding underwater. A few days later I was in the mess hall, and heard that the ship had undergone heavy maintenance to repair an area taking on water. Reddit user: redicrob2155

Incoming Missile

I worked on a cruise liner in the 1980s. One time, we were leading a cruise through the Falklands. I guess some people on land weren’t expecting our ship to be going by or something. Or maybe they just didn’t want us there for some unknown reason. Anyway, a French Exocet missile was fired toward our ship by the Argentineans.

We were confused, and obviously very freaked out. Luckily, it was noticed before it reached us. But it got about 100 meters from the ship before it was destroyed. Such a close call. If it hadn’t been seen, our ship would’ve gone down. Somehow, I don’t think any of the passengers on the cruise ever knew that this had happened. Thank God. Reddit user: wbbigdave

Fire

When I was working on a cruise ship, a small electrical fire broke out in a cabin down the hall from where I was stationed. I heard an alarm go off, so I went to see what was happening. Immediately, I saw a crewman sprinting down the hall with a fire extinguisher. The ship’s captain quickly walked past as well, with a couple of officers following him.

A few minutes later they had crew stationed throughout the ship’s halls, explaining to everyone what’d happened, and that everything was fine. The family that’d been in the cabin got moved elsewhere, and at the next port it seemed like they brought in extra people to clean the room, and remove the smell. Unfortunately, passengers did find out about this one, and they got pretty freaked out. Reddit user: TheTVDB

IT Meltdown

I was an IT Officer on board a cruise ship for many years. On my third contract, we had a complete meltdown of our entire datacenter. Everything stopped working—hotel management system, point of sales system, all of the file-sharing systems, email, etc. It took us three days, and a lot of luck, but we managed to get everything up and running again.

Our front of the house staff handled the situation amazingly well; everyone who usually relies on emails from external sources came by afterwards to thank us for the downtime, and asked if we could do it more often. Even though basically the whole operation needed for the hotel side of our ship was down, our guests didn’t notice a thing. Reddit user: ip_stivi

Extremely Cold

I was working on a cruise to Norway. When we were in Alta, some 70° north, it was -15° during the day, and got down to -27° at night. It was so cold that the ship’s pipes froze, and the electricity went out. The kitchen staff was cooking lunch in the dark, using torches. The captain said that he’d checked the logs, which said it had never been colder than -10° in Alta.

To make matters worse, as we were heading back south and hit the North Atlantic current, all of those frozen pipes melted. Several flights of stairs and a little mini buffet were closed because of water damage, and they made an announcement to everyone as we docked for the day, “If you’re a plumber, please stay!” Reddit user: SongsOfDragons

Cruise Ship Code

There are a lot of code words used to communicate between the captain and the crew members onboard ship. “Red Parties,” for instance, isn’t a party you weren’t invited to. It means fire. “Blue Parties” is also not a party. It’s a flood. Most ships have these kinds of codes so that passengers don’t get freaked out when something is going wrong.

There’s also the call for “Mr. Mob.” They’re not calling for a man whose surname is Mob. They’re calling out that there’s a Man Overboard (MOB). When I worked on cruise ships, we would get these announcements all the time. It was so funny to look around at the guests and see them completely unfazed by these alarms. Reddit user: okaybutfirstcoffee

Running From The Law

I was once working on a cruise ship, and a man who was running from the cops happened to be aboard. At one point, he jumped off the side of the ship, into the Hudson River, swam to the West Side Highway, and hailed a cab just to avoid getting arrested. That’s quite a commitment to get away from the cops.

Turns out the police were waiting for him to come through customs at the airport. Unfortunately, his little escape plan didn’t work out in the end. I wonder why he decided to book a cruise when he was trying to escape from the law. Luckily, none of the passengers had any idea that this was going down at the time. Reddit user: skinny67

Stuck Foot

I worked on a cruise ship for a year. During a rehearsal in the main auditorium, one of the dancers got his foot caught in the crack of the hydraulic platform that raises the stage up and down. Because some of the safety sensors were broken, the lift completely shut and sucked his foot into the space between the platform and the stage, which was about a centimeter.

I was friends with a lot of the dancers who witnessed it, and they were pretty shaken up by it. After they got him stabilized, the captain came on and told us we were making a stop in Cabo, so he could be flown back to the states for emergency surgery. I felt so bad for him; it was his first contract, and he was so excited to be there. Reddit user: atcitizen100

Chandelier

A cruise ship I worked on had just had a refit in dry dock, with brand new furnishings. They’d hung a giant chandelier over the main lobby, which was actually installed by a company who doesn’t usually do work for cruise ships. The result: they used the wrong size fixing bolts, and they were unable to take the force of the ship’s movement.

These bolts sheared, and the chandelier fell down onto the atrium deck at approx 2:00 in the morning. Luckily it happened at the time that it did, as they hold all the events there during the day, such as cocktail parties, fashion shows, art auctions, etc. If this’d happened during the day, it would’ve been a huge disaster, and people probably would’ve gotten hurt. Reddit user: justasparky

Floating Immigrants

I worked in guest services on a cruise ship, and we would deal with a lot of crazy people. One of the craziest things to happen was when we found immigrants from Cuba floating on a life raft in the middle of the ocean. We had to bring them all aboard, and keep them in the crew area, until the Coast Guard came to get them.

We basically told all the guests that they would be off the ship by morning, but people were freaking out. The Coast Guard came in the middle of the night, and then they were gone. After that, we tried to sweep it under the rug a bit, so people wouldn’t keep talking about it. Luckily, it kind of worked, and the conversation about it fizzled out. Reddit user: krzys216

False Alarm

I was working the overnight shift at the front desk, and the ship’s emergency alarm went off at midnight while we were at sea. This alarm is the one that means passengers must go to their emergency stations, and it’s only used in extreme emergencies. From what I heard, the crew decks were absolute mayhem, including crew members seen running down the crew halls.

Crew members were literally preparing lifeboats, in case the captain ordered us to abandon ship. In the end, they learned that the alarm had only sounded in crew areas, while passengers slept soundly in their cabins, completely oblivious. As it turns out, someone on the bridge forgot to silence a silly alarm, which resulted in the alarm going off by accident. Reddit user: bestbet33

Earthquake

I was on cruise about 12 years ago as a crew member, and we were off the coast of Mexico. We had just left a port, when all of a sudden the ship started to shake really intensely. Things started falling off shelves, and glasses were breaking. It was really scary; we thought we’d hit a reef, or something like that.

The next day, the captain announced over the PA that we’d gone over the epicenter of an earthquake with a magnitude of 8. For those who don’t know, 8 is an extremely intense earthquake. We later learned that the port we’d just left was completely destroyed. It’s a good thing we were on the boat rather than on land. Reddit user: clairebelle67

Explosion

One time when I was working on a cruise ship, our engine room had an explosion. We were prepared for a possible “abandon ship” signal. They didn’t tell most of the crew what’d happened. I only knew about it because I was close by at the time of the incident. The ship just stopped in the middle of the ocean.

Then we were told that we were heading to a port, but they didn’t reveal any information about why. It was very hush hush. To this day, only a select few from that ship know what really happened. And I’m absolutely positive none of the passengers on the cruise were ever told anything. They probably weren’t even informed we were going to a port. Reddit user: [redacted]

Stowaway

I used to work as a photographer on a cruise ship. A few days into one of the trips to Mexico, we got word there was a stowaway that had somehow made it for days before being seen. Someone reported a guy acting weird in a bar, but security couldn’t figure out who he was, based on their passenger lists and photos.

The stowaway turned out to be a very good looking younger guy who found larger groups of attractive people, and would mingle in with them so that he looked like he belonged. They had no idea how he ever got on the ship. In the end, when he was caught, they had to give him a room because they couldn’t just drop him in Mexico illegally. Apparently, they paid him to keep his mouth shut. Reddit user: christophersonne

Iceberg

I was on a ship that was planning to make several stops in Greenland. But at one of the ports, while we were anchored, an iceberg hit the ship. This created a major hole. The hole was in a crew cabin, and they tried to stop the leak with lots of concrete. The captain told the passengers that due to the weather, we wouldn’t stop in Greenland anymore and, instead, head to Iceland.

The ship set off as fast as possible for Reykjavik. The crew was told to maintain the “bad weather” ruse. At the port in Iceland, 20 scary hours later, the underwater welder showed up. We weren’t certain if he could fix it. If he couldn’t, we’d all have to go home. The next day it was fixed, the cruise went on, and the passengers were none the wiser. Reddit user: Nonogadget

Mechanical Mishap

One time, a sensor built into the stuffing box—the part of the boat where the propeller shaft pokes from inside the boat, out into the water—popped off. Everybody was at a loss, including the captain, until one deckhand who was ex-Navy, slogged into the freezing cold water, picked up the sensor, and somehow managed to get it reattached.

None of the passengers seemed to notice that the boat was sitting visibly lower in the water because of this little mishap, but the dockside personnel were well aware of it. We just kept quiet and made sure to stay very calm, so that no one would suspect anything. The captain never made any kind of announcement. In fact, he did many more appearances during the rest of the cruise. Reddit user: goes_bump_inthenight

Hit A Rock

I was working on one ship that hit a massive rock. No one knew it’d happened, except the officers. We took on water, but not enough to stop the cruise, so we didn’t tell everyone as we knew they’d just get freaked out. We sailed into our last port in Alaska, which is when the captain decided to inform the crew.

New passengers were supposed to join the cruise at various ports, but they were all turned away. We spent two weeks slowly cruising to Freeport, Bahamas, to get all fixed up. We moved incredibly slowly, but I guess when you’re a passenger, and aren’t used to what it feels like to be on a cruise, it can be easy to not realize how slowly you’re going. Reddit user: radical33

Storm

I worked on a cruise ship during a particularly rough storm. We left that area early to try and beat the storm back to port. To make a long story short, we didn’t beat it. We got caught in huge 30 to 50 foot swells. Some dishes broke, and water managed to get up onto the deck, but other than that, no alarms were raised.

The next day however, we all went to breakfast, and noticed the dining hall was unbearably hot. For some reason, the AC wasn’t operating in the crew areas. After a few weeks, the truth spread that, during the storm, water from the pool had leaked down the elevator shaft and caused a fire in the AC room. No one was told, because they didn’t want to scare the passengers anymore. Reddit user: Liarliarlanceonfire

Kettle Accident

I was working on a cruise ship for a while. One of the crew members managed to smuggle on a Dollar Store tea kettle that didn’t have an automatic OFF switch, once the water was boiled. I didn’t even know that there were kettles that didn’t turn off when the water was boiled, but apparently this was one that didn’t.

One night , he’d turned it on when he was drunk, fell asleep, the kettle boiled dry, and then exploded and caught his whole room on fire. Security got there in enough time to save him from breathing in all the smoke. He was pulled out, and they managed to extinguish the fire. He must have been super-embarrassed when he woke up. Reddit user: [redacted]

Propeller Malfunction

I worked on cruise ships for about a year. On one cruise we had very rough seas, and they cancelled several port calls. The passengers were furious, but all the crew members just exchanged sidelong glances, knowing that something must’ve been really messed up for the officers to be willing to do something that they knew would upset passengers that much.

Several days later, I found out through the grapevine that three of the four propellers had malfunctioned, and we were pretty much a stiff breeze away from being dead in the water. I now completely understand why they decided to just play it off like it wasn’t a big deal. Knowing what’d happened would’ve made the passengers even more insane. Reddit user: [redacted]