You finish your pasta at the main dining room, so you stack the plates into a neat little tower to spare the waiter the trouble. Back in the cabin, you hang the damp bath towels on the hooks so the bathroom looks tidy. Both moves feel like plain good manners. And according to a cruise creator who has talked with crew members, both can leave the staff worse off.
Ilana of Life Well Cruised opens her video with that very idea: the worst part is that most guests think they are doing the crew a favor. Her audience, she says, is the nice passenger who means well. Her list runs to 15 etiquette slip-ups, and she says some of them make crew work harder and even land them in hot water with a supervisor.
The helpful habits that backfire
Take the dishes first. Ilana says she has heard, including from crew members who talk about it on social media, that when a guest starts clearing their own table, a waiter who was already carrying food to someone else may feel they must drop everything and rush over. The reason, she explains, is that supervisors may look over and assume the server is not keeping up. The guest meant to lighten the load, and instead the waiter feels watched. She adds that waiters on land are not fans of this either.
Then there are the towels. If you hang a wet towel on the rack, that is a perfectly fine way to say you want to reuse it. But some passengers hang them up just to neaten the bathroom, and the cabin attendant reads it as “no new towels, please.” If you later ask guest services why they were not changed, that creates extra work for the attendant and can cause trouble for them.
Along the same lines, she says to think twice before declining a cabin cleaning and then asking for small things all day long. It is usually easier for the attendant to do one full visit, replacing towels, filling the ice bucket and handling the rest at once. Stripping your own bed is another one. Attendants have set days and their own methods, and at the end of a sailing they may need to count linens, towels and robes.
A few more things crew would rather you skip
- Homemade treats. Ilana says that on the cruise lines she knows about, crew are not allowed to accept homemade food from guests. She mentions hearing years ago of crew becoming ill from food guests brought, which matters because a sick crew member cannot work and has to report it. If you want to give a gift, she says to make it prepackaged and sealed.
- Handing over trash. Just as on an airplane, a server in the middle of pouring drinks is not the moment to hand over a finished glass. Wait until they are done and ask.
- Personal questions. Asking about salary, relationship status or who the crew member’s “work husband” or “work wife” might be crosses a line. So does asking what they think of tipping, since they are standing in their workplace.
- Friendly gestures that go too far. She says crew members are not allowed to fraternize with guests in an overly friendly way and can even be fired, so flirting is best avoided. A warm, mutual goodbye hug at the end of a cruise is a different matter.
- Chatting in port. A crew member walking around a port is on personal time off. A quick hello is lovely, but they may not feel they can say they would rather not stop.
- Pointing a camera without asking. Some crew like having their photo taken, especially with their name tag, since it helps you remember them on the comment card. Others prefer not to, so ask first.
- Grabbing their load. Offering to carry something is kind, but there may be safety or liability reasons they have to handle it themselves.
Know your ship’s room service rules
Not every line works the same way. Ilana gives Carnival as an example of a line that asks guests to put room service trays in the hallway, where crew come by regularly to pick them up. Other lines leave a note on the tray with a number to call, and others would rather the cabin attendant take it away during cleaning or turndown. A quick look at the card in your cabin, or a call to guest services on day one, saves everyone a headache.
About those towel animals
This is the one she says may be controversial. If you do not want a towel animal, she says it is fine to politely say no thank you. What she would not do is complain about it. In her conversations, crew members have told her they are proud of them, have the process down to about 40 seconds, and love seeing the smile on a guest’s face. Little moments like that are part of what makes the job meaningful for them.
Who gets a tip, and who does not
She also touches on tipping. Her rule of thumb is that anyone who works in service gets tipped, but officers do not, so skip trying to tip the captain. If you are not sure how your cruise line handles gratuities, read the booking terms before you sail so you are not caught guessing at the end of the week.
The simple rule of thumb
If you remember just one thing, let it be this. When you want to say thank you, a kind word, a good survey comment with the person’s name, and a little patience go further than doing their job for them. Let the crew do the clearing, the changing and the carrying. Ask if you are unsure what your ship prefers. And if you have been guilty of a few of these, do not worry. By Ilana’s account the intentions are almost always good. It is simply worth knowing how it looks from the other side of the tray.
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