Renee Langton recently cruised with P&O for the first time in five years, and while she left singing the praises of the ship and its amenities, she couldn’t help but notice one change. Langton felt that attitudes of cruisers had dramatically switched since she last stepped on a ship.
At one stage she was even being brought to tears.
Langton wrote on a P&O Facebook group: “I cannot overstate how much cruise culture and attitude amongst guests has changed since my multiple P&O cruises over 5 years ago. The amount of dirty looks and stares I got around the ship, the amount of times we got told off for singing along during shows or talking in bars, which even brought me to tears one night. And the amount of complaining and entitlement around the ship was baffling.
“We witnessed multiple arguments and fights amongst guests which I’ve never seen once on my 5 previous cruises. I am strongly considering not cruising again purely because of how little fun people were willing to have and how nasty some people were.”
Fights in the pantry
Cruiser Horstman agreed on the bad attitudes of cruisers, having cruised on Pacific Explorer recently.
“There were so many people pushing in front of people inline for food and without regard for others. I saw quite a few fights in the pantry over this, there is plenty of food and no need for this.
“Also we experienced waiting for lifts and people closing the door when you’re clearly trying to get in a near-empty lift!”
Cruiser Eliza Kay also had interactions with other cruisers that lead to tears.
“I was reduced to tears one morning because of rude entitled passengers. Another day I spoke up for myself as a rude older couple barged past us in the marquee and then complained that we didn’t move. I couldn’t help myself and commented ‘a simple excuse me and we would gladly have stood (aside) for you’, and that did not go down well.”
But it’s not just P&O or Australians.
Lucy Southerton, 28-year-old cruise ship worker who has sailed on Royal Caribbean and Virgin, was shocked to watch passengers walk around the ship barefoot, for the entirety of their holiday.
She said those who dare to bare their tootsies will be “made fun of” by the crew members for being dirty.
She told The Daily Star: “Crew members generally make fun of passengers who deem it acceptable to walk around the cruise ship with no shoes on. They will weave in and out of shops with no shoes on they will even think it appropriate to go to the theatre with no shoes on because technically they are indoors.”
Treatment of children
Earlier this year Cruise Passenger reported that parents of children on Royal Caribbean ships were unhappy with passengers being rude to their children. It lead to much debate on the treatment of kids on cruises and whether the blame falls on entitled passengers or lacklustre parenting.
Many Royal Caribbean passengers shared stories of how they felt upset or uncomfortable with how other cruisers acted towards their children.
According to cruiser Nita Crawford, these issues are present in P&O ships as well.
“On our recent cruise people were pointing and carrying on at my daughter’s choice of clothes. It was obvious spite.
“Another night a drunk abused us. His mate came over to us and apologised and said he’d been like it with lots of people. I spent more time than not in my cabin trying to avoid the entitled fools.”
Cruise mattresses on balconies?
Cruise Passenger reported on a new cruise trend where cruise passengers are taking their mattresses onto their balconies.
Cruise Passenger readers were shocked at the behaviour, writing comments such as: “That’s ridiculous. Go with Virgin, every balcony has a hammock!”, and “Tried that on a carnival ship. A big no-no had to bring it in.”
It’s become a significant debate amongst the cruise community, as to whether its a fun cruise hack, or actually entitled behaviour that damages the mattress supplied by the cruise line.
One cruiser wrote: “I’ve heard of people doing this [and] it is a bad idea.
“It rains out there. It gets wet out there. The furniture that cruise lines put on their balconies is not the same type of furniture that they put inside the cabin.”
Another wrote: “You will [regret it] when your mattress is covered in salt and moist from the humid air and I bet the cruise company don’t like that much either for those reasons.”
Cruise ship jails
A cruise-related TikTok caught headlines recently after cruiser Theresa Rowley revealed that an incident she had onboard nearly landed her in “cruise ship jail”.
Rowley ended up in an altercation with a woman she claims was being rude to her mother. She posted on TikTok that she faced the prospect of going to the “brig”, a cruise ship version of prison.
Emma Le Teace, owner of the website Emma Cruises, wrote on her blog explaining how the brig works.
“The onboard jails are small and used as a place to hold guests suspected of breaking the law or those who are acting dangerously or recklessly.
“It isn’t the intention of the cruise line to keep guests here for any great period of time.”
An act of recklessness could force a cruiser to stay in their cabin under guard. If the act is particularly heinous, they may even end up in the brig.
What’s you view about the attitudes of cruisers? Leave a comment
I do blame the cruise staff for not taking control of scantily clad women in meal areas, kids running around after hours or riding elevators all day ( they do have cctv to see this stuff) . That said I have noticed that many parents abrogating all responsibility for their kids once the cross the gangway!
If the crew do not stand up to this poor behaviour then they will lose their regular passengers and end up with nothing but cheap pub louts!
Also, I agree that food on P&O has worse.
Standards have gone way down on P&O i feel. No dress code at all. Going to a restaurant in singlets and shorts or even bathers. Children run riot. Pressing every button in lifts is a favourite game. Parents are too busy drinking 24/7 to care where their kids are. We spent last cruise in our cabin, just going out for meals.
Standards have certainly dropped. In June, we do our 19th cruise since 2011 and things have changed!
But this has NOTHING to do with cruise lines; it has to do with attitudes. Go anywhere on land (a restaurant or your local supermarket) and you’ll see the same things: People shopping in their pyjamas, entitled attitudes, bad manners, disrespect, unruly kids . . .
It’s a shame that people bag out cruises when the same behaviour is happening everywhere.
I agree with your comments bad behaviour is on the rise. The 3 to 4 nights cruises seem to be the worst for bad behavour. Why can’t staff on the ship say something to passengers when they are behaving badly.I choose longer cruises with Princess or Cunard.
When travelling on a P+O Cruise some years ago my friend and I experienced very bad behaviour from a retired man who was travelling with his wife.
He felt superior enough on the first night of meeting at the dinner table which comprised of eight guests to have a go on a range of issues in the belief that he knew best.
His initial comment was what are you doing on here. You are far too young to be travelling. As women in our fifties he was completely out of order and extremely rude.
We successfully avoided this pompous individual for the remainder of the cruise.
We were also shocked by how many people who got off the ship at each stop only to sit drinking in the nearest bars alongside the ship until it was time to get back on.
As someone who has thus far travelled on about thirty cruises, I will never ever travel on another P+O Cruise again.
Couldn’t agree more with some of the comments above. On a recent five day cruise Melbourne to Hobart return, I felt embarrassed for the crew with unruly, rude passengers. Singlets, shorts, bikini tops, thongs was the main dress code, even in the dining areas. It’s not as though the cruise was in the tropics and it was hot, it was quite cool with rain in Hobart during the two night stop over. The sense of entitlement to join tables and chairs leaving other diners no place to dine was a common occurrence, the crew did nothing about it. Kids running around with drinks and food meant spillage on the floor. Tried the Pantry twice, didn’t go back. Bare feet on cushions, changing kids nappies in the Ocean Bar area was a case of ‘what the’. Would I sail on this particular ship again – no.
She needs to find a better cruise line, something like Celebrity where I have never seen nor heard of any behaviour like that.
I wouldn’t go on another p&o cruise ship, we’ve been on a number of there cruises but have noticed that the standards have dropped. There doesn’t seem to be any dress code in restaurants and I’ve seen people in shorts singlets and jandals. The food quality has dropped substantially. We would Much rather pay more for a good holiday. In my opinion the pacific explorer is an old ship which should be decommissioned and I guess that’s why they offer cheap cruises that all people can afford and that in itself is a problem because you end up getting trouble makers on board and the security isn’t adequate
We commenced our cruising back on the Russian and Italian ships so we feel we can comment on the changes overthe years.
I agree things have changed and, unfortunately, not for the benefit of passengers.
Having said that it is the passengers causing the problems. We have heard parents get offensive because their child was reprimanded for racing through an “adult only” area
bumping into elderly passengers.
Since ships now allow motorised buggies it is bedlam on the larger ships.
Watch your toes particularly around,and in,the lifts.
Iam not being racist when I say the Asian passengers are the worst at pushing and shoving. Probably because they live in such highly populated areas so that is their way of life.
We have just returned from a cruise on the Coral Princess,a small ship,with a majority of senior passengers and it was the most enjoyable cruise since our world trip on the Emglish P&O Oriana. Unfortunately the “Coral” is leaving Australian shores permanently so there goes a great seniors ship.
Certainly is. We were on another cruise line recently where the band was playing Living next door to Alice. The chorus from the crowd was ‘who the f*** was alice’. This went on for several minutes before action was taken. I was appalled.
Having cruised multiple times over the years I agree that unfortunately there are now too many rude entitled people and uncontrolled, rude children who run amongst other passengers yell, throw balls and generally make it unpleasant for others. I saw an elderly lady knocked over near her cabin one afternoon by 2 young kids who were running up and down the passageway.
Many of us who are now ‘child free’ do not want to have other people’s kids ruining our cruising experiences