Cruise-line companies are building private Caribbean play zones

As long as customers are informed and locals are not ripped off it should be ok imo

I once worked for a Cruise Company for some months. I really am shocked at how naive I was back then, when I applied and worked there.

Back then I had no idea how bad this form of travel is for the environment, for the visited cities, for the people working below deck, and so on.

The people I worked with in the main office of the company were really energetic, loved their product, had a great time launching ship after ship (every year a new ship was launched). It was great working with people who loved what they were doing. Compared to other jobs I had till then. I was there when the new hyped prototype was being put into service. Quite an interesting time. We were allowed to test travel on the new ship. It was a cool experience.

From a purely hedonistic perspective. Yeah it felt nice sitting in the sauna, ten decks above see at 6am in the morning and looking out over the waves. It was purely relaxing.

But from a more conscious perspective it was doing everything I could to help destroy this world - and I was so abusing the lower deck people. The ones never being seen by guests. They work horrible shifts, are employed with contracts from the tax heaven states the ships are being registered in.

I was an employee of the same company - but I had massive employment protections and laws governing how long I work, what is considered overtime, and so on. The served me, made my bed, put coffee on my table. They prepared my food - but they were third or fourth class "citizens" on this ship.

I am ashamed looking at it nowadays.

A cruise ship always strikes me as being a slightly more upscale caravan holiday. You're stuck in a metal box with either a lot of old middle class people or a load of drunk lower class yobs. Only unlike a caravan you're stuck on it.

I really hope that these ships will get banned in the next 10 years.

First word, third world clash in the service industry is real but you should not react with emotion only.

What you need to consider is the opportunity cost for those workers. Opportunity cost = (return of best alternative not taken) - (return of a chosen option). If the work at cruise company is the best opportunity for the low paid Filipino worker, you should just be generally horrified how hard the life in third world is. 14-16 hours of hard work per day in a ship may be better than even harder lower paying work in some factory.

This is separate issue from pure exploitation and abuse where even the low wages are not paid on time, agreements are not kept and more work is assigned without extra compensation.