What do we do with the drunken sailor……

As many of you are aware, I used to work for one of the leading cruise lines as the duty free shop Manager over 12 years ago.  Now i can talk about this as i know the Captain in question is not working as a cruise ship Captain any more. Maybe this is why!!

As you maybe aware, cruise ships are cashless and all purchases go onto your seapass card.  This is the same for all crew. Crew do have a crew bar when they can relax below deck an this bar is normally very forward or very aft of the ship.  Crew are always liable to breathalyzer tests and if they are over the prescribed limit then they can be sacked, a little bit like drink driving.

I boarded my ship 10 years ago after my 4 week holiday.  I collected my on ship mobile and I was called by the Captain for a ‘meeting’ (this was only an hour after i had boarded to start my 6 months on board).  So I walked up to the captains quarters and he had a few ‘friends’ in his cabin who were not on the manifest.  Captain then said to me ‘this is how it goes’. ‘I will be having friends on board every now and then, I will call you with a list of alcoholic drinks i would like from duty free.  You will buy them using your staff discount, then you will deliver the alcohol to my quarters at night and i will give you the cash for the alcohol.’

So effectively i was supplying the Captain with booze and there was no papertrail to him.  Anyway a few years later I heard that a Captain of a ship which was currently in Alaskan waters was breathalized by US Coastguard randomly and was found to be over the limit. Needless to say there were no underhanded alcoholic transactions after this.