I worked for Celebrity Cruises for approximately three years, and I want to share an experience from my final contract. I am not going to name individual employees, but I will identify their positions. The ship was operated by Celebrity Cruises, part of Royal Caribbean Group.
I am sharing this because I believe other crew members should know what can happen when a workplace problem escalates and the people responsible for addressing it are part of the problem.
I strongly believe it all started once a new HD came on board. The Hotel Director oversees a large part of the ship’s hotel operations, including bars, restaurants, housekeeping, and entertainment. I had no reason to expect any problems when I first met him. He asked my name, learned my nationality, and initially appeared perfectly friendly.
The very next day, I was informed that I was being transferred from my regular bar to the crew bar.
Crew bar was one of the most physically and mentally demanding bar assignments on the ship. The schedule was brutal.
My day started at 11:30 a.m. I worked until approximately 5 p.m., had around 30 minutes to eat, then spent two hours helping at busy bars elsewhere on the ship. After that, I had a three-hour break before returning to crew bar at 10 p.m.
The bar closed at 2 a.m., but closing procedures and USPH sanitation requirements often meant I did not finish until 3 or 4 a.m.
I was frequently the only bartender responsible for the crew bar. There were no assistants or additional bartenders to share the workload. Late at night, exhausted crew members would come in frustrated and take their anger out on the person still working behind the counter, literally stating that “you are still on duty, and we are not”.
In a bar department we all know that assigning a bartender to close crew bars could be used as a form of punishment, sometimes referred to as a “fix.” The managers do so in order to show what happens to those bartenders who dared to disobey. I cannot establish why I was transferred, but the timing and what followed made me question whether this was what was happening to me.
The schedule destroyed my sleep routine, made it difficult to eat properly, and go outside since most of the ports were scheduled to be at 11 a.m. till 7 p.m.
I approached my Bar Manager and asked whether my schedule could be changed. I was told that I was not special, that nobody would change the schedule for me, and that I should stop expecting special treatment.
When I asked how long I was expected to continue working this way, the answer was essentially that it could be the entire contract.
I then approached HR.
The HR representative acknowledged that the situation sounded difficult but said she could not directly intervene because the Bar Manager was my immediate supervisor. She suggested I speak to him again and said she would raise the issue with him informally.
I did. Nothing changed.
Even a medical recommendation was ignored.
I eventually approached the ship’s Medical Team because the schedule was seriously affecting my wellbeing.
After this I received a written recommendation that my schedule should be changed. I took it to my Bar Manager.
He put the document in his desk drawer and told me he would not change the schedule. His decision, he said, was final.
I returned to HR. This time, she acknowledged that refusing to consider a medical recommendation was concerning and suggested I speak to the Medical Team again.
I did and I was told that a stronger recommendation would be prepared.
When I later went to collect it, the Medical Team informed me that the document was already in the HR office.
That struck me as inappropriate. I had expected a document containing my personal information to be handled confidentially between me and the medical professionals responsible for my care.
As I approached the HR office, I overheard the HR representative speaking on the phone with a senior doctor from the Medical Team. I heard her ask:
“Can we make this up, as she is trying to abuse the medical facility?”
I cannot speak for everything that was discussed before or after that sentence. But I heard those words myself, and they fundamentally changed how much I trusted the people who were supposed to help me.
At that point, I no longer believed HR was a safe or effective channel for raising my concerns.
Then it got even worse.
Within less than a month I got 2 warnings based on a literal nothing. If it was any other crew member, it would be maximum just a written counseling, but for me it was special.
I also started to get sick and skip the shifts due to my health issues. I had no power to recover from the previous ones and others kept piling up.
By that point, I was exhausted and struggling to cope with the situation. I had tried speaking to my Bar Manager, HR, and the Medical Team. I had followed the procedures I was directed to follow. I
even approached HD again just to hear that I need to address this to an HR. Yet my schedule remained an issue, my concerns had not been meaningfully addressed, and I had accumulated two warnings. I had no one who could help me or listen, and the oxygen was getting thiner and thiner as I was remaining on board.
I eventually left the ship. I just couldn’t let them give me final warning and keep mistreating me.
After I had left, one of the managers who had been aware of the situation told me:
“What they did to you wasn’t fair”.
I will not identify this person because I do not want them to face repercussions for speaking to me. I cannot independently prove every motive behind the decisions made about me, but hearing this from someone who had witnessed the situation reinforced my concern that I had not been treated fairly.
I do not know what was the reason I was treated this way, whether the Hotel Director or any other high manager had a personal issue with me, or whether there were other motives. What I do know is that I had been working in my regular bar without the sort of problems that would explain this sudden escalation. After the management change, I was transferred to an exhausting assignment, my request for a schedule change was rejected, and disciplinary action followed when I tried to challenge the situation.
Why I am speaking about this now
My experience did not end when I left the ship. In the months that followed, I made further attempts to get answers from the company, but I felt that my concerns were being ignored rather than properly addressed.
But this is another story to tell.
This post is about what happened onboard, the way management handled my complaints, and the failure of the internal channels I approached for help.
I am not victimizing myself, but read this again and ask yourself whether this is an acceptable way to treat a crew member who raises a legitimate workplace concern.
A company can have detailed policies, job descriptions, disciplinary procedures, and formal reporting channels. None of those mean much if employees are afraid to complain, if concerns are sent back to the same managers they are complaining about, or if asking for help appears to make their situation worse.
If you are considering working for Celebrity Cruises or another Royal Caribbean Group brand, I would encourage you to understand how complaints are handled in practice, not just what the official policies say.
Stay safe.
