Cruise Ship Crew Romance: Dating on a Cruise Ship

Romance at sea. Watching the sun set over the ocean. The band lightly playing in the background as you watch the sky turn from blue to gold and into stars and shimmering moonlight. It’s a formal night and you are both dressed up. You just came from dinner where you had escargot and lobster. You are drinking a glass of champagne. You’re about to go see a show. Cruise ship romance is oh so romantic. Do cruise ship employees hook up? Do cruise ship crew date? Can cruise ship crew and passengers date? Fall in love and get married? What is it like dating on a cruise ship? All of that and more!

*Disclosure: All views are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.*

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It may sound incredible to fall in love on a cruise ship. It was portrayed on the aptly named The Love Boat, in the Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon classic Out To Sea, and on reality shows like Below Deck. None of these portrayal’s are quite the reality I experienced. (Although Below Deck might be the closest).

I would like to say it’s all a bit more normal than any of that, but it’s anything but normal. Today we are going to dive into what dating is like as a crew member on a cruise ship and what cruise ship crew romance is really like. The below synopsis is based on both my personal experience, my friends experiences, and my observations over the years.

Some Truths about Cruise Ship Romances:

• Passengers and crew aren’t allowed to date. And cruise employees aren’t allowed to hook up with passengers. Sorry, Doc from The Love Boat, you would have been fired many, many times. Seriously, this is not worth getting fired over.
• The crew gossip a lot, mostly about each other.
• Some people might be married and say they aren’t. They will literally have a separate life onboard and at home.
• “Stripe chasers” is a term used for primarily women that are after officers with the most stripes (meaning higher ranking) that they can find. They do this figuring they will get to stay in a bigger cabin and later in life not have to work and get to live the life of luxury. This entire concept is a post for another day because I have a lot of opinions on the subject. Here’s a look to better understand what cruise ship officer stripes mean.
• Pick-up lines aren’t any better when said by someone with an accent. They’re still terrible.

So… Do Cruise Employees Hook Up With Passengers?

I just said it’s against the rules… but does it ever happen?

The short answer is yes. A quick search online will show you all sorts of stories of employees hooking up with passengers. The natural follow up question to this would be – well, how often? How often would be hard to quantify as it’s not commonly discussed.

But, if you are a crew member going to work onboard, don’t do it. If you get caught you will most likely get fired. There are plenty of crew to meet, so head to the crew bar and get your flirt on!

How Does a Cruise Ship Romance Start? How Do You Meet?

Meeting someone is kind of like meeting someone anywhere. You have your bubble of people that you know. And then one day you randomly meet someone in the elevator, or end up sitting with them at lunch when there weren’t any other empty seats.

Maybe you meet at a crew party or like so many great cruise ship romances – you meet in the crew bar (personally guilty as charged with this one). You make googly eyes at each other. You have reviewed the aforementioned truths. It’s decided that neither party is a passenger nor married, no one is a stripe chaser, and they haven’t used a terrible pick up line. And, the lines are quite terrible: “if you come back with me you can sleep in a proper sized bed.” (Officer cabins typically have larger beds. Side note: I saw someone try that pick up line, it didn’t work.)

Cruise Ship Crew Gossip A Lot

Cruise ship gossip can be vicious. Some ships are worse for this than others and others are pretty tame. On a gossipy ship a rumor can start from something as simple as a door shutting in a hallway at an odd time or if you were seen getting out of an elevator together.

If you find yourself in the chaos of cruise ship gossip, the best you can do is ignore it. When you first start to make googly eyes with someone the easiest option is to try to play it cool to avoid being a rumor at all. Otherwise it’s like having to be “Facebook Official” (oof, I just dated myself) after meeting for coffee once.

There are a few ways to avoid the gossip and drama all related to keeping things on the down-low. You make sure you don’t leave the bar together, instead using the “5 minute rule” (one person leaves, the other waits 5 minutes and then leaves). Only thing is everyone knows the 5 minute rule, so best to make it ten.

If you want to go ashore together you meet somewhere instead of leaving the ship together to avoid the prying eyes of the officers on the bridge (they are the biggest gossips!) and the security guards on the gangway.

If you keep your ear open you start to figure out who the people that really spread the gossip and rumors are. Over time you learn to avoid them. At some point you realize you’re not avoiding them to stay out of rumors but instead simply because they are toxic people – and you don’t care about the rumors at all.

Do Cruise Ship Employees Hookup? Is It the Hookup Culture that Some Shows Would Have You Think?

No…and yes? It depends on who you are and what you are looking for. But, do cruise ship employees hookup? Absolutely. Is it the hookup culture that it’s known for? If you want it to be, it certainly could be. A whole lot of people traveling to exotic locations around the world? What part of it would not lead to a hookup culture?

It can get a bit complicated and love triangles are a thing. Like very much a thing. It’s much more fun to be on the sidelines and watch it all happen but I’ve ridden in some elevators that had some uncomfortable sexual tension and romantic history. There are so many stories of cruise ship employees hooking up it’s not even funny. Let’s grab drinks sometime and I could tell you some stories (but then wouldn’t that make me no better than the gossips?)

Biggest piece of overall advice is to have some sort of idea what you’re looking for in a relationship or a love connection. Are you looking for a cruise ship romance (and maybe a forever kind of person), or are you looking for something short term? Figure out what you want and then communicate and talk about it.

Also, condoms are free from the medical department. Have fun and you do you but be smart. Want to know about being pregnant on a cruise ship? I’ve done that, too.

Cruise Ship Dating Can Be A Lot of Togetherness…

Say you’ve found that person that you actually are interested in and want to date. Once you’re ready to be “ship official” cruise ship dating is super weird. Either you are on a work schedule where you see each other literally all the time, or you’re on completely opposite work schedules and hardly ever see each other.

If you have work schedules that line up you are susceptible to the cruise ship dating paradox: one week = one month, one month = one year. The reason for this is that in one week you might eat lunch with them three times, dinner four, drinks six times, go see a show, and have a formal evening at a fancy steak house. In between all that then go somewhere incredible – nothing like being able to go on dates in places like Bora Bora, Honolulu, Sydney, Puerto Vallarta, Bali, etc to move the romance along.

It is easy to fit the equivalent of 16 dates into one week, more if you really wanted to. Cruise ship romance can be a lot of togetherness. This can also either make you really like each other, really hate each other, or give you a completely false idea of what a real long term relationship with that person will be like.

Or, Your Schedules Don’t Line Up At All

If you’re on very different work schedules it can be staying up late or waking up early to try to see them. It can be a lot of effort to see them at all. If they’re on the night shift and you’re on the day shift it can be even more challenging. Those times you will basically get to spend lunch together and that’s about it. Either that or you might find yourself napping constantly to try to make up for the missed sleep of trying to see each other.

Usually these cruise ship crew romances fall into three (well, sort of four) categories:

You find that all the togetherness doesn’t bother you. It’s exciting, it’s fun. You live and work in the same little floating world and everything seems fabulous. But, what happens when one of you is scheduled to go home? On a ship there are people coming and going constantly, and from countries all around the world.

When someone goes home you can find yourself getting into the “big relationship questions” very early in a relationship. It’s always great to have to decide to either commit to someone long term or break up entirely within a few weeks of going out, right?

Sub-Category: Sometimes It Isn’t a Match or It’s Just a Hookup – Don’t Read Too Much Into It

Dating on a cruise ship is not so different then dating on land. Sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t. Cruise ship romance is sometimes not romance at all. Sometimes you think you’re into someone and then when you hang out a bit and realize that even though you leave in one week you’d rather not spend your time with them.

Or maybe you’re super attracted to them and…that’s it. That’s all there is to the relationship is attraction. And, much like on land, (although it is so much harder to not see them!), it’s best to let it go. It wasn’t meant to be – it’s time to move on.

Cruise Ship Relationship Category I: ‘Til Gangway Do Us Part”

You agree that the relationship won’t go any further than that contract. Once one of you leaves the ship or goes across the gangway, you are done. You keep the memories. One of you goes home. The other is still onboard… for most likely another onboard romance. C’est la vie. So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye…

Cruise Ship Relationship Category II: Long Distance

Possibly with the “promise” of seeing each other on land, but not sure you’ll do your next contract together. I’ve seen this either result in a slow fizzling out of a relationship or turn into marriage and everything in between. You find out just how much they likely by whether or not they’ll fly around the world for you. And, I would walk 500 miles…

Cruise Ship Relationship Category III: Big Life Commitments After Not Much Time Together, AKA – Line Up Your Next Contracts Together

This is the big one. If you line your next contracts up together and break up before hand you are stuck on the ship with your ex. If you don’t line them up and stay together you end up on different ships and facing a very challenging long distance situation. Such massive pressure so early in a relationship. ‘Cause I want it all, or nothing at all…

The first option is fairly self-explanatory. The second option can go a few ways. Let’s say you go with that last option. You fly to see each other and you line up your next contracts together and things start to get serious. So, what’s next? Take a look at Living Together on a Cruise Ship to find out!

Cruise Ship Romance Can Be Great

Finding love at sea can be great and certainly a ton of fun. It’s not as simple as it is made out to be in the movies and can definitely be as messy and complicated as portrayed on some shows like Below Deck.

But, would we have it any other way?

Want to know what happens when things get serious? Take a look at other posts about cruise ship romance:

Cruise ship crew romance is taken to new levels when you live together onboard. Small spaces and literally being stuck on a boat = getting to know your partner in new (and oh-so-fun) ways.

Don’t let the haters fool you, cruise ship dating can lead to happily ever after. There are tons of happy couples that met onboard. While it’s great it’s still not quite as simple as a fairytale…