Most of our health and safety protocols unfold when no-one is watching, so let me tell you about them, I'm positive none of the other resorts you've stayed at even compare.
It might look like I'm showing off, but it's true that as a crew member, no matter your department, hygiene is a priority onboard. It's a topic no-one can oversee or avoid on board. Perhaps I am bragging actually, after all, I wouldn't want all the hard work of my ship mates and I to go unnoticed or underappreciated. We do it for all of us.
It's not even about the coronavirus.
Before this new contender came along, we've always been held under the microscope as "the perfect environment" for the spread of stuff like the norovirus (the one that makes you poop and puke, a lot). This type of contact viruses are so contagious they spread like wildfire, it's just that on land you could never trace the cases so they just spread outwards while on board they hang around, but at the end of the day, if you are not touching toilet lids, as I'd assume, the main cause of outbreaks is usually people not properly washing their hands after doing their business... and we touch our faces thousands of times per day, especially when we eat or smoke. And I can tell you one thing for sure, it's probably not the crew. Let's take a look into the industry's standard procedures, trainings and prevention plans.
Strict Rules & Training for the Crew
We are required to wash our hands thoroughly before even entering our dining halls. There are literally hand washing stations in the hall.
Passing next to a hand sanitizer stand triggers an automatic response in crew members to reach out and disinfect those hands, it's ingrained on us.
We take special mandatory courses on the ways viruses can spread.
We are constantly reminded we can get fired for vomiting or having diarrhea and not reporting it as soon as possible. Especially if we report sick to work or a common area.
We have full laid out plans in case of an outbreak we must know in detail.
We get internal and external inspections where we need to prove we know all about Health & Safety Procedures. We can get warnings or even fired for not knowing.
Especially if we are sailing from U.S. ports where we not only get Coast Guard Inspections but constant random U.S.P.H. inspections, that's US Public Health department, part of the lately much noted Center of Disease Control. You have to see this to believe me, Food & Beverage staff need to wipe down all spaces where food is being handled until they shine, I've seen attendants in all fours scraping soot off of the floor moldings. They then tape off anything our dirty hands can touch until it gets inspected and approved. We're judged on a very strict ranking an I've seen people as high ranking as executive chefs and F&B Managers being fired over failing these.
Crew Must Maintain Safe & Healthy Accommodations
Even our living quarters are inspected every fortnight for health and safety concerns. We are not allowed to keep food in our cabins and we must keep everything clean and report any mold or poor ventilation.
Isolation is a Common Practice
If a crew member or passenger falls sick with norovirus or the flu they are isolated and their roommates relocated temporarily, food will be delivered to them and they will be checked daily over the phone by the doctor. Finally, the cabin will be fogged to ensure no virus is present.
I have never seen crew members infecting each other, even when I myself had to relocate when my own roommates caught something I never got sick myself. Either thanks to the protocols or the fact that we do this so preemptively that sometimes the person with these symptoms doesn't even have an actual virus, since a cough or diarrhea and such can be caused by various other things. Better safe than sorry!
We are the last ones to want an outbreak
Yes, even after the cruisers that have paid maybe hundreds for their vacations and don't want to spend the rest of their holiday confined to their cabins with a guard outside. Why? Because it means a lot of extra work for all of us as we all have to assist in keeping a healthy environment, it' not only for the cleaning crew to handle. If a certain number of cases is reported in a cruise, we are required to disinfect all contact surfaces in our work areas like handles, counters, and elevators several times in an hour, with two different chemicals that we have to allow to dry in between. Tedious. And I'm just starting.
All this is part of our Outbreak Prevention Plan,
as we call it in Royal Caribbean.
Once the cruise is done, everyone gets sent home, but for us, if we had a few cases reported in any voyage, our floating home might be at risk, and the next passengers as well. We must perform a top to bottom sanitization of common areas, quite literally, we wipe down not only counters but even walls and anything in reach, we have fogging machines we use to spray down the theater and other venues. Which we will keep doing throughout the cruise between shows and at night. Everything on top of our 10-hour a day shifts.
Guests never get to see any of this of course since they are either gone off in port, asleep, or just got off the ship or didn't even board yet.
I haven't even got to the juicy bits yet, although probably a bad choice of words there. If we have confirmed and especially nasty cases, we have to fully disinfect said cabins, and boy, sometimes anybody can get called in for assistance. Like me! At least it earned me an Employee of the Month nomination!
I had to wear a full hazmat suit, masks, gloves, even foot covers, as we went down the infected hallways with my shipmates and a trolley full of supplies, we had to strip all linens and towels and place them in special bags, as well as take out the trash, we needed to change our protective gear room after room to avoid carrying the virus out, in some of these rooms there had been full families infected, who knows what sprayed where! With no special knowledge of housekeeping, that's how we spent half of our day, but alas none of us ever got sick!
Public Venue Incidents
In the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time
I make a special note to talk about that moment when a passenger vomits in a public area, bad luck for the crew member who is there at that time... I also had the pleasure of being the protagonist one time. In general it is because of a common cause such as drunkenness, a hangover or the classic seasickness. But as we said before, prevention is key, we have to stop the passenger and ask for their details so that the doctors can do the follow-up, the protocol indicates that they must report to the medical center and be under observation. But you can imagine that this is not a conversation that someone who is drunk or feeling sick wants to have with you. Besides, it doesn't matter where you were going or what you had to do, now it is your responsibility, in addition to containing the passenger, closing the area, stopping other passengers passing through you have to report it to cleaning and security. If you where headed to work you must report to the boss that you will be late, which sometimes is chaotic and if you were going to a break, goodbye break. The area is closed and a special team comes with their chemicals and special machines to take care of the hazard. But of course it happened to me in the middle of the entrance to a bar in the middle of a party, no matter how much I yelled or how many obstacles I tried to put up, I couldn't stop many people from stepping on the vomit of the lady who, in addition, escaped from the scene of the event as if it were nothing, unbelievable.
Whatever you do avoid throwing up over the open deck railings we have very strict "nothing goes overboard" policies, not even water we use to clean the decks can go into the ocean without being treated first.
Believe it or not, it can go even further!
It's like the story they tell kids to behave, if we have to go into Level 3 procedures... you'll see then! Sanitization has to be conducted every 15 minutes on all surfaces, can you imagine? The chemicals are not even dry and you are wiping it down again. Guests must be served at the buffet, this means extra crew needs to be scheduled to pitch in, so you might have a production cast dancer serving you soup and a shore excursion guide on a hazmat suit fogging someplace.
Now you see why we insist with so many hand sanitizer stations every two steps and beg you to wash your hands before eating, we are all on the same side here and we need you to do your part!
By this point I'm sure you realize some of these protocols are not too far off from what we might be needing to implement in times of coronavirus. We've got the buffet covered and the handwashing too, we take care of all the cleaning as well, just add social distance and masks.
All these rules are why it's not only the guests that might be reluctant to come back in the early stages, seafarers are having similar mixed feelings as well. >Read about crew return conditions & opinions.<
Back to my initial point, no other vacation venue undergoes such scrutiny with inspections towards its facilities and workers like cruise ships.
Travel Bubble Effect
No other holiday experience has the means to provide a completely airtight environment like on board a cruise ship, where everyone is tested and isolated, guests and workers alike, no coming and going through the whole trip; including regulated shore excursions like the ones MSC guests are required to partake right now if they want to get off the ship. Plus the availability of state of the art contact-less technology of wristbands that work as a payment method and as your room key card and apps that allow you to book shows, restaurants, excursions and even contact guest services without meeting anyone. Not to mention the recently announced Muster 2.0 initiative by Royal Caribean that will no longer need passengers to conglomerate at their muster stations for pre-departure safety drill, instead making emergency information available on smart TVs and on the App. > Read more about the return to cruising here. <
I hope you feel refreshed after all this squeaky clean talk and have a new appreciation for the "washy washy" boy or girl outside the buffet. Thank you for reading and for washing your hands!
Stay Curious!
Extra Photos: USA Today / Fox News / NBC News / Cruise Advice / Cruise Laws News / DFW Child / Let the Fun Begin
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