"That's not a lie! It's a terminological inexactitude...also a tactical misrepresentation." Alexander Haig

I found an interesting cruise related site. I am not certain if I like it, or if I want to give it my support. What I do know is the webmaster running it is working long hours and is certainly dedicated. I can appreciate that. I also find the whole website terribly amusing because I work in the industry it reports on.

It seems to me you tend to find two kinds of cruise related website or blogs these days; either they are preaching the glories of cruising and how amazing and wonderful ALL cruise lines are with a site or blog laden with advertisements cruise deals and so many special offers you find it hard to navigate (all geared to make the owner money of course). Or you find a website or blog determined to expose the cruise industry as a demonic industry governed by the Dark Lord himself, ALSO heavily loaded with advertisements.

This frustrates me because being a member of the cruise industry I know the truth, and the truth is that like everything in the world there is good and bad to be found. Yes the crew work long hours, yes there can be discrimination onboard, yes citizens of some countries have longer contracts and etc. There are very reasonable explanations for all of this.

The website I came across however is decidedly one sided. The site reports exclusively on the bad things that happen at sea. It tells of missing people, murders at sea, accidents, dangers, bad crew, discrimination, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together – MASS HYSTERIA! (Yes that’s a quote from Ghostbusters)

On the one hand, I find this one sided reporting of the industry to be EXTREMELY amusing! Then on the other hand I find it very disappointing for being so single minded and narrow focused and at times even unfair. Yes I know that what is said on this website could at times be true. I have been crew purser, I have been logistics, I have been on the admin side of things. In fact many of the ATROCITIES at sea reported on this site have to do with P&O Australia. I have worked for P&O Australia and I know what is true and what is not. Still, deep inside I know that there is always more to be said.

Look at it this way; you could launch a similar site about anything. “True stories of COPS behind the scenes”, “True stories of what goes on at the HOTEL”, “True stories of the MORGUE!”, and etc and etc. It is often easy to find the entire negative in any individual venture. Then again looking at this site you see the amount of material posted is EXTREMELY limited considering the size of the cruise industry. In my opinion this points out that on the whole the industry is good. After all how many cruise ship employees are working at sea right now? I don’t know for certain but the figure is in the area of two hundred thousand or more not counting those on leave yet the crew complaints listed are numbering in the 2 digit range. This must indicate something right?

Like I said I know firsthand that many of the things reported on this site can happen. I have seen many of them happen myself. I think my point is that they are not ALL prevalent and do NOT dominate the industry. Some crew ENJOY the job and have a good time. Not all cruisers have problems.

So my bottom line is this; this website amused me, made me ponder the cruise industry and gave me pause to think... ALSO they have an EXCELLENT listing of video from crew video to rough sea to sinking ships. Based on that alone I think it is worthwhile for all cruise enthusiasts to take a look. HOWEVER, please use your common sense. Keep in mind SCALE! Just because it reports this or that, consider it against the size of the whole industry. Just because you see video evidence of ONE crew party do not judge all two hundred thousand crew over it. If things were as bleak as this website points out, we would be seeing these reports on CNN, FOX and MSNBC... Not just cruise bruise.

So visit, enjoy, learn a little, but keep your perspective.

A word of warning; this site reports news relating to crimes on cruise ships which may or may not be factually based and are very serious and often disturbing. I do not vouch for the accuracy nor support the claims of the web author. I just found the site interesting, even if overly one sided to the negative. What do you think?

www.cruisebruise.com
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