Cruise ship workers have opened up about some of the most challenging passengers they’ve had to handle during their shifts.
As with most roles, life at sea has its upsides and its frustrations.
The biggest perk is obvious: the job can take you around the world, even if your own downtime has to be squeezed in around long hours and busy schedules.
Still, there are trade-offs. Crew accommodation isn’t exactly designed for luxury, and for many staff members that can mean tight spaces and limited natural light.
On top of that, a huge number of shipboard jobs involve dealing with the public all day long.
That brings the same pressures as any customer-facing service role—except on a cruise, you can’t simply clock off and never see a difficult guest again. You may be sharing the same ship with them for the entire trip.
With that in mind, cruise employees have been sharing stories about the passengers who tested their patience the most.
In a Reddit thread, people who have worked on cruise ships described the kinds of interactions that can turn an ordinary shift into a long day.
One crew member remembered a guest who seemed committed to finding fault with everything around her, particularly in the buffet.
They wrote: “I ran into a woman a few times in the buffet who complained about EVERYTHING.
“I could just feel the misery coming off her and she wanted everyone to know how displeased she was with everything that was offered to her.”
Another worker shared a story about a passenger who caused a scene over waiting times, insisting she’d been overlooked for 20 minutes—despite having been seated for only 15.
They recalled: “She received her soup and felt it was ‘too cold’ she had the soup no more than three minutes when she gets up and starts screaming verging on crying for attention it was quite the show.”
For someone else, however, the toughest passengers weren’t necessarily the hardest to satisfy in the traditional sense. Instead, it was a newer category of guest—people focused on filming content—that stood out as the biggest headache.
“Influencers,” they wrote. “Influencers are the worst.”
They described one woman who sat outside an ice cream shop eating an oversized sundae from a large goblet while recording herself.
“Hey, you want to pig out on ice cream? No judgment at all from me,” they wrote. “But then she starts taking off the whipped cream, the nuts, the cherry, all of the toppings, and is dropping them in a pile on the table. Not even in a napkin, just straight on the table.”