- If a cruise worker quits they have to pay for their flight home, current and former employees say.
- Crew members who resign may not be eligible for future employment with the cruise line.
- One cruise worker said he had to borrow nearly $1,400 after resigning due to mental health issues.
On a cruise ship, quitting your job is a luxury not all workers can afford.
Cruise workers who resign before completing their contract must pay for their own transportation back home and may not be eligible for future employment, according to interviews with four former and current employees, company documents, and meeting recordings obtained by Insider.
The crew members have chosen to remain anonymous or have the names of their employers omitted in order to protect their careers, but their employment and identities have been verified.
With some cruise workers paid monthly salaries as low as $600, requiring employees to cover repatriation costs can make it difficult for crew to resign due to reasons like mental health issues or poor working conditions, workers said.
"What will happen is the cruise line will fly you home, but will deduct from your wages what you owe," Jim Walker, a Miami-based maritime lawyer who represents cruise workers and passengers, told Insider. "So it's a very punitive type of step if you try to quit and go home."
What happens when you try to quit your job on a cruise ship
For the most part, resigning on a cruise ship looks logistically similar to any other job, except for the fact that you might be hundreds of miles away from home (or from any land, for that matter). After you talk to your manager, fill out some forms, and go through an exit interview with HR, the tricky part is getting off the boat and back to your country of residence.
According to internal procedural documents from two major cruise lines, employees who resign must cover repatriation expenses, including airfare, and may not be eligible for future employment with the company. Some cruise lines offer compassionate leave policies in situations such as family emergencies.
Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line, and Carnival — the world's three largest cruise companies — did not respond to questions about their resignation procedures for shipboard employees or which scenarios qualify for compassionate leave.
A bartender at a major cruise line who resigned in March ended up borrowing nearly $1,400 — more than double his monthly salary — in order to pay for the 33-hour journey home, he told Insider.
He resigned due to mental health issues including anxiety attacks and lack of sleep after he was disciplined for creating a petition that critiqued the cruise line's promotion system, according to an audio recording of a meeting with HR.
The bartender said that when he informed management he could not afford the steep airfare, his crew officer suggested he continue working for the next month. He then requested medical leave but the ship's doctor denied his request, according to an audio recording of the meeting.
The bartender shared with the doctor that while he was not suffering from depression or suicidal ideation at the moment, he was struggling with his mental health and had previously attempted suicide in the past. The doctor then warned him not to report himself as suicidal, or else he would not be allowed to work for the company in the future.
"We only disembark patients who are trying to throw themselves overboard or trying to kill themselves," the doctor said, per the recording. "So then the new option is you need to go home on your own."
Resigning may make you ineligible for future employment with the cruise line
Walker, the maritime lawyer, said in most scenarios, cruise lines pay for employees' flights home if they are fired, but not if they resign. Repatriation costs can be particularly burdensome for new hires, who may be required to buy their own uniforms and pay for transportation to the cruise's port of departure, he added.
The expenses associated with getting on the cruise ship in the first place cause some workers to take on debt before they've begun work — meaning some people simply cannot afford to quit, he said.
One former Royal Caribbean employee, who resigned in 2022, told Insider she had to pay for her flight home after quitting three months into a five-month employment contract due to what she described as "traumatic" and "militant" working conditions.
The tipping point, she said, was being isolated in a windowless cabin for 10 days due to COVID-19.
"There was no access to daylight, we weren't allowed to leave the room. Food was next to nothing," the former employee, who worked in the youth entertainment department, said. Royal Caribbean did not respond to questions about its COVID-19 protocol for employees.
"I could call my family and friends but they found that hard because I would call them crying and they were like, just get out of there," she told Insider. "But I was like, there's nowhere for me to go, I'm stuck in the middle of the ocean."
When she requested to leave the ship two weeks later, she said the company told her that if she quit before completing her contract, she wouldn't be able to work for the cruise line again. Then, after she confirmed she wanted to disembark anyway, they said they would cite her resignation as COVID-19 related, which would allow her to work for Royal Caribbean in the future, she told Insider.
"They said if you leave now before the end of your contract, you won't be able to come back. I know for a lot of staff, that's a fear for them," the former employee said. "I still had to work for a week until I was dropped back in Miami, so they were still scheduling me to work while I was really mentally struggling."
Do you work on a cruise ship? Have a tip or story to share? Email this reporter at [email protected]