Cruise Ship Worker Admits She Didn’t Know This About Sex Onboard Before Starting the Job

Life on a cruise ship may seem like a dream—traveling the world, meeting new people, and living on the open sea. But according to Lucy Southerton, a cruise ship worker from Birmingham, there’s a side to this lifestyle that most people don’t think about: relationships and intimacy on board.

Lucy has worked on cruise ships for nearly ten years, starting her career as a massage therapist at just 19. Through her YouTube channel, Cruising As Crew, she shares honest stories about what it’s really like to work at sea. While the job offers incredible experiences, Lucy warns that shipboard relationships can be a whole different ball game compared to dating on land.

On a cruise ship, life is fast-paced, and so are relationships. Lucy compares it to living in a tiny town where the same group of people work, live, and socialize together. “It’s all kind of ‘incestuous’ in a weird way,” she says. “Friends hook up with friends, and things overlap because there’s only a small pool of people to choose from.”

Unlike a land-based job where you can go home and leave work drama behind, cruise ship life offers no escape. The people you work with are also the ones you eat, relax, and party with. Lucy explains, “On a ship, your colleagues become your friends, your family, and everything in between. This makes relationships much more intense.”

One of the biggest challenges of shipboard relationships is the gossip. “Everyone on the ship knows everyone else’s business,” Lucy shares. While office gossip happens in land-based jobs too, at least you can go home to family and friends who are outside of your work life. On a ship, there’s no such separation. This means that any romantic drama can quickly become the talk of the crew, which can be overwhelming when you can’t get away from it.

If you’re worried about health risks, Lucy has some surprising reassurance. Before starting work, most cruise ship employees must undergo medical exams that often include tests for sexually transmitted infections (STIs). “In that sense, it’s actually quite safe,” she says. “The majority of people working on a cruise ship have been tested.”

However, Lucy warns that health is only one part of the equation. Emotional risks and the potential for awkwardness or heartbreak are just as important to consider.

Lucy offers a simple piece of advice to anyone considering working on a cruise ship: think carefully before getting involved with a colleague. While the intense environment can make relationships exciting, it also makes breakups or misunderstandings much harder to handle. You can’t avoid someone on a ship, so any fallout will be magnified.

For Lucy, the lesson is clear. “Sleeping with a colleague on a cruise ship is very different from doing it on land,” she says. “You’re living and working in close quarters, so everything feels bigger—both the highs and the lows.”