I must say, Dr. S., no one can channel Ebenezer Scrooge with quite the gusto that you do. I mean, Doug was talking about an Indonesian crew member who hadn't seen his nearly one-year-old son since the kid was three days old -- if that's not exploitation I don't know what is. And true, cruise cabin stewards, etc., earn better money than they would at home, but by first-world standards they earn absolute peanuts.
And here's one of the most uncomfortable realities of cruise ships: tipping. No business puts consumers on the pointy-end of exploitation like cruise ships do. Typically it's made clear that crew members depend on tips for a substantial part of their total income. But the ship operators and travel industry as a whole tend to be very vague about providing tipping guidelines -- leaving the passenger to steep in an ever-deepening sense of guilt toward the end of the cruise, when tips are doled out and crew members you've barely seen before suddenly become omnipresent and ultra-friendly. Cruising can be a very stressful way of relaxing.
Carl
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