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.
[WS:] The family aspect did not escape me at all. However, I happen to know quite a bit of merchant mariners both freight and passenger (it runs in the family, so to speak) who loved their jobs and their long time at sea. They all had families and often even missed them but they would never take a stationary job, even if it paid the same, to stay with their families. Ditto for long haul truck drivers.
So what appears like a great hardship form a point of view of "family man" (or a "land rat" as the mariners back home would call them), may be viewed rather differently from the point of view of a mariner.
I personally hate ship cruises, and I would never consider going for one even if it were offered to me for free, but I also know that others like them and like working on them, or even consider it as a badge of honor.
Wojtek