The Swan Hellenic crewman who stole my brand new HTC Incredible S smartphone probably tossed it overboard soon after. The heat was suddenly on. He could lose his job.
When Swan Hellenic bosses realised that someone had stolen my phone they must have scoured the ship and given the staff the full Swannish Inquisition.
For Swan it was not just a slap in the face to one of their elderly and rich passengers but to a journalist who was about to write about their cruises for a newspaper and website with 72 million visitors. That's rather embarrassing to say the least.
But I reckon this minor travel incident is worth a blog. Not because I'm extremely irritated and inconvenienced. Losing hundreds of pounds worth of phone is bad for anyone. Losing a SIM card is bloomin' awkward too. But it's more interesting to the rest of you because it really highlights the reality of the upstairs/downstairs division on a cruise a ship.
Bloated on burgers
I mean the contrast between the wealthy westerners bloated on burgers staggering off to the slot machines and the poor Philipino servant who has to carefully knock on a whole corridor full of doors every night at 6pm to turn their bedding down and leave a corporate chocolate on their pillow. The contrast between the robotic smiles of well drilled staff who barrage you with "good morning sir" as you approach the breakfast bar and what they must really be thinking...
I had suspected Swan Hellenic's cruise would be a bit different. It's a small ship, attracting an exclusive crowd with brains and taste. It's expensive. Staff ratios are high. There's none of that disingenious gratuities system that supposedly rewards staff on other cruises. Swan simply charge you a lot and, you assume, pay their crew well from the proceeds.
But the reality was exposed suddenly when I lounged on the open deck, waiting for a taxi to take me to Bari airport. The Minerva was docked in Brindisi, all the passengers except those who could hardly walk had left on excursions. I'd had my four days and was flying back to write my review for the Mail on Sunday.
As I sat reading, one of the ship's maintenance men was fussing around my table. I didn't really notice what he was doing but was mildly irritated. Can't he see I'm trying to read? Doesn't he know who I am? I moved to another table. After a while I realised I'd left my phone and glasses case on the previous table. The glasses were still there, the phone had gone.
Jobless disgrace
It was worth about £400 but I see on ebay that you'll only get half that for a secondhand one. So the guy has risked his job for £200. For all I know that could be a month's money for him. A great bonus but not worth being sent home in jobless disgrace for. So it would have been safest to wait till dark and launch my one-week-old phone overboard...
After talking to a lot of the crew on cruise ships, it's common for them to have families somewhere back home in a third world country. They send a big chunk of their earnings back to families who are considered rather well-off in their communities. To be selected for a cruise-ship crew is thought to be really lucky. You've got it made.
Gold braid jobs
Yet in all my cruises I have never seen a westerner in one of those jobs. They're always in different uniforms, with epaulettes. They're the ones in charge. And you rarely see a third-worlder in one of those gold-braid jobs. Cruising is like the new colonialism. We're bringing them on, we're paying them well, they're better off with us helping them...
Well, sorry for my cultural squeamishness, but it always makes me feel uncomfortable. It's an extreme version of what you find in luxury hotels and secure resorts round the world. I can see the logic and how it happens but that's not really what travel should be about: travelling the world in a secure western bubble, powered by the menial efforts of people from the poor exotic countries. Swan Hellenic's (European) officers, bosses and PRs were aghast at the theft of my phone. It never happens on our cruises they gasp. Well, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often.
thanks rocky point but the phone hasn't been returned and even worse neither has my SIM with all my contacts. it was so new i hadn't backed-up yet. there's a lesson for me... now the dust has settled i'm still hugely out of pocket but i hope the guy who nicked it sent the money back to his family and didn't just drink it away in a brindisi bar.
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