“We are not allowed to have any type of intimate contact with guests,” says Aida Carvahlo, a former HR manager for MSC Cruises, Viking Cruises and Holland America Line. “We are dismissed for that.”
But, Carvahlo and other former cruise ship employees say sexual contact among workers is even more pervasive than what you would find at a college dorm, with drinking one for the major reasons leading to intimate encounters. “One month on a ship is maybe like two years on land, because you spend so much time with these people,” says Taylor Sokol, a former cruise director for Holland America. “It's kind of hard to give someone their space when you live maybe 10 feet away from them.”