A CRUISE ship worker has revealed the clever trick used on ships to keep passengers safe.
As well as big waves and seasickness, there are a lot of other things that could ruin passengers’ fun on board cruises.
One of which is seagulls, who are known to follow the liners to try and get at the high-quality food served on the decks.
However, cruise liners have a clever trick to get rid of the birds, who are known to swoop and steal food from people’s hands.
Cruise ship musician Bryan James (@bryanjames.music) has shared plenty of revelations about life on board the liners on Tiktok.
In one of his latest videos, he revealed how they use other birds’ calls to scare away the airborne pests.
He said: “A little known fact about cruise ships is that they pump in bird sounds over loud speakers to make it so other birds don’t land all over the ship.
“There are dozens and dozens flying all around, but I guess they use eagle sounds or dinosaur sounds to keep them away because if it were seagull sounds, I feel like they’d want to join them and be their friends.
“The speakers look just like megaphones all over the front of the ship and they’re pretty loud.
“They’re in a spot where people just don’t hang out, so I guess you just don’t really notice it.
“But whoever thought of this is a genius.”
Other people were impressed and said they’d keep an eye out for the speakers next time they cruised.
One said: “I did not know that. I’m going on a cruise next month, I’m gonna look & listen.”
A second added: “I’m sure deckhands appreciate not having to clean mountains of bird poop.”
A third person explained a bit more about the system and how it worked.
They said: “It’s generally the sounds of birds in distress so the birds think there is danger and avoid it.”
Cruises also have a number of other systems in place to keep passengers safe, including secret code words that can explain dangerous situations without guests finding out.
Spencer Aronfeld (@cruiseshiplawyer) is an expert in cruise ship law and knows a thing or two about protocol on board.
He explained in a video on Tiktok why you never want to hear the crew announce a “code Oscar”.
That means a passenger is missing and presumed to have gone overboard, something that he said happens more frequently than you would expect.
He said: “Here’s a secret most cruise lines don’t want you to know – about one to two passengers a month are reported missing, or man overboard, on major cruise lines.
“If you’re on a cruise and you hear the code announced ‘code Oscar,’ that’s how you know that passenger has been reported as having gone overboard.”
Meanwhile, this cruise worker revealed how much cheaper they get drinks compared to normal passengers.
And these are some of the other benefits you can get while working on board cruise ships.
