Royal Caribbean crew member shares what happens if she gets sick

As a society, Americans generally don't seem to embrace sick days.

You'd think that after the Covid pandemic, service workers — the people checking our groceries and making our burritos, burgers and chicken fingers — might get federally mandated sick time.

One person with the flu working the make line at an Arby's might gets dozens of people sick, while someone in the same condition at a Chipotle could put hundreds at risk of illness.

Related: Royal Caribbean shares its strict, new beverage policy

We all went through a period where we learned how quickly a virus could spread, yet sick time still isn't a thing for many people working in those fields.

Yes, a company might allow workers to call in sick, but if the staffers don't get paid for the missed hours, many don't have to the option not to show up.

Cruise lines don't want workers to go to work sick, but they also don't want to deal with being short-staffed. If a few waiters fall ill, you can't just bring in replacements from shore. The remaining staff has to work harder, which could harm the passenger experience.

When it comes to entertainers, there are often no backup options. On Royal Caribbean, if the solo pub guitarist or the Schooner Bar piano player gets a respiratory infection and has to quarantine for a week, cruisers lose that entertainment option for their cruise.

A Royal Caribbean singer, Krista Jocelyn, in her popular YouTube series discussed working on cruise ships and how she handled a recent illness.

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Royal Caribbean entertainer gets sick on board

Transcript:

It is day one of another cruise, and unfortunately, I am a little bit sick. I don't feel terrible, but I can't do my job, which is singing. Sorry.

It's really nasally, and every time I try to sing, it just sounds bad.

So, when you get sick on a ship, it's kind of a tricky situation. You have to decide if you want to go to medical and potentially get signed off, which a lot of people would prefer to do, I think, in most situations. But as a performer, I feel like I'm, and I know a lot of other people feel this way too, when you're out of a show, it just puts a lot on everyone else that's also in the show.

And so you don't want to get signed off, but at the same time, if you can't do your job and if you're going to sound terrible, you obviously don't want to do that to yourself either. But it always just is in the back of your mind. You're like, oh, I don't want to, you know, let anyone else down, and I don't want to make more work for everybody else.

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But at the end of the day, if you can't sing, you can't sing, you know? So I ended up going to medical and I kind of just wanted to be put on like vocal rest rather than like off of duty, because when you're off of duty, you can't do anything.

And I was like, you know, we have a meeting. I could go to the meeting, but I just can't sing. And they were like, oh, no, we're going to sign you off. So, sign me off, which is a bummer.

And then they were like, call us tomorrow if you can sing, we'll sign you back on. And if you can't, we'll sign you off again. I can make noise, but to do a whole show, I also have a little bit of a cough, so I'd probably cough on stage anyway.

But today is Fort Lauderdale. It's our turnaround day. I've talked about this before.

This is always our day to like go get groceries. And I usually use WiFi and I'll, like, download stuff for the week, get stuff done that I need to for whatever on my computer. And so, because I was signed off of work, I didn't get off today, which is a bummer.

But Robert got off. He is an angel and is uploading a YouTube video for me and getting all of our groceries and whatever else we need for the week. So I wanted to talk about books really quick.

I don't want to go into, like, a full-on, you know, synopsis, whatever of all the books that I read, but I'll just tell you the ones that I read. "Eliza Starts a Rumor." I really liked that one.

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The ending definitely like broke my heart and the whole book was just really good. So I definitely recommend that one.

"Don't Believe It" by Charlie Donley. That one I read really fast. It had me on, like, the edge of my seat the whole time and the twist at the end I thought was really good.

And then I also read "Yellow Face," which is very different from anything I've ever read. It's about a girl whose best friend, if you want to say it like that, dies. They're both writers and she steals one of her manuscripts and publishes it as her own. It was good. It kind of left me unsatisfied. I will say that. Yeah. Yeah. I'll say that.

And then I'm currently reading "Looking for Jane," which is, so far I'm loving it. And basically the premise of the book is about the Jane Network, which in the '60s, '70s, when abortion was fully illegal in the United States, something's happening outside my door. I don't know what it is. People would go to clinics and ask for Jane and that would be like their secret way of asking if the clinic gave abortions.

And it's about three women's lives who kind of intersect and I haven't finished it yet, but it is so good. The way that it's written. It's just so good.

I definitely recommend this one. So I might read that now I'm 75% of the way done. So I'll probably finish that in the next few days because I'll probably be doing a lot of reading.

I'm going to read for a bit and I'll check in with you a little bit later.

Sometimes, you just need to rest

Okay, it's been many hours since I checked in with you. I thought that I would be, like, somewhat productive today, but no, I literally just laid in bed and I slept pretty much all day.

I am feeling a little bit better. My sore throat is gone for the most part, and now it's just like nasal congestion, a headache situation. So I did go back to medical, and they signed me off for the rest of tonight, and then I will be back on hopefully tomorrow.

I'm going to go back to medical at 10 a.m. and hopefully be okay for the show tomorrow. I do want to do a couple of things because if I am in the show tomorrow, I need clean makeup brushes because I haven't washed them since Halloween when I was purple and green and white and everything. So I need to wash my makeup brushes.

So here's your sign to wash your makeup brushes if you haven't for a while. Also, if you didn't watch my Halloween vlog, watch it. It was such a fun little party that the cast threw for the crew.

I couldn't believe how many people didn't know who Beetlejuice was. Like so many people were like, what are you? And I was, like, I just kind of thought everyone knew who Beetlejuice was, especially because there was a new movie that just came out with, like, Johnny Depp. And I haven't actually seen it yet, but there was that. And then the musical, which I actually haven't seen the musical either, but I love the music.

I've seen bits and pieces and I listen to the music pretty frequently. Actually, I'm going to take a shower. I think I might do a face mask.

I just want to do as much as I can and just kind of make myself feel better. And then I'm going to lay in bed and maybe read or watch YouTube. I haven't decided yet.

So let's start with the makeup brushes. I got my tea, lemon ginger. Oh, it's not recognizing my face.

That makes sense. I think I'm going to watch some YouTube. I started a video from Kara and Nate.

Honestly, I need some more YouTube YouTuber recommendations. I love watching Kara and Nate. I watch a lot of New York City vlog channels as well, but I feel like I need something new.

Drop your favorite channels below because I need some new stuff to watch. But I'm going to watch this one right now. Okay, it's been a few days since I vlogged because I haven't been doing pretty much anything but laying in bed and resting.

I haven't gotten off the ship in one, two, three, four, five days. Won't get off tomorrow. So I have not gotten off the ship for a week by the time I can get off again.

I am feeling a lot better. We have a show tonight. I was able to do our other show as well and just kind of muscle through it.

And then I'm going to do the show tonight. Things are looking up. I'm definitely feeling a lot better.

We had Tech Run this morning, this afternoon really. And now we have a couple of hours. It's, it's already 2.45 and the call is at 5.30. So we don't have a ton of time.

But we wanted to decorate for Christmas because on Monday, Sunday, Saturday, when Robert was in Fort Lauderdale and I couldn't get off the ship, he went and got a bunch of Christmas decorations. So it's time to Christmasify our room. Yeah.

Let's do it. All right. The first thing we got, some little tea lights, because of course we can't have real candles on the ship.

We got some cups from, this is actually from Marshall's. We have some candy in it right now, but this is Robert's. And this one is mine.

It's so cute. I'm obsessed with it. It's like hand-painted on there.

All right. Let's see what else Robert got. I haven't even looked since you got it.

ALSO READ: Top travel agents share how to get the best price on your cruise

Oh yeah. We'll be careful. It's all glittery.

Right? So that's what it might be. Yeah. Can I have like mom's? Oh yeah, there's glitter on the bed.

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This story was originally published December 11, 2024, 6:00 AM.