‘Below Deck:’ Guests Behaving Badly
Below Deck sometimes plays host to a group of entitled or rude guests. Certainly, the show can also be a great example of how to be a great charter guest, as a number of groups were featured as being gracious and polite. But some episodes feature the darker side of what it means to be a yachtie.
Regardless crew members will graciously shoulder a decent amount of abuse in the name of fun. They dress up in crazy outfits for the guests, make special food and drinks. Plus, the crew will cater to the guests’ every whim. But when does serving the guests become abuse?
The Shame Cocoon episode was one example of what not to do when chartering a private yacht. Getting too drunk, lashing out at the crew and insisting on sleeping on deck (forcing the crew to remain awake while you slept) of what “not to do” on a yacht. But apparently, it can get much worse. So much worse. Two yachties share their best guest horror stories.
The fingerprint bandit
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Stewardess Julie Perry recounted when a teen charter guest took revenge on her. She submitted a “confession” to Yachting Pages Media Group about how the guest defecated in his bed every night. “The family’s nanny was along for the trip, and after the third time he soiled his sheets and the pajamas he slept in, I told her what was going on. After she confronted him, he assumed correctly that it was the stewardesses who tattled on him.”
“Obviously embarrassed, he spent the rest of the trip ‘getting even’ with our interior team by making our lives hell,” Perry recalled. “For example, we had a mirrored staircase that led to the lower guest cabin. Every time he went up or down those stairs, he would drag his grubby little hands along the mirrors, often in places that were way up high and hard to reach. Worse off, he would do the same to the grand piano we had in the main salon. Fingerprints, fingerprints, fingerprints! Everywhere! But hey, at least they weren’t poop-stained.”
These guests left the crew feeling blue
Remember the episode that featured Master Pearson and Lady Tiernan? Think the exact opposite for these guests. While the Jasuwan family demonstrated how to go on a yacht vacation with children, the family in this scenario are exactly what never to do. Crew member, Lauren Loudon blogged in Superyacht Content about a family that chartered a yacht with children and a nanny. “The week began with the wild children fighting with black Sharpies… on our white leather sofas,” Loudon wrote.
Loudon painted a picture of kids gone wild, completely unsupervised and unhinged. The parents and nanny seem oblivious as the children cause chaos. Crew awakened at 5 am one morning when the children were, yet again running amuck unattended. “The brats had managed to open the porthole and had thrown out the boat’s Apple TV remotes. I put them in ‘time out.’ had a stern word, and shut the door behind me.”
The final straw was discovering one adult had dyed her hair blue and splattered the marble bath with her hair dye. She also covered the $300 Ralph Lauren scatter pillows from the master cabin in the dye. Not to mention the guests ripped off the entire supply of Bvlgari toiletries. And for their trouble, the crew was “tipped” with an envelope. No money though. Loudon was “gifted” a dress the guest wore she had complimented. A deckhand received an oversized shirt with the receipt in case he wanted to return it. “Off he went to greet a horrified shop owner, mumbling ‘Sir, this wasn’t paid for, we’re going to have to take it back from you. Sorry.’”
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