Avoid One Dangerous And Common Mistake On A Cruise For A Happy And Healthy Experience

There's a reason they call it a "pleasure cruise" and that's because people board these boats to have fun. Your classic Carnival Cruise, for example, will have, at the minimum, live shows, fitness centers, enormous theme parties, a shopping mall's worth of retail, a casino, and special activities like pickleball, trampolines, mini-golf, bingo, and a Build-a-Bear workshop. That doesn't even include the truly wild amenities, like the Bolt, the onboard rollercoaster, or the WaterWorks waterpark, complete with twisting slides. Whatever your favorite diversion, companies like Carnival want you to find it on their voyages.

But we should also remember that cruise ships are, in fact, ships, and safety is a very real concern while at sea. That's why there are floatation devices, lifeboats, and mandatory muster drills. You may not see them much, but security teams do monitor shipboard activity to make sure passenger behavior is legal and safe. There is always the possibility that cruise ship passengers will simply fall overboard. Then there are quotidian concerns, like allergies, heart problems, severe seasickness, and petty crime. While you're playing shuffleboard, an entire army of staff is trying to prevent anyone from tumbling down staircases or eating a deadly peanut at the buffet.

One of the most dangerous mistakes is also easy to overlook — and the habit is actually encouraged from bow to stern, which doesn't help matters. This critical error marks a perfect intersection between very good times and very bad times, frivolity and calamity: drinking too much alcohol.

Drinking on cruise ships is no small matter. According to Cruiseline.com, a review aggregator and booking service, some 62,000 alcoholic beverages are consumed throughout an average seven-day cruise, amounting to a daily 4.7 drinks per passenger. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), consuming more than five drinks in a day or 15 per week is considered "problem drinking" for men, and the ratio is four per day and eight per week for women. Many of us like to kick back with beer and cocktails, and it's fun to feel buzzed or tipsy on a festive evening, but getting hammered night after night isn't healthy on any level, and, frankly, cruise ships make it easy to drink heavily.

Indeed, alcohol is a major motivator for many people to join cruises. "Drink packages" are extremely popular across cruise lines, allowing passengers to order easily and get bulk deals on alcohol orders; you'll have to decide whether purchasing a drink package is right for you, but many cruisers find it economical. Some cruise lines don't have this system at all, like Virgin Cruises, but passengers can instead use the Bar Tab system to accumulate points toward free drinks later on. Basically, the more you order, the more money you ultimately save. This is good business for cruises, both in terms of alcohol sales and inebriated impulse buys, and it's fun for passengers, who can let loose and dance the night away. But the drinking culture can be detrimental to health — and may cause issues onboard.

Excessive drinking already comes with a host of potential problems such as mood swings, recklessness, clumsy movements, nausea, blackouts, hangovers, and vulnerability to predators. All of these dangers already exist on the mainland, but a cruise ship is an unfamiliar environment packed with strangers. It's also on open water, which underscores every bad outcome. Then there are the common health issues that alcohol can make worse: heart disease, memory lapses, digestive issues, and about 200 other medical conditions, according to NIAAA. Unlike a city, a cruise ship doesn't have a fully equipped emergency room for treating alcohol poisoning or head injuries. Onboard physicians already have enough to worry about.

One of the biggest dangers is risky behavior. A dozen tequilas and a "YOLO" attitude can be emboldening, and you're only one dare away from balancing on a rail or trying to barge into the crew's quarters. Even sober people have taken life-threatening pictures at sea, banning them from cruise lines for life, and this kind of mischief only gets wilder as tumblers get refilled. As the law firm Manello Law Group notes on its website: "Research has found that the vast majority of the victims of overboard incidents in the last 12 years were intoxicated."

The easiest fix is for passengers to moderate their drinking. After all, there are a lot of things to enjoy on any cruise ship, and many of them are best experienced sober. For travelers who can't resist temptation or have knowingly struggled with alcoholism, there are plenty of dry cruises out there, many designed for people in recovery. As more people turn away from alcohol, focus on health, or enjoy the creativity of "mocktails," cutting back comes with many rewards.

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).