People like to cruise for different reasons. For some, it’s the lure of visiting several countries in one big vacation. For others, being able to unplug and “get away from it all” is the deciding factor. And for still others, it’s the “all (or nearly all) inclusive” aspect of a cruise. And finally, for some, going on a cruise is the perfect excuse to drink—a lot.
Every cruise line has its self-proclaimed “big drinkers.” And every cruise line has its share of guests who wind up in trouble because they’ve had 1 (or 10) too many. And if any ship is known for being a “party” ship, with MORE than its share of big drinks, it’s Carnival Cruise Line.
Of course, it’s one thing to drink a lot and party like there’s no tomorrow. It’s quite another to overdo it and get yourself into a fistfight. And frankly, it doesn’t take much searching to find headlines that focus on guests’ inappropriate behavior after drinking on Carnival.
The funny thing is that just over two years ago, Carnival said they were done playing around with rowdy passengers. I guess that didn’t work out so well for them, so now they’re going to start setting more limits.
The cruise line already had a limit on alcoholic beverages – whether you bought a drink package or chose “pay as you go,” you could only buy up to 15 alcoholic beverages per day.
But savvy cruisers knew the ways to get around the limit (buckets of beer, bottles of wine. Plus whatever you would drink in port wouldn’t count towards your 15 drinks. And that was to say nothing of people who snuck booze into the ship).
Introducing the RSA Supervisor
So now Carnival is going after big drinkers in another way. They’re introducing a new position to their security team: the RSA Supervisor.
RSA stands for Responsible Service of Alcohol.
“The RSA Supervisor’s primary responsibility is to prevent anyone from becoming intoxicated, to prevent anyone under the age of 21 from obtaining or consuming alcohol, to ensure that alcohol is consumed in a safe and responsible manner without danger to passengers or crew, and to ensure that the service and consumption of alcohol are conducted in accordance with company policies and procedures,” the cruise line said in a job posting.
This will be some of their duties:
- Be assigned to a specific bar location or locations as directed by the Chief Security Officer (CSO/designee).
- Identify anyone who is becoming intoxicated and ensure they are given appropriate warnings at an early stage, and if deemed necessary, are not served any further alcoholic beverages until such time they are adjudged capable.
- Assist service personnel in determining whether a passenger should be served — if necessary, engage the passenger in conversation to determine if service should be refused.
- Assist service personnel in addressing passengers who have been refused service.
- Ensure that passengers refused service do not obtain any further alcohol from others.
- Ensure that anyone refused service is safe and that medical assistance is called if required.
So instead of looking at the number of drinks, they’re going to look at passengers’ behaviors…and “cut them off” as they deem necessary.
This certainly makes sense from a safety point of view – and is in line with the responsibility of flight attendants, bartenders, etc. Except instead of the “mean, horrible person who won’t serve me anymore” being someone who may or may not be the appropriate person to deal with, say, a mean drink who’s a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier than them, this will be a member of the Security team and (hopefully) fully trained for dealing with escalation and other inappropriate behavior of someone who’s drunk too much.
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
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