The following article is a guest post from Mladen Jakovljevic - former crew member and author of the book "Modern Age Slavery"

Norwegian Cruise Lines is undertaking changes related to staff benefits on board its cruise ships that will be affecting greatly on decision making moving forward to many staff, the company and guests in retrospect. The recent changes will affect most staff members and officers who carry less than 2 stripes on their uniform, while some reduction of benefits will affect all staff across the board.

Crew Center received the following letter from a Ukrainian crew member asking the community to spread the word an help Ukrainian seafarers.

Hurtigruten Expeditions, the world's largest and leading expedition cruise line announced today that the company will be the first to implement SpaceX’s innovative broadband service Starlink across all ships. In cooperation with long-time connectivity partner Speedcast, the installation across the entire fleet will be completed in October 2022.

Welcome to CruiSea, the most advanced social app for guests and crew to meet, connect and benefit from the discounts in ports or aboard the ships.

After years in preparation by cruise industry seasoned professionals and IT specialists, CruiSea is proud to present its final product of this unique app. CruiSea bringing the cruise community together and boosting the social ship life.

Royal Caribbean International announced that the company has hired 10,000 new crew members since the start of this year, who have already joined the cruise ships in operation. As of September 2022, RCI reported that there is a total of 34,819 crew aboard its 26 cruise ships, meaning that each 3rd crew member is a newly hired employee.

Crew Center received a message from a crew member working for the Indian startup cruise line Cordelia Cruises, stating that the crew aboard the cruise ship Empress are not allowed shore leave since the last year when the company started voyages. Cordelia Cruises welcomed its first guests on board the 1,607-passenger ship Empress, back in September 2021, and since then the crew are not allowed shore leave, the crew member said.

By: Mathieu Burnel

Starting on June 5, 10,000 Jamaicans will be hired to work on cruises abroad, says Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett.

Recognizing the need for its crew members to stay connected with family and friends and receive a quality internet service, Carnival Cruise Line has invested in additional bandwidth for the fleet. The company announced a major increase of the current data volume by 50% per crew member, compared to before the pause in operations.