Cruise Ship tell-all review tells all

On the surface, it is a remarkably efficient system, one that feeds thousands of guests multiple times a day, from breakfast until the midnight buffet. But, as this rollicking memoir reveals, such order comes at a price for those serving the food. Behind the scenes, it is a world of blatant favoritism, unending workdays, impossible schedules, pitifully little sleep, and greedy passengers who devour everything in sight.

Such is life on the ships, as told by Brian David Bruns, a gregarious American who early in this decade successfully completed a full eight-month contract working in the dining rooms of Carnival Cruise Lines. He was the first American to accomplish the deed; Cruise Confidential explains in painstaking detail why.

Bruns joins Carnival in pursuit of a woman — his new Romanian girlfriend Bianca, whom he followed to three continents in a whirlwind romance before she returned to the sea. His reason for committing to the cruise-ship life prompts his coworkers to wonder if Bruns is crazy or stupid, a frequent theme. As that might indicate, the author is witty and self-deprecating. He has a flair for dialogue, and his book is chock-full of wacky characters, from Aric "the Great White" Belgian shark to his roommate Omar, "a quad-lingual, world-class diver with six-pack abs" and a way with the ladies.

Speaking of which, every woman Bruns meets is invariably stunning (example: "Yhasmina was a Bulgarian with, quite simply, the most beautiful face of any woman I had ever seen"), and he flirts with many of them, but manages to stay faithful to Bianca, who is usually far away. Unfortunately, it is hard to understand why Bruns loves her so. When they are working on board together, she turns grumpy in order to survive the ship life, shutting off her emotions and treating him badly. Their joyful experiences on land are related after the fact by Bruns, but that is not enough to make up for this narrative shortcoming.

That said, Bruns' main purpose is to reveal the brutal reality of working in the cruise restaurants, and that he does quite well. He describes a relentless competition — for tips, for rest (over 12 hours a day are spent working, with less than six devoted to sleeping), even for silverware, which waiters are constantly looking to "pinch." "Waiters squabbled over hash browns like hyenas fighting for the scraps stolen from a lion's kill," Bruns writes of the battle to procure breakfast orders.

In this atmosphere, Bruns' First World nationality proves far more of a burden than an asset, as he must prove himself over and over before a series of managers who cannot believe that he, unlike countless American predecessors, will not just give up and go home. At 13 stories tall, the Conquest is a superlative ship, but it harbors a "cold, artificial life." The last 100 pages aboard the Legend are even gloomier — and for readers something of a drag — but Bruns perseveres, and for that he is duly rewarded.

by Edward B. Colby of Blogcritics Magazine
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2009/03/01/230308.php