Charter Guest Nightmares: Yacht Stewardess Tell-All

Jan 28, 2025 by Julie Emmons

As a yacht stewardess, the wacky stories are endless. The crew and I have created a strong bond through the memories, including one that happened with a guest during tea service. This guest was very demanding and everything always had to be “perfect.” Two of us thought it was a brilliant idea to create a tea board display, but as we walked out to the table carrying the display, we did not consider the wind on the aft deck until it was too late. The tea packets blew right onto the primary guest, landing in her lap — one packet even hit her in the face. We both held our breath as we waited to be reprimanded, when to our surprise the primary picked the tea packet off her chest and said, “I think I’ll take this tea packet, it chose me.” We were relieved she found some humor in the situation.

Another laughable experience happened during one charter where the crew became very close with a plunger. The toilets on our boat don’t get clogged very easily, but two guests just couldn’t seem to catch a break. Every time they were in their cabin for an extended period of time they would text us that their toilets were clogged. Whoever ended up being told and called into their cabin would have to call for backup from other crewmembers. We laughed and laughed until our trusty plunger broke one day. We were left with a clogged toilet and a broken plunger. We could not believe we had overused the plunger to the point where it stopped working! We had to get a new plunger and fix the toilets. We blame Ozempic.

This last nightmare should have been avoided, but charter guests don’t always want to listen to the crew. It was a very windy day, and the charter guests decided it was a good idea to bring up their glassware to sit on the top deck. One of our stewardesses strongly advised against it due to the wind direction, but the guests are always right. After they were sitting up on the top deck for a while, we heard a loud crash. Apparently, the wind ripped the sun pad snaps off the fiberglass and the pad went flying. All the glassware shattered all over the top deck and the guests had to go back downstairs. They were in shock and had no idea how this could have happened, but the crew were thinking, “We told you so.” If only we could actually say that out loud!

Charters come with an array of different guests. Not everything can always go perfectly, but when it doesn’t, at least it gives everyone a good laugh.

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