26 - Trainwreck: Poop Cruise

In this episode, we dive into Trainwreck: Poop Cruise, Netflix’s lowbrow, sensational documentary about the 2013 Carnival Triumph disaster, when an engine room fire left more than 4,200 passengers and crew stranded in the Gulf of Mexico with no power, no air conditioning, no refrigeration, and, most importantly, no functioning toilets.

We begin with discussion about losing power during floods, blizzards, hurricanes, and honeymoons gone wrong, but end up discussing human behaviour under extreme stress. As we discuss the "characters", we unpack how quickly civility can erode when basic systems fail, why some people balk at the the red biohazard bags, and how entitlement, privilege, and desperation collide in confined spaces.

We also discuss the heroism and exploitation of cruise ship staff, the cruise industry’s fine print and lack of accountability, the shift from news to spectacle in media coverage, and how this situation never quite tips into Lord of the Flies, but comes disturbingly close. Along the way, we link Poop Cruise to other maritime disasters, cruise ship disappearances, and the deeper horrors lurking beneath the glossy promise of “all-inclusive” leisure.

Content & Spoiler Warning:

Bodily waste, unsanitary conditions, vomiting, public urination, extreme hangovers, fire at sea, societal breakdown, hoarding, cruise ship disasters, corporate negligence, environmental harm, assault risks, disappearances, and capitalism behaving exactly as expected. We also spoil Trainwreck: Poop Cruise and briefly discuss Amy Bradley Is Missing. 

Palate Cleanser:

• TikTok trends including a man attempting (and failing) to learn how to Dougie
• Museums pairing classical art with modern film and TV audio
• People doing owl impressions in regional accents (including Moira Rose as an owl)

Recommendations:

• Wine & Crime – “Cruise Ship Disappearances” (Episode 7) for an unsettling overview of nightmares at sea
• Other episodes of Netflix’s Trainwreck, especially Astroworld, Balloon Boy, and Mayor of Mayhem
• Amy Bradley Is Missing (Netflix) – watch with a critical eye 
• Titanic and the Titanic: Ship of Dreams podcast for deep dives into hubris at sea
• The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
• Yellowjackets, FantasticLand, The Platform, Under the Dome, The Mist, and The Shining for enclosed-space psychological breakdowns
• Better Call Saul for class-action lawsuits and legal cynicism
• Sudden Storm, about the Galveston hurricane
• The 30 Rock episode “Double-Edged Sword” for plane-based claustrophobic comedy
• And, always, Andor

Homework:

Next episode, we pivot back into true crime cursed family, with Captive Audience: The Abduction of Steven Stayner, examining his kidnapping and the devastating ripple effects on his family.

Coming up soon:
Start reading Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

Special thanks to Nancy Azano for the podcast cover art (Instagram: @nancyazano) and Harry Kidd for the opening and closing score (Instagram: @harryjkidd, Spotify). 

Transcript

Anne 0:10

Welcome back to John to Darkness, a sometimes weekly, sometimes biweekly podcast where we discuss our favorite horror and true crime. If you're considering prepping for societal breakdown, we're here for you. name is Annie and I'll be introducing Caroline to my favorite horror movies, podcast, TV shows and books.

Caroline 0:24

and my name is Caroline and I'll be doing the same from the true crime side of things.

Anne 0:28

your worst, natural disaster losing power situation that you've experienced?

Caroline 0:33

Okay. So my worst was actually my first sleep away camp. Experience. With Ty, second week in a row. I'm gonna shout out Ty. And there was a hurricane, I think it was Hurricane Bob or something, and We were in cabins, so we were like woken up in the night, put into the main mess hall or whatever, where we had to board the windows with the dining tables and and then just wait. and Similarly to the story we're gonna be talking about today, there were no toilets, which sent us all home early from sleepaway camp

Anne 1:02

you weren't on a boat so you could leave.

Caroline 1:05

Correct. Important distinction.

Anne 1:08

Um, in 2011 our house flooded in Brisbane I think we were at power for close to a week. it was kind of fun, other than the stress of not knowing what condition our house would be in, because we stayed with, my brother and sister-in-law and their kids, and they look at that week as one of like the funnest times because they had their aunt and uncle staying with them. Their grandparents stayed with them because their house flooded too, had no power. So we were just all playing board games, and. Hanging out and these kids have really good memories of it. The other one that, I, I meant to look it up It would either be like January, 2013 or December, 2012, there was a big blizzard and we lost power in Rhode Island for three days. And I was heavily pregnant, like third trimester with my daughter. And it was just so cold, We had an electric stove, so we couldn't, you know, heat up a cup of tea. You couldn't have a hot shower. And I had to pee like five times a night and I would have to get out from under the covers and go to the toilet and I was just so freezing.

Caroline 2:04

Yeah, that was a rough year.'cause that was close to Sandy as well.

Anne 2:07

well, what about your Wasn't that interrupted by Sandy?

Caroline 2:10

well my honeymoon actually, the beginning of my honeymoon was canceled and the first several days of marriage for me was much like the experience of these people on this cruise.

Anne 2:20

Did you

Caroline 2:20

So.

Anne 2:21

the walls

Caroline 2:21

No, but we had no water, no cell service, no heat, no running toilets in Manhattan.

Anne 2:28

Manhattan?

Caroline 2:28

So it was the first couple days and we were just like trying to find radios. We were wandering the streets, looking for payphones. That worked. And I know that a lot of people who came to my wedding were then stranded for an extra week on the Northeast. So I felt really bad about that

Anne 2:45

remember rushing out the morning of your wedding to like beat the storm or the, sorry. The morning

Caroline 2:50

uh, Yeah, I left the cake because they were like, they're closing the bridges and tunnels. We have to get to Manhattan and our passports. Were in Manhattan. We, I got married up in New Hampshire, so we didn't even know I was woken up the day after my wedding with my honeymoon flights being canceled.

Anne 3:05

The reason we're talking about losing power, and I asked the question about whether Caroline would have poop running down her walls in her Manhattan apartment is because we are about to discuss the new Netflix documentary, train Wreck Poop Crews. this is not true crime, although the terms and conditions of this are arguably a crime. It certainly

Caroline 3:22

Mm-hmm.

Anne 3:23

quite the story in terms of. Extremes and how humans react and the psychology of extremes, which is something we've talked about before. Now this is a lowbrow sensational documentary, so expect a lowbrow discussion. I don't think Macbeth will come organically in this discussion the way it sometimes does. before we get into it, spoiler trigger content warning. Uh, this is lighter fare than what we usually cover, but be warned, there will be gag inducing descriptions of fecal matter urine hangovers. As usual, we will be spoiling the documentary. We'll also be discussing cruise disasters and crime. So you might want to watch Amy Bradley is missing on Netflix before this, or not mind spoilers about it. So pause to let you go. Watch train wreck Poop cruise. And Amy Bradley. Here we go. Caroline, can you tell us what this is about?

Caroline 4:10

Yes. So we, we needed a very, maybe the longest blurb to summarize hereditary last week. And this one is way simpler. So, train wreck poop cruise tells a story of the 2013 Carnival Triumph cruise that went spectacularly, horrifically wrong. It's a story of a bunch of people on board a cruise ship, some for work, some for family bonding, some for a bachelorette party who suddenly find themselves in my literal living nightmare after a fire breaks out in the engine room, knocking out power and leaving the ship dead in the water in the Gulf of Mexico. Turns out losing power at sea is not great. No electricity, no lights, no air conditioning, no cell service, no refrigeration, and no flushing toilets, Now, of course, this situation is something many of us have experienced. The no power thing as we just discussed, but not. 4,200 perfect strangers aboard a horizontal skyscraper. The situation becomes dire as all are told to pee in the showers and handed red biohazard bags for quote number two. But humans be ing and unsurprisingly, not everyone falls directions. When tugboats finally arrived to tow the ship to safety, the tilt causes overflowing toilets and showers to spill onto the floors with feces, stripping down walls, and creating an all around nightmare smell and everything situation. The nightmare doesn't stop there. Of course, top decks turn into a full on tent city. People start hoarding tomato and onions sandwiches, the whole thing becomes Exactly the disaster. The tidal promises beyond the poop, and there is a lot of poop. The documentary also digs into passenger rights on cruise ships, the heroism of cruise ship staff, and an early glimpse into how the media began its shift from news to spectacle.

Anne 5:54

what adjective would you use to describe this?

Caroline 5:56

Disgusting.

Anne 5:57

mine was gross.

Caroline 5:58

both like literally and like demonstrably, with people's behavior. Like I am so enraged with the whole sandwich hoarding situation.

Anne 6:06

Well, that happens pretty quickly when I was

Caroline 6:09

Mm-hmm.

Anne 6:09

about, the 2011 flood in Brisbane, the hoarding happens almost immediately all we have to do is look back at a paper hoarding back in COVID, right? never underestimate human selfishness, I guess. Mm.

Caroline 6:19

But it's so sad because when I think about Hurricane Sandy and living in lower Manhattan, where, there was no power and no one had their cell phones and everything. It's just wandering the streets and people being like, I have a generator, free coffee inside. so much generosity was happening in Manhattan at that time. And then when we finally did get uptown where it was insane how everything was running. Absolutely. Normally buses were going, people were eating in restaurants. It was like nothing happened. We got to this person's apartment and there was like all these other people there, and everyone was just trying to help each other, so it's just

Anne 6:54

the

Caroline 6:54

disappointing.

Anne 6:55

flood. people were turning up with gurneys and offering to shovel and, spray out people's homes and so there's, good that comes out of these events as well. Now,

Caroline 7:05

Yeah.

Anne 7:06

to talk about this, you know, you recommended it a while ago and chose not to watch it at the time because I was preparing to go on a Disney cruise, which some very generous relatives made happen for us. uh, so I purposefully waited until I was back to watch this, and I'm glad that I didn't know anything about the horrors of cruise ships in addition to this documentary at the time,

Caroline 7:31

i feel really bad because I watched this a while ago, as we've mentioned. So I rewatched it for the purposes of this podcast to take notes and everything. And I watched it when my middle child was having a friend sleepover and the friend had showed up being like, I heard you have a podcast. That's so cool. And he was all impressed that I had a notebook out and so he wanted to watch it with me. And then his family goes on cruises and he was like, I'm never going on a cruise. Like, oh no, don't tell your parents this is where you watched this.

Anne 8:00

no. gonna hate you.

Caroline 8:02

He's like, no, I'm gonna go again, just not for carnival. And I was like, okay. Good luck with that.

Anne 8:07

Well, yeah, I mean, in terms of cruise ship experience, would I have chosen this? No. Would I go again? Probably not once was a not, but did I have a great time? Yes. it was a blast. And of all the concerns I had, like I was concerned about seasickness, claustrophobia, getting some kind of disease at the buffet, and I've, you know, I, I knew vaguely fuzzy details of disappearances.

Caroline 8:30

Hmm.

Anne 8:30

the fact that it was kid soup in the pools, the boat is so big, I was able to spend a lot of time on the promenade, which felt very titanic. Like hardly anyone went down there because there was nothing to do except walk around. And we saw dolphins sleeping just below us. they. Made you sanitize before coming into every restaurant. and there's constantly people cleaning, so it did feel very clean.

Caroline 8:51

Hmm. It's interesting that something feeling like the Titanic was soothing for you.

Anne 8:56

We spent so much time quoting Titanic lines, like, because

Caroline 9:00

I would've too,

Anne 9:01

this stage where we like watched it every day for months because my son just was obsessed. So we're like walking onto it being like it was the ship of dreams and humming the score and like, you know, making king of the

Caroline 9:11

and it was.

Anne 9:12

Yes. Every time we were in line for something, my husband would go, I have a child like Cal

Caroline 9:18

Yeah.

Anne 9:19

trying to sneak onto the lifeboat. And So that was fun. But you know, on that promenade, I went for a run around it because if you ran roughly nine times around the promenade, it was about a 5K. And there was one point where I was like down there by myself and I'm crossing paths with this man. And like nobody else was there. And I was like, he could throw me overboard like that. Yeah. And he didn't.

Caroline 9:37

clearly.

Anne 9:37

I think about the things I told my children to reassure them as big Titanic fans, like, you know, well, like back then they didn't have enough light boots and communication is better. Like the radio guy isn't going to, go to bed at 11 o'clock. There are more ships out in the sea. The design is better if there was a hole the compartments would seal, et cetera, et cetera. But given the, I wanna talk about this later on, but the logistics of why they didn't people from this boat, it really makes me question what would happen in an actual sinking situation How fast could you get 4,000 people off a boat? Have they actually practiced, I remember reading, dead Wake, which was this book about the Lucita by Eric Larson. He's the same guy who wrote, devil in the White City. And that

Caroline 10:16

Mm-hmm.

Anne 10:17

18 minutes.

Caroline 10:18

Oh my God.

Anne 10:19

I mean, it was torpedoed, but these things can go down fast.

Caroline 10:21

in the beginning of the devil in the White City, isn't there mention of

Anne 10:25

Terms of, chronology, it wouldn't make sense because the Lusitania

Caroline 10:29

Hmm.

Anne 10:30

the events of Devil in the White City.

Caroline 10:31

but maybe an architect from the World's Fair died in that ship sinking. Or maybe it was the ship, the Carpathia there was definitely mention of one of those old ships in the beginning of Devil in the White City. I just don't remember which one, but God,

Anne 10:46

to, read that at some point

Caroline 10:47

we are definitely gonna cover that book. Yeah. At some point. Yeah.

Anne 10:51

at some point. Alright, well, some fun facts. Carnival spent$115 million cleaning, repairing, and refitting this boat after the triumph. Uh, today she still sails under a new name, carnival Sunrise, a new dawn for the Triumph. I found a Facebook page from May, 2025 with people saying it smelled. a lot of back and forth, other people saying you're crazy. You know, like, it's fine. But it did remind me of our Gray Gardens episode

Caroline 11:18

Mm-hmm.

Anne 11:18

last year, where people say the house still smells when it rains. And also in terms of gray gardens, I, I think the psychology of extremes plays into this.

Caroline 11:26

Mm-hmm.

Anne 11:27

Let's see. Saturday Night Live dedicated an open to the ordeal, which was

Caroline 11:32

yeah, it was all right. I mean, there's not much more you can do with it than what actually happened,

Anne 11:37

well. this documentary's kind of funny. Did you find it funny?

Caroline 11:39

Yeah. I mean, it's intentionally lighthearted. I guess I, I did really like how they were playing, replaying the, like audio announcements or whatever, and having people react to it sometimes that could be funny.

Anne 11:52

it's funny and you know, I think as long as you don't go into this expecting a quality documentary, if you watch this for the sensationalism, for the disgust, for the ability to be a gawking, Lou. like the helicopters overhead. It's not an intellectual endeavor. Watch it to gag, watch it to cringe. And the music contributed to that sensationalism and the Click Beatty poop cruise Middle school boy title.

Caroline 12:15

Mm-hmm.

Anne 12:16

So there's this element of reveling this horror, like they're not shying away from that.

Caroline 12:20

That is true across the train wreck series

Anne 12:23

a favorite besides this

Caroline 12:25

the balloon boy won.

Anne 12:27

okay. I haven't.

Caroline 12:27

Um,

Anne 12:28

the first one I've seen, so.

Caroline 12:29

yeah.

Anne 12:29

I like when

Caroline 12:30

Um,

Anne 12:31

the, the

Caroline 12:31

yeah, the red bag.

Anne 12:32

They reenact red biohazard

Caroline 12:35

Yeah.

Anne 12:35

slid under a cabin door with ominous music. That was funny.

Caroline 12:39

Yeah. And the lasagna,

Anne 12:41

lasagna. I love that guy. lasagna's ruined for me now too. I love that I, where he

Caroline 12:46

No. Aw,

Anne 12:47

like sitting down to lasagna and just the disgusted face, Yeah, I get it. also the safety demonstration pictures of people attempting

Caroline 12:55

yeah.

Anne 12:56

edge and what a disaster that would've been.

Caroline 12:59

I think they did a graphic of the people having sex too or whatever, which I forgot that happened when I had a child over watching.

Anne 13:07

Now, you know, you think about no one would do that. No one would hang their ass over the railing to poop. Right? But have ever looked into like safety warnings which exists theoretically because someone did this thing and I found some funny ones. Remove child before folding your stroller. there's a drill warning. This is not intended for use as a dental drill.

Caroline 13:26

Oh my God.

Anne 13:27

Do not allow children to play in the dishwasher. A patch like an iron on patch. Like do not iron while wearing your shirt.

Caroline 13:33

Oh my God.

Anne 13:34

A fish hook that says harmful if swallowed. a warning not to eat. Printer toner. not spray deodorant in eyes. Do not use your hairdryer while sleeping. Do not drive with your sunshield in place. not use vanishing marker to sign official documents. Like I could go on and on

Caroline 13:47

I've done that.

Anne 13:48

You've done that.

Caroline 13:49

not, not intentionally

Anne 13:50

How many

Caroline 13:51

this

Anne 13:51

ink pens do you have lying around?

Caroline 13:53

I can't believe I get to tell this story. This is one of my favorite stories actually. So my oldest came home with a permission slip and it was like the slip you have to write a check. And I signed the permission slip and I signed the check and I put in an envelope and I sent it to school. And then it came back and James was like, you have to write things on the check mom. And I was like, what? I did, I really, you know, and at the time, I was like working full time, had three kids in school, my mom had recently passed. I was like, wow, I must be really overloaded that I just put a blank check in an envelope for the school. Then I did it again, and then I sent it back in. And then the next day it was still in James' folder. And I was like,

Anne 14:31

I

Caroline 14:31

am I, is this a glitch in the matrix? Because I absolutely remember being jarred by it the first time. And I went into my checkbook to find the like indentation. And I was like, okay, I can see that I wrote this check one on earth. and I said to James, do you have any disappearing ink pens? And he was like, yeah, but I don't know where it is.

Anne 14:52

well, you know, You've been wandering around with like this pen as your go-to

Caroline 14:56

Yeah.

Anne 14:57

Well, I guess what we learned from that story is that maybe these warnings are necessary,

Caroline 15:02

Well, and maybe people don't intentionally do some of these things.

Anne 15:07

Let's talk about setting, having just been on a cruise ship that was smaller than this, but still, mind bogglingly huge, it's hard to imagine if you haven't seen one of these docked or been on it, how big they actually are. Have you seen one?

Caroline 15:19

I've seen them docked.'cause I've been to Florida a bunch and there's a lot in Miami, so I have seen them. Yeah.

Anne 15:25

They are described as, as you said, a skyscraper on its side and the biggest machine in the planet. I looked that up. And technically the large Heon Collider gets this distinction of being the biggest machine on the planet, but they are among the

Caroline 15:38

what's that?

Anne 15:39

Heon Collider.

Caroline 15:40

What is that?

Anne 15:41

physics. A physics occurs,

Caroline 15:43

Oh.

Anne 15:43

dunno. They're like, uh, you know, colliding electrons or something.

Caroline 15:47

Hirons, what did you say?

Anne 15:49

Hey

Caroline 15:49

What's it called? A what? Hadron. They're colliding. Hadrons. Got it,

Anne 15:53

I dunno. But it's a big thing and they're doing something. Physics.

Caroline 15:57

got it.

Anne 15:57

one thing I don't understand, speaking of physics, is they can be so tall without rolling. you know, you think about your center of balance when you're standing at a railing. It doesn't seem like there's that much beneath, and yet they don't tip over.

Caroline 16:09

my middle child had a book he loved called Sink and Float or something is it Displacement? I don't know. I learned a bunch of terms from that book. Designed for a five-year-old,

Anne 16:20

Physics occurs,

Caroline 16:21

a physics.

Anne 16:24

should we, credit wine and crime there for a chemistry occurs, which is not actually wine and

Caroline 16:28

Yes.

Anne 16:29

Elizabeth?

Caroline 16:29

I think they're quoting Elizabeth Holmes. The blood test fraud. She says a chemistry occurs and, yes. Wine and crime. who also I credit for my fear of cruises.

Anne 16:40

well, I re-listened to that. Let's talk about that when we get

Caroline 16:43

You did? Okay.

Anne 16:44

deeper horrors of the cruise ship industry. also this was in February and so we will be releasing this on the anniversary This was February, 2013. So this episode will come out, roughly within a day or two of this boat's launch. So isn't that fun? I was surprised by how hot it was, you know, they complained about it being hot once the air con broke down, but I guess even in February it's hot down there.

Caroline 17:05

Oh yeah, because I remember when we went to Costa Rica just being like, oh, so the sun rises and sets like the same time all year round.'cause you're at the equator.

Anne 17:13

Well.

Caroline 17:13

Is that science?

Anne 17:14

A science occurs.

Caroline 17:16

Is that accurate? Yeah.

Anne 17:18

let's talk about the people, because this is about the interviewees who was your favorite, whether it's because you liked them or because

Caroline 17:23

Um,

Anne 17:24

liked disliking them.

Caroline 17:25

I like the staff. I like

Anne 17:27

Mm-hmm.

Caroline 17:27

Jen. I think Abby is the chef. Hannah from the Soviet Union was funny. I didn't love her whole, like this is what it's like in the Soviet Union bit. But everything else I enjoyed her. Like, you know, she's just there to have a good time and she wasn't in her own room and

Anne 17:41

funny.

Caroline 17:42

you know, all that stuff. Devin, I couldn't stand. I, I just think he's just like not my vibe person. I don't think he's a bad guy.

Anne 17:49

why were these seven, eight, whatever number of six, seven, maybe. No, it's more than six, seven like did they interview like people and they just found these guys to be the most interesting? section of

Caroline 18:00

that's a good question.

Anne 18:01

I agree with you. I, I loved the crew. and I, I'm guessing those people were chosen for their entitlement being overly dramatic. Not to say I wouldn't have been

Caroline 18:09

Hmm.

Anne 18:10

if this happened to me I sent this Reddit poster, right? Hell hath no fury. Like a slightly inconvenienced American,

Caroline 18:16

Yeah. I felt that way about the Bachelorette girls. I mean, surely I sympathize with them. You want your bachelorette to be fun. everyone who went through this, it really sucks but I didn't love their vibe either. but the, the dad and the daughter, I also love that dad. He was very sweet.

Anne 18:33

passengers I thought

Caroline 18:34

I agree.

Anne 18:36

both outside this documentary and in this documentary, like everybody says, the staff were phenomenal, selfless, dedicated. The corporate response was shitty, but not the crew. also the crew, they would've been housed on the lower levels, so probably would've gotten the worst of the stench. And I just feel like if I were, hired to be like running bingo or busing tables or doing the dishes, I'd be like, it's not my job to pick up poop. I'm sure a lot of people were reassigned to some pretty nasty work.

Caroline 19:00

and they were already working like 70 hours a week I think the chef said. ugh. I know we were gonna talk about Amy Bradley very briefly, but way more likable than the Amy Bradley ship director guy. I hated him.

Anne 19:11

Oh my God, I hated his guts. I mean, I find the staff treatment aspect, the two worlds, the upstairs, downstairs, very interesting. And so we actually asked our server a ton of questions and one of them was like, super happy to answer because the people at our table had a lot of years working in restaurants. So like, you know, we felt like. weren't being the bad guys from White Lotus to talk about it with them. I don't know, maybe we were. But, he was fine and he was totally open. And then there was this other guy who was in a more managerial position and I think he started to like, suspect we're we secret shoppers? And he kind of clammed up and was everything is wonderful working on a Disney cruise. Like,

Caroline 19:46

I think on Disney it's very controlled.

Anne 19:49

controlled environment. but you know,

Caroline 19:50

Yeah.

Anne 19:51

register in countries with lax labor laws. You've got people working

Caroline 19:54

Mm-hmm.

Anne 19:54

a week, 70 hour weeks.

Caroline 19:56

Mm-hmm.

Anne 19:56

Well, let's talk about some of these characters in, more detail. If you've ever wondered who's gonna survive the zombie apocalypse, it's not Ashley and her bridesmaids.

Caroline 20:06

Yeah. Seriously.

Anne 20:09

So you know how they almost didn't make it back to the boat?

Caroline 20:11

Yeah.

Anne 20:12

you know, they make a big deal, like we will leave you. And I was thinking if they hadn't made it back to the boat, what a great thing that would've been. Because they would've narrowly missed this disaster. It would be like final destination, but avoiding poop instead of death.

Caroline 20:25

I have a family friend who was supposed to be in a meeting in the World Trade Center and was late because coffee took a long time yeah.

Anne 20:33

you would've thought this is a disaster. And then like a day later you'd be like, oh, we lucked out. Ashley credit for giving her bridesmaids their gifts in red biohazard bags. Like That's funny.

Caroline 20:41

That was funny and cute. I did write down their names were Kaylyn, Ashley, and Jamie. But Jamie and Kaylyn was spelled weird. They were all like spelled like you would think. Yeah. Fancy spelling. Yeah.

Anne 20:53

Yeah. I can't imagine taking Imodium though to bring on constipation. Like if you're gonna poop in a bag.

Caroline 20:58

Why did she have Imodium with her?

Anne 21:00

Maybe she has issues with that,

Caroline 21:02

Is that something you pack

Anne 21:03

no.

Caroline 21:03

So bizarre.

Anne 21:04

popping Imodium. and I was like, but if you're gonna have to poop in a bag, wouldn't you rather it be easy?

Caroline 21:09

Right. I'm not a person who requires

Anne 21:11

No.

Caroline 21:12

eod, so maybe I can't relate.

Anne 21:14

Yeah. I mean if you have IBS, you might need that kind of thing.

Caroline 21:16

One thing I did sympathize with them on though was when she was like, oh, the safety briefing. We're not gonna need this information. What are the chances And I mentioned my honeymoon and I booked from LA to French Polynesia and back, and we were gonna do other stuff before that. And I remember them being like, do you want travel insurance? And I was like, when am I not gonna be able to get to LA from New York?

Anne 21:38

Uh, always buy travel

Caroline 21:40

That isn't, I mean, I was like, never in a million years would you not be able to figure out a way to get to LA from New York. And all of a sudden we were desperately booking flights, I could relate to that aspect.

Anne 21:51

the muster? I don't think they'd get away with skipping it today at our muster. We stood around for literally half an hour while they waited for everyone to show up.

Caroline 21:59

Ooh.

Anne 21:59

they were swiping your key cards and making everyone wait. I did feel like rose looking at the rescue boats and being like, this doesn't feel like enough boats.

Caroline 22:07

Hmm.

Anne 22:07

a lot of people, but yeah, I don't think they would've gotten away with that today. At least not on a very controlled Disney cruise.

Caroline 22:13

I wonder if they make everyone go now.

Anne 22:15

Well, these girls could party. Hey,

Caroline 22:17

I could also relate to that. I guess.

Anne 22:19

pretend I wouldn't have been the one falling on the floor 20 years ago,

Caroline 22:22

I think I still have footage of Atlantic City when we,

Anne 22:25

yeah.

Caroline 22:26

the next morning after our friends, our first friend who got married, that bachelorette just like walking through the recovery with

Anne 22:34

yeah. You should not have recorded that.

Caroline 22:36

I know I, I definitely have it on video.

Anne 22:38

mean, I feel literally nauseous thinking about how drunk they were, how hungover they must have been to get that, it, alpha the morning at like five 30 in the morning?

Caroline 22:47

Alpha team. Alpha team. It was at 5:28 AM

Anne 22:51

they would've felt so awful.

Caroline 22:53

When I also thought about that when they opened the bar, I was like, nobody vomits. am I the only person who gets sick after being super drunk? cause I do

Anne 23:02

everyone knows that alcohol is a diuretic, right? Like, you're gonna increase fluids by pumping these people's bodies full of fluids. opening the bar was an insane decision.

Caroline 23:12

people on bachelor and bachelorette parties are probably gonna pull the trigger at some point so they can keep drinking.

Anne 23:17

Yeah. So just more vomit, more number ones, more number twos and the anarchy, the public sex, like I was surprised it wasn't worse. Like

Caroline 23:24

Ugh.

Anne 23:24

and assault. And you know what, maybe there was assault and it was covered up because we will discover that a lot of that stuff is under reported.

Caroline 23:30

I was actually quite shocked that the whole open bar thing didn't turn out to be worse than what was covered in this documentary, at least.

Anne 23:38

the poop bags blowing back me of,

Caroline 23:41

Oh my God, that that part made me,

Anne 23:42

yeah.

Caroline 23:43

me laugh.

Anne 23:44

So my son was desperate to spit off the boat like Jack and Rose, And I was like, no, it might go back in. Someone's cabin beneath us. And like, imagine a bag of poop flying in your face. if somebody the spit blew back, you'd just think it was sea spray, right? But a bag of poop. That's pretty obvious. I was

Caroline 23:59

Ugh.

Anne 23:59

mad at people who threw their bags of poop If you're gonna throw poop in the ocean, it shouldn't be in a plastic bag. there's enough plastic in the ocean.

Caroline 24:05

Right. You're gonna like kill a dolphin or whatever.

Anne 24:09

Well, yeah, they really played up that party animal aspect with the margaritas and the shots and the losing dignity, But the cruise I was on was very family friendly. Disney Cruise, I think I had

Caroline 24:18

Yeah.

Anne 24:19

two cocktails across five days. it was more like little girls and tiaras posing for photos with princesses than the poolside partying that they showed, like on this cruise. People looked wasted,

Caroline 24:28

Yeah. I did try to look up the breakdown of passenger ages. Especially when it came to the whole food hoarding thing, I was trying to imagine myself with three small children trying to figure out how to feed them when people are hoarding

Anne 24:41

'cause you wouldn't want them

Caroline 24:42

the sandwiches. No, not for two hours.

Anne 24:45

I was thinking about Rebecca and was it Larry The

Caroline 24:49

Yeah. Larry and Larry and Becca. Yeah.

Anne 24:52

so he can't pass off the kid to another adult.

Caroline 24:55

But she was 12, so she wasn't that young.

Anne 24:59

I feel like having a 12-year-old and a Lord of the flies, everything's falling apart. Situation.

Caroline 25:03

True.

Anne 25:04

someone who was just on a cruise with a 12-year-old makes me very uncomfortable. what's to stop pedophile because we know they're out there from taking advantage of the opportunity and tossing her overboard, that's all it takes is one psychopath and an enclosed situation to cause a lot of problems.

Caroline 25:18

Mm.

Anne 25:18

But yeah, they were sweet. I felt bad for him when he was like thought he failed her and she hugged him they had a nice little arc. They learned they can get through things together good and bad Get confused by them and Devin because the way they kind of cut it, it was like Devin's waxing lyrical about wanting to have a good relationship with his father-in-law. as it, you know, it's introducing all the different, this cast of characters and then it cuts to her and her dad. So I thought Larry was the father-in-law and she was the wife and they were interviewing them separately.

Caroline 25:46

Oh

Anne 25:46

Because I didn't,

Caroline 25:47

no.

Anne 25:48

that.

Caroline 25:48

Yeah.

Anne 25:49

like, what, 12? And then I realized like, oh no, no,

Caroline 25:51

Yeah.

Anne 25:51

totally separate people. Because I thought story here is going to be that disgraced himself and broke up this is the father-in-law and the daughter getting interviewed separately because the relationship didn't work out. But I was wrong.

Caroline 26:05

it's funny that you mentioned that because when you said it, we are releasing this on the anniversary, I was like, someone should check if Devon's still married to

Anne 26:11

I

Caroline 26:12

his fiance

Anne 26:13

at least

Caroline 26:13

when it was filmed. Yeah,

Anne 26:15

Now Devon, I don't wanna victim blame here, but. It wouldn't have been so bad if people like Devin hadn't gone out seeking toilets and just pooped in the bloody bag.

Caroline 26:22

exactly, And I'm sorry. I also feel like maybe I don't have a ton of sympathy because I'm a person who does not poop on vacation, as you know, sometimes he's gotten dire for me when I like travel. But I also was thinking that I would probably use the bag like a dog bag like you do with your pet, I mean, I've also like change diapers of three children that were my own and many years of babysitting, I really don't get it. I get the shock I was more like, how do they have enough red bags on this boat? How did they know this might I know

Anne 26:56

thing, Well, there's a lot of norovirus on, and that's a vomiting thing,

Caroline 27:00

I was like, why do they have all these red bags, but whatever. I, I really was just like, just fucking suck it up, dude.

Anne 27:06

as somebody who has a dog and has picked up poop and has camped and had to, rough it a

Caroline 27:10

Mm-hmm.

Anne 27:10

bit, I was like, what's the big deal?

Caroline 27:12

I didn't think it was that big a deal either

Anne 27:14

I'd rather poop in a bag than on top of a poop lasagna.

Caroline 27:17

have poop running down the walls. Yeah. Like,

Anne 27:21

anticipated that this would be the of not using the bags and filling up the toilets, but

Caroline 27:26

they couldn't have anticipated that when the boat was tugged that it would tilt, but they could have anticipated that if nobody follows the rules, there's gonna be shit overflowing every toilet That's like the why bother voting philosophy if everyone did that, there would be a problem.

Anne 27:42

many, moral decisions that we make, we should think, what if everyone did this?

Caroline 27:47

Right.

Anne 27:47

Do we think he got his fancy caramel coffee? Remember he was like about to go for a coffee and then everything went to shit.

Caroline 27:53

I super don't care what happened to him.

Anne 27:55

the only reason I bring that up is because of all the and the things that I feel entitled to. The thing that would be hardest for me would be not having a coffee, no morning coffee for four

Caroline 28:05

Hmm.

Anne 28:05

me go, oh, no.

Caroline 28:06

I don't drink coffee, but the food thing that was the thing that made me the most panicked, because I get hangry, like waiting hours for food and I, I just kept thinking about, you know, I travel with my family usually, I always have snacks on me all the time for the children who get hangry.. So I was just very stressed out thinking about the food situation

Anne 28:28

I agree. It's possible. Some of these people had several children and they weren't actually hoarding. They were the assigned person from their room to bring the food back.

Caroline 28:35

possible. I would hope people that were behaving that way, that's why, But who knows? And then also when the air conditioning cut out, because as you know, I'm a hot sleeper and I needed to be like no warmer than 65 degrees to sleep. so that would've been hard as well.

Anne 28:50

Let's talk about somebody who didn't disgrace themselves. Jen, the activities director.

Caroline 28:56

Hmm.

Anne 28:57

very chirpy.

Caroline 28:58

She was so great.

Anne 28:59

Her expressions when she talks about like doing number ones and number twos being a tricky problem. Very funny.

Caroline 29:04

And having that level of energy. And I love how at the end she was just like, I just wanted time for myself to I admire her because she has a lot of skillsets that I couldn't have in a million years,

Anne 29:16

Yeah, I think I'd be like, I'm not getting in front of that microphone. I'm out.

Caroline 29:19

I mean, seriously.

Anne 29:21

listened to a podcast that interviewed her. It was called Fifi Fev and Nick and we have to keep in mind that she's still currently a carnival employee, but she was kind of like, it wasn't so bad, She said she never saw any urine in the hall. And she said if you stuck to the top decks, lot of the nastiness was avoidable. she described it as a musty teenage bedroom smell. And she said she's had people message her who say it was the best crus they had ever been on. I guess it's the whole what doesn't kill you makes a good story you know, if you had the right attitude, you could be like, alright, we're camping on a cruise ship. This is crazy. This is fun. Let's make the best of it.

Caroline 29:53

For four days.

Anne 29:54

there are some very resilient people out there. I, I'm not saying I'd be one of them, but she says they're people who, come on anniversary cruises, who were on this, who like do it every year in honor of this experience and she still works in cruises. It didn't put her off.

Caroline 30:06

I get that. But the four extra days, no showering,

Anne 30:11

one of my

Caroline 30:11

shitty food, not drinking.

Anne 30:14

showering or washing hands? Like was all

Caroline 30:16

Couldn't have been if there No,

Anne 30:19

if it's hot and sweaty.

Caroline 30:20

no, there couldn't have been because if they can't pump for the toilet, it can't pump for water,

Anne 30:24

The hosts in this asked if staff were compensated, the way. Customers were, our passengers were somewhat compensated. And she said no, she got rewarded with being able to choose to base herself wherever she wanted. And where do you think she chose

Caroline 30:36

I don't know. Oh.

Anne 30:38

So now she does Australian, roots. just This interview I think raises the question, it that bad? How sensationalized is this? I did find an A MA which kind of clarifies that it wasn't that bad but then someone commented, you know, you could be a carnival plant minimizing things. And I,'cause I've seen other people say that it was one of the most traumatic experience of, of their lives. So

Caroline 30:57

I really am very skeptical of a narrative that claims it wasn't that bad. it seemed like an utter nightmare in like 10 different ways.

Anne 31:06

also think about the people who had to like get back for work. if you're four days over, surely people had things they had to do in those four days.

Caroline 31:13

And you don't have any cell service, right? Because that's part of the reason why it was, Not reported on the beginning, it only began to be reported on when that other cruise ship came close by. And it's like, what are you gonna do? There's no power on the ship, there's no music happening, there's no entertainment of any kind. As soon as you go inside, there's no air conditioning, no air flow no light. People are pouring water on the life, jacket lights so they can see, I mean, ugh.

Anne 31:39

jacket light'cause you sink.

Caroline 31:40

I know. and the waiting and the not knowing.

Anne 31:43

yeah.

Caroline 31:43

interminable that feeling is. to have that for days. And in the period of those days, you are also hungry and. There's nothing else for you to do to occupy your mind and you haven't showered and everything smells like, Ugh.

Anne 31:57

So I am skeptical of the accounts that it wasn't that bad. But I guess some people are good at making the best of a bad

Caroline 32:04

it,

Anne 32:05

I wouldn't be one of them.

Caroline 32:05

it wasn't right? It wasn't that bad when I was stuck in New York with my new husband for days with no power or self, on land in the same situation, but I would never do it again. I enjoy talking about it, but you couldn't pay me to do it again,

Anne 32:22

What doesn't kill you makes a good story. I.

Caroline 32:23

right?

Anne 32:24

Alright, Hannah, thirsty. I loved some of her quotes. There is so much sex on this cruise ship. She says so

Caroline 32:31

Mm-hmm.

Anne 32:32

You don't want to know. Everything is hard and fun. not the most subtle

Caroline 32:36

That was great. And I do wanna know

Anne 32:38

she needs like her own, reality TV series.

Caroline 32:41

Yes.

Anne 32:42

And then the way she makes the point of letting us know she was in someone else's bed when the alarm goes off. funny.

Caroline 32:47

she's great. I love how she owns her sex positiveness.

Anne 32:51

she did make me wonder being on a Disney cruise, sleeping with whom Below deck, Because on a Disney cruise you have these characters, saw a Thor and I didn't get close, but he was sexy, right? Like, and then these princesses, we didn't do the princess meet and greets, but we did have a chat with Tiana because she happened to like by us and she's one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen in real life, the Tiana actress. And so I was asking

Caroline 33:13

Hmm.

Anne 33:13

waiter like, do wait staff hang out with characters? And he was pretty much like, no, there is a division,, he didn't say this, but there's like a hierarchy of hotness, right? Like that the wait stop

Caroline 33:24

Like in friends,

Anne 33:25

which part of friend?

Caroline 33:26

When Joey works at the museum and Ross doesn't sit with Joey in the cafeteria,

Anne 33:31

yeah. I guess that the princesses and superheroes probably have more status. Right. didn't mind Hannah's comments about the Soviet Union. I know you said you didn't like it, but I don't know. I've often thought about how American gluttony is viewed, because I've worked with refugees and you have all these people from different countries that are not as wealthy, wealthy as parts of the US. And I'm not saying that everyone in the US is wealthy. I know there's a massive and growing divide but when I watch something, like I've caught episodes of man versus food, and it's this one guy eating like a hundred pancakes or something, or 15 burgers. And I'm like, what do people who are not from our country think about this when they don't have enough food? so Hannah's comment about welcome to the Soviet Union, kind of just made me think of that.

Caroline 34:12

I mean, I, appreciate that and agree on American gluttony or whatever. I just, I think it's more relevant when they're being gluttonous than when they're desperate and hoarding and whatever. I guess the point was more like how quickly things become, Lord the Flies, which I get. but I also think this was a very desperate situation,

Anne 34:32

and she did seem to be gloating a little bit.

Caroline 34:34

Yeah. I just keep thinking like if I was there with my children, how desperate I would feel, but if I were in a country where things were suddenly emergent and I was with my children, then that is still a fair comment.

Anne 34:47

Then there was also, Steven can't swim. I don't have much to say about him, but

Caroline 34:50

I know.

Anne 34:51

he just reminded me of Keno in Andor when he turns to Casy and it's like, I can't swim,

Caroline 34:55

Oh, so heartbreaking.

Anne 34:57

Most heartbreaking moments.

Caroline 34:58

Did you hear Dave Fallon doesn't like and or, and he's gonna be the new, head Lucasfilm.

Anne 35:04

Who's he?

Caroline 35:04

he's involved in Mandalorian and Clone Wars and a bunch of other Star Wars shows. Anyway, I hope that that was a false rumor because how can anyone not like, and or

Anne 35:14

why certain MAGA conservatives wouldn't like Andor.

Caroline 35:16

Yeah, but not the new head of Lucasfilm

Anne 35:18

no, you should like Andor because it's one of the best things that's come out of Disney and the Star Wars universe ever, ever

Caroline 35:24

Yeah. Ever.

Anne 35:25

very relevant to what's happening in the world right now as we

Caroline 35:28

Uh,

Anne 35:29

about Cassian being picked up off the street and detained and sent somewhere without a fair trial because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Caroline 35:36

also they don't even bother to lie well anymore or whatever. but yeah, I, about Steven, I just wrote Steven special services manager can't swim. Like, I just

Anne 35:45

well.

Caroline 35:46

as a person who, can swim very well, very strongly and I am afraid of the ocean. I just like cannot imagine putting myself in that situation.

Anne 35:56

of the deck I was afraid of the ocean too Like and I'm a I'm a great swimmer but the waves were huge. I wouldn't have wanted to get on a rescue boat in those, in those waves. And again, we were in the Bass Strait, which is kind of notoriously choppy. and I don't know what the Gulf of Mexico was like, but yeah, they're lucky there wasn't a hurricane or something.

Caroline 36:15

Right. And the weather did get bad at one point, when the tugboats came, I think they said the weather got bad. So it was very choppy at that moment.

Anne 36:23

Another, interesting character. Was Frank Spagnoletti, like he was like a caricature with his whiskey

Caroline 36:29

Cigar smoking, whiskey, drinking.

Anne 36:32

I mean, if we, if we're giving Hannah a reality TV show about everyone she sleeps with on cruise ships, like I wanna better call SA style TV show about him.

Caroline 36:40

Mm-hmm.

Anne 36:41

It's like salivating over the class action lawsuit, he's the source of that ticket info, which I think we should talk about at some point.

Caroline 36:47

But I was also like, he's an expert in maritime law. I always wonder how do you get that specialty? It's a very niche thing.

Anne 36:55

I guess maybe you just take a class in law school and see a case and you're like, Ooh, that's what I wanna get into.

Caroline 37:01

Fascinating.

Anne 37:02

well, let's talk about the scariest or most disturbing moment. What was that for you?

Caroline 37:07

when they get out on deck and there's flames, flames coming off, I don't think I've ever mentioned on this podcast, but I grew up afraid of house fires. I used to think in a past life, I died in a house fire or something like that, because I just grew up just terrified. And I was always asking my mom, do I have a rope ladder? I need a rope ladder for my bedroom. My mom had to buy a rope ladder me to have under my bed. And then now the house we live in, we have fire deterrent blankets in every bedroom and in the kitchen. and I'm like, unreasonably afraid of fire. Yeah. like two horrors in one,

Anne 37:40

yeah,

Caroline 37:41

you know,

Anne 37:41

go in this situation in a house? Theoretically, you can get out the window or you can get out the door and you have somewhere to go if you're quick enough. But with this, like if that fire had spread, what are you doing? You're jumping off. I,

Caroline 37:51

into my other fear the ocean.

Anne 37:53

fear. I think for me, the lights going out, I felt kind of

Caroline 37:57

Mm.

Anne 37:58

by the idea those lights going out, like before poop was even involved. those interior halls, I guess they did have emergency lights, but there's no opening into them. they would be so dark. And I know this didn't actually go full Lord of the Flies, but if it did, those halls would've been terrifying.

Caroline 38:13

Mm-hmm.

Anne 38:13

horror movie In those halls, it looks like,

Caroline 38:15

Sure.

Anne 38:15

long haul and the shining as it is, How Would you turn this into a horror movie?

Caroline 38:19

Do I need to do anything? It is a horror movie.

Anne 38:22

Like I, is stalking the corridors and taking advantage of the situation. I think you could make this into a horror movie.

Caroline 38:28

You know what mine would be that a creature from the sea figured its way onto the ship, that's what I'm afraid. That's why I'm afraid of the ocean. I'm not afraid of water.

Anne 38:37

ocean,

Caroline 38:38

in it.

Anne 38:38

like an a bacteria or something that turned people into zombies.

Caroline 38:42

I was thinking like an und served creature that's just been lying in. Wait,

Anne 38:46

And it can kind of like scurry its way up the side. Yes. I love it. let's make it alright. another just potentially disturbing moment is just the reference to the prayer meeting. if this had gone on, would we have religious zealots like Mrs. Carmichael in Stephen King's, the Mist, and different factions forming, if it had gone full Lord of the Flies. Yeah, and I think what you've talked about already is just how long it took to go back. it reminds me of that Seinfeld episode when Elaine and Jerry are stuck in his parents' house in Florida for some reason, I think. And she's got an hurt back

Caroline 39:17

Oh.

Anne 39:18

they're

Caroline 39:18

Mm-hmm.

Anne 39:19

into how it won't be that bad. And he's like, it's like a cup of coffee and you know, just how you would have to, I guess change your viewpoint to allow yourself to feel okay about it. now the no internet thing, that would really be a problem on these big cruise ships because they're so big. my husband and I didn't get the internet package because, you know, we're cheap skates. And we thought, okay, well this is a good opportunity to stay off social media. But we did have access to WhatsApp, which meant we could be like, I'm on level nine, or I'm, aft by the slide or whatever. And it would've been really hard to find each other when we got separated, when you go off in different directions. And so I think without that, without being able to text each other, how do you find people in a ship that big with that many people?

Caroline 39:59

I think about this all the time. Like when we studied abroad none of us had international cell phones. you would spend weekends going to these cities and then you would be like, okay, we're gonna be at this place at this time. And then that place at that time and that place at that time, and that place at that time. And you'd have to have everything figured out because if you missed meeting up with people by a certain place, you had to know Right. Exactly. Yeah. You'd have to know the next place they were gonna be. So there is a way to like work around that.'cause we did as millennials, we are the only generation who's had to navigate both of these worlds. And so we, we can figure it out, but I think if everyone you're with is not accustomed to that. And now everyone's watches are electrics. So like if you can't charge your watch and it dies, you don't know what time it is to meet,

Anne 40:43

so it's

Caroline 40:44

whatever, you know?

Anne 40:45

people have lived without the internet for many, many years, but once you become dependent on it, it's harder because you don't have these ways of making plans in your head.

Caroline 40:53

Yeah. Internet or electricity.

Anne 40:55

Speaking of plans, of my questions was how do they not have a better plan? why don't they have

Caroline 40:59

Yeah.

Anne 41:00

in the vicinity on retainer? there's lots of boats going back and forth. Why don't they have few just about And I guess it's because it doesn't happen that often, but It just made me go, why isn't there a better plan for the shit hitting the propeller this bad?

Caroline 41:12

I did think that too, I was like,

Anne 41:15

take

Caroline 41:15

how is it this many days? This doesn't feel like it's that far, but I also have no sense of a hundred nautical miles, like how long that is. So I chucked it up to me not understanding the distance as opposed to, but I had the same thought.

Anne 41:30

I wanna a podcast I listened to when they talked about the logistics of getting people from one ship to the other and why that wouldn't work,

Caroline 41:37

Mm-hmm.

Anne 41:37

respect that it is not a life or death emergency, so I, found this episode of 99% Invisible, which talks about lifeboats on the Titanic and the evolution of lifeboats in general, and this assumption that we have, that if there are enough lifeboats, they will save us, but that only worked on the Titanic because it was so calm that day. In Rough Waters on a ship that is listing, getting onto lifeboat, lowering those lifeboats is super dangerous. And this podcast was basically saying that ship is its own best lifeboat and they're designed to sink well, giving time to rescue people. But that lifeboats should always be a last resort,

Caroline 42:10

speaking of lifeboats, if you move 4,000 plus people onto a ship where there's already 4,000 plus people, there's no way there's enough lifeboats for 8,000 people. You know, like if something goes wrong in that other ship. So even if you did do it successfully, it wouldn't be a safe new situation either. And were they gonna sleep and you Yeah.

Anne 42:27

you know, I know we're talking about such huge amounts of weight as it is, but would an additional 4,000 people on a boat affect the weight in a way that would make it unsafe? I don't know.

Caroline 42:36

You know what I just thought of too is like people who have like diabetes or like other prescriptions that they require, Oof.

Anne 42:46

I mean, maybe there was a generator somewhere where they were able to handle, you would think there'd be generators

Caroline 42:50

Breast milk.

Anne 42:51

alternatives for like emergencies, even if not everyone's food could be

Caroline 42:55

Yeah,

Anne 42:55

but to,, keep medication safe. don't know. But yeah, a lot of these

Caroline 42:58

yeah,

Anne 43:00

Let's talk about some of the deeper horrors of this. touching on privilege and virtual privilege, societal breakdown. I is looking more and more likely. We are recording this while ice invades Minneapolis and is cutting off snap. Things can become every man for himself pretty quickly, which I think

Caroline 43:50

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Anne 43:51

it reminds me of the book Sweet Francis, which is partially about people fleeing Paris as Germany invaded, and just the, the breakdown of norms what people are willing to do when they're in danger and starving. And it's not horror, but it's a very scary book for that aspect of it.

Caroline 44:06

Yeah.

Anne 44:06

and then other cruise problems in general. I'm really glad I didn't look into any of this before I got on the cruise because, felt bad, but environmentally it's bad., In terms of emissions and, keeping this thing moving across the sea, what it's dumping in, if you look up environmental impact of cruise ships, it's pretty bad. and then the law,

Caroline 44:26

Mm-hmm.

Anne 44:26

murder, assault, disappearances, On the Amy Bradley's Missing documentary, Jamie Barnett, a cruise ship safety advocate whose daughter died on a ship, says, quote, most people have no idea when they board a cruise ship, the dangers that are inherent there. So let's talk about some of those dangers

Caroline 44:42

Mm-hmm.

Anne 44:42

The Wine and Crime Podcast tells us a bit about that. I.

Caroline 44:45

so I didn't re-listen to that, but I have listened to that episode a bunch of times. It is one of my favorites. and there is this whole issue of jurisdiction and, international waters and where is the ship when the incident takes place, and the inability to understand that versus when the incident is reported, it just leads to an inherent inability to resolve, situations that they do occur. Now, to be fair, on the Amy Bradley thing, which I have a lot of criticisms on that docuseries, probably more than anything we've watched, Or discussed. And one of them being the mother whose daughter died on a cruise ship, she overdosed. it's not an inherent ship issue. Now, of course, it is tragic and I want that mother to have resolution and she is doing something noble because it is very true her point. But I think it's misleading the way they introduce her in that documentary. It makes it seem like her daughter was assaulted by a cruise ship staff member. it it,

Anne 45:46

gangs women off cruise ships

Caroline 45:49

right human trafficking, whatever. Like it's, it is a misdirection type of thing, or misleading, I should say. but yeah, in addition to my whole like control and ocean and whatever thing, just sort of increase my. Desire to never be on a cruise.

Anne 46:05

yeah, in terms of you saying that bad things happen on cruise ships. often it's not just that the bad thing happened, it's the way it's dealt with because of the international

Caroline 46:14

Right.

Anne 46:14

and the way it is

Caroline 46:15

Right.

Anne 46:16

or not properly investigated because it's registered in like Panama or something like that. And it's like, okay, we've got a perpetrator from this country, a victim from this country, but we're registered here and then nothing happens.

Caroline 46:26

Right.

Anne 46:26

listen to a podcast, crime countdown, cruise ship Horrors. And so it counts down 10 cruise ship horrors. And I think nine outta 10 of them are men murdering their Wes, Or their partners, which let's face it, that happens on land too, This is often choose the bear, but they mostly got caught, Like one guy said his wife blew off the ship and I think that's the one they cover on

Caroline 46:47

I know that's the one I cover. Yeah, yeah.

Anne 46:50

that doesn't happen.

Caroline 46:51

No.

Anne 46:51

the ones I don't know about that concern me. of assault that don't get investigated

Caroline 46:56

you Already mentioned the whole, do we think that Jen is being accurate in that other podcast she was interviewed on, or is she being loyal to Carnival? the whole aspect of like, it's a corporation as well, so what does come out is,

Anne 47:10

and they

Caroline 47:10

could be misleading.

Anne 47:11

because they wanna keep this business going. So even on the,

Caroline 47:14

Mm-hmm.

Anne 47:14

cruise ship that I was on, which was the Disney Wonder, a woman disappeared in 2011. She was a British crew member, 24 years old, and she's gone. Both watched the Amy Bradley's missing documentary before this, so we're gonna talk about that now for just a little bit. So if you wanna skip ahead a couple minutes, if you don't want spoilers for that. What do you think happened to Amy Bradley?

Caroline 47:34

I think she jumped.

Anne 47:35

so? I think that

Caroline 47:35

Yeah,

Anne 47:36

really looks like her, though. Like I was looking at like the eyebrow, I don't know.

Caroline 47:40

I think she jumped or fell. I do not think she was trafficked. I think that woman who saw her on Dr. Phil and had the, that story is the most ridiculous attention grabby. Thing full of nonsense, you know, oh, the deal's later, you know, like

Anne 47:56

Yeah, I think we

Caroline 47:57

the deal's at 11 and you better beware like the, like someone, someone who, abducted and trafficked, a woman who the FBI is actively searching for and there's photos of her everywhere, is in a bar that cruise ship attendees are hanging out in for lunch then having backdoor discussions with dudes in the women's bathroom about it.

Anne 48:18

Yeah.

Caroline 48:19

come on.

Anne 48:19

What about the Navy guy who went to the unlicensed bar brothel and didn't say anything

Caroline 48:24

first of all. Memory is fallible. Especially when you don't really know a person and your ability to recognize that person later when you don't really know them. So the girls who saw yellow in the elevator or whatever, Or the woman who saw Amy at the bar, or this guy, or the person who saw'em on the beach, whatever. I think it's all very imperfect and impractical. But I think also, it's clear to me that the family did not accept her as being a gay woman. in the whole beginning they're talking about her dancing with guys and they never discussed the fact that she's gay. And I feel like,

Anne 48:58

was weird.

Caroline 48:59

their inability to accept her and then they're all like together in this enclosed place for a few days and she's realizing her family. It's never gonna accept her, or really know her, her whole letter in a bottle to her partner. And I always wonder this about myself when I watch things like this, and it seems clear to me that people are holding on to a truth that they can accept more than the truth that it's most likely. I wonder how often I do that. You know, my immediate thought is like, what am I willingly not accepting because I can't, and that's what I think is going on here.

Anne 49:33

I think the fact that the brother heard her call, like from a passing car, I'm like, you're hearing what you wanna hear.

Caroline 49:39

Exactly.

Anne 49:40

Those pictures, I feel like they look like her. I don't know.

Caroline 49:43

They look like her, but I mean, genetic geneal, this woman's probably just from the same part of the world that Amy is from genetically, you know?

Anne 49:50

if it's not her, if someone who knows that woman or that woman would be like, it's me. Like

Caroline 49:55

Mm-hmm.

Anne 49:56

You know, like and this happens in what we're gonna discuss next week with Steven Stanner, like people do come out and make false testimony and sightings.

Caroline 50:04

Yep.

Anne 50:04

it is possible that these people are lying for some, know, misguided attempted attention.

Caroline 50:09

What do you think happened, because you said to me before you had finished that you thought yellow did it.

Anne 50:13

based on this documentary, I think Yella did it. But

Caroline 50:16

Mm,

Anne 50:16

know this documentary is manipulating me to think that, so. I

Caroline 50:20

yeah.

Anne 50:20

to look into it before we discussed it, which I didn't have time to do, I barely started glancing at other media surrounding this, and that started poking holes.

Caroline 50:28

Yeah.

Anne 50:29

I

Caroline 50:29

finish.

Anne 50:30

like, after episode one, I was like, yellow did it. like

Caroline 50:33

Yeah.

Anne 50:33

I look into

Caroline 50:34

that's what they want. That's what they want you to think.

Anne 50:36

think like, okay, his daughter turns him in. why would she do that? What is she intuiting about her father to do that to him?

Caroline 50:44

That he's a scoundrel. That one conversation was such a nothing burger too. You know, like,

Anne 50:48

expecting a great

Caroline 50:49

just like, what are you talking about? What photo? You know, like, there was no reveal.

Anne 50:53

I guess my

Caroline 50:53

yeah. I felt like,

Anne 50:54

one is still out

Caroline 50:56

I think either she fell or she jumped, but I don't think she was trafficked.

Anne 51:00

not easy to fall, like these railings are high,

Caroline 51:02

Mm-hmm.

Anne 51:03

it's either she

Caroline 51:03

Yeah,

Anne 51:04

happened to her. I can see if like, okay, you're leaning and then was there a massive tilt that

Caroline 51:08

Yeah,

Anne 51:08

could say, like, this crazy wave came okay, then maybe I would believe that she fell. But if no one's saying like, we felt this thing at like five 30,'cause surely there's people up between three 30 and five 30. So if there was some tilt that could have

Caroline 51:18

yeah.

Anne 51:19

people would know about it.

Caroline 51:20

I really don't like anything that has a narrative of I know they wouldn't do that because they had plans. Many, many times people end their lives and everyone is shocked by it. I don't think it's a valid. Argument that she had plans or that you don't think she would've done something like that. Lots of people do that you wouldn't think, I don't think anybody thought Anthony Bourdain was going to, there's a lot of people who have done this that felt desperate in secret, and that's a true horror as well, you know?

Anne 51:51

very severe depression can be beneath the surface and people might it. Well, another deeper horror of the cruise ship industry is disease. just last year there was a 22% increase in norovirus outbreaks, which is vomiting and diarrhea. So if something like that is going around being in close confined quarters, it is likely to spread. And then there was the diamond princess where passengers

Caroline 52:15

Mm-hmm.

Anne 52:15

in their cabins back in early 2020 for 14 days. So I have a question for you. Would you rather be on the diamond princess as COVID is spreading novel disease, you don't know what, how bad it is and be in your cabin for 14 days or on poop cruise? I think I'd go poop cruise four days over 14 days.

Caroline 52:31

But there's power.

Anne 52:32

Yeah that's true. I guess you could, you could watch tv. I just picture being in my cabin with my children for two weeks. also the fear at that time.

Caroline 52:40

Yeah.

Anne 52:40

the fear of COVID when it first started, just not knowing how bad it was. Like, I remember we went for a walk and my kids touched a railing and I was like, wash your hands. Like, because we just didn't know. So I feel like the fear would be pretty bad at, in that scenario.

Caroline 52:53

I remember walking into town and I have a video of Andrew and he's like putting on socks on his hands and being like, this is for me to press the crosswalk button. This like cute little informational video of

Anne 53:04

I remember like, wiping down everything I touched and that wasn't really the issue. Right. Because we just didn't know.

Caroline 53:09

I remember watching the neighbor wiping their groceries on the front of their house and just being like, uh, I should do that.

Anne 53:16

I didn't do.

Caroline 53:17

I didn't, I didn't wipe down my groceries.

Anne 53:19

couple things. A Royal Caribbean water slide recently broke while someone was on it. I saw a video of the water like leaking out of it. So I'm extremely

Caroline 53:27

I saw that too.

Anne 53:28

horrified when rides and slides break down. And then there's the 2012 Costa Concordia that hit rocks off the coast of Italy, turned in inside and 32 people actually died.

Caroline 53:36

Yeah, that was horrific.

Anne 53:38

yeah, things can go wrong on these, but most of the time don't. Right. But it's what we don't know. That scares me.

Caroline 53:43

Yeah. I guess last week I was defending hitchhiking or something like that, so

Anne 53:47

still, I still, I wouldn't recommend doing it.

Caroline 53:50

no, I wouldn't recommend it either.

Anne 53:53

And you know, the last deeper horror I wanted to discuss, and I'm gonna quote you're wrong about it, was capitalism all along.

Caroline 53:59

Mm.

Anne 54:00

We've heard about the impacts of cruise ships on places like Venice and Santorini and Barcelona when a cruise ship disgorges several thousand people. love despise relationship that these places have with depending on the tourism, but just being kind of destroyed by it. And of course, just what you're signing on for. the way they were compensated, that's enough.

Caroline 54:21

Well, and the ticket thing, which you mentioned, like somebody died at Disney World, but because they're Disney Plus login, they agree, you know, your terms and conditions for Disney plus. you can't sue Disney for any reason whatsoever if you have a Disney plus again. Oh gosh.

Anne 54:39

Yeah. Terms and conditions in general I think are very problematic.

Caroline 54:42

Mm-hmm.

Anne 54:43

so Carnival makes absolutely no guarantee for safe passage, a seaworthy vessel, adequate and wholesome food and sanitary and safe living conditions. And you know, you said this when we brought it up, whenever it came up before that, like, well what are they guaranteeing? You know,

Caroline 54:55

Right,

Anne 54:56

and they had a history of these

Caroline 54:57

right.

Anne 54:58

I feel like they should have been held accountable for that. I remember

Caroline 55:01

Mm-hmm.

Anne 55:02

you when I agreed to my terms and conditions because what else can you do if you are gonna go on this thing? You have to agree.

Caroline 55:08

Yeah. NDAs and, and non-compete should be for preservation of IP only. It doesn't absolve you of all responsibility for your clients or customers, you know?

Anne 55:20

A Carnival Cruise line spokesperson said in response, the Carnival Triumph incident over 12 years ago was a teachable moment for the entire cruise ship industry. So I hope they learned.

Caroline 55:29

That phrase, teachable moment, makes me nauseous. I worst boss I ever had used to use that

Anne 55:35

time they do something

Caroline 55:35

phrase all the time.

Anne 55:36

a teachable moment. Any questions?

Caroline 55:39

you have questions?

Anne 55:41

Uh, little things like were luggage

Caroline 55:43

I, I think we discussed questions I had.

Anne 55:44

our

Caroline 55:44

Yeah,

Anne 55:45

Did that happen? how did the doors work if there's no electricity? Ours were all key cards. Could you not lock your doors? Does that raise the potential for assault and theft?

Caroline 55:53

that must have been on the generator, the key card.

Anne 55:56

What if someone had a medical emergency? You brought that up. Would they have been airlifted out by helicopter? why do these toilets need power to work a physics curse? I don't know. That's our new line. Yeah. alright. Criticism, what do you think?

Caroline 56:08

I think it went too soft on Carnival, to be honest I appreciated that it was so positive on the staff of the ship itself, but I wish it had been harsher on the company. also I wish it wasn't so, triumphant for CNN to have gone all in. And Jeff Zucker, who's a piece of shit you know.

Anne 56:31

I think tonally it's kind of all over the place. Like sometimes it's funny and

Caroline 56:35

Yeah.

Anne 56:35

of touching on these very serious issues, like the legality of all this, the treatment of staff, the over sensationalism in news media, but it doesn't really develop it, but I guess for what it is, it's a fun foul little ride, and I can't

Caroline 56:49

Yeah. And

Anne 56:51

It's short.

Caroline 56:52

yes, so true. it's like a quick little blip. I also think having watched almost every other train wreck, it's pretty consistent in that way where it kind of, except for the Astroworld one, I think the Astroworld one really did. What I appreciate in documentaries is often the ability to call out something that needs to be resolved or fixed or drawn attention to. And that happens in the Astroworld one, but not in the rest of'em.

Anne 57:19

Maybe it would be interesting to have a 10 part cruise ship. of the cruise ship industry. season like this is one thing, and Amy Bradley is another thing, and is another thing. And treatment of staff is another thing. Environmental impact is another thing.

Caroline 57:32

Or like if he needed to have a B maritime situations.'cause there's also that guy who like killed his wife scuba diving. You know? Like you could open it up a little bit if it's just like

Anne 57:41

Yeah,

Caroline 57:41

international waters thing.

Anne 57:43

international waters.

Caroline 57:45

Hmm.

Anne 57:45

It would've been also interesting to hear from people who weren't so horrified. Somebody with a touch of resilience to be like, well, I use the bag. It wasn't that bad, right? Like, these people do exist,

Caroline 57:55

Yeah.

Anne 57:55

I know they were leaning in right to the horror of this, but it was one sided. And again, as I said, like there's some people who are like, it wasn't that bad. And there are other people who are like, this was trauma. Somebody who was on the ship in a lad. Bible article I read said everything said was true, but it focused heavily on the bathroom problems. There was a lot more detail to this nightmare that was left out. Food poisoning, running outta water, food, hoarding, damn near every time they gave us an update. It was wrong, et cetera, et cetera. And another passenger who was 12 at the time said to me, it feels like their profiting off something that deeply affected and traumatized me. So that's other, side of this. So people who saw this, who were there, who were like,

Caroline 58:32

I am skeptical of anyone who says it wasn't that bad.

Anne 58:35

could be carnival plants for sure. Alright, survival.

Caroline 58:38

Don't go on a cruise.

Anne 58:40

I wanna say read the fine print, but I don't know. As I said, not that it really matters. Like so much of our lives require

Caroline 58:46

time for that?

Anne 58:47

box. If you wanna participate in life, you are signing on, I would say go to your muster. Listen to your flight attendant.

Caroline 58:54

Yeah.

Anne 58:54

Don't tune it out. Know where to go in an emergency. This ties into some of the things we discussed in hereditary last week. Carry your EpiPen. Know how to administer one. Things like that. Be prepared.

Caroline 59:04

Pack snacks.

Anne 59:05

Heck snacks. Yep.

Caroline 59:06

don't be so precious you can't pick up your poop with a red bag.

Anne 59:10

All right. Do you have a palate cleanser?

Caroline 59:11

Yes. Okay. So I have a couple, cause I kind of panicked because I'm still obsessed with heat of rivalry.

Anne 59:16

Okay.

Caroline 59:17

It's like, what else am I gonna talk about? but on TikTok, there's a couple of trends that are. Giving me joy. there's a guy whose handle is JB Star I think today he's on day 25 of learning how to Dougie and he just like plays the song of Teach Me How to Dougie and tries to do it every day. And there's all these corporate handles that are like, see you tomorrow. You know, like there's a lot of people getting involved and engaged. No, it's terrible. It's so terrible. he did actually watch someone's, I think her name was Jasmine something, I should have looked that up. But he did watch a tutorial, of hers and got better. Slightly, but it's still terrible. then there's the F Andmore Art Museum, which I think is in New York. It's in New York state for sure. They feel

Anne 1:00:06

because that's upstate New York.

Caroline 1:00:07

I have no clue. I just stumbled upon this handle because what they do is they focus in on pieces of art that they have at the museum, and then they pair it with audio from a movie or a TV show. And yeah, it's really, really fun. and then lately people have been doing impressions of owls, but with their like regional dialect or like Myra Rose being an owl. This is like Myra Rose if she ran out. Who, you know, like just,

Anne 1:00:32

So silly.

Caroline 1:00:33

yeah, there's a couple like fun silly things happening on TikTok. So

Anne 1:00:36

some silly

Caroline 1:00:37

download TikTok.

Anne 1:00:38

in these difficult times.

Caroline 1:00:39

I know. Or in six, six to eight weeks. You reels people will. We'll see all this stuff, I'm sure.

Anne 1:00:45

Yeah, I'm in Instagram reels, people I'll, I'll get it eventually. Homework Next week we'll be returning to the true crime inspired by Hereditary, which is captive audience the abduction of Steven Stanner and the impact on his family, also ties into Amy Bradley, which we've just briefly discussed. And after that, Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Marino. Garcia, okay, what about recommendations? And

Caroline 1:01:09

We already talked about my number one recommendation is the episode of Wine and Crime called Cruise Ship Disappearances. It is episode seven, so it's really super early on in the show when there are still three people and there are currently two and their audio is not great. so there's some leveling stuff you have to do, but it is really hilarious. Like it may be cry laughing.

Anne 1:01:29

so, amateur podcasters need grace.

Caroline 1:01:32

I think if there's one thing we have going for us, it's that you are stickler about our audio being great. So I, I am sure that's not actually true, but anyway, have some grace for them on that. I also mentioned Train Wreck, a bunch of the other episodes. my top three are the Esther World Balloon Boy and Mayor of Mayhem. There's also, if you true crime obsessed, if you listen to that, they cover train wrecks. Every now and then, particularly after they've covered something super heavy, much like what we've done here. So, we talked about Devil in the White City as well. Titanic, there were several times in this conversation that I always thought of, was his face being like, not the better half. You know,

Anne 1:02:08

Better. H

Caroline 1:02:10

like,

Anne 1:02:10

We say that

Caroline 1:02:11

yeah,

Anne 1:02:11

in my house. We've also started saying, at one point cow is he's, he's yelling at somebody about, I think finding Jack because he's apparently still in the heart of the ocean. And he goes, now you moron. And so like we always say that to each other. We're like trying to get somebody to hurry up. We're like, now you moron.

Caroline 1:02:26

I know I've said this on the podcast before, but whenever nobody's listening to me in my house. I'm always like, can anybody hear me? Like when they're looking for people at the end? Tinder Swindler is the last thing I wanted to mention because there's a woman who has a yacht Hannah, who's thirsty, would enjoy being on this yacht with Perilla, which is another TCO joke if true crime obsessed joke if you are on the Patreon with them. and that's it.

Anne 1:02:49

All right. Well, I was also gonna recommend Titanic. related to that, is the Titanic Ship of Dreams podcast. I've listened to one episode and it goes very deep into all the history of Titanic if you're interested in knowing more. and though it didn't really get bad, the narrative surrounding this refers to Lord of the Flies a lot, and that's one of my absolute favorite classics, and it's one of Stephen King's favorite classics. So I want it to recommend. Those sort of Lord of the Flies. Stories like Yellow Jackets, fantastic Land, which is about a Disney like resort in Florida that's hit by a hurricane. And how the stranded skeleton staff descend into chaos and violence. I definitely wanna cover it in the future here. in terms of hoarding food, the Spanish film, the platform is about this like vertical prison where they lower a platform of food down every day and people can take what they want. And of course, people at the top take too much. So by the time it gets to the bottom, people are starving. other claustrophobic situations where people are stuck and experiencing cabin fever a dissent into chaos and violence. Stephen King's under the dome, Stephen King's the Mist, Stephen King's, the Shining. King loves exploring the psychological distress of people being stuck somewhere that they can't get out. let's see. Better call Saul for class action suits. Sudden Storm is a book about the Galveston hurricane and how lucky they were that this wasn't in hurricane season. it reminded me of a 30 rock episode, in season five where Liz is stuck on a plane captained by her pilot boyfriend Carol. Played by Matt Damon. It's hilarious. So check out that. I think it's called Double-Edged Sword. And that's it. Anything else?

Caroline 1:04:19

And, and Or

Anne 1:04:20

Always and or, yeah,

Caroline 1:04:21

always and or,

Anne 1:04:22

and I guess the Amy Bradley's missing documentary, but look at it with a critical eye.

Caroline 1:04:26

yeah, for sure. and I didn't mention my husband this whole episode.

Anne 1:04:30

Well, you just did. Good job. Good job.

Caroline 1:04:34

I'm so proud of me.

Anne 1:04:36

Alright. Thank you for listening. Please do all the things podcasters ask you to do, like and subscribe. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or threads, write a review on iTunes. You can email us at John to Darkness pod@gmail.com. most importantly, please tell a like-minded friend who is also drawn to darkness. like Shirley Jackson, you delight in what you fear. Join us in two weeks here at Drawn To Darkness. Special shout out to Nancy Ano who painted our cover art. You can find her on Instagram at Nancy ano and to Harry Kidd for our intro and outro music. You can find him on Instagram at Harry J. Kidd and on Spotify.