What really happens on cruise ships: Guests sneaking into crew cabins for hook-ups, passengers randomly disappearing… and why the morgue is so busy. I spent years working on a ship, these are the secrets

It was two in the morning in the middle of the Atlantic.

An American businessman was fuming after losing thousands of dollars at the cruise ship’s casino, a crew member was in a secret affair with a guest, the ship’s doctor was checking a body in the ship’s morgue, and a bartender in a tiny windowless booth was crying after working 18 hours straight.

Cruise ships sell food, luxury and champagne extravaganzas on tap. But this flashy façade hangs over a dark underbelly of illicit hookups, excessive demands from entitled guests, and medical emergencies, some fatal.

Recently the Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius made headlines when three of its passengers died from the (fortunately rare) hantavirus they contracted on board. Diseases like norovirus are more common, but as a former cruise ship crew member myself, I know how easy it is for these diseases to spread and how hard crews have to work to stop them.

For three years, I gained an insight into life on the ocean as a casino dealer on a 3,000-passenger cruise ship that sailed everywhere from Alaska to the Caribbean. I have witnessed travelers falling in love, heard and seen others fall overboard. A lot people behave in ways that I’m sure they would never do on land.

My cruise ship journey began in my early 20s, when I was working at a swanky casino in London to pay for my college tuition. A colleague told me I would make much more on a cruise where passengers tipped heavily and my living expenses were covered. Moreover, I would be able to travel the world for free.

Just a few months later I was boarding a ship in Tenerife for my first assignment as a croupier.

I quickly learned that the sunsets in Mykonos, the opulence of Monaco and the turquoise sea in the Caribbean are balanced by hard work, long hours and many VIP guests who lose all sense of normalcy the moment they step on board.

A very attractive female guest was once caught trying to leave a male crew member’s room.

Take the man who called me at three in the morning because the penthouse suite had run out of free-flowing champagne and refused to wait for room service.

Another guest went into hysterical panic when her designer underwear had not returned from the ship’s dry cleaners before the captain’s state dinner that night. Meanwhile, ridiculous complaints about rough seas were a daily occurrence. ‘Can the captain make the ship roll less?’ It’s a question I’ve been asked many times. I would just smile politely.

Just as we had to smile at the entitled passenger who believed the captain should have turned the 100,000-ton ship around to retrieve his hat as it exploded into the Atlantic.

It was often chartered for ship-themed cruises. The week-long nudist cruise from the Bahamas, with 3,000 passengers mostly in their 60s wearing only bum bags, was memorable for all the wrong reasons. However, tips of up to £4,000 (to be shared with the team) made up for it.

There was never a dull moment, even on standard trips. There were passengers who disappeared without a trace, leaving the crew to pack their belongings and debate elaborate theories befitting a best-selling thriller. Did they decide to abandon their old lives and start over in a Caribbean port? Did you secretly fall in love and run away with a fellow traveler?

Most of the time they missed the time to return to the ship when the ship docked, but sometimes we never find out. There were rumors that CCTV had captured a missing passenger walking down the corridor, but that he had disappeared when the next camera came on.

But there were indeed occasional deaths; In Panama, which attracted a particularly elderly crowd, it was reaching three or four deaths a day on a two-week voyage. Although these deaths are the natural consequences of very old age, the rules regarding safety and hygiene are very strict.

As soon as a seasonal stomach microbe such as norovirus is mentioned, the ship activates preventive hygiene rules. The self-service buffet is eliminated and common areas, railings and door handles are cleaned around the clock.

But even before hygiene, safety protocols and security clearances, the rule was to not fraternise between guests and crew.

It was also the most frequently violated rule.

I remember a bartender sneaking a female passenger wearing a life jacket into his cabin. Another very attractive female guest was once caught trying to leave a male crew member’s room in the early hours wearing a baseball cap and oversized hoodie.

There’s plenty of romance among the crew, too. Each ship had at least one crew member who became romantically involved with a spa therapist, stewardess, and casino girl in their shift patterns. It always ended with a spectacular meltdown in the crew corridors when the women discovered each other’s existence.

Luckily my ‘boating’ was less dramatic. I fell in love with a bartender and we have been married for almost 20 years.

Two and a half years after my time on the ship, a wealthy British businessman and his wife were playing blackjack at my card table on a Caribbean cruise.

He appreciated my trademark serious approach as an elite high roller. He told me I should take the place I was offered at Westminster University, before handing me his business card and telling me to get in touch.

Six months later he offered me a job in the oil and gas industry. I then built an interaction platform that allows online casino players to play together.

My focus today is to share the mindset that helps me achieve success, which I document in my new book.

While my cruise ship days were turbulent in every sense, it was a gamble that paid off. I also found my husband and my path to financial security; not to mention a lifetime of delicious dinner party anecdotes.

Carolina Pelc’s The Game: Make Your Own Luck (Unicorn, £18.99) is out 9 June.

As told to SADIE NICHOLAS