Shipboard etiquette? Re handshakes.

[vegasdriven]

I seem to recall reading on a past thread something about shaking hands being a bit of a no no on board- please correct me if I've got this wrong. In any case, if this is true, my question is how do you handle introductions? Do most cruisers understand this as an unwritten rule?

I am just thinking it could be kind of awkward in certain situations, though I can see the wisdom of it given that no one wants to come down with the plague.

Any recommendations on how you handle this?

[BBWC]

The previous discussion was about shaking hands with the captain/other officers. There seems to be no general rule, it depends on the captain. Some still do the handshake, others do the fist bumping. I don’t think there is any rule for how passengers interact with each other.

[Travelcat2]

I wrote quite a bit about shaking hands on my Amazon cruise blog a year ago.  Captain Serena put the no hand shaking policy in place after many people on Mariner became sick on 3-4 cruises.  It worked wonders and the ship stayed healthy.

 

In general, people shake hands (if Captain Serena is not the Captain and I wish that others would follow her lead).  On our Voyager cruise that ended a couple of weeks ago, the officers did not shake hands when guests entered the theater for the Captain's Reception but that is to to say that it isn't done on other ships.

 

When there is a policy in place as there was on the Amazon cruise, everyone understood and it wasn't awkward.  In fact, it became a bit funny.  We would "bump elbows" instead of shake hands.  After a while people made a little dance out of it and sometimes did hip bumps, etc.  Captain Serena was also fine with hugs -- as long as the open palms of your hands do not touch.

[vegasdriven]

Thanks, I guess I was misremembering what I read, so I am glad I asked.

Such a newbie🙄

[Travelcat2]

24 minutes ago, vegasdriven said:

Thanks, I guess I was misremembering what I read, so I am glad I asked.

Such a newbie🙄

 

Being a newbie is a good thing (my favorite posters on CC)