smooth_sailor

I'm new to these boards, and don't usually post anything on forums, but felt I needed to speak out about what I saw as well:

I happened to be passing by one of the bars that was on the same floor that Northern Lights was on, I believe it was The Queen's Lounge, on my way to freshen up in our room after dinner, and saw the same thing that "Anonymous Cruiser" mentioned in the link someone posted on here. I was pretty shocked to see that the young black girl who was emceeing on the stage was acting drunk. I hung around long enough, out of pure curiosity, to find out if she actually was an employee or not. It became clear that she was.

When we met up again, I told my boyfriend about what I'd seen, and that I had the feeling that the young lady would get into trouble for being in that state while working even though she was leading a party. He said it was probably just part of the job, and that she probably was allowed to party with the rest of them. I guessed he might be right, but it sure seemed like a powder-keg situation, given how little prodding some people need for overconsumption.

The atmosphere in the bar was surely one of excess from what I saw. The bartender laid out rows of shot glasses, and poured straight down the lines to fill every glass--two different kinds of liquor, and then people were called to the bar to drink. That's when I left, just in time to get out of their way.

When I woke up to the announcement in the middle of the night, I could scarcely get back to sleep. I lay awake, and replayed the events from my visit to the bar, and just prayed that nobody had been harmed. It just seemed like a perfect storm for somebody to fall overboard. We all have seen how reckless people can get when they've imbibed too much.

In light of the tragedy that happened later that night, I started googling when we finally made our way home to see if anyone mentioned anything about it. I figured, with so many people onboard that somebody else certainly would mention it somewhere. I'm glad to know that people are talking about it, even if there are differing opinions about what happened. I wanted to put mine out there for what it's worth, from the perspective of a non-participant.