Stewardess Marina Marcondes de Barros is making waves on Below Deck Down Under Season 3. Her work ethic is strong. However, her jokes and service-related requests have not always landed well with her superiors.
Working underneath Lara Rigby, Marina desires to vacate her housekeeping duties in favor of service details. Captain Jason Chambers agrees with her requests on this matter. Nevertheless, Lara remains on the fence. If things are working, Lara prefers to keep them as they are.
Curious about many things, Reality Tea got Marina on the line. We wanted to know where she and Lara now stand, alongside what we can expect to see during the second half of Below Deck Down Under Season 3. Here is everything Marina sweetly spilled.
Marina Marcondes de Barros walks us through a typical day, parked in housekeeping on Below Deck Down Under
Trying to understand how hectic a day in the life of an understaffed BDDU stew is, we asked Marina to explain what her typical schedule entailed. “When you work on a yacht of 60 meters specifically, normally you have four girls, and we only had three. Which means that somebody’s gonna get extra jobs. Unfortunately, that person was me,” Marina explained.
“As soon as the guests wake up, they have breakfast with the service crew.” After they leave their cabins, Marina enters, preparing their beds and rooms “like they just arrived on the boat.” To do this, Marina must ensure that their “clothes are folded, hung perfectly, and color-coordinated.” Then, “You need to make sure the whole bathroom gets wiped and all the towels are facing the right way,” Marina added.
“But at the same time, the guests have left the room. So there are clothes on the floor and dirty towels. There are so many things that you need to rush to the laundry and start the machines because they take time. So you need to start the machines, put a timer on, and then run back to flip the things, or [the laundry] will build up,” Marina notes to our exhausted faces.
Once this is complete, Marina must “rush down to the crew mess to set the table for a crew lunch. When that time comes, it’s guest lunch. So you return to their cabins to complete a sweep, making everything neat. So, this is the whole day until night when we do the turndown, where we take all the decorative pillows away.”
As Marina stated in Below Deck Down Under Season 3, which we co-sign, she is “too cute and charismatic to be in the dungeon.”
Lara Rigby trusted Marina Marcondes de Barros, but their friendship post-BDDU is hard to define
Recently, Captain Jason gave Marina a shot at service during an excursion. When Marina returned to the yacht, Lara was pleased by her efforts. Not pleased, however, are the fans of Below Deck Down Under. In her DM’s, Marina quickly began receiving messages stating she was being “unfairly treated,” she admits.
“In the beginning, I tried to defend the situation. But then, I did start questioning if I was being taken advantage of because now, it’s not just me,” Marina sighed.
“A lot of other Latina women, or women in general, have been sharing similar stories, that they’ve been taken advantage of just because people imagined they could take the load,” Marina clocked. However, she does not think this narrative “was the situation here. Lara trusted my hard work, but she lacked any motivation to give me a shot, to give me an opportunity.” Nevertheless, Marina is “a good sport” who “took it on the chin and did my best.”
When asked where she and Lara stand now, Marina admitted, “It’s hard to say. We left in a good place as friends, having a great time. She’s an amazing woman. She’s somebody that I look up to.”
But after filming, Lara spoke about the subject on TV, “brushing it off as if it was nothing. I wish she could appreciate more of my efforts instead of just brushing them off.”
Marina Marcondes de Barros appreciated Captain Jason Chambers’ support during Below Deck Down Under
Marina is all of us, speaking fluent sarcasm whenever her patience plummets. But, after making a cheeky swipe at Captain Jason, Marina quickly found herself in the hot seat. They “hit a low point with that little snarky comment,” Marina admitted. But in large part, she and Captain Jason were (and still are) great.
“We always were messing around with each other, joking, and he knew that I worked my ass off. He called me the tornado when I joined the boat. He said I just went around flipping, saying I could run the boat solo at a certain point. So it was fun. I loved being around him,” Marina remarked.
But what Marina appreciated the most was when Captain Jason took her “side with Lara, demanding that I get my space in the sun. It was moving to me. I appreciated it.” She teased: “Our friendship just gets stronger and stronger towards the end of the season. I cannot wait for you guys to see it.”
What does Marina Marcondes de Barros now think about Wihan du Toit and her newest crush, Nicolas Cattelan?
Wihan du Toit strung several women along before his firing, including Marina. After filming, Marina shared that “the whole crew did a South African trip. We all went there, and [Wihan is] from there, so we got connected.”
However, Wihan and Harry van Vliet sadly remain at odds. So, their time together was brief, she admitted. Marina also revealed that Wihan is “dating now, working on boats, but it’s a big world, so we will likely never see each other again.”
Turning raw, Marina confessed that it is “hard not to feel hurt when a guy kisses you and immediately after says on live TV that he likes somebody else. But I just got rid of a bad thing, so I’m not complaining. Thank you, universe,” Marina quipped.
Once Wihan departed, two new deckhands arrived. One of them, Nicolas Cattelan, caught her eye in Episode 12. On Nic, Marina gushed, “Nic is so cute. He’s a nerd, which I have always had a crush on. So, of course, he tickles my heart, but I have had a bad experience before, and I’m here to work, so my focus is definitely on that.”
However, Marina is “a human. I’m a woman. So, let’s see. To be continued,” she joked.
Speaking of upcoming storylines, Marina reiterated that “Tensions are getting quite high. But, there are still some subjects that were never properly addressed at the beginning of the season. They’re just ready to explode. So yeah, you guys are in for a treat. Get a popcorn and enjoy!”
Below Deck Down Under is streaming on Peacock.
TELL US – DID ANY OF THESE ANSWERS SHOCK YOU? DO YOU HAVE ANY ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS FOR MARINA?
