Random Cruise Ship Employees Reveal What Day-To-Day Is Like (17 items)

• (#3) '14-Hour Days And Next To No Internet'

  From a former Redditor:

  Don't remind me of the countless 14-hour days and next to no Internet. Ugh.

  The only thing to do was drink after my daily report.
• (#14) 'There Is A Lot Of Training... Onboard'

  From a former Redditor :

  I worked for two cruise lines and... on seven ships.

  • There are three classes of people on the ship, the top rank which is officers. They have their own dining hall, and better food gets served there than [to] the other two, which are staff mess and crew mess. Staff are the entertainment team, child care team, photography, and shore excursion - any type of nonofficer management and guest service team. Crew are the sh*tty jobs like room stewards, deckhands, bartenders, cooks, etc.

  • The food is not the same as what the guests eat in both messes. In staff mess we have waiters, and if you don't see what you like, you can order an egg on a bun, or a hamburger, or something like that. In the crew mess, the food is more Asian-palate based. Some days there will be fish head soup; some days you will have normal cream of mushroom soup. There will always be some sort of chicken that's been sitting out too long and not hot, and some sort of cold cooked veggies, salad, pasta, dessert, and fruit. This does not sound bad, and for the first month on board it is not. But it ends up being the same food constantly... 

  • When you first get on, you will... get assigned a room. This room will most likely change after a few cruises. They like putting departments together. For example, I was a sound tech, and once the previous sound tech was gone, I moved into his... room with the light tech. The rooms are close to 4 meters by 2 meters wide including a desk, TV, bunk bed, very small closet for two, and a bathroom, which is... super small...

  • There are discounts when working on the ships. In the watch store I got a $700 dollar watch for $350...

  • There are days I have worked for 14 hours and there are days I worked for 15 minutes. It varies by the day and what's happening... A typical day for me would be to wake up around 10 [and] go do a lounge walk to make sure all background music was playing in each area. Go check out the bikinis on lido. Go back to my room to play Xbox. Go get lunch. Set up shop talk for shopping in the ports. Get bingo ready after that. When bingo is done, turn off projector, go back to my room, and have a nap. Once nap is done, go get ready for the show. Replace batteries in microphones, load up show on soundboard... Run down to eat dinner. Run back up to get background music playing, then do show No. 1. After show No. 1, talk to performers, make adjustments, [and] do show No. 2. Run from main theater to back lounge at the other end of ship and set up live band karaoke or comedy, depending on the day. Do that until 12:30 am-ish. Go to crew bar or crew party. Drink, then go to bed.

  • There is a lot of training to do when you get onboard: crowd management, life saving, other ones... I forget. Every three months all crew have to go through immigration. If you are in an American port and are foreign you need a [form] called an I-95 to get off. You get it after your first cruise. It will be renewed every three months. Every now and then you will have to do lifeboat tests and see how many people can fit in the lifeboat. They bring it down to the water... There are random boat drills every few weeks...

  • The days we go by are not Monday to Sunday. It's home port, sea day 1, Cozumel, sea day 2, home port, for example. It's very easy to lose track of [the] day and month. You will get fired if you get caught sleeping with a guest. To get around this you just get a hotel room in port...

  • Speaking of people falling overboard, it happens more than you think. One cruise we had a production singer thinking it was a great idea to do a handstand on the railing. He fell over, we spent hours looking for him, and he was never to be seen again... Drunk people fall off the balconies into lifeboats or into the water about one per contract. It's sad.
• (#2) 'Every Night Is A Friday Night'

  From Redditor /u/rmmyyz:

  We had a saying: "Every night is a Friday night and every morning is a Monday morning. Every day is Groundhog Day."
• (#4) ' I Literally Traveled The World'

  From Redditor /u/Seastar321:

  Long working hours, very small shared cabin with walls thinner than paper so you can hear everything your neighbors are doing, [and] crew food is bloody awful unless you like living on boiled rice. Crew bar is very cheap, but also full of creepy guys hitting on everyone and insanely gorgeous girls sneering at everyone. But none of that matters... in five years on cruise ships I literally traveled the world.

  I went to Europe; Canada; North, South, and Central America, including Alaska and Hawaii; Asia, including China, Japan, and India; [and] Africa. I basically visited every continent except Antarctica, and went to over 75 countries. I took a sled dog ride in Alaska; [went] whitewater rafting along a river through the jungles of Costa Rica; visited Alcatraz; had an authentic curry in Mumbai, spent a day on a luxury yacht sailing around the Caribbean; snorkeled at the Great Barrier Reef; visited the great pyramids in Egypt; went to the lost city of Petra; spent days in Barcelona, Athens, Rome, Kyiv; and so, so, so much more.

  None of the bullsh*t you have to put up with on board matters compared to that.
• (#10) 'Stop Smoking Weed'

  From Redditor /u/daftsnuts:

  You have to take a somewhat intense physical before getting on board. This includes a test [for illicit substances]. Random... tests also happen while on board.

  Moral of the story? If you want a cruise ship job, stop smoking weed three weeks ago.
• (#13) 'Fighting For An Open Washer Or Dryer In The Laundry Room Is Hell'

  From Redditor /u/too-tsunami:

  Worked on a cruise ship for three years. Some key points:

  • If you're American, you are a minority. My ship had over 2,100 crew members, and only about 40 of us were American...

  • Fighting for an open washer or dryer in the laundry room is hell on earth... 

  • Food is provided, but the two most common ethnicities on my ship were [Filipino] and [Indian], so the crew cafeteria was usually full of food I wasn't used to... I ate a lot of salad and mashed potatoes on my contracts.

  • Think of a time you did something embarrassing while drunk at a bar. Now imagine having to see every single person who saw you do that embarrassing drunk thing, every day for months and months. That's what ship life is like.

  It was awesome, though. You travel for free, drink for cheap, and save a lot of money since you aren't really paying for anything unless you want to. I'd suggest it to anyone who has no strings attached, and is willing to work hard for six to eight months at a time.

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