I knew I’d have to succumb to a ‘top 10 list’ eventually! I thought it’d be a useful way of reminiscing and answering some of the burning questions people generally have whenever I mention I used to work on cruises so… ok, I can’t help it… all aboard!
1: What did you do on board?
I did a few different jobs with the official titles including Showband Musician, Orchestra Musician and Solo Pianist. Some unadvertised extra bits I did included lounge band pianist, jazz trio pianist, penthouse pianist, food server (one time only), cleaner, lifeboat crew, lifejacket demonstrator, wheelchair pusher, human sign and the guy that holds out a tub of hand gel and says “please sanitise your hands” (this was pre-Covid). I’m sure I’m forgetting something…
2: How did you get into it?
The short answer is I applied and auditioned for a couple of different agencies who supply musicians. Here’s the long answer: I applied to one agency who I never heard back from then applied to a 2nd and passed the audition but it still took them the best part of a year to find me a job. Once I had a job offer, I had to apply for a special visa as well as go for a full medical, have a yellow fever jab and go for a week long safety course including swimming, first aid and firefighting. We’re not talking “here’s how to use a fire extinguisher” (although that was part of it), we’re talking full firefighting gear including an oxygen tank and going into a smoky, burning building. That was a crazy week. After that, I was just offered new contracts just before the previous one finished. It might take a bit of getting into but once you’re there and you’ve got a decent agent, it’s pretty much guaranteed work.
Some people also want to know the specifics of the audition but feel free to skip ahead if you’re not musically inclined or interested. I was given a time to be ready with my keyboard, phone, camcorder and printer (bear in mind that a lot of these agencies are US-based so it was sometime in the afternoon for me). 30 minutes before my audition, I was emailed sheet music to print off and backing tracks to download. You’re supposed to have time to look over stuff but in my case, the printer decided it wasn’t playing ball so I didn’t have any time at all. The guy from the office rang me when it was my time and I did sight-reading in different styles like musical theatre, jazz, classical, latin and improvisation from a mixture of fully notated pieces and lead sheets as well as playing along with a click track (basically a metronome throughout the whole song telling you how fast to go). At one agency later on, it was a tougher audition with a technical jazz solo to be learnt off by heart and several pre-recorded sections to do in the week leading up to the audition. The hard work paid off though because they hired me and I got some of my best paid work to date as well as having more choice over where in the world I went.
3: How was the job?
This is a hard one to answer because it varied so much from ship to ship. However, the typical work day had a rehearsal with the guest singer, instrumentalist, comedian, juggler etc where we generally had about an hour or so to go over a show lasting anywhere between 45 mins to an hour. Occasionally, if you had someone who was really picky, a show that was just insanely difficult to get right or some really bad musicians, rehearsal could take 2 hours or more and then we’d do one or two shows that night. On days at sea, there would sometimes be a matinee show put into the mix in the afternoon with an extra rehearsal for that in the morning.
Here are some of the bits that vary. On my easiest ship, I was only working 3 or 4 days a week for a few hours whereas on my hardest, we had a day off every 2 weeks or so and we were often doing 4 or 5 sets a day as well as rehearsals. I think my most hectic weekly routine was on a hip where they decided to do a guest choir. On the last day of each cruise, my day went 10am choir rehearsal, 11am matinee rehearsal, 2pm matinee show, 4pm main show rehearsal, 7pm 1st show, 8pm choir performance, 9pm 2nd show, clocking up something like 6 or more hours of performing in one day. It was a great place to get a ton of experience really — it keeps you on your toes and your sight-reading ‘chops’ are usually top-notch within a few months.
We had extra stuff to do as well. When I first joined one company, we had hours and hours of training to do on a variety of different topics like shipboard safety, lifeboat operations and crowd management. I think it was something like every morning for two weeks which is extra brutal if you’re dealing with jetlag and your normal responsibilities as well. The other main bit that they’d have on every ship is drill. At the start of every cruise, there’d be a drill where the passengers would sit through a load of safety information and I’d either be checking them in when they arrived, herding them to an available seat, answering questions or demonstrating how to properly put on a lifejacket. We’d do crew drills every week too in order to check how responsive people were to emergencies. They’d come up with a scenario like there was a fire in a guest cabin which would spread and it was as if we’d have to abandon ship. Occasionally, you’d have a special drill where there’s a bomb on board or a stowaway etc. I did a post a few months ago about one of these special drills here.
Over time, more and more stuff started to piss me off whether that was my latest roommate (yes, you share cabins with someone and there are definitely some stories there for another time) or someone from management thought we weren’t working enough so they decided to try and sneak in a load of extra stuff in no way connected to our actual jobs. Eventually, I knew it was time to get out but I had some great times — I wouldn’t change it for the world. I think doing it for somewhere between 3 and 5 years is the sweet spot but I’ve known musicians who do cruises for their entire career spanning 30 years or more as well.
4: Did you get much time off?
Yes. As entertainment, we were more privileged than a lot of other positions on there because most of our work happened in the late afternoons/evenings so there was usually a chunk of time to be spent exploring in the morning and afternoon. Although I never did it, you could sign up to be an escort for the guest tours sometimes too. In fact, one of my friends even got a plane to go to Moscow with some guests once! I’d usually spend that time off walking round, sight-seeing or catching up with series or films I was missing like Game of Thrones. There was also a crew bar or two with ridiculously low prices so great fun to be had there too.
5: What was it like travelling?
Again, it varies so much. The flights and the journey to the ship were always really stressful for me because I had a few bad experiences (one of which can definitely be described as traumatising). Most of the time when I’d go out in a new port in a new country, I’d have a great time exploring and seeing some cool stuff though. Occasionally, you’d get to a place where there’s nothing to do but that was actually quite rare. I think it truly opened my eyes to a lot of stuff, seeing how different nationalities/cultures live. I definitely prescribe to the ‘travel broadens the mind’ idea. What I would say here is that it’s amazing how quickly you adapt to new circumstances. It becomes ‘normal’ to be in a new country nearly every day or change time zones 3 or 4 times in the same week.
6: How long did you cruise for? and
7: How many countries did you go to?
On and off, I spent 4 and half years travelling the world. Generally, most musicians tended to do 6 month contracts followed by one month of vacation but I couldn’t hack it for that long so I did anywhere ranging from 1–5 months with 2 months or more of vacation. The countries bit is a tricky one because with some places, it’s hard to know what classes as a country or an overseas territory etc. but without doubt, I visited over 65 countries, possibly 70.
8: Do you have a favourite place you’ve visited?
So many tough questions! I’d definitely put Italy, Greece, Canada, Alaska and French Polynesia in there somewhere but it’s so hard, I could never pick just one place. In some ports, you’d get amazing food and drink, in others there’d be jaw-dropping scenery or great historical monuments to see. I know it’s such a cop out to say ‘it depends’ but I’ve had so many varied experiences that it’s impossible to choose.
9: Have you ever been in an emergency?
Yes, several times I think. A handful of times we went through some really rough seas where the boat was rocking hard. I’m talking stand in front of a staircase and you don’t have to put in any effort to walk up, you just wait for the ship to lurch that way. There was only once where I was really concerned though and literally just went back to my cabin in case something happened. I think we had a couple of fires too but nothing major, just like a trash can on fire or something. I’ll be writing more about some of the emergencies that happened on board as time goes on so check here if you want to find out more!
10: What’s behind that ‘crew only’ door?
I do love a good meme but this isn’t actually too far from the truth! For every guest staircase, there are two crew staircases to quickly get around the ship while spending minimal time in guest areas. If it’s not a staircase, it’s usually a corridor that goes to the crew cabins or something. Occasionally you’d get cheeky passengers trying to take a peek ‘below deck’ but the policy was just to get them back into guest areas as quickly as possible. We don’t want to spoil the illusion, do we?
Bonus: What are some things passengers probably wouldn’t know?
I couldn’t finish a top 10 post without giving you some of the insider gossip. Crew life ‘below deck’ is a whole different world to what goes on up top. I won’t give too much away but here are a few little tidbits:
- The majority of the ship’s crew will usually be Filipino, partly because the cruise lines know they can get away with paying them less than other nationalities. However, the actual makeup of the crew can be really varied — on one ship for example, there were over 60 nationalities represented by the crew. Brits are usually heavily outnumbered — in fact sometimes, there were only 3 of us on board.
- Cruise ship guests do tend to be a lot older and some die of heart attacks, organ failure, strokes etc. while cruising and there’s a designated morgue on board. Any kind of abuse towards the crew or fights between people will usually mean they’ll be turfed off the ship at the next port with a ship’s brig to hold them until then so they don’t cause havoc. Sadly, both crew and guest suicides happen occasionally too, either by hanging or jumping overboard.
- Internet is basically as slow as dial-up and for guests, they’ll be paying somewhere around $1 a minute for the privilege. The crew are charged less but it can still eat away at your pay check if you’re not careful. My top tip would be to try and refrain from using devices until you get to a port — there are usually plenty of places to find free wifi if you buy a drink or something.
- As I said, alcohol for crew was ridiculously cheap (about $1 a beer or if you go to a crew sale, something like $15 for a bottle of Jack Daniels) and a lot of employees are heavy smokers or heavy drinkers or both. Because I’m mostly a social drinker, I definitely put more booze away than I ever have in my life over those 4 years. In fact, the first piece of unofficial advice I got when I boarded my first ship was ‘if you get seasick, just have a few drinks and you’ll be fine’ and it actually worked both times I felt it in rough seas.
- Pay varies so widely, it’s unreal. The wage for a stateroom attendant or cleaner could be as little as $800 a month so I hear, whereas some of the cast members or entertainers could be earning $4000 a month or more.
- Crew parties and cabin parties are a regular occurrence. Believe it or not, you can ‘comfortably’ fit about 7 or 8 people into a small cabin, whack some choons on and drink until the early hours. I didn’t go to crew parties that often but I did like when they did wine and cheese nights or quizzes etc. So many drunken times on board. I was about to say fond memories but I really don’t remember that much. Being in such close quarters, you can make friends insanely fast and there’s nothing like a few drinks to loosen the ‘social muscles’.
I’m sure there’s plenty more stuff I could say but that’s about all I can remember for now!
Do you suddenly have a burning question? Feel free to get in touch!
Originally published on July 18, 2021.
If you want to read more about cruises, click here for a handy list of all my posts so far!
