Eph60

Welcome aboard!

Welcome aboard!

Welcome aboard!

We buy travel insurance but usually not through the cruise lines. We are normally spending extra time before and after a cruise and many times travel by train to and from a cruise so we buy seperate insurance. There have been to many close calls with family members that the need for insurance almost became necessary. I am sure some day it will be necessary and using it just once would make all the years of purchase worth it.

There are many ports that I had wished I had my motorcycle with me. Many more roads to ride and many great views to see from the bike.

The cruise lines get many rediculous complaints and questions. In many cases complaints are made by people who hope they will get something free just because they complained. When complaints are made directly on the ship, if they are obvious complaints to get something free the word travels like wildfire and the service for these people will go downhill fast in hopes that they never return.

I have mentioned how many hours a week a crew member works. It is also true that crew members do get some hours off every day. If you are lucky occasionally you will get up to 4 hours off before you must get back to work. This seems like a lifetime because you do work so many hours. If you have time off and you are in port you can go take tours or walk around as long as you have not done somehting to be punished. The cruise ship also has a small gym, rec room, computer room and books and movies available to them for no extra charge. They do have a crew bar with limited hours of availability and reduced prices. There will be a crew area on outer decks some of these have pools or possibly basketball courts. At the very least it will have chairs to sit and relax in. The cruise line will set up special shows to see in the theaters onboard the ship. They may set up a beach party on shore or bowling or use of a movie theater in town. Many times you can find crew members playing some type of sport, like baseball or volleyball in a park in port. Some of the time off will be spent doing their own laundry. They can get their uniforms done. Some things that may prevent them from any of these privilages are not cleaning their rooms. They do room checks to make sure you are not destroying your room. Not showing up for their job on time or performing their job properly. Any minor violation of rules. Major violations will mean being fired.

To answer the question about the officers on the bridge skewing the meals towards their nationality, no most the officers on the bridge are the highest ranking officers. Some will have meals brought to them or they will eat in passengers dining rooms so that they are seen and can do a little PR for the cruise line. Yes the crew does get a lot of choices that are Philipino or Indian. There will be a lot of several nationalities cooking onboard a ship including for the crew. No the cooks and chefs cooking for the crew are not working on learning passenger menu's. What they are learning is the proper procedures expected by the main chefs. When and if they get promoted to the passenger dining rooms they will start at the bottom there and have to work their way through the system. They truly do have some fine chefs onboard the ships, but they do have a few that will not ever make it to the passenger dining rooms.

The cruise line I worked for was NCL. I worked selling tours and making sure passengers got to tours and back from tours. I also did talks on some occasions about the tours. This is kind of a nice job but you do have to constanly learn new tours. You are constantly taking classes on sales also. The best part of this job is you do get to meet a good portion of the passengers, both good and bad. One person in our department wore a pedometer and found that in our job we averaged walking 17 miles a day. In otherwords we did not just sit around and sell tours. Most crew members will lose 25 or more pounds on every contract. I guess it is a great weight loss program that you get paid for LOL. I do still stay in contact with some of the past crew that I worked with. I truly enjoyed working on the ships but due to health problems of a daughter of mine I came home. It was to hard to deal with my daughters health issues being thousands of miles away on a cruise ship. I would gladly do it agian but it really is a younger persons job. You did not see a lot of employess in my age range.

Over the years I have taken ship tours and enjoyed them but I never paid for them. The most complete tours were on the SS Independence. We literally went every where from the bridge, through the engine rooms and even to the interior end of the propeller shaft in the bottom of the ship. I actually prefered the tours of the older ships like the Independence. The bridge of the ships now are all computers and joysticks, so they do not really feel like a ship to me. I do enjoy tours of the kitchens. When working on the cruise ships I got some great tours of all areas, but again the new engine rooms are not as impressive as the old steam ocean liners if you ask me.

Welcome aboard!

Does the crew eat the same food as the passengers? You may have asked this yourself or heard it asked. It is asked of crew members every cruise. The response you get is kind of a stuttering yes. The truth is the majority of the crew does not eat what the passengers eat. Some of the officers get to eat in passenger dining rooms but mostly the buffet. The truth is there is a mess hall for the general crew and a mess hall for the officers. The general crew eats cafeteria style and the officers get to order from a very limited menu or cafeteria style if they prefer. The chefs and the cooks for the crew are the least experienced of the chefs and cooks. They are working their way up to work in the passenger kitchens. This makes the food very inconsistant. There is a good variety of food for the crew and like the passenger menu it will be the same week after week with an occasional change for holidays. There will be choices for all nationalities of crew members with the largest number of choices being for the majority nationality onboard the ship. The dining rooms for the crew will be open 4 times a day so that they can also cover the night shifts. It is an all you can eat deal so the crew does not go hungry.

GottaCruz the contract is determined by a couple things. One is your nationality. Americans can get as low as 4 month contracts other foreign countries have more months for there short contracts. If they need employee's in the section you work in you can sign up for longer contracts. for instance you are an american but are willing to work longer then 4 months, you can request a longer contract and if they need you your chances of a longer contract are good. Your time off can depend on how long of a contract you had just worked. In other words it depends on the employment laws of the country you are from and the needs of the cruiseline. The longest I had heard of was 18 months and by then believe me you are ready for a vacation. I needed to get home. I worked that long because one ship was short handed so I switched ships to help out and that extended my contract.

GottaCruz who gets which bed depends on who was in the cabin first. Not everyones contract starts and ends at the same time. The person that was there first gets first choice, when they leave the next oldest can change beds or pass it on to someone else. The new person coming in the room will probably get the worst bed in the room. No there is no class for the crew to get along. If you are not getting along or want to change rooms there is an officer in charge of just the crew. You can put in a request for a new room. Room changes do not happen often because the crew are not in the room much. They do try to keep people from the same departments in the same room so that you know each others work hours and possibly each other. The majority of the crew try to be respectful because they know how hard everyone works and how tired they get. I usually saw my roommates in passing in the room. I saw them more often at work or in a recroom or the crew bar. Yes there is a crew bar, however the crew are never allowed to blow over .04 so they are basically always sober. Crew members that get caught blowing over .04 anytime are immediately dismissed and let off the ship at the first opportunity. Believe me they do get rid of employee's when they catch them because I saw many crew members let go for drinking to much. There is random drug and alcohol checks.

I was asked this many times when I worked on a cruise ship. A crew member works 7 days a week and a short contract is 4 months up to a contract of 18 months for a long contract. The crew gets no days off during this time unless they are sick. A crew member will work between 60 to 70 hours a week. The crew members all work varied shifts during the day. You do not work a strait 8 hour shift. You may work 2 or three hours in the morning then a few hours late afternoon and then some late night hours. What your shifts are change every week so that every area on the ship is staffed 24 hours a day. All crew members will attend at least 3 muster drills a week, not one like the passengers. The crew will be let out of one drill a month so that areas of the ship are always staffed with at least one employee. Even if it is there hours off they will attend the emergancy drills. For this reason that is why some crew look tired. At the end of their contract they are extremely tired and ready for a rest.

I know none of the staterooms on a cruise ship are gigantic. Even a suite is smaller then say a suite in a hotel. The storage is actually pretty good and the rooms can be comfortable. Now think about the crew rooms. The smallest passenger room is much larger then a crew cabin. The number of people in a crew cabin depends on your rank. Of course the captain would have the biggest room. The majority of crew members are 4 or 5 to a room. Lower ranked officers have 2 to a room. The general crew will have a couple bunk beds in their room and they will have a stand up locker for their clothes and personal items. There may be a small desk or a table that they all can sit at. There will be a small TV. If all crew members are in the room at the same time the room is totally filled up. There is one small bathroom that they all share and the shower is basicaly about half the size of the shower in the passenger cabins. I was an officer that shared a room There was a bunk bed in the room and I could literally spread my arms and reach both walls side to side in the room. The room was about 10 feet long. The extra space past the bed was taken up by our locker and the bathroom. Now you know why a crew member would rather be working or in the rec room on a ship then spend time in their room.Their room is to sleep in, clean up and change clothes and that is it.

This is deffinately sad to hear. I hope the child recovers with no further problems.

I guess I will have to stay on the ship longer and arrive a little later to board. This is another draw back of the bigger ships. time to learn a little more patience I guess.

Welcome to the board!

Welcome to the board!

I am sure everyone who has cruised or especially first time cruisers have gotten a little lost or turned around on a cruise ship. What you may not know is that every cruise ship has markers on them to let you know exactly where you are on the ship. Every ship is built in sections and every entry way and every archway between sections has a tag somewhere around its frame. This tag tells you what floor you are on as well as where you are on the ship. Take some time to look at these tags it will be a series of numbers. One number will always be the same on each floor, that is the deck number. Another set of numbers will change either by going up or down and that will tell you if you are going forward or aft, this is a section number. Another number will tell you if your are port or starboard, this will be either always odd or always even. These numbers are really for the crew and the coast guard so they can always tell where they are in an emergancy, however if you look at them you will be able to figure out where you are at all times on a cruise ship. They are on every ship. Take down a few numbers and try to figure out where you are on the ship and it will help you on every ship.

Welcome to the board!

Welcome to the board!

Welcome to the board!

Welcome to the board!