Royal Caribbean crew member share secrets of cruise ship life

Every crew member onboard a ship has their own story. The entertainers on cruise ships, however, have often followed a very different path to their jobs.

Many of the musicians, for example, have appeared in land-based productions including some who have performed on Broadway. The same is true of the figure skaters who work on cruise ships. A number of them have Olympic pedigrees while others have worked with national touring productions.

Related: Royal Caribbean crew member shows off tiny crew cabin

It’s not easy to earn a contract as an entertainer on a major line. There are usually months of auditions followed by an extended period training and rehearsing on land in order to be able to perform at sea.

Not every person who passes the tryout makes it through the training and actually becomes an onboard performer. Jordan Bauth has not only made it through tryouts and rehearsals, she has worked as an onboard ice skater for five years.

She currently works on Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas, the cruise line’s newest cruise ship. In a video she made earlier this year (before Utopia had set sail) she shared some of the secrets that cruise lines may not tell crew members about life at sea. 

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Bauth did make it clear that entertainers live different lives onboard than most crew members. When she works for Royal Caribbean, Bauth has passenger-like privileges and does not have to wear any sort of uniform when in a public area. She also has free reign to be anywhere on the ship except in passenger cabins.

Transcript:

Chances are if you ended up on this video you are a frequent cruiser or you are just interested in the cruise industry as a whole. So today I want to share with you what it’s actually like to be a crew member working on a cruise ship. 

Hi, my name is Jordan and I am a professional figure skater who has been working on cruise ships for just about five years now, so I have a good idea of what the day-to-day life looks like on board as a crew member.

That being said, I am an entertainer on board so my life and my work schedule is a bit different than the majority of the people who work on board, but I am going to share as much information as possible for you so you get a real understanding of what it’s like to work on a cruise ship, whether you are someone who enjoys cruising as a guest or you are looking to join a cruise ship as a crew member yourself. 

Living and working on board a cruise ship is unlike anything else. It is such a unique experience that I don’t think anything can compare to. It definitely is a challenging environment to live in and it’s definitely not for everyone. I personally really enjoy it, but, of course, it does have its pros and cons. If you are a crew member on board, chances are the pros significantly outweigh the cons.

There are negatives to any work environment, however, I absolutely love my job on board. It’s something that has been a huge part of my life as long as I can remember. I get to skate for a living and perform in front of hundreds of thousands of people every single week, so I could not be more grateful for this job and yeah, it’s definitely an experience of a lifetime.

Crew members have small, shared cabins

As you probably already know, the life of a crew member working on board is very very different than that of a guest coming to cruise on board.

This goes without saying because the guests are paying for a vacation, so they are here to relax, enjoy, and simply just not work. But the accommodations are significantly different, which you can probably already assume based on where I am filming this video. I am currently sitting in the bottom bunk of a bunk bed in a double cabin.

The rooms on board for the crew members are very very minimal and you probably assume that they aren’t these huge extravagant rooms, however, I don’t think people understand just how small these crew cabins are. 

The room that we live in on board for months at a time is probably no bigger than 10 by 15 feet and that also includes a bathroom that we share with another person. In my personal situation, I am living with my boyfriend, so it is the best possible outcome for a roommate situation, but that’s not typically the case for most crew members on board.

Of course, that is not always the case, but the majority of crew members do share a cabin with another person and that person is usually from their department. If not their department, then their division. So I do live here with my boyfriend, but if he was not on board, typically the ice skaters live with other ice cast members.

And if we don’t live with ice skaters, then we traditionally live with dancers or someone else from the cruise division. And of course, not every single person on board shares a cabin. Depending on your ranking and your position, you might have your own room.

For example, officers have a better room than us. They’re much bigger, they even have like a living room sometimes, and they definitely have a porthole, which is another thing that we do not have in these teeny tiny rooms. We don’t have any sort of natural light at any given point in the day.

You might not know what time it is unless you look at a clock. But for me, environment is such a big thing, so I really try to make the cabin as cozy as possible and make it feel very homey. So it’s a place that I enjoy spending time in and coming back to every single day.

The rooms are very bare and they’re very basic when you do first move in, so it is important to make it a space that you really enjoy. That being said, it’s very small so you can’t do too much with the place, but I did buy a shelving unit for some more storage and it just made the room look a little more lively, as well as like a fun blanket, hanging pictures on the walls, stringing lights, things of that sort. 

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Image source: YouTube.

Crew members have their own restaurants

Another misconception on board is that we eat almost the same food as the guests, which could not be further from the truth.

We do have a crew mess and a staff mess, which are two different places where we can eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and it is incredible because it is free. That being said, the quality of the food is not nearly the same as what it is in the buffet for the guests, and it’s definitely not the same variety. So we tend to see the exact same foods every single day for lunch and dinner.

It never really changes up and it can get very, very repetitive. Of course, I am so thankful that we don’t have to pay for food because that’s a huge expense that I would be paying for if I was on land. However, when the food is the same thing every day and you want something specific, we are able to go to the Windjammer, which is the buffet for guests.

As an entertainer on board, we do have that privilege. We just will have to pay three dollars to enter, and that really, really helps. Granted, sometimes our schedule doesn’t allow it.

We don’t have enough time because we have to go at a certain window, and because of that, it does really break it up for us better, and I’m super grateful we can go there. We can also go to the specialty restaurants, which is an added charge, so I try not to do that too often. That’s more of a special basis sort of thing, but Windjammer, I try to get to more frequently than not just because it gives us a bigger variety and food is very important to me.

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WiFi is an added cost for crew members

Let’s talk about WiFi. If you’ve cruised, you know that WiFi can be a little bit spotty on board and not the strongest. It’s not as strong as the internet access you are used to when you are home, and you do have to pay for it as a guest, but you do also have to pay for it as a crew member.

I know other cruise lines offer free WiFi for the crew members on board, and I so wish that Royal would implement that. It’s definitely wishful thinking, but it would be a game changer if they did, and unfortunately, we do have to pay for the WiFi, which rounds out at about four dollars for 60 minutes of internet. It is very expensive, and a lot of us just don’t want to pay that money, so I do work a little side job, and I work WiFi, if you will.

That’s how I explain it, but basically, I just help people who come on board set up their WiFi account and purchase packages if that’s something they want to do. For that little side job, I get paid in minutes, so I’m given minutes in exchange for my time, and that goes a long way because it’s saving me a lot of money that I would have had to spend on purchasing the same amount of minutes. 

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Crew members are the last priority in port

Another thing that you might not realize is that crew members are actually not allowed off the ship right away.

There is always priority for the guests, and we can usually get off the ship pretty quickly after we dock, but of course, there is a little bit of a waiting period, especially on turnaround day when we are disembarking all of the guests, so usually there is a set time of when we can start getting off of the ship. 

For Miami, that means 9 a.m. for the crew members, so if you have work at 10, you really don’t have time to get off, and this goes for other ports as well. If it is a tender port, you’re looking at getting off maybe two to three hours after we actually arrive to that port.

Same thing goes with the tender coming back to the ship. You’re going to want to try and get that tender back to the ship probably around two hours before all aboard. Maybe an hour is pushing it.

Related: Royal Caribbean explains its news strict multi-plug device ban

Something that I found really difficult to accept when I first became a crew member on board is that the company actually holds your passport. For me, I felt uneasy about this because there’s no one I trust as much as myself, and I want to know where it is at any given moment, but that’s just part of the job. 

When we do sign on, we are handing over our passports to the HR center, and they are safely storing it, so it’s all organized and put away very safely, but you don’t have access to your passport for the entire contract.

Here’s how crew members get snacks

You’re probably wondering how we can go shopping for snacks and toiletries and things like that. The most obvious way is to get off on turnaround day in whatever port you are and just go to the grocery store. However, we do also have a little mini market, if you will, on board for the crew, and it’s called The Slop Chest.

It offers an assortment of snacks like chips, chocolates, crackers, candies, sodas, juices, all that kind of stuff, and they do also offer things such as razors, hand soap, bar soap, shaving gel, loofahs, deodorant, hairspray, you name it. There’s a bunch of different stuff that you can buy there. 

I try to stay away from Slop Chest as much as possible because the prices are marked up a significant amount, so it is better to just buy it off the ship and bring it on board, but sometimes you are in a pinch and you just need to swing by really fast and get whatever it is, and that is very useful to have for us.

Another thing we are able to do on board is receive packages, so we’re able to order stuff online and have it delivered to the ship, which is incredible. It’s one of my favorite things. It feels like Christmas every turnaround that a package arrives.

So we have a couple options for this. We can send it to a ministry, which delivers it to the ship. There’s also another address that we can send to, and we have to pay five dollars per package, which can be a little bit annoying if you’re buying a bunch of things online because it adds up very fast, but for example with Amazon, you can order them all in the same package, so you’re just paying one time.

We’re also able to receive cards as well to the same address, so I’ll have that link below for you if you guys ever feel like sending me a little card. I absolutely love receiving your notes and I really appreciate it. 

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Crew members pay for their uniforms

Another fact you might not know about working on board is that we do have to pay for our own uniforms.

I’m not 100% certain if this goes for every single department on board, however, as an ice cast in the cruise division, we do have to pay for our uniforms, which are called our blues. 

So it is a pair of shorts, we’ve got pants, we have shirts, and we also have jackets. So it is a bit pricey, and I think every fourth contract we get a new uniform for free, but if you want an additional T-shirt or a pair of shorts, you are going to have to pay for that.

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A lot of crew members have side gigs

Living on board as a crew member is definitely a unique experience, and we do build a bit of a community because we do all have that common ground of loving to travel, and at the end of the day we are all crew members. 

So something that I find really interesting to note is that a lot of people on board also have side gigs and, you know, passion projects that they are still pursuing while working on board. So there are a lot of people on board who cut hair, so they’ll set up their little barber shop literally off of the I-95 or in a crew corridor, and people will show up to get their hair cut.

There’s also people doing nails freelance, so you can make an appointment with them and they will do your nails. Somebody in my cast is a massage therapist. He has his license, so he does have a few clients on board that he works with.

So I just think that’s really cool that we all might be doing a set job here on the ship, but after hours you can really see those crew members do something that they really really love. I have shown the I-95 about a billion times in my videos, but the I-95 is actually a pathway that leads from the front of the ship all the way to the aft of the ship, and this is in the crew area. 

So if you’re ever getting off at the gangway, you might get a tiny glimpse of the I-95, and basically, it’s just the easiest way for the crew members to get from the front to the back of the ship without going through guest areas.

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Crew contracts vary in length

As far as the contract goes, the duration of the contract can vary significantly depending on where you work, but contracts can be anywhere from four months long to even 10 or 11 months long. My contracts on average are about seven to eight months long. My longest contract was 10 months long, and my shortest one was four months long.

So it really just depends on what ship you are on and when the handover is within the casts. Again, I am part of the ice cast, so it does differ for me compared to other people who work on the ship. To build on top of that, with these contracts being so long and everyone being away from home for many months at a time, it is very rare for most crew members to get a single day off within their contract.

I’m very very blessed that I get time off from my job and I get time to recover and rest and really enjoy the port days, but unfortunately, this is not the case for a lot of the crew members on board. 

They work very long hours every single day, and they are honestly so impressive to me because I could not imagine working the amount of hours that they do. But again, everybody’s contract is different, so this is different for everyone, but as a rule, most people work every single day.

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The cruise lines try to make it fun

Like I mentioned, because we are away from home for many months at a time, it can get a bit exhausting and you really need that support or friendship group to rely on. So something that HR does for us is they do offer various activities for the crew members on board, which is really fun. 

Sometimes they’ll do movie nights in the theater, they will have basketball tournaments, they will do all-crew parties, sometimes they will even close off guest venues for us to use for a crew party, which is really a lot of fun.

Those happen probably once a month or once every other month. We do also offer open skate for the crew, so that’s a fun activity that we run and help out with. They open the slides and the FlowRider for us sometimes, so they just do a bunch of different stuff for us.

So Crew Alpha really does try their best to use the money that they make from the slop chest and from other sales from the crew to put it into really fun activities for us to enjoy. 

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Cruise ship crew members are rarely alone

Last bullet point is kind of ironic considering I’m in the cabin by myself right now, but it is very rare for crew members to ever be alone. So we really don’t have a ton of alone time because you are always surrounded by people, which is incredible.

As an extrovert, I absolutely love it. I love being around people. It gives me more energy rather than drains my energy.

But even though I love being around people, I also really value time by myself and I think it’s so important for everyone to have that time alone. So it is important to prioritize that and try your best to have those moments by yourself. 

And because most people share a room together, chances are you are both in the room at the same time, unless you have opposite schedules.

But still, you are sharing the space. So it can be tricky, but again, you can either look at it as an advantage or a disadvantage and I always am looking at everything half-class full, so I love being around people. But you do have to also prioritize you, number one.

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