Cruise Ships
A cruise ship is a floating resort with a focus on providing fun and entertainment while traveling from
place to place. Unlike in a hotel, ship passengers spend most of their time on board so while
destinations are important, the entire travel experience is even more important.
A cruise is sold to holiday makers as a complete package that includes travel to the various
destinations, 5 meals a day (plus free room service whenever the passenger wants something to
eat!) as well as a wide variety of day and night entertainment programs on board. Cruise ships are
like resort hotels at sea, and comprise many bars, restaurants, discos, nightclubs , casino and duty-
free boutiques, swimming pools, gyms and spas, and many also offer sports and outdoor recreation
like jogging, ice-skating, rock climbing, golfing, and tennis. The passenger has only to pay for his
drinks, casino chips and local sightseeing at the various ports.
There are many cruise companies operating out of the USA alone and most of the cruises are
concentrated in the Caribbean. The world’s largest cruise conglomerate is Carnival Corporation, a
global cruise company and one of the largest vacation companies in the world. Carnival Corporation
is based in Miami, Florida, and owns several cruise companies, such as Carnival Cruise Lines,
Costa Cruises, Cunard Line, Holland America Line, P & O Cruises, Seabourne Cruise Line, Princess
Cruises and Windstar Cruises, among others. Carnival Corporation operates a fleet of 66 ships, and
employs more than 55000 employees worldwide, out of which over 90% are on-board personnel.
Cruise lines typically hire crew on short 6-9 month renewable contracts. This means that there is a
very large crew movement every week comprising crew members going on vacation or signing off at
the end of their contracts and other crew members joining fresh or re-joining on renewed contracts.
This continuous personnel movement means that there is continuous requirement for crew, and also
very good chances of getting promoted in-house to fill vacancies.
With almost 50 nationalities working side by side, cruise lines offer a challenging and fantastic work
environment where crew members get to have life-changing experiences working on huge
operations and with people of different cultures in closely knit teams.
HIGHLIGHTS OF CRUISE JOB
-
Attractive tax-free dollar earnings.
- Free stay, unlimited free meals, exciting free travel, free uniform & laundry, free medical
expenses – in short, almost a free ride!
- Regular assessments, training programs and promotions.
- Short contracts ensure you are back home on vacation every 7-10 months.
- Fantastic international work environment.
- Visit exotic destinations.
- Opportunity to learn new cultures, meet new people.
ADVANTAGE OF A CRUISE JOB OVER A LAND BASED HOTEL JOB
A cruise ship is a veritable floating resort so it is, in fact, like working in a hotel. But here the similarities end. The first difference is your take-home pay and how much you can save working on a cruise ship. To start with, its a job with a fantastic salary compared to what you get paid at a hotel in India. Then, unlike any other land-based job, you pay no taxes and have negligible expenses, so you can save most of it. Thirdly, there is a constant movement of personnel on cruise ships which gives anyone who is dedicated and hardworking a chance to more upwards and onwards, so growth is relatively faster than in a shore job.
The other main difference is that a cruise ship offers a working environment like no other. A cruise ships passengers are all on vacation, and the cruise ship is a destination in itself, rather than a place to spend the night like the businessmen, tourists and vacationers do in any hotel. A cruise is built around the 3 key elements of enjoyment – eating and drinking and entertainment – and the success of a cruise depends on how well it delivers on these aspects. Cruise ships provide their guests (anything between 1500 and 2000 passengers on an average per cruise) upto 5 main meals per day and many snacking opportunities around the clock, which means a massive scale of operations quite unlike what you have been used to, even in your grand 5-star hotel. And since the passengers expect non-stop enjoyment from a cruise, it follows that the atmosphere on a cruise ship is always festive and each crew member is expected to participate in generating this crucial enjoyment factor.
