Each crew member working on cruise ship has an extraordinary life story to share. Crew members are unique breed of people who life on land and life at sea taught them to be strong, smart, pleasant and companionate. One crew member is inspiring thousands with his passion of life on cruise ship and his book “My Way to the Seven Seas”. His name is Martines Rocha de Souza, a Brazilian bar waiter working on Cunard Line.
Every ship has a captain, but on larger percentage on the ships in the cruise industry captains are of the male gender. It has been the truth as old as time, men overpopulate the majority of the higher paying positions around the world and this positions has not been any different for as long as the cruise industry has existed. It seems that this old-fashioned way of thinking has been shifting lately since the cruise industry slowly is incorporating female captains into their fleets.
It's Saturday and I joined the cruise ship today. I am already exhausted from the trip. I look at around my crew cabin as I type this, staring at the four walls of this closet size space with four beds. Soon my cabin roommates will be off work so I am glad I was able to take a shower before they get back. Four beds, one bathroom, one tv, one other Canadian, a Philipino, and a Romanian Romanian. I can't remember their names yet. The Romanian roommate seemed stuck up as hell. In fact, so did most of the Romanian girls I met today on the ship.
In recent years, the cruise ship industry has been facing many lawsuits filed by their guests. Some of them are justified, but there are some passengers that go on a cruise with the intention of using the cruise company. There are many cases of injuries and other ways that some passengers try to benefit and get big money from the cruise lines. Sometimes these people succeed in their intention, other times they don't.
What is important for you as a crew member is that you need to be covered before you end up back home, or even worse, in prison.
I was at the Guest services Desk last night talking to a guest about Florence and overheard two guests removing their gratuities. I heard the GSA ask them both why and the answer “ personal reasons” baffled me. After they left I spoke with the guest services associate and took their cabin number and made a few calls.
Unlike guest staterooms, crew cabins are pretty small and usually located on deck 0, or below the sea level – deck A and B. Most of the crew cabins don’t have portholes (windows) – this luxury is reserved for some staff and officers – so for first time crew members this might be a little confusing. You will have a hard time determining if it is day or night. Depending on your position or department, cabins are shared between 2-4 people.
Everybody lies. Everyone tells lies or “distorts the truth” sometimes. Some cruise ship crewmembers are big experts in lying that you cant tell if they are telling the truth and often takes a long time to find out that we have been lied to.
