I bet that you have asked yourself this question before you board your first cruise ship on your very first contract “where do I eat and will I like the food?” The question is very valid and honestly to the first question there is a clear answer, but to the second one it all depends on how adaptable you are. I know most of us are used to a home cooked meals and our own traditional cuisine, but once you board a cruise ship three words are very important ADAPT, ADAPT, and ADAPT. Same goes for the food, times it is served, where you eat, how fast you eat, and so on. Working, living, and eating on a cruise ship as an employee have a new meaning and dimension. If once you worked at a slow pace and 8 hours per day, now you will most definitely work much faster and more than 10-12 hours per day. If you used to have a nice sit down dinner with your family while watching the TV or having a nice and long conversation, now you will most certainly learn how to eat in less then 20 minutes. If you used to be picky when it comes to food, well though luck because the menu aboard a ship is set in stone and shifts only once in awhile.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE CRUISE SHIP CREW FACILITIES NA SEE THE CREW MESS AND OTHE FACILITIES

Now lets look at demographics aboard a average ship. It is well known among the crew members of one ship that the largest demographic is Asian's. Therefore, it is not uncommon to see the most important meal for most people in Asia: rice. Aboard a cruise ship you will be able to find rice prepared in so many ways that your head will spin, but if you are willing to experience life and foods from different cultures, a cruise ship would be a good place to start. Most of the crew that works in the crew mess – which is the restaurant where the crew members eat – are from Asian countries and they are pretty good cooks. If by now you are thinking to yourself that you would not be able to survive Asian food everyday, take a breath because there are different menu for every night for the whole month on most cruise ships. One day might be Asian food, another might be Italian, then it might be American, and sometimes even Eastern European and so on, but if you like rice you should know that no matter what kind of food there is in the crew mess, rice is always available and in almost all meals.

Here you can see some photos of Crew mess

So what can you expect as a crew, staff, and officer aboard a cruise ship? Expect to have different restaurants and different kind of service. While the crew mess is self serve buffet, the staff mess has the same buffet, but it has the option of ordering from their staff waiters who most often are on training to become guest waiters. The food is almost similar, but a little bit different. The staff has more options and most often a little more westernized food. It is not uncommon to see a variety of cheeses and hams on the line in the staff mess. Officers mess is a bit different where it has a basic salad bar and everything else is available by ordering from the officers and captains waiters who are also training to be waiters for the guests.

Now lets look at the frequency of the meals. If something the cruise industry does well is that they make sure that their employees have enough food because it is the fuel of all of us. In all the crew, staff, officers, and captain messes there are four major meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight snack. Some cruise ships even have some form of snacks in between each of the meals, but most of them do not. For breakfast you should always expect the regular breakfast of eggs, ham, oat meal, fruit, veggies, croastans, pastries, omelets, and so on. For dinners there is always some sort of meat, veggies, bread, desert, fruit, and so on. Midnight snacks are usually pizza and something simple.
Staff and officers also have the option of eating up at the guests buffet, as well as any other specialty restaurant where each meal costs good money, while crew members do not have that luxury and are pretty much stuck with the crew mess. Do not despair and take it as a bad sign because you will notice a lot of staff eating in the crew mess. In every mess there are “rush hours” sometimes – but not that often – for lunch and always for dinner. This is where your fast eating would have to be practiced and useful because normally you get only 30-45 min break for dinner, or even have to go before work starts.
Here is a food-for-thought, we all go on a ship to work and travel, as well as experience new cultures, therefore, the food which the cruise ship offers to the employees and everything that comes with it is due to the bland of 65 different nationalities on each and every ship. If you are bold to take on this challenge and maybe even learn something new that you never knew before about a culture and even a certain dish, then this is the perfect place for you; if you are one of those people who cannot live without your moms cuisine or traditional food, then rethink the possibility and move on to a local job in your home country. One thing is for sure if you chose this line of work and life is that food is something that it is always in abundance, so bon appetite and bon voyage.