Cruise liner experience

[Jivemaster]

a long time ago is all out of date these days, the world is forever changing and if you have been off ships for longer than a year, maybe even 6 months then your not really the best person to be given out advice for working at sea.

 

Micken -much respect and many thanks for speaking from a position of current experience.

 

What I read from Bryson's Blog was that you need to be able to use and fault find every system in your job scope and have real time experience with it. You need brilliant communication skills, and extreme customer service skills. I doubt that will change for a while. Personally I doubt that many colleges or Unis will equip you well to do the job.

[mac.calder]

From what I am hearing from my old ship buddies there are a lot of people jumping ship (excuse the pun) at the moment due to a number of cutbacks some companies have made with regards to crew privileges (and because I do not believe there has been any significant increase in blackshirt wage in a number of years), which is resulting in lots of new green employees, resulting in those with experience working harder - which makes the experienced ones bitter for carrying dead weight (and making many of them consider leaving - a vicious cycle) - I am hearing rumours of a lot of unhappy black shirts out there at the moment. So getting a job in the industry may be very possible... but it is still not a good idea at the OP's level. Just because you can does not mean you should.

[Bryson]

Brysons blog and even advice I wrote myself on here a long time ago is all out of date these days, the world is forever changing and if you have been off ships for longer than a year, maybe even 6 months then your not really the best person to be given out advice for working at sea.

 

Agreed 100%. It's been many years now, and I understand from my friends who are still on that pretty much everything is different nowadays.

[tolley1466]

Hey everyone :)

 

Been a while...

 

I can honestly say, it's worth applying for. In terms of age, I worked for Cunard at 18 years of age with hardly any experience in theatre (I do audio) but it's taught me quite a bit about general theatre and even made me think about audio differently. P&O and Cunard have pretty much joined forces now. In fact, a few of my friends from Cunard have been forced to go over to P&O.... Reading some of these comments in this thread is quite funny, how can some people comment on this if they've never worked on a cruise ship? I heard about cut-backs but left before any of this occurred. There is a limit to the amount of working hours you can do, however, this is theatre. If it needs fixing, it needs fixing! We did a few late, late nights due to something going down, upgrade etc. I was over a few times, but I'll get over it!

 

I'd say you will get to see the world a bit, port days are usually very quiet. Especially in Europe!

 

Apply for the job, if you feel you can do it. It's great a experience but don't get stuck on ships!

[Joe Bleasdale]

Might I suggest working as a Tech at a theme park? That was my first real PAYE job out of high school. From what I know from my ship friends, some similarities are shared. Its a good environment to learn more in - granted, you will still need some starting experience, but you will learn a lot there. Then going from a Theme Park to a ship is quite a common jump too. Most of the big places in the UK have seasonal openings, usually start of season to end of season and over the halloween period to assist with the extra events then.

 

Thanks.

[Stocky]

I have just finished my first contract with Celebrity Cruises.

 

In short I got a degree in music tech, worked in and around venues or two - three years, applied and went straight in as sound tech for the theatre.

 

There was one sound, one lx and one rigger/flyer (all in main theatre) then 6 lounge techs (some worked in theatre backstage), av manager and production manager. Lounge guys work almost twice as much as the theatre guys and get paid considerably less. From what I have learnt from them, that's because they had the mentality just to get in a theatre and work and even they need a degree/qualification and 2 years experience. Most of them now are stuck waiting for a chance to get promoted up to S,L or R and that is rare and usually a dead mans shoes case. And from the work they actually do in the lounges the don't really learn anything more advanced from what you could learn from watching you tube tutorials.

 

My advice if you were going for cruise lines spend more time and get some strong experience in sound, lighting or rigging and apply straight for one of them. it will take more time, might require more qualifications but you will benefit in the long term. more money and less hours on the cruise ship.

 

Even though I'm Audio I would actually recommend Rigging/Flying/Automation. From what I know you can do a lot of specified courses in it, safety, automation etc. There's a lot of responsibility on your head but if your not on the ship to get drunk then its a great position. Its also, in my opinion one of the most advancing, as safety is only ever getting more stringent and sets and props on stages are getting bigger and more complicated I think rigger/flyers will be more in demand and better paid in the future, all around the world. just look at all the Cirque shows and how mental they are getting.

 

If you want any more advice give me a message, id be happy to help. a few people on this forum helped me make a good decision.