Things you may not know about crew on a cruise ship

On nights off the crew live on deck -1 or -2.  They are away from home approximately 6-8 months of the year.  Friends and family are missed so if you see all the internet cafe’s ashore full of crew then they have some precious time off catching up with loved ones.

Below decks the cruise lines try to keep a family atmosphere at all times so there are organised parties and events to keep the crew as happy as can be.

On average there are over 50 different nationalities of crew working on a ship at one time.  This means that there could be an Independence day or national holiday for the country the crew come from every week of the year.  When i worked on board i was invited  to parties for Canada day, Indonesia Independence day, Brazilian national holiday to mention a few.

When ships go into dry dock so the ship can undergo renovation the crew are still working on board.  Cleaning, making sure their department is up to scratch.  In the shops dept we spring cleaned the shops, cleared all the storage lockers ready for new Itinerary stock to arrive. General maintenance would be done to improve the look of certain departments too.  I even had a vacuum out and cleaned the whole of deck 5 and 6 floors.  (i’ve never vacuumed so much in my life)

On the down time the crew had pool parties and were allowed to venture into town to sample the life in some of the ports of call.

If you have heard the term ‘in port manning’ this means that at least one third of the crew had to stay on board of a night and the rest of the crew could go out for an evening.  The above picture is of me and a great buddy called Sven who was Canadian and worked in the audio and visual dept on Celebrity Summit (12 years ago i may add).  We had a venture around San Francisco one day and bumped into one or two Hustler Hunnies on our day out.

Crew love to talk about their homeland.  So when you are on board ask them questions.  They love to have a chat!!