I’m going to start by saying that I have never worked in the hospitality industry, nor do I know what it’s like to actually work on a cruise ship, I can only share my perspective and lessons I learned from the staff I encountered. So here it goes…
From the moment I stepped into the port, I was greeted with happy smiling faces. My absolute favorite part of my Carnival Freedom cruise was getting to know the people who kept us all fed, cleaned our rooms, and entertained us along the way. These people – the people who are working tirelessly every single day are the heart of the ship. The crew of the Carnival Freedom is composed of over 1300 people from over 60 different countries. These crew members are cooking, cleaning, entertaining, repairing, steering, and everything in between. Here’s a little insight into their lives.
ROOM STEWARDS
I’ll start with my room steward, Newbon. Newbon is from India and is 3 months into his current contract. Contracts range from 6 to 10 months at a time. He’s worked for Carnival for several years and has been on many different ships and ports all over the world. He has a wife and two kids back at home that he supports with his paychecks. As a room steward, he’s in charge of making the beds and cleaning the bathrooms of 39 staterooms. When I first arrived on board, he asked me whether I wanted my room made up in the morning, the evening or both. Guests’ preferences determine his workload.
Towel animal overload! @CarnivalCruise pic.twitter.com/DX9Zj5PMTJ
— The Hurried Hostess (@Hurried_Hostess) October 1, 2018
In order to get all of his work done, he wakes up at 5am every morning and isn’t finished until around 9pm that night (he does have a gap in the middle of the day where he can eat and relax a bit). He has an assistant who helps him with the rooms as well. They are guaranteed to not work over 72 hours per week and are allotted 6 hours of rest each night. 72 hours per week equates to about 10 hours of work every single day. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to do their personal laundry, eat, or relax – let alone actually get off the boat while in port and see the countries they’re visiting.
If all the workload of cleaning everyone’s rooms every day wasn’t enough, he remembers every single one of the guests names – and has them memorized by the first day we’re on board. When I asked him how in the world he could remember 80+ people’s names, he said, “By the grace of God I can, but maybe in a couple years I won’t remember anymore”. Every single time I passed him in the hallway, he said hello to me by name with a big smile across his face. He loved to talk and ask about my day and what I did. He also was very good at giving recommendations for activities for the day and what I should go see or do while on the ship.
Every evening in my room, he left a different animal formed out of towels. He explained to me that he can only use freshly starched new towels to make them because they’re stiffer than the ones we use to dry off with after showers. He gets a daily allotment of these fresh towels and has to ration the towel animals for each night based on his allotment (i.e. he can only make an animal that uses 2 towels as opposed to 3 or 4 some nights). When the deck was covered in towels on our 4th morning aboard, it was because he and the other stewards all made 5 towel animals each and covered the lido deck with them.
Newbon is kind, considerate, and treats people with love and care – even when passengers treat him like a servant or ignore him (and that’s not his words, that’s what I actually observed other passengers doing when passing him in the hall). He is hard working and truly loves his job and making people happy.
WAITSTAFF
On cruises, you have a scheduled place and time to have dinner every night or you can choose to eat off schedule in other dining rooms – but I love eating in the main dining room every night. This means, I had the same table and waitstaff every single night of my 7 day cruise. The menus change each night, but everything else remains the same. This also means that I got to know the waiters very well.
Suba, my Head Team Waiter (from Indonesia), was over the top amazing. He remembered my preferences on beverages each night (gotta get that Barq’s root beer fix) and knew that my meal is never complete without dessert. He led his team of two – Ketut (Team Waiter from Indonesia) and Basil (Assistant Team Waiter from India) who were really great as well. Every night, he played practical jokes on me, gave me riddles (that I could never figure out and felt super dumb when he revealed the answer), and cracked jokes. He was an absolute blast and very good at his job!
After getting to know him a bit, I was able to find out some more info about his experience on the ship and the people he was supporting at home. Suba has been working in the industry for 23 years. He’s married and has two daughters. He works so that his wife can stay at home with his daughters and he said that she has the much harder job by far. Suba stated that he lives at the beach at home, so when he’s there for 2 months in between contracts, he goes surfing every day and enjoys playing with his kids and just doing the every day school drop off and dinners spent together with them.
When I asked him about what he missed most, he said the food from home. The crew has their own galley where they are served and the menu rotates every 7 days and the chefs try to make things for different countries’ cuisines often, but when you have so many nationalities on board, you can’t please everyone. Suba also said it wasn’t spicy enough for his liking – which I heard from quite a few crew members.
Best line of the @CarnivalCruise…”Don’t put it on YouTube. I can’t handle fame.” – Basil pic.twitter.com/x4WY8WUIND
— The Hurried Hostess (@Hurried_Hostess) October 1, 2018
Working in the kitchen is hard work, but they love to joke around with one another – Carnival’s known as the “fun ship” and they’re really working hard to make sure that the staff has fun and enjoys themselves too. He calls Basil (his assistant waiter) his “work wife”. I’m still not sure what that makes Ketut (the other team waiter). Ha! They all fight over food in the kitchen too – waiters wait on the line as the chefs prepare the food, so when the plates come out, they all want to get their table’s food out first. It’s all done in fun, so I’m sure the kitchen is a crazy place to be during dinner service.
Suba also showed me a couple napkin folds. He says he knows over 20 different ways to fold napkins and that every night the waitstaff makes the napkins for the next day. But just like any job, there’s people that try to get out of work and he comes in the next morning to find out that his napkins have been taken by someone else who was too lazy to make their own.
In addition to dinner service, Suba, Basil, and Ketut also serve during brunch, mid afternoon tea time, and clean up during lunch in the buffet area and lido deck. They have very limited time off and work in many different facets around the ships each day.
The waiters are paid only $78 per month. Yes, they receive free housing and food, but that’s it. The majority of their actual income comes from gratuities. They treat all of their guests with kindness and respect and then are sometimes surprised when the guests didn’t leave them a tip at all – for working 7 days in a row for them. Some additional benefits that Carnival provides is that they have contests for the waiters. Based on guests’ feedback from surveys, they can be named as top performing waitstaff for the week and be given prizes like calling cards, gift cards, and extra time off. Call time with their families at home is so valuable to them and can be very expensive, so winning prizes like this for their exceptional service is highly coveted.
ENTERTAINMENT STAFF
The “Players and Dancers” have quite the different job. They are mostly composed of talented singers and dancers from England and the United States and are responsible for leading fun activities around the ship, performing on stage, and encouraging guests to have fun. They also have the same rule of not working over 72 hours, but since they are performing, they are given one full day per week off since their bodies take such a toll with all of the rehearsing and performing each day. The “talent” also has no understudies, so if one person is sick – the others in the 8 person crew have to take over the responsibilities for that person’s job. So if it means a dancer has to sing now, so be it. They really make sure to take care of themselves so that they are fit and healthy as to not have to miss working any days.
GENERAL CREW AMENITIES
The crew live on board for 6-10 months at a time – depending on their contract. During this time, they are doing the same job every single day with limited time off. They live on board the boat and have separate areas away from the guests. They live on Decks A and B (this is below water). On Deck 0 they have a gym, private jacuzzi (that most admit they never have time to go to), and their own galley (kitchen) where they eat all of their meals. The crew galley is manned by incoming chefs to train in while working their way up to serve for the passengers on higher decks.
All crew have roommates and live in very close quarters. One crew member I spoke to told me about how he got to tour the brand new Carnival Vista and that the crew amenities looked to be so much nicer than the Freedom (the Carnival Vista actually took its maiden voyage from Galveston the day before my cruise left from the very same port). He was impressed that they had room safes in their rooms so their valuables (like wedding rings and passports) can be locked away – a luxury they don’t have currently on the Freedom (even though all of the passenger rooms have room safes).
They do get to on shore in some ports if their “day off” time aligns with it or they have a job that doesn’t work during that time (like the casinos, bar waiters, or entertainment staff). One crew member had a good point when he said that they tend to stay on board during docking because since they only have a short amount of time “off” it’s not like they get to relax after they get back from having fun – they just have to go back to work.
So while we’re in port having fun and relaxing, these hard working people are washing the sides of the boat, varnishing the handrails, and mopping the decks. They work around the clock to ensure the boat stays in good shape, is clean, and looks nice. The people working these floating hotels is what cruising is truly all about. If you decide to go on a cruise, interact with the crew members. Ask them questions about where they come from. Show an interest. Say please and thank you. Smile at them. Do not ignore them. Do not talk down to them. Be kind. And tip well 😊
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